Instigator / Pro
ComputerNerd's avatar
18
ComputerNerd
1518
rating
15
debates
40.0%
won
Topic
#3530

The user "airmax1227" should be replaced as DART President.

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
6
3
Better sources
6
6
Better legibility
3
3
Better conduct
3
3

After 3 votes and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...

ComputerNerd
Tags
Miscellaneous
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
One week
Max argument characters
15,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
RationalMadman's avatar
15
RationalMadman
1702
rating
574
debates
67.86%
won
Description

Topic: The user "airmax1227" should be replaced as DART President.

DEFINITIONS:

airmax1227: A user on DebateArt
replaced: take the place of
DART: DebateArt
President: The elected head of a republic

BURDEN OF PROOF:

BOP is shared
PRO: Must prove that airmax1227 should be replaced with a more suitable candidate for DART President before the December Term.
CON: Must prove that airmax1227 should stay as DART President until the December Term.

RULES:
1. No new arguments are to be made in the final round.
2. Rules are agreed upon and are not to be contested.
3. Sources can be hyperlinked or provided in the comment section.
4. A breach of the rules should result in a conduct point deduction for the offender.

Round 1
ComputerNerd's avatar
ComputerNerd
Pro
#1
DISCLAIMER: I do not hate airmax. I am willing to believe something may have happened which caused the hiatus. However, if this has happened, then we should elect a new president, as an inactive president is a useless one. 
---------------------------
Thank you RM,

Topic: The user "airmax1227" should be replaced as DART President.

Definitions and Framework:

airmax1227: A user on DebateArt
replaced: take the place of
DART: DebateArt
President: The elected head of a republic

PRO: Must prove that airmax1227 should be replaced with a more suitable candidate for DART President before the December Term.
CON: Must prove that airmax1227 should stay as DART President until the December Term.
Before we get started, I'd like to answer one important question, What was the President's intended role on DART? 


While not a moderating role, the President does retain limited powers with their position, including:
  • The ability to communicate within a moderation team chat (via Discord) in order to give input on all forms of daily decision-making. Except when completely untenable, the mod team will strive to ensure the President’s viewpoint is heard and honored.
  • The ability to approve or veto permanent ban propositions. Moderation will be required to submit permanent ban propositions to the President for review unless the user in question is a bot or advertising account, the situation is uniquely urgent or severe, the President is absent and/or unreasonably tardy, or the permanent ban proposition targets the President themselves. Vetos may be overridden by a simple majority vote among the moderation team. 
  • The ability to envision and execute community events, pending the approval and assistance of moderation.

In general, the President will spend the vast majority of their time in service observing the ordinary daily tasks of the moderation team and giving counsel as they see fit. 

As well as this, on his official election thread, airmax himself stated:

To that end, influencers and media personalities that share in the values of freedom of speech, debate and the pursuit of intellectual exercise for its own sake, will be asked to take part in quick interviews posted on the site (via YouTube). I have some significant but realistic names in mind, though it's important that the trickle of interest in the site not become a massive deluge from a sudden influencer/celebrity appearance. This single aspect of the marketing is but one part of this phase, but simple enough.

Once there is some level of site reputation from which to build-on, we can move from DART STARS doing live and youtube debates among themselves to challenging influencers and other personalities. This will be the point where DART makes its biggest jump as the broad social network dynamics become a regular aspect of the site, with a growing population contributing to, and/or following each area. Then the sky is the limit.
And, even more laughably,

Will you actually be active all year long?
Yes. I don't see why that should be hard to believe, I did this for much longer than that on DDO.
So, what is my argument going to be about?

With the previous quotes and acknowledged responsibilties stated, I will be focusing on:
  • How airmax1227 has not fulfilled the need for gaining the popularity stated in his official post, including a lack of awareness among influencers and media. 
  • How airmax1227 has not kept any sort of responsibility as a President for over half his term.
  • How airmax1227 has not executed consistent or decent community events over the last 6 months. 
  • The people who could replace airmax1227 as President. 
Let's start.

Arguments:

#1: Lack of Gained Popularity


One step towards this goal requires that we dust off that ol' twitter account and get some hits going. 
A quick glance at that "ol' twitter account" shows that not only is it not active, it's last post was over a YEAR AND A HALF AGO. He didn't even bother doing ANYTHING with this account. A look at their Facebook also yields a inactive state.

we are going to begin the DART STARS DEBATE TEAM (or we can call it something else if you have a better name). This cadre of the willing are going to be tasked by the Social Media Director to start these topical debates and then we'll get the twitter account to feed on those trends.
(Inactive Twitter + Facebook, accounts were already uploading quality debates, no team was ever put together)

influencers and media personalities that share in the values of freedom of speech, debate and the pursuit of intellectual exercise for its own sake, will be asked to take part in quick interviews posted on the site (via YouTube).
A quick YouTube search yields nothing other than the official YouTube channel. Same goes for "The best debate website" and "Debate Websites"

If Airmax had got anyone to do anything related to the website, don't you think he would have told us? Or at least told the mods to tell us?

#2: Responsibilities Ignored


In general, the President will spend the vast majority of their time in service observing the ordinary daily tasks of the moderation team and giving counsel as they see fit. 
However, the moderation team has been unusually silent in regards to punishments. From what I understand, Airmax has not done been active on this site for months, so has not been giving any sort of feedback at all. 

As RationalMadman sums up well in his own critque of Airmax:

There has not even been any feedback from Airmax during the Incel-Chud ban. We have seen nothing at all, not even with the polytheist-witch ban, where Airmax defends or even makes a post acting as the balancing power to the moderators.
An inactive president should not REMAIN president. Imagine if the U.S President were to take a vacation for half his term. It would be unacceptable. Likewise, airmax's lack of loyalty to the site should be considered a factor for his impeachment.

#3: Lack of Community Events

Let's look at his "claims" for what he would actually add to the site in regard to events before he was elected:

influencers and media personalities that share in the values of freedom of speech, debate and the pursuit of intellectual exercise for its own sake, will be asked to take part in quick interviews posted on the site (via youtube).
 
we can move from DART STARS doing live and youtube debates among themselves to challenging influencers and other personalities. (Post)
Now, let's look at what he's actually done:

2) One Celebratory Mafia (Held by his supporters)

Notice a difference? 

If we go in more detail, we can see these were low-effort, mediocre events. The February Tournament ended with over half the people forfeiting and a total of 4 quality debates actually happening. Meanwhile, the Mafia was just like every other one, so this shouldn't be viewed as a success, in my opinion. 

I'm sure you've noticed that I'm repeating a lot of the same points, but this is because airmax barely posted, even when he was looking to be elected. While I did find lots of posts and topics, a lot of those just reiterated the same points, "DART needs a change, I'm going to make it popular af, I'M GOING TO BE ACTIVE."

To be honest, it's kind of hard writing a opening argument for this topic, because there's SO LITTLE to argue. He's failed his community, he's MIA, he's not done anything of value. 

Need I say more?

Thank you RM, I await your rebuttal. 
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
Con
#2
My case is a simple one. 

It is based on blaming the voters for things going wrong while respecting the voters and system at the same time, enough to believe that upholding the promise of a 1-year term is significant to the democracy on DART.

Before I even commence with that, let me proceed to undermine the value of President and establish that ultimately DART is not a democracy and never will be in the foreseeable future even with the President role in place.

Mods run everything, the President is an overrated role.

Unelected moderators, perpetually appointed by predecessors with the owner of the website having appointed the first 2, run the show here. The President literally cannot act on his/her/their powers if the mods ban them anyway. In other words, at the height of corruption, there starts to become a significant problem because not only can the mods punish the president freely but they can punish any user and out-veto the veto by their own vote.

The President's actual functionality is just to stall and expose punishments, being a defense attorney of sorts while being in charge of entertainment (that any non-president could be with less 'official' status to their events and tournaments etc.)


The President's term limits, term length and means of being voted in are established and must be respected.

Everybody who voted 3RU7AL over Airmax could see he was blatantly the less deserving choice but let's ignore that, even if it had just been RM, Wylted and Airmax and the other 2 dropped out to make Airmax win, it was very clear that the support base of RM and Wylted wasn't enough necessarily to overthrow Airmax.

3RU7AL had a solid 4-5 regardless that weren't voting either way and Airmax had so many unknowns come in at the last minute to vote. Airmax had never used the website for 2 whole years basically and RM was quick to point this out yet the voters embraced a bullying campaign from Lunatic and Mikal that got the lazy liar elected, who has been true to 0 of his campaign promises so far.

When questioned on how he'd achieve his goals, he was always intentionally vague and deceptive and the only person on the whole website to push and push was RM whose support base remained tiny and quiet as others bullied RM into silence calling him a variety of things that I will link to later.

It is very clear that the voters at large didn't mind bullying and enjoyed the tactics Airmax's henchmen used, tactics which RM offered Airmax several opportunities to denounce and separate himself from and at every opportunity, Airmax gaslit RM and played passive about the abuse. Still, users kept supporting Airmax and celebrating.

What eventually happened was it turned out that there actually were some quiet opposers to Airmax (but this may only be due to how RM made Airmax's support prove how toxic they were towards the end). As things culminated, 3RU7AL's 'unshakeable' base plus part of RM's base voted against Airmax, which was largely based on Airmax having never earned and proven himself, meanwhile a series of users never seen here for months or years showed up on dead accounts just to vote Airmax en masse and tip the scales from what could have been a neck-and-neck that 3RU7AL won.

Even more interestingly, the moderators voted Airmax unanimously if I recall correctly (I'll do all the digging into sources and factchecking next Round) so what I ask is who is to blame?

We are. The majority of the voters are and opening up the votes to accounts that hadn't done a damn thing for DART and only posted to vote after over 2 years of inactivity was part of the problem, which we voted for in the MEEP that had nearly zero restrictions to voters. In fact it restricted being a candidate to gold medallists which Airmax earned in the dirtiest ways possible thanks to Lunatic and Mikal assisting him via likes and such.

When RM every step of the way tried to keep the process balanced, DARTizens were by and large dismissive, disrespectful and some were outright cruel, humiliating the fervor with which RM was warning people about how much and how little to trust Airmax, understanding that Airmax has a history of being a deceptive corrupt shitstain on DDO where he ruined the website for years by corrupt moderation that RM was one of many victims of, the others have scurried away quietly while those that benefitted from his overly forgiving side (he had too much leniency on popular members and too much brutality on outcasted ones) speak highly of Airmax, applauding his moderation.

Every step of the way, RM was there, warning people even being a willing and enthusiastic opposition to Airmax that people laughed at and dismissed.

So, tell me now, what did you expect? You got what you voted for and deserve the repercussions of that entirely. Airmax's track record on DART matches up entirely with what he's achieved here, which is nothing. His track record on DDO is spoken of highly by some who couldn't care less about DART's welfare and prosperity and are always going to be diehard DDO oldtimers.

You need to ask yourself what went wrong, since what went wrong is clearly to do with the MEEP document about presidency that got voted in and is still going to be in place if we hold a reelection, enabling the very same corruption to reoccur, this time with a more 'promising' face that no doubt will be Lunatic or worse... Wylted.

I am not about to let fools ruin this website, we need tighter restrictions on voting and to appreciate that the term length written is 1 year, maybe change that. Offer us an editing MEEP for the presidency document and only then depending what is altered successfully or not can this resolution hold true.
Round 2
ComputerNerd's avatar
ComputerNerd
Pro
#3
DISCLAIMER: I do not hate airmax. I am willing to believe something may have happened which caused the hiatus. However, if this has happened, then we should elect a new president, as an inactive president is a useless one. 
---------------------------------------
Thank you RM,

Topic: The user "airmax1227" should be replaced as DART President.

Notes:

  • All previous arguments are still in consideration.
Framework:

airmax1227: A user on DebateArt
replaced: take the place of
DART: DebateArt
President: The elected head of a republic

PRO: Must prove that airmax1227 should be replaced with a more suitable candidate for DART President before the December Term.
CON: Must prove that airmax1227 should stay as DART President until the December Term.

Prelude:

I wholeheartedly agree that the president position on DART is flawed, as CON has rightfully stated. I do not ignore the fact that the MEEP put in place opens up possibilities for corruptness. In fact, CON's entire argument appeals to me, in it's emotional stance and convincing message. 

CON stated that for the resolution to hold true:
we need tighter restrictions on voting and to appreciate that the term length written is 1 year, maybe change that.
While it is beyond my power to edit the MEEP, what I can do is prove that this statement is false, by exemplifying a simple artifact of the resolution and a logical point of the same. (It'll be clearer later.)

Arguments:

#1: IF the resolution holds true, the MEEP would require a change. 

Looking at the official MEEP announcement, there is no word about any sort of removal of President at all. So, for the resolution to have happened at all, a MEEP edit would have had to been made. Thus, allowing the MEEP to change in the ways CON has suggested. 

Since CON's entire argument was based off of the fact that if we were to replace the president, we would hold the same MEEP and would have the same problems. 
But, if the MEEP were able to be changed, this would not be a problem at all. 

So, if the resolution happens to occur, it would be a little to none problem of asking a moderator to alter the MEEP. CON cannot deny that this would lead to a change that would be agreeable by him and anyone else.

#2: The President is not a useless role.

Another argument made by CON was that the president is a useless role and should not be a thing. 

Unelected moderators, perpetually appointed by predecessors with the owner of the website having appointed the first 2, run the show here. The President literally cannot act on his/her/their powers if the mods ban them anyway. In other words, at the height of corruption, there starts to become a significant problem because not only can the mods punish the president freely but they can punish any user and out-veto the veto by their own vote.

The President's actual functionality is just to stall and expose punishments, being a defense attorney of sorts while being in charge of entertainment (that any non-president could be with less 'official' status to their events and tournaments etc.)
This argument suggests that the current moderation team or those in the future are bound to be corrupt tyrants who would happily ruin the website by having a unremovable power base. However, this is unsupported by any sort of proof or actual basis. For CON to prove this, he would have to prove that the moderators are unfair and unjust in every decision they make.

CON also states that they are a "defense attorney" of sorts. I do not see this as a useless role. This allows moderators to view a user ban from the user's perspective, giving them more insight into bans and allowing them to be fair and just to all. 

Regarding events, the events a President could host would have much more support by the official moderation team than if it were an unofficial one. For example, take airmax's February Tournament. 

The tag of an official tournament meant that this tournament COULD have represented a much higher status than a normal tournament. (If it attracted much attention at all.) As well as this, the moderation team openly expressed their support and offered help in voting. 

Rebuttals:

The President's term limits, term length and means of being voted in are established and must be respected.
CON offers this, and then talks about how corrupt a system this was, with old accounts logging back in to vote and whatnot. I acknowledge this was wrong, but as I stated before, if airmax was replaced, the MEEP would therefore change. (since the MEEP doesn't allow impeachment.) 

 what went wrong is clearly to do with the MEEP document about presidency that got voted in and is still going to be in place if we hold a reelection
Have shown this to not necessarily be true.

Conclusion:

CON's entire argument here is based either on the invalidity of the MEEP in any sort of election and the overrated stance of the President, both of which I have responded too. 

The logic of why airmax should be replaced is simple:

  • airmax1227 is unworthy of President. (as CON has acknowledged.)
  • A new MEEP would have to be put in place IF airmax1227 was voted out.
  • Thus, CON's problems with the MEEP should be fixed with the right incentives and support. 
  • So, CON's concerns are unwarranted. 
Thank you CON, I look forward to a well structured and punctual response. 

- CN
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
Con
#4
The issue with Pro's case lies in blame and future premises for the Presidency.

To begin with, who do we blame for the President's term length?


^ In this MEEP we see that some users were alert and against the presidency as it was proposed, voting 'no' to the MEEP encouraging reform to the role and particulars of it. Such users included RationalMadman, Oromagi, 949havoc, sum1hugme and more.

What happened was the democratic people of DART voted 18-8 in favour of the president role as is, in the Google doc Pro provides us in Round 1.

That doc clearly outlines 1-year duration for the term and makes very clear that the election holds that long until the next one. If people wanted that edited, they had to vote no, stipulating that as the reason why, most of the 8 who voted no gave an idea as to why, the people of DART ignored it.

The same people of DART are voting in the elections, it is also the people of DART who will vote on a reelection if Max is now undemocratically ousted.

How sacred is a MEEP? Does Pro not understand that part of democracy is people bearing the brunt of their decisions?



The President's Role needs a rework before reelection

The role of President is a site entertainer and balancer of power mixed into one, both of which are merely poser-like as the balancer of power can be out-vetoed by the mods:

The ability to approve or veto permanent ban propositions. Moderation will be required to submit permanent ban propositions to the President for review unless the user in question is a bot or advertising account, the situation is uniquely urgent or severe, the President is absent and/or unreasonably tardy, or the permanent ban proposition targets the President themselves. Vetos may be overridden by a simple majority vote among the moderation team.

There actually is no real veto power, which is the fundamental platform that 3Ru7AL ran on, meaning 3RU7AL ran on a platform that had at its core embracing that the role is purely an advisory one and left out the entertainment part.

Before a reelection, the role needs to be split, entertainer is one thing, role balancer that can be overriden by the mods is a joke position in itself that needs reforming.

The role is too much in one way and defunct in another.


Summary

I am arguing that the people of DART knew what they were electing, that the election phase was toxic with all sorts of campaigning rules lacking (I will let that sit aside as that is not a focal point of my case) and that it is due to the fact that to begin with the role has too much (manager of site entertainment is a different role entirely to political role balancer) and that the veto power of mods and fact they can punish the president out of functionality means a lot of the original role needs to be reworked before there's a reelection held.

As is under the structure in place, there is no reason to replace Airmax that doesn't nullify the premises of so-called democracy on this website.
Round 3
ComputerNerd's avatar
ComputerNerd
Pro
#5
Thank you RM,

The Problem with CON's Argument:

CON's argument revolved around why the President role was agreed upon, despite its obvious flaws, and why we should accept these as they are. This is an argument focused on the past elections, and why the role of President should be discarded entirely. 

How sacred is a MEEP? Does Pro not understand that part of democracy is people bearing the brunt of their decisions?
The President's role HAS potential. airmax's run was simply a fluke, a mistake by the people of DART whos intentions were good but their decision was bad. 

But you need to realize something. There is an adequate amount of people here who believe airmax should be removed. If we were to remove airmax as President, it would require a revote. As CON has stated himself,
 
That doc clearly outlines 1-year duration for the term and makes very clear that the election holds that long until the next one.
This is not simply a reelection. This is an impeachment. Impeachments don't wait for the term limit to end, they end the term early. 

Again, as I have stated before, there is no allowance of any sort of impeachment or eviction. A change like this requires a MEEP proposal. THEN, CON and the rest of the community can suggest all these new changes. 

Conclusion:

  • airmax1227 is not fit for the Presidential role.
  • For the reelection to take place, a MEEP proposal must be made, allowing CON to change the role as he pleases, given it is in reasonable suggestions.
  • Thus, any rejection of airmax's eviction is unjustified. 

RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
Con
#6
  • airmax1227 is not fit for the Presidential role.
If this is the case, the solution is an entire overhaul of the system and the reasons I covered are:

  1. The corrupt last-minute voters that disappeared again and appeared out of inactivity can blitz a new election anyway.
  2. The document that the democracy here is premised upon dicates that the term length is 1-year and all its flaws that resulted in an Airmax presidency (he wasn't a gold medallist, it was all corrupt) remain.
  3. The role is defunct. All vetos can be out-vetoed with no strings attached, by the mods.
  4. The role is too much, a site entertainer needn't be the same user that's the moderation balancing agent.
  • For the reelection to take place, a MEEP proposal must be made, allowing CON to change the role as he pleases, given it is in reasonable suggestions.
That hasn't taken place yet. This isn't even under the works. The resolution of this debate is premised upon 'should be replaced' which inherently implies 'now' as we are discussing replacing him with urgency before the natural end of his term. If Pro is saying Max ought to be replaced now, Pro ought to concede that is a dysfunctional solution without any feasible improvement to the faulty way he was elected. Also, you cannot possibly say he should be replaced unless you admit the term lengths were too long, there's basically flaws up and down the entire page of what the President is.

It should be two roles! Pro can't just replace that issue away.

  • Thus, any rejection of airmax's eviction is unjustified. 
The eviction is being premised within the constraints of today's DART, not an imaginary future DART. Pro is committing many logical fallacies (primarily constant goalpost moving) in order to make it appear I am not attacking the Pro side and that this debate is a truism of sorts. That is not the case, in this debate I have proven and discussed in-depth why replacing Airmax1227 as Site President is a defunct and irresonsible solution as is.

We should do away with Site President altogether or completely overhaul what it is and how elections work here.