DART's fatal flaw - The voting system is unsustainable and doesn't scale

Author: MrMaestro

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#1
MrMaestro
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Hey guys, I'm a newbie here, got recommended to this site from DDO. I'm so glad to have found an active debate community where debates actually get judged!

I'm concerned with the long-term implications of the voting structure. Running to admins with every single vote people disagree with is not a scalable solution. If this site takes off, the judges (who I assume are volunteers) will get overloaded very quickly. When volunteers get overloaded, they quit. This happened on DDO too. With that said I'm in favor of the strict voting rules. I like that judges are forced to carefully weigh both sides. 

edeb8 allows users to rate and comment judgments as various levels of constructive and assigns a judgment score to your profile. This score is sufficient enough that most users work to make their judgments better and more constructive. A similar feature could be added here - simply allow other users to rate judgments, with special emphasis on which rules were/weren't adhered too.

Also, the voting section should definitely mention something about the strict voting rules - too many people are unwittingly getting their votes deleted because they didn't read through the code of conduct.
#2
RationalMadman
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@MrMaestro
Totally disagree with this. DDO failed because they banned passionate users who would have willingly judged and only let the uncaring sycophants be the sole vote-moderators.

If it gets too heavy a workload, hire more delegated-lesser-mod roles that answer to the Chief moderator.
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#3
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@RationalMadman
I agree with you - DDO gave too much power to too few people. When those people inevitably quit, the website went to sh!t. 

That's why I'm in favor of crowd-sourcing solutions like they have on edeb8. People care about their elo ranking, why wouldn't they care about a judgment ranking?

#4
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@MrMaestro
If more people begin to support this idea, I will address why it's utterly fallacious in what it does to solve the issue of 'many bad votes'. For now, I'll let you preach proudly, unchallenged beyond me explicitly saying you're wrong and hinting at why. Build up a base and I'll bother.
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#5
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@RationalMadman
You seem so offended by this post. Look man we both want the same thing - a great debating website, we just disagree on functionality.

I've got some experience being the manager of a volunteer organization; it takes a toll. I just don't see how the current system could scale well without support from the DART community.

But if you want to be a dick about it we could always settle the issue with a debate ;)

#6
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@MrMaestro
I'm wiling to settle it with a debate but with you as Pro, not me.
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#7
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@RationalMadman
Haha I knew you couldn't resist that challenge! I wanted to debate with the #1 guy on the leaderboard to test my skill.I propose these terms:


Topic: DART's current voting system won't scale well

Shared BoP

3-5 debate rounds

#8
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@MrMaestro
No. Your solution must be what you are Pro on, not that. It scales by adjusting around the skeleton of the current mechanics, you want to alter that via the edeb8 rating system of hyper-democratic means of reigning in already faulty democracy, yes?
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#9
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@RationalMadman
I figured we would be discussing various alternatives to the current system in the debate, and that would be one of my key ideas. 

So do you disagree with the premise "This website's voting system won't scale well"?



#10
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@MrMaestro
Scaling blatantly includes buffing the vote-mod team (which was Tejretics but due to inactivity Virt is a hybrid behaviour-mod site-wide and vote-mod and bsh1 sits around ranked above him by doing next to nothing in comparison disclaimer - this is according to me and is a conspiracy theory against bsh1 apparently).

The mods get vote-only mods, enable them to only handle the votes, to paste 'reasons for mod decision to the mods' with a head among them who is able to moderate the votes and can either be Virt himself, bsh1 himself or a specific 'head vote mod'. The system scales well if you realise this. Your edeb8 solution is a genuine counter proposal that would indeed, if needed, mean the system as is was insufficient to scale well to voting most likely.

#11
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@MrMaestro
Now that I have explained that, there is nothing left to explain.
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#12
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@RationalMadman
So you believe that voting will have no problems scaling, and I believe it will. We obviously disagree about the issue, so why not accept my challenge?

I would also point out that many social platforms have switched to crowd-sourcing solutions to keep up with mod-level administration. Reddit is a notable example here.



#13
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@MrMaestro
Tell me the definition of scaling and what the 'system' is and if we agree, put it in the debate's description.
#14
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@MrMaestro
Reddit is designed to have popularity-contest as its sole judgement mechanism. That is intentionally done, this website does not stand for such mindless banter type debating, that is not the aim here in the Formal Debating but clearly is allowed in the Forums section.
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#15
MrMaestro
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@RationalMadman
I'm not picky about semantics. I want to discuss this issue, not try and win on a technicality. Feel free to propose counter definitions.

Scaling - When a business is able to scale their operations, this means that they are able to handle a growing amount of work or sales in a capable, cost-effective, labor efficient manner.

By System - I was referring to this website, with regard to both its technological and human-administrative capacities. 

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#16
MrMaestro
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@RationalMadman
I'm not convinced by that argument. Every social website is competing for human attention, including this one. 

FYI - being right doesn't excuse you for being rude. Didn't you learn that in DDO? It's possible to be correct without belittling your opponent.     
#17
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@MrMaestro
What exactly are you referring to in the FYI? Conduct is part of the four-category voting system and even Winner Selection voting incorporates it into most poeple's RFDs (I am a severe advocate of the four-category system and think the winner-selection method is solely supposed to be used in troll/jokey rap battle-esque debates)

I'm more of a Poker-strategist than a Chess-strategist but if we play a game of complete information I thought someone with a profile picture of a black King-chess-piece would understand the importance of semantics in debating.

Since this is a non-profit site that currently has 0 ad revenue streams and such, I will automatically lose on your demand of what I need to prove with scaling.

On the other hand, your definition of System is so flexible it even would enable me to 'concept-mesh' AKA 'idea-permeate' your side of the debate to mine without letting the reverse happen as you have to defend "won't" and the subjectivity of "well" based on how good they've been handling things so far and how much they've improved over time at it (thanks almost entirely to Virtuoso)...

You say this is a popularity contest, but if that's really all you see debating as then you have a deeper opposition to this website than you think and believe in a concept of debating that will be more akin to the crowd over at Debate Island in my honest opinion. You believe in debating for the sake of crowd-appeal, right? Yeah, see that being the lenient way to get wins should never be permitted. It should be about points raised, the logic of them interacting with the logic of the other side and the only flaw and chaos where the gambling happens being the subjective way voters will follow the logic but not just what they 'liked more'. This is still not properly weeded out by the current Voting Standards on the CoC but at least does a decent effort at making it difficult and intellect-demanding to be able to get away with.

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#18
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@RationalMadman
I love poker! NL Texas Hold'em to be specific. I also love chess, that organization I told you about is my local chess club. Admittedly though, I'm still a novice debater. (Maybe we should settle this with a HU poker match instead - lol)

Conduct is part of the four-point voting system
I'm aware. I'm fully agreeable to the four-point system.

Since this is a non-profit site that currently has 0 ad revenue streams and such, I will automatically lose on your demand of what I need to prove with scaling.
Then drop the money part of the definition.

On the other hand, your definition of System is so flexible it even would enable me to 'concept-mesh' AKA 'idea-permeate' your side of the debate to mine without letting the reverse happen as you have to defend "won't" and the subjectivity of "well"
Alright, that's a good point. What would be a more suitable definition?

You say this is a popularity contest, but if that's really all you see debating as then you have a deeper opposition to our website than you think and believe in a concept of debating that will be more akin to the crowd over at Debate Island in my honest opinion.
I never said that. I said all social websites seek human attention, referring specifically to your point about reddit.

I believe that charisma and readability play a big role with judges, but I came here precisely because it was intellectually demanding. I want to improve my skill as a debater. 





#19
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@MrMaestro
The solution is that you Propose the edeb8 or as you call it 'crowd source vote reigning' means of reigning in votes being a 'superior' (we can leave that vague so both sides get to be fluid with the semantics of it) means to handle the scenario of the rate of vote-reports surpassing the efficiency of the current 2-man (well 3-man but Castin doesn't moderate votes) Moderation team.

In your description, you can limit me to need to advocate growing the moderation team via delegation to lower ranking mods as the solution to handle votes whereas you support the abolition of voting regulations in any moderator-enforced manner and simply kept as a 'guide to crowd-source-whip votes'.

You will find there's 2 major things you need to patch with the way your policy would feasibly work with our site and moderation policy but that's up to you to work out.
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#20
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@RationalMadman
Well, I don't really agree with abolishing all moderator based voting power. I think that crowd-sourced labor can be effectively combined with manual administration. Maybe automatically transferring power from sub-admins if they leave for too long or get voted out, would be a great idea.
#21
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@MrMaestro
Maybe many things, this is how I'd win the debate among other angles; I'd corner you into requiring complete vagueness while I remain concrete and yet in the ways you attack me I'd force you to be blatant and specific while masking your strong points with an onslaught of fog.

You want the debate or not? You're the one who kept saying let's make it formal despite me revealing more and more on here.
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#22
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@RationalMadman
this is how I'd win the debate among other angles; I'd corner you into requiring complete vagueness while I remain concrete and yet in the ways you attack me I'd force you to be blatant and specific while masking your strong points with an onslaught of fog.
For someone who seems to love the "Art of War" so much, you seem to give away a lot of your strategy. Do you often find yourself getting tripped up by your ego?

I tell you what. While I disagree that all mod-voting power should be abolished, I think that I can make a strong argument for how crowd-sourcing techniques could be used to meet this website's strict voting standards. 

You're on.

I'll send you the challenge, and probably post my first argument tomorrow once I've had time to think it over.

#23
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@MrMaestro
When your strategy is underestimated by the enemy, you needn't mask it much at all but merely make blatant what they underestimate is precisely what you'll use. That's me saying that, not Sun Tzu but it's an extension of his teachings.

The war isn't the debate, the war is in your mind, you lose by challenging me. You already know I think this, yet you feel more and more urge to challenge me to it, so why not lay out a little bit of what I'll do?


#24
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I'd be willing to pay for a premium account to support the site and have unbiased judges paid out from that amount as well.
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#25
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@Human
Thank you for being a good human, human. They should look into Patreon.

#26
Human
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@David
@MrMaestro
Look into how the economics of www.photofeeler.com works. People who want their photos rated have to earn credits by rating other people's photos. They can do that or pay. That would put more pressure on people to vote if they know they will receive more votes on their debates in return.
#27
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@Human
Okay but this is about removing bad votes, not encouraging votes to occur.
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#28
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@RationalMadman
The war isn't the debate, the war is in your mind, you lose by challenging me. You already know I think this, yet you feel more and more urge to challenge me to it, so why not lay out a little bit of what I'll do?

Good beat. Not bad as far as rap goes. Although it seems a bit weird to quote the Art of War and throw a diss track at me in the same breath.

For the record - I wanted to challenge you long before you knew who I was.

The debate challenge has been sent. I hope my phrasing is agreeable.
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#29
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@Human
Look into how the economics of www.photofeeler.com works. People who want their photos rated have to earn credits by rating other people's photos. They can do that or pay. That would put more pressure on people to vote if they know they will receive more votes on their debates in return.
Excellent suggestion! I think most people here would much rather hear themselves talk than read other people's debates. An automatic feature like that would encourage voters.

#30
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just don't give a fuck like me and all your problems are solved