DART Hall of Fame

Without a doubt, RationalMadman is a force to be reckoned with and deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Within a year of joining the site, RM became the first person to achieve every single site medal. He was one of the first to be on the top of the leaderboard; he is one of the most prolific users on the site, having completed nearly 200 debates, countless rap battles, music battles, and forum posts. What makes RationalMadman unique is the fact that he’s willing to take debate topics that are unfamiliar to most and is willing to take controversial standpoints. Additionally, he has cast over 300 debate votes, making him one of the most active voters on this site. This metric doesn’t even begin to describe how much impact he has had on the site. Without RationalMadman, this site would be much more pedestrian.

          -Virtuoso

Moderating is difficult. Working concurrently with bsh1 on moderator decisions while creating over 50 debates and presenting a magnanimous front to all users regardless of transgressions is nigh impossible. These accomplishments are certainly no easy feat, as I am sure the illustrious Virtuoso can attest. Nevertheless, his earnest enforcement of the CoC and pleasant demeanor toward users has never changed since day 1 of his moderator duties. In addition to creating a welcoming atmosphere for users, his debate activity is also commendable. As I am sure most would agree, DART is in its infancy. Nevertheless, Virtuoso’s mountainous record of over 50 debates is incredible given his other duties. As someone who has debated with him on multiple occasions, I know firsthand his debating prowess and writing skills. Virtuoso is a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame purely for his dedication toward forging a better DART for all to enjoy. For that, I congratulate him on his induction. Thanks, Virt.

          -blamonkey

What can one say about the mysterious Russian in our midst? Well, if he’s a troll farmer worker, he’s certainly an affable one. But then again, Mike (if that’s his real name) would be affable wouldn't he...to gain our trust...?! *shrugs* Without him, this community literally wouldn’t exist. He built this site up from scratch and has worked regularly to update it to meet user demands and needs. He is responsive, friendly, and solicitous. His concern for DART and its community is evidenced by the sheer volume of work he has invested and continues to invest in it. If anyone--and this is no hyperbole--deserves to be included in the inaugural DART Hall of Fame entry, it is the creator of the site. We are fortunate to have someone like him in our midst, one who is willing to volunteer his time as he does for so little recompense, esp. given the vitriol and hostility so often found on the internet. He has more than earned his place here, and I congratulate him on his induction.

          -bsh1

While drilling down to one core issue, this was possibly the most in depth religious debate we’ve had. The educational value of this debate cannot be overstated.

Seriously, even as someone who attended Catholic University, this debate was able to impact my core religious beliefs.

         -Ragnar

It is certainly interesting to see unorthodox discussions about our site’s users (especially in a positive light), with battles that intend no serious harm whatsoever.

         -Intelligence_06

As the first non-native English language debater to be honored with a place in DART's Hall of Fame, as well as the first non-American, and the youngest debater to be so honored, Intelligence_06 contributes some serious diversity of perspective to DART as well as a tremendous talent for persuasive argument.

Not everybody knows that Intelligence_06 joined in April 2020 as User_06 and cranked out 50 debates in 3 months, rapidly improving his game against some of the best debaters on the site before switching his username to Intelligence. True to his new handle, Intel upped his game until achieving #2 in the rankings with the third highest number of debate wins on this site and among the highest like:posts ratios in the forums. Overcoming a 3 month long string of losses earlier this year, Intel hit his stride with a four-month long string of wins to surpass the unbeaten Barney and become only the second debater to break 1800. Intel is most proud of the potent and compelling argument he presented in Atheists Have a Burden of Proof.

Truly, Intel has earned a reputation as one of DART's most impressive contenders, and all debaters tremble at the prospect of Intel's continued improvement.

     -oromagi

Presidential candidate with over 13k forum posts, he ran a very good campaign overall. Not to mention he is a very likeable person and contributes a lot to the site.

     -SupaDudz (placeholder)

Though the Hall of Fame is often used to recognize top debaters, there are some people whose contributions extend outside of the debating realm. As the top contributor in forum posts to the website, GreyParrot has made himself an integral part of the website, providing everyone with their daily dose of YouTube videos and engaging with a broad set of users on a wide variety of topics. With his short, pithy responses, GP keeps threads interesting with his blunt and often humorous insights. He is the king of the political forum; long may he reign. He has also become one of the most regular participants in forum Mafia games, a wildcard that should never be underestimated. Even when he's literally blowing up games or posting absurd forum topics, you can't help but respect the breadth of GP's contributions to this site.

     -whiteflame

Not to toot my own horn here, but a debate is a two person effort and Whiteflames performed exceptionally well. The matchup itself of this debate elicited much interest from the community, as evidenced through the 275 comments.

Furthermore, I may have to verify this, but I believe that this is the debate with the most votes (serious debate, being any with a no forfeit and an r1 of more than 100 characters), with votes from the likes of Barney and MisterChris.

     -Bones (placeholder)

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This community started as a refugees from debate.org (DDO), a site which will always cause mixed emotions to say the least. While most of us declared it dead years ago, the site still existed. This came to an end on June 5th, 2022. Just over a week before that, Lemming alerted us all that the owners had done a single act of goodwill for the userbase, which was to allow members to download their data.

DDO is also preserved in the Internet Archive, including most subpages such as the leaderboard.

     -Barney

This was one of the earlier threads to call out Airmax's inactivity after becoming president.It didn't get many replies, but it expressed a growing doubt at the time that would be later confirmed.

     -Mharman (placeholder) 

This was a thread highlighting yet another example of Airmax failing his presidency. RM pushed for the mods to notice that Shila was unlikely to be a bot and within 3 days she was unbanned. Quite the 'precedent' RM set...

     -RationalMadman

The exploration of such a taboo subject, when done as well as it is here, is incredibly educational; which is the pinnacle of what debates ought to be.

Pro was quite successful in his clear goal of getting the audience to question the status quo on drugs, and he proved that better education would decrease drug death. However, his case highlights the problems of scope creep and interdependencies. Education was not the topic, and can be done independently of legalization. Legalization was the topic, and with so much focus on the other, its success seemed dependent on education.

Con showed how concise a good argument can be, with it growing shorter each round. He even brought up date-rape drugs, to which pro had zero defense for their legalization. While giving proper credit, he excellently quote mined authoritative sources on the topic, such that only about half his characters limit were his own words. And he (figuratively) ended the debate on a rare mic drop, having only a single line of arguments in the final round.

     -Barney