I meant no ad hominem attacks specifically within the debate, although I would imagine ad hominem attacks should also be off-limits for the votes as well.
Not often, but we have had to delete votes for that exact reason.
I would imagine that a bare-minimum RFD should include at least one verbatim quote from each participant from each round of the debate.
I often include some quotes in mine, and experimented with making RFDs out of quotes. As a vote ultimately boils down to how the voter interprets what was said (or at least it should), their own words to describe it are usually fine. However, a major step the proposed policy has is making the readership responsibility explicit and early (that they present some evidence of having read the debate in question, as opposed to what some do of just giving their general opinion on the topic).
so tailoring your sources to your opponent's preference would seem to be a demonstration of tact.
I would have nothing against a RFD giving extra credit for that (even tipping the source point to someone's favor, when it otherwise might remain in the tied range).
Regarding your earlier comment that the rules should be established such that they "could be programmed into a computer"
Due to the subjective nature of most debates and likewise their votes, I disagree.
Ok, I thought the whole charade was that judges were supposed to be "objective".
If you're going to flat-out acknowledge "the subjective nature of most debates" then why not throw the rules out and replace them with "moderator's discretion"?
I hope that is a rhetorical question, as humans are unlikely to be capable of perfect objectivity 100% of the time... But in case it's not a rhetorical question... We don't do that because it'd be blatetly and intentionally unfair (believe me, I once spent a few months on D&D site for which the rules were both constantly changing and only accessible by staff members). In my opinion, a voting policy should both give the expectations and help guide people in voting better. While votes are not expected to be flawless, they should at least strive to be fair with regards to the effort put in by each debater.
Should a debate be judged on how convincing the arguments are to the voters (OR) should a debate be judged on LOGICAL COHERENCE ALONE?
That's a bit of an ouroboros question. People who understand logic, are more likely to find a logical argument convincing. But then an argument which technically contains the right logic which would appeal to them, might be presented poorly causing the same voter to not find it convincing at all.
I think a snippet from the proposed outside content policy may be helpful:
"We do not vote in a perfect vacuum. Your background is assured to influence how easy to follow certain contentions were, and even bias you on source types. The idea is to ensure you are at least trying to vote fairly for the debate in question, as opposed to voting as an ideologue."
