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@TheRealNihilist
I will. Unfortunately, I am not omnipresent, so I am happy to know about any potential misconduct that is occurring so that I can address it.
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@TheRealNihilist
Such a function would induce all hell to break loose (rhymes ftw). We have some limits (like the troll debate classification), but giving moderation too much power in that regard would only create backlash, introduce even more subjectivity, and make moderation more intrusive. Plus, there's an extent to which such a proposal would unfairly target (and thus chase away) bad or new debaters.
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@Alanwang123
Yes, you have three. This is the last time I am going to ask for a response.
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While my consent, as a moderator, isn't need for you to insult me, I will still, hereby, offer my consent.
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@TheRealNihilist
No, I don't. Which is precisely why the rules set out in this thread were devised and implemented.
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@TheRealNihilist
There's no technical way to automate that, and frankly, I think that should be left up to the voters. If the voter genuinely believes awarding a tie to be appropriate, I don't think there's anything wrong in that.
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@TheRealNihilist
This does not in anyway help me understand your argument against since all you say it rarely happens.
The adage is the explanation that should help you understand. Since you are not familiar with the adage, I am happy to explain.
Imagine two ships of the line from enemy fleets sailing by each other in the night. Neither fires at the other because, in the dark, they do not know the other is there. It's a reasonably common analogy.
Imagine then two debaters who each present a case but then fail to rebut the case of their opponent, instead preferring to talk only about their own points. In such a situation, the debaters are like two ships passing in the night.
Without clash, it is arguably impossible for the judge to render a verdict, because no one has given me a reason to prefer (or not prefer) any specific case. The only way to render a verdict is to intervene, and that is something many judges like myself strongly object to doing, and therefore will not do.
This is basically me saying I believe you rarely actually give a damn about what I am saying.
That is neither fair nor accurate. I clearly addressed your comment; that you didn't get my analogy is not evidence that I don't "give a damn" about what you're saying. If I didn't care, I wouldn't respond.
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@TheRealNihilist
Your claim was:
If both sides are using the same logic and are on opposing sides of the question they both can't be right. This should reflect in the votes since at the end if both still think they are right using the same logic and being on the opposing sides of the question one is being logically inconsistent.
I took this to mean that it is impossible to legitimately cast a tie vote, as "both [debaters] can't be right," and this "should reflect in the votes." If that is not what you mean, please clarify.
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@TheRealNihilist
I believe that debates rarely tie. However, I do believe it is possible for debates to be tied, and usually that occurs, as the adage goes, when the debaters are like two ships passing in the night.
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@TheRealNihilist
Ah. Well, that's tangential to the thread. I can respond more fully later to that topic.
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@TheRealNihilist
Are you talking about ties as the outcome of the debate, or tied votes?
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@TheRealNihilist
It's not about win/loss ratio. It's about "site statistics," which may include such things as earning badges or accumulating large numbers of votes in order to inflate one's appearance of involvement and significance.
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@dave2242
Agreed. I was planning on changing the policy at some point, because it allowed terrible votes to stand. The question wasn't so much if the policy would change, but more so how and when.
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Aloha!
Moderation's policy on tied votes (specifically, votes which award no points) has recently been that they are not moderatable. Let me explain briefly why that policy was implemented. Beginning of the argument, sources, spelling, and conduct clauses of the voting policy is the following phrase: "in order to award conduct points." I interpreted this text to mean that a vote must actually award points in order to be subject to these clauses. Put differently, "in order to award points" is not the same as "in order to award no points." I was not particularly pleased with the result of this reading of the voting policy, as it essentially allowed junk votes to be cast, possibly in order to inflate the voter's site statistics.
Recently, however, thanks both to Ramshutu and Virtuoso, my view on what the voting policy allows moderation to do with regard to tied votes has changed. There are two relevant portions of the voting policy and COC which are important in this new reading. First, the voting policy defines a "vote bomb" as "a vote cast without regard for the content of the debate." This implies that the voter must have at least examined the debate and its content prior to voting, and must root their vote in a consideration of that content. Second, the COC prohibits spam content, where "spam" refers to "any content which is nonsensical or excessively repetitive." Voters who cast the same tied vote with highly similar RFDs over and over again are spamming.
Therefore, there will be a change to moderation's approach to voting moderation with regard to tied votes. These changes will impact any votes cast on or after of 4:00pm, EST, today. This post is serving as a public notice of those changes in policy. This thread will be locked in 48 hours.
The first policy change is that voters must offer an explanation (which is related to the content of the debate) of why they chose to award no points. Simply saying "my opinion wasn't changed" or "I wasn't able to form an opinion" or "pink elephants smoke meth" will no longer be acceptable RFDs on tied debates. Voters need not meet the standard of sufficiency for awarding argument points, but they must clearly explain why, based on what transpired in the debate, they chose not to award points. The second change is that casting more than 5 tied (no points awarded) votes a day will be considered spam, and will result in all tied (no points awarded) votes in excess of the 5-vote limit being deleted.
I intend to submit these policies to a MEEP for further consideration and development. The MEEP will be held sometime in June or early July. My hope is that a clearer standard for tied votes can be developed, and that the spam cap can possibly be repealed or limited in scope. Until then, these stopgap measures, based on a careful consideration of the site's COC and voting policy, will be implemented as described. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Thank you.
-Bsh1, Chief Moderator
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@blamonkey
No, lol. S'alright. I think everyone's forgot about it...Plus, it needs a bit of an overhaul as soon as I can get a free minute...
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@blamonkey
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@TheRealNihilist
That is no way near enough time to give them a chance to respond.
It is one hour after they have logged in after the ban notification was sent. So yes, it is sufficient time to respond.
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@Alanwang123
Click the green mail icon at the top right of your screen, select the message I sent you, and then reply.
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@Ramshutu
Capfain, our long range sensors detect no signs of caring in this sector.
Aye. But the scanners are picking up poor spelling and grammar. Prepare to open fire with the correction ray! [*zzzttt* Captain *zzzttt*] Looks like the enemy has been defeated!
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@oromagi
There's a high voltage on that there fence...esp. for people who threaten to engage in retaliatory voting and acts of violence against other users.
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@Speedrace
You would need moderation to make a prior judgement deciding that there were valid concerns on your part regarding harassment. To do that, you would need to contact me via PM to discuss the issue. Until such time as such a judgement was rendered, moderation would not enforce any rule prohibiting another user from accepting your debate.
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@RationalMadman
Rules which exclude certain people from accepting or voting on a debate are not enforced by moderation. If voters wish to enforce those rules, they may, but moderation will not. This does not apply to situations where restraining orders or harassment issues are at play.
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@David
Agreed. No MEEP could be held until June anyway, given my schedule.
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@TheRealNihilist
I'll complain the next time a vote of mine is taken down.
Okay, cool. And moderation has been known to reverse or amend rulings on appeal. We try to be open-minded, though, of course, we're human and imperfect.
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Is this something which people would eventually like to see MEEPed? Obviously, it's more of a technical issue for Mike, but a MEEP might give some idea of whether it is a popular change to be made.
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That's kind of sad...DDO used to be great...
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I believe this was the vote/moderation decision being referenced here.
*******************************************************************>Reported Vote: coal // Mod action: Removed>Points Awarded: 3 points to Pro>Reason for Decision: PRO won the debate because he successfully showed that based on what is good for the US militarily and economically, and the international community more generally; is best served by Israel's alliance with the US. Very few of the harms cited by CON were attributable to the US-Israel alliance. Most of CON's rebuttals talked past PRO.>Reason for Mod Action: To award argument points, a voter must complete all three steps set out in the site's voting policy. To award argument points, the voter must (1) survey the main arguments and counterarguments in the debate, (2) weigh those arguments and counterarguments against each other, and (3) explain, based on the weighing process, how they reached their decision. The voter completes none of these steps. It is not clear how Pro "successfully showed" that Israel is a good ally from this vote due to a lack of analysis of the main arguments and due to a lack of any explicit weighing based on such analysis. While the voter may have performed these steps in their own reasoning, these steps must be detailed explicitly in the vote itself. The voter can find the site's complete voting policy here: https://www.debateart.com/rules************************************************************************
Moderation is always open to listening to feedback on and about the site's voting policies, and will always take any such policy under advisement for potential MEEPing and use in interpreting the site's policies. I will be interested to see, of course, where this discussion leads.
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@Alanwang123
Thanks, I've done that.
You have not messaged me (idk about Virt). Please PM me.
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@Ramshutu
While I don’t necessarily disagree - that some people can handle a large number of concurrent debates, there does come a point where individuals accept, say, 20 concurrent debates, then end up forfeiting/conceding debates - and which has happened at least twice in the last week.
I agree, but to an extent, that's on them. If they get in over their heads, they are already penalized by losses. That aside, though, a per day limit would also help with time management, spacing out more the progress of the debates. The per day limit would cap anyone at 21 debates per week, which, depending on the difficulty of the debates, is not unmanageable, though I would find it wearisome.
I mean, someone accepting every single open challenge debate then it participating would probably be as bad as starting multiple spam debates.
Reasonable. Cap that per day as well, then.
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@David
I think that would be an absurd restriction. People can legitimately have 4 or 5 or 6 debates going on at any one time. I've had at least 5 debates progressing at once, and wasn't spamming.I’d go further and say no more than 3 debates at a time.
The goal of any "limit" should not to be circumscribe users' ability to enjoy the main feature of the site: debates. Rather, the goal should be to hinder individuals who create extreme numbers of debates which clutter the site. Limiting people to only 3 ongoing debates at any one time is massive overkill in pursuit of that goal. Simply imposing limits which prevent them from creating 20 debates in 12 hours is sufficient. There is no reason to go further.
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@Ramshutu
On DDO, to prevent spam, there used to be a function that capped the number of debates you could create per day (I believe this is the case, but I am not certain). I would support this limit: 3 debates can be created per day per user.
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@thett3
I wonder what people on these programs are going to do all day.
That's a harder question to answer. I think that, ultimately, as robots automate more and more, the only things that will not be automatable will be handicrafts, artwork, design, literature, and things of that nature. Things which require creative input. In the short term, WPA is a good idea. Very Bernie Sanders-ish. But, long term, I think the future of work lies in creative fields.
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@thett3
Some kind of negative income tax or some income-based solution which tries to make up the difference might be useful. Suppose we assess that a person needs to make $40,000 a year. If you make $0, the government should give you $40,000. If you make $20,000, the government should give you $20,000. If you make $39,000, it should give you $1,000. If you make $40,000, you should not get the rebate. I like this better than a UBI, because it's arguable more targeted to those who need it most. Bill Gates doesn't need UBI checks.
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@TheRealNihilist
@oromagi
I disagree with most of what bsh1 removed as my not so sufficient voting.
You are always free to voice objections to particular rulings or to ask for review of the ruling by the mod who made it.
To Oro, congratulations.
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Final Vote Count
Question 1B - 3C - 12Question 2A - 33B - 27C - 19Question 3Yes - 8No - 6Question 4Yes - 11No - 2
Results
For question 1, Plan C met the threshold for adoption under the MEEP guidelines. Similarly, for question 2, Plan A met the threshold for adoption, and, for question 4, the proposed choose winner criteria also met the threshold for adoption. These proposal will take effect in the coming days. For question 3, the proposal came one "yes" vote short of the threshold for adoption, and so the proposal will not be implemented.Thank you again to all who have participated. As always, it was good to get the community's feedback on these important issues, and we hope this overhaul of the voting policies will foster more robust and honest voting practices in the future. This MEEP will be switched to read-only sometime within the next 24 hours.
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Time Check
Just 5.5 hours remain to cast your vote! Please use this opportunity to have your voice heard. This will be the last time check.
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Question 1
B - 3
C - 11
Question 2
A - 29
B - 22
C - 15
Question 3
Yes - 6
No - 7
Question 4
Yes - 11
No - 1
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@TheRealNihilist
Wouldn't it be best next time to layout what you wanted out of something and what it would take for it to fail?
I think the hypothesis-test model is the wrong one to use. In one sense, there are no metrics (or means of obtaining metrics) to measure scientifically these policies. In another sense, that a policy is willed by the people seems to be sufficient grounds (in most cases) to adopt or scrap some policy. And, finally, the impression of whether something succeeds or fails, and what either would entail, is largely evident from a close consideration of the policies as articulated.
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@TheRealNihilist
There's no specific metric, but rather a kind of holistic evaluation. If the proposals do not work, there will likely be complaints from the userships end and/or difficulties on moderation's end which will indicate that they are not working. If I get the sense that either of these things are the case, I would likely refer the policies back to the usership via a MEEP process so that the site's usership can render their verdict on the issue.
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@Sparrow
This is a fighting words thread and will be locked.
You are free to criticize moderation. You may not, however, seek to attack users who are reporting potential misconduct.
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@TheRealNihilist
My question wasn't about people voting. It is how you are going to measure it to be a success for this site. There are two options for most of those questions. How would you know that was the right choice in respect to what was best for the site?
Regarding the particular questions in the MEEP?
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@TheRealNihilist
How are you going to judge what is decided here would help the site?
The whole raison d'etre of the MEEP process is to empower the community to judge whether whether these proposals would help the site. I am bound to honor their verdict, whatever that may be.
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@TheRealNihilist
It didn't seem like I get through to you with my concerns so I left your statements with an okay ending all of them.
No, I understood your concerns, and attempted to address them within the context of this particular MEEP process and the questions it poses.
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Question 1
B - 3
C - 10
Question 2
A - 26
B - 20
C - 14
Question 3
Yes - 5
No - 7
Question 4
Yes - 10
No - 1
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