I think the site has 500 accounts. I am in 450th place on the leader board. Does anybody have relevant advice for climbing to a top 10 spot?
450th place on the debate leaderboard
Posts
Total:
15
Become a trans debater and addle puny woman brain.
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@badger
I don’t know if you are joking, but this isn’t Twitter.
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@Wylted
Good advice? Just try your best doing everything. If you can get top 30 in DDO, getting top then here is not difficult.
But if you would like to just relax on the forum topics instead of actually taking risks, then it would be near impossible.
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@Wylted
- The number one factor is forfeits. In 99 debates I have never forfeited once- a characteristic largely shared by winning debaters. Any regular voter on this site will confirm that the majority of wins on this site aren't won so much as lost by forfeitures.
- Before accepting a debate, study your opponent's record (on DART and DDO). If the debater
- Demonstrates debate experience
- Makes arguments in a highly organized or persuasive fashion
- seems particularly knowledgeable about the topic, or
- never forfeits
then don't accept those debates.
- Arguments are less than 50% of the possible voter points awarded. You can actually outargue your opponent every time and still have a losing record (look at Virtuoso's debates for an example of this).
- Make a point of being nicer to your opponent than your opponent is to you (if only the forums followed this rule). If your opponent goes low, do not retaliate. Wait until the final round and then coolly request a point.
- Make a point of having more sources than your opponent. Wikipedia is the finest artifact the internet has ever produced, use Wikipedia liberally for the conventional wisdom on any topic. ONLY use sources that rate very high or high on https://mediabiasfactcheck.com Peer reviewed scholarship typically offers the best evidence and most sophisticated thinking on any point. I spend a totally unreasonable amount of research time trying to understand technical papers way over my head.
- Using an opponent's sources against her is a major advantage. Scour every opposing source for arguments that support your case.
- I'm actually pretty bad at re-reading my arguments for spelling and grammar. The more I re-read my stuff, the less confident I become in my choices and I get lost in (mostly counter-productive) rewrites, but my first draft grammar is pretty good and spellchecker gets the majority of the misspellings. Nevertheless, I'd recommend that you re-read your arguments for legibility and comprehension. Your argument is useless if voters can't read it- make a point of demonstrating better spelling and grammar than your opponent.
- If there are serious grammatical or spelling errors in the title, take the debate.
- Read and use the DART and DDO debate guides and advice. I like Ragnar's debate style best so I go back to his guide most often.
- If you are making a debate, always define terms, concepts and BoP to your advantage. This is the instigator's main advantage. A contender's main advantages are opponent selection and the last word- which far outweighs the instigator's advantage. The best way to counter this advantage is to set terms that no superior debater would accept or at least terms that must be objected to, cutting into the opponent's word count.
- I suspect logicae would object to this tactic based on a recent debate definition: "BOTH sides have a burden to prove their positions. (I have noticed this kind of burden swinging in far too many debates. It is a tactic to merely win a debate, not to find truth.)" As a voter, I have awarded many wins to debaters who I knew were advocating wrong and even dishonest positions based on the strength of the argument. The pursuit of truth is always admirable but offers little advantage in winning debates.
- Personally, I think the notion of dual burdens is bullshit. Debates were traditionally practice for law and politics. In law and politics, the question is always binary- pass/fail, guilty/ not guilty. Dual burdens suggests that the instigator must prove one thesis and the contender must develop a second, opposing thesis and prove that which creates four possible outcomes-
- /A proven B unproven/,
- /A unproven B proven/,
- /A proven B proven/,
- /A unproven B unproven/.
- Many theses don't have a true opposite or have multiple true opposites. Furthermore, the opposing thesis is almost never explicitly stated. The contender is left proving some ill-defined negation. Dual burdens makes for fuzzy, unfocused debates with much cloudier outcomes. It's like saying the state must prove the defendant guilty and also the defendant must prove himself innocent.
- A good debater always suggests that the other guy has the entire burden of proof while also arguing as if the burden is entirely hers to prove.
- Any debater who instigates a debate but then fails to set terms in the long description or R1 has handed the contender all of the main advantages. Look for debaters who operate this way and exploit those advantages.
- Try hard to be interesting for readers. Unfortunately, most people will never read your debate but you can make a friend of the few who do by trying to write appealing, creative arguments. Try hard to be original- I try to list all the arguments I can think of before I start researching other people's arguments. Typically, other people's arguments are better informed than mine but an original argument supported by the facts is more satisfying to write and forces the opponent to think of an original defense.
- Depending on the debate, it usually helps to give voters a concise reason for voting for you at the end of the debate. Voters are required to defend their votes so giving them a plausible reason or two they can cite or paraphrase while voting for you makes their job easier and their vote that much more likely.
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@Wylted
What does it matter?
And really, being in the top10, should be and intelligence based achievement.
My position is relative to my intelligent allocation of available time.....Or more importantly not wasting it.
Bye.....Must dash....More important matters to attend to.
And really, being in the top10, should be and intelligence based achievement.
huh?
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@oromagi
- Before accepting a debate, study your opponent's record (on DART and DDO). If the debater
- Demonstrates debate experience
- Makes arguments in a highly organized or persuasive fashion
- seems particularly knowledgeable about the topic, or
- never forfeits
You accept RM and Jeff_Goldblum. What are you talking about?
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@Intelligence_06
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but RM And Goldblum are number 22 and 23 respectively.
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@Sum1hugme
They can make decent organized debates yet Oro charged in like a madman(and won).
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@oromagi
Accurate advice. I have to tell you as a judge I have my own opinions of BOP though and it pisses me off when I hear incorrect arguments for it.
I also don't like the advice on setting terms of the debate to your advantage. I think k the debate should he an equal battleground or that usually the instigator should accept a disadvantage and use skill to overcome it.
With that said, your advice is accurate and I will take the portions I find ethical.
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@Wylted
You seem to accept those pieces of advice. Why are you still desperately trying to get your way into the clock debate, even though I am not below-average?
Is this perhaps an insult or what is it that you see in me, or are the two acts completely unrelated and you are just trying to have fun?
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@Intelligence_06
You're a mediocre debater, and debating against a truism. The games you play in an attempt to win might annoy me, but it should still cost you a loss.
I don't agree with any advice Oromagi gave that is cowardly. Such as setting advantageous rules or falsely arguing on who has burden or targeting weak opponents. His advice about sources for example is good. It takes advantage of stupid judges who do not know how to correctly award source points, but the strategy is fair game.
When I say I disagree with it, I mean I disagree with using the cowardly portions of his advice. I agree his advice is accurate
18 days later
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Regarding post #2, while distasteful, the comment is clearly ironic comedy. DART allows humor.
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@MisterChris
I didn't report it, but do find it odd, that it has 7 likes.