It is important for the early users of a site to establish an appropriate culture. I at first assumed that the culture from DDO would carry over, or that a common sense naturally arising one would occur, but it has not and will not. It is up to the more experienced debate site users to impose a culture, so we can ensure a suitable atmosphere to come to.
Some people have done a great job of imposing an appropriate culture as it is. BSH1 has created voting guides that should be read by every person who has not read them.
Ramshutu is surprisingly (To me anyway), doing a great job of modding votes on debates. Ragnar is leaving comments on debates and interacting with new users in a way that pressures them to create better debates as well as leave better votes. I think we can all apply more peer pressure in this regard though. Ads work, if we could make our profile page advertisements for appropriate behavior by posting bsh1's guides and other useful information it would be helpful at imposing the correct culture. If we interact with and teach users the correct ways to do things, it will help impose the correct culture by applying peer pressure.
I'm sure I will be leaving out some people here, and I am sorry, but others have done a good job of imposing the correct cultural mentality on this site as well. The group known as the Deplorable's, have fought against overzealous moderation, and the current moderation team has respected this push. I'm sure many other culture wars will happen in the future of this site, but our side must win, if this site is to remain usable.
Confirmation Bias Can Not be Overcome
The reason we need to worry, is because I see another culture starting to fight the correct culture for dominance. There are 3 main values (that I want to focus on) that the correct culture has, that this new culture does not. I will label the correct mentality as DART elite mentality.
We value:
1. Freedom of ideals
2. Every man as an Island
3. Challenging competitions
The other culture that we need to declare war on is more of a Reddit mentality. They value;
1. Appropriate ideals
2. Teamwork
3. Easy defense of their ideals
I call it a Reddit mentality, because like redditors, instead of caring about the quality of content, they just care to promote content that appeals to their biases.
On DDO, I would have to fight against bias judges, when I debated devil's advocate positions such as the following; https://www.debateart.com/debates/1179
The bias could be overcome. I could argue better than my opponent on DDO and with such a controversial position, win 50% of the time I out argued my opponent by a small margin. However on DART, because of the influx of Reddit mentality, I must win by a large margin. If I win by a small margin on a controversial position, I will always lose. This is because of the Reddit mentality, of voting for content you agree with and against content you disagree with. I am going to say it. On this site, at this time "Confirmation Bias cannot be overcome".
Here is what you can do to help.
1. Go out of your way to cast fair votes on controversial debates.
2. Post BSH1's voting guides to your profile wall so they get more exposure
3. Talk a lot about the culture of the site to new users.
Every Man is an Island
The Redditors on this site are fond of teamwork. You can see it when one of our less popular irrational not sane members, post about bullying, perceiving everyone and everything as an oppressor. They are defending others, (or themselves with the ruse of defending others) because they do not understand that the site is about learning to defend your ideals against heavy scrutiny. It is about toughening people up. If we want the world to be open to discussing various ideals, if we want people to come out of their shells so they can contribute to society through the spread of their ideals, than we need to stop defending people and to allow them to grow a set of balls, so that they as individuals can make the world a better place, instead of depending on you to do it for them.
Here is how you can help
1. Don't defend anybody who is feeling attacked, and if they are legitimately being attacked just report it to a mod.
2. Don't defend anybody, even if you agree with them. Allow their conversation to happen so they can defend their own ideals.
3. If somebody defends a person you are talking to, do not engage, Ignore them and continue attacking their points.
Let's get Dangerous
The Redditors can be seen at the top of the leader board. On DDO the leaderboard was occupied almost exclusively by scary debaters, because most debaters were not scared to make debates they stood a good chance of losing. This is not to dismiss all people near the top of the current leaderboard. Oromagi is legitimately tough as an opponent, but most near the top are not as tough as him. People should be mocked for taking easy wins, they should be confronted so they know, we know, they are cowards. If you see somebody who is exclusively padding their record with easy debates, try to snipe them, if you see an opportunity. If they place a debate, and you see a way to take it off topic, because they fucked up the resolution, than do so. Hopefully judges are sympathetic to what you are attempting to do.
