There are hardly any rated debates here as of now.

Author: Intelligence_06

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#31
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@AustinL0926
Thanks for the ideas but I am afraid it's not simple: a lot of new users are not these responsible members that will try to figure everything out before starting a debate, they will be doing whatever they want, often creating rated debates and forfeiting everything and then forgetting about the website the next day. So that's why we have qualifications, it's a way to kinda sandbox the beginners or folks that just want to have fun from those that want to take it to another level doing it with the rating system on. But I do agree that 5 debates for getting the qualification may be too much, I will change that soon and we'll see what happens.
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#32
Intelligence_06
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@Mharman
To be honest, I don't see why we should have unrated debates in the first place.
I think unratedness should be for serious tournament debates, personal challenges(such as the topic of Barney not accusing Novice of following him) and rap battles, music battles, etc. The rest should be rated though because they are all the same kind of streetfight here.

Also it avoids situations when it's easy to grind rating on the new accounts that don't know what they are doing.
If the noobs don't like being noobsniped, perhaps they should look for other noobs to challenge specifically.
That is literally how the noobs learn. That is how I grew up the ranks. I started up as a noob and immediately get slammed by large names such as RM and Oromagi. Then I try to imitate their styles and then I win. A system where higher rankers could debate against noobs would actually filtrate more resilient noobs to keep debating(I mean, that used to be all of us here). Forced unratedness is not good for any new accounts in the long run.

Once again, if a leaderboard is intended to be meaningful, then a new user leaving the site after posting one round, which is what we call an FF, should truncate some of his points as if he has less points than Type1. Otherwise, you can remove the leaderboard altogether and just use this as a forum, but that would be even more blasphemous if we consider what this site actually is.

#33
Tejretics
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@DebateArt.com
I’m still a bit unsure why there should be a requirement at all -- this seems paternalistic to me, and I think new members know when they don’t know stuff and can make decisions for themselves. Perhaps the right move is to keep it unrated by default for the first three debates (but they can change it to rated if they wish), and rated by default for debaters after that. But I’m guessing you’ve thought through this more than I have, so I respect your decision either way!
#34
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@DebateArt.com
Thanks for the ideas but I am afraid it's not simple: a lot of new users are not these responsible members that will try to figure everything out before starting a debate, they will be doing whatever they want, often creating rated debates and forfeiting everything and then forgetting about the website the next day. So that's why we have qualifications, it's a way to kinda sandbox the beginners or folks that just want to have fun from those that want to take it to another level doing it with the rating system on. But I do agree that 5 debates for getting the qualification may be too much, I will change that soon and we'll see what happens.
This is fair enough, but again, I think this is an argument for “unrated” being the default to them alone. Making it the default for others, and not letting new members opt out of the unrated option if they want to, seems like an overreach to me. 

These concerns also have to be weighed against other concerns. In particular, if the vast majority of debates on the site are unrated, the “rating” system becomes entirely meaningless, because it’s not capturing most activity on this site and can hardly be thought of as a reasonable or accurate ranking of members. Furthermore, it imposes externalities on other members -- for example, if there’s a debate between someone with fewer than 3 debates and someone with over 3 debates, the latter has no say in the matter either. Finally, it also hurts the rankings retrospectively -- suppose a member becomes active enough to do 10 debates; even such an active member now has their rating only affected by the last 5 or last 7 debates that they did. So sure, there’s a benefit, but there’s also a range of costs, and I’d love to hear what a comparison of these costs and benefits looks like!
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#35
Intelligence_06
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@Best.Korea
This site is having lots of activity now, which is the point.
What? No!

That is not the point. This is a community where quality is valued or at least desired. We aren't a soap opera centre or a text-based Facebook circlejerk group. This is like welcoming new people to join the club, have them to mix in and when experienced members interact with them, nothing happens; when initially the club is still open but people are OK to leave and those who come forth are resilient.

You realize that most of the new users just leave after 3 debatefuls of forfeits or even LESS. For old users like me who interact with the site daily, this is a lot, but to them, it is nothing and they can just go somewhere else if they aren't resilient. It made the site less competitive in the attention economy.

#36
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 It made the site less competitive in the attention economy.
Word
#37
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@Intelligence_06
That is not the point.
Try inventing your own points then. Until then, the point is activity.
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#38
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@Best.Korea
I didn’t invent it although I did state a point or two there. You didn’t invent this point either, did you?
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#39
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@DebateArt.com
I am not sure the message went through clearly. I would request a clarification if it is possible.
#40
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@Intelligence_06
I am not sure the message went through clearly. I would request a clarification if it is possible.
What message exactly? Your point in general or you mean something else?
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#41
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@DebateArt.com
No, you replied “word”. That is what I am not confident in interpreting.
#42
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@Intelligence_06
No, you replied “word”. That is what I am not confident in interpreting.
Ah, nah, I just confirmed that sites like this one are not in a huge demand these days.
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#43
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@DebateArt.com
My point is that we should treat this site as a club. We should make the site friendly enough so new club members can join but not make it so that everyone can join and it turns into a small-scale DDO. Quality debating matters more than user count in my opinion.

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#44
Intelligence_06
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I mean, I would wish that there are more people like Seldiora around. Those who propose absurd topics and actually try to prove them(and better if they can win). Battles with just Seldiora’s topics are what made my fluid style here. Today there are too many knowledge-requiring debates, which I don’t like because I am more of an AI machine learning model than a library. Topics nowadays have become less innovative than for example a year ago. The most innovative topics would be those in which semantic exploitations are possible from both sides and are balanced, IMO.

I would actually recommend a random topic generator from ChatGPT4 now and ask them to generate abstract stuff such as “On balance, potato chips are fries” and “On balance, the definition of ‘sandwich’ should be so that quesadillas and tacos are included”. Of course, these aren’t balanced because forum posts are typed out at the speed of thinking and fingertips, but it would be good if people do so, and not either cliched topics like “God does not exist” and basically obviously biased ones in ways, like “fascism is bad”.

Also I would recommend that in the description about debate descriptions, putting definitions that clarifies the topic setup is recommended by text, if descriptions on what descriptions(or even short descriptions) are exists. I don’t know because god knows how long I have been since I have created one, but a recommendation about a recommendation is a recommendation.
#45
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Also I would recommend that in the description about debate descriptions, putting definitions that clarifies the topic setup is recommended by text, if descriptions on what descriptions(or even short descriptions) are exists. I don’t know because god knows how long I have been since I have created one, but a recommendation about a recommendation is a recommendation.
This one is too meta for me, not sure I follow.

Regarding the rest, it makes sense to me and I will definitely try to leverage ChatGPT API somehow but the issue is that it's not free and we stumble upon the funding issue again, at least if we want to use it actively. 
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#46
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@DebateArt.com
How about just make the description(not short description) mandatory with an asterisk.
#47
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@Intelligence_06
although I did state a point or two there.
Until you find a point which is more valued than "activity", which you will never be able to do, I will simply disregard your opinion on this.
#48
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@Intelligence_06
I think unratedness should be for serious tournament debates, personal challenges(such as the topic of Barney not accusing Novice of following him) and rap battles, music battles, etc. The rest should be rated though because they are all the same kind of streetfight here.
If I ran a serious tournament, it would be rated because tournament performance is still a good measurement of skill, and the opportunity to gain elo could be a serious draw.

For everything else, I get the point. I just found that troll debates are a fine usage for the unrated category.

That is literally how the noobs learn. That is how I grew up the ranks. I started up as a noob and immediately get slammed by large names such as RM and Oromagi. Then I try to imitate their styles and then I win. A system where higher rankers could debate against noobs would actually filtrate more resilient noobs to keep debating(I mean, that used to be all of us here). Forced unratedness is not good for any new accounts in the long run.
Yeah. This was the thought that convinced me as well. This is kinda funny, but I was first convinced of this line of thinking in a separate issue.