Barney

Moderators cannot edit that, they can however assist if you and your opponent wish to redo the debate with a higher character limit (usually the same early rounds copy/pasted, but expanded in later rounds).

While in the argumentation periods, moderators can edit the following: Title, Category, Rating Mode, Short Description, and Full Description.

Ratings here use some form of ELO rating system (I don't know the precise math).

Everyone starts off at 1500, and go up or down as they win or lose. Lose to someone much higher rated, the system assumes they are more likely to win, so less points are lost; and vice versa. So the rating is just a weighted average from your wins and losses in comparison to your opponents, at the time the debates occurred.

An unrated debate simply does not affect the score, regardless of the outcome.

...

Ratings of course do not say anything of style nor substance. On a previous one of these sites, someone rose to the top largely just by engaging in a ton of debates and not forfeiting (most often that's enough).

So many little things. I was a different person before and after. You could metaphorically consider my place of birth to be Iraq. That said, I'll give one solid highlight from it...

I went through some bad experiences in the military, which taught me a lot more empathy.

I immigrated during deployment (it was required for security clearance, which I was required to have already had for the secret squirrel missions to which I had already been on many). After deployment, one of my superiors was so offended that people can immigrate into /his country/ that he tried to order me not to vote in /his election/.
So I assume immigrants who did not sacrifice so much for this country, face even worse vindictive pettiness.

Sadly, I /knew/ some veterans who went the opposite direction; getting sucked into racist nationalism, and related conspiracy theories.

Nope.

Also, there's no reason to capitalize the T in the. Whereas, the standalone L should be capitalized for empathies and clarity; and the L in Loser should likewise be capitalized to punctuate the joke.

The L joke in person is most frequently made with a hand gesture. No one does that with a lowercase l, as /interesting/ as that would be to see.

First, I suggest bookmarking the following: http://tiny.cc/DebateArt

Second, don't engage in too many debates at a time. New eager people frequently do this, then get burnt out, and forfeit the majority.

Third, just try to have fun!

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Oh, and of course welcome to the site!

I consider myself retired from debating. I occasionally let myself get pulled back into it; but I am going to be extremely busy for the next couple months with working full time, taking an advanced coding for business class, house hunting, and hopefully still squeezing in some volunteer work.

As much chuck as a chuckwood could wood, if a chuckwood could wood chuck.

In short:
It felt right.

At length:
It's been well over a year since I had a real formal debate, with the last I remember turned into tutoring sessions.
The longer I'm retired from debating, the less I feel like quite the same person on this site; to which I've been pondering changing my username for quite awhile. At first I thought the desire might pass, and then I just did not have anything specific to which I wished to change my username.
When Barney popped into my head, I tried to dismiss it, but it just wouldn't go away. When I started giving it serious consideration, it just felt right.

I'll freely admit that the name Barney brings a couple fictional characters to mind. I certainly would not want to resemble either of them in their entirety (such as disrespecting women or breaking into songs), but a smart snazzy dresser and a purple clad educator; those are things to which I strongly relate... In terms of style, I probably own too many suits (if such is even possible), and indeed my favorite color is purple. In terms of mental faculties, I can safely say without giving into narcissism that I am a genius (even if I am not infrequently thick headed), and in my role on this site I am routinely trying to lift people up to become better debaters.

Who I was before, was about beating people in debates. It was sometimes a good test of myself, but it was also quite egocentric. Now, I mostly wish to help people unlock their excellence.

It's been awhile since I had time for it but I write. I've come up with a decent setting, a world ruined by magic.

I suppose the main appeal is structuring my daydreaming into something I can share.

I played dungeon and dragons when I was young, and had too many ideas.

Your ability to misinterpret things is astounding.

No one is forcing you to leave the religion forum, nor to stay there. Within said forum, no one is forcing you to engage with any particular member, or to not. What you described was someone in your social circle being bad at conversation via being a broken record on some religious question within the religion forum, so you went full Karen by complaining to the manger...

You're an adult, presumably fully capable of making your own decisions regarding where and with whom to socialize.

For this type of issue where any user seems to be accusing any other user of stalking them and requesting a retraining order based upon that, among the first things looked at is if the one making the accusation is actively seeking engagement with the other.

For the case of you and Stephen: a quick spot check at post history shows you frequently joining into threads he starts (in one case more recent than asking me this question). This seriously compromises potential validity to your complaints against him. If you want someone to not talk to you, you have to take the obvious first step of not talking to them.

Further, your question implies a belief that each forum post is pre-read by moderators for approval before they display on the site. That is simply not feasible.

Yes. The Code of Conduct is linked on the bottom of every page:
https://info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/rules

It's garbage.

People who defend it almost always dive head first into special pleading/circular reasoning echo chambers: 'But if if it didn't commit all those human rights violations inherent in the system, it would be an amazing system!' [paraphrased]

This isn't actually to say every socialist policy is bad. It seems to me that any system taken to the extreme end, turns god awful.

In what school level? I have no pre-college education.

Let's see... I'm currently reading C.S. Lewis. I'm a huge fan of Orson Scott Card. Oh Terry Pratchett should be required reading!

Tier Zoo is my favorite YouTube channel. It's entertaining while being highly educational.

Unfortunately the website is still in beta, without direct functionality for that enabled. You can however message any moderator with a request to have your account closed, for which we will ban it indefinitely. You can later reverse this decision by emailing us, or even just starting a new account not directly connected to the old one.

If you haven't already seen it, I have wrote a decent guide:
tiny.cc/DebateArt

So for the debate in question:
1. Put your definitions into the description, to minimize potential dispute.
2. Don't make any paragraphs all bold.
3. Rely less on victim blaming.
4. Narrow the scope.

It's rare, as I'm basically retired from any serious debating. I mostly just help others now.

A lot of the time it's obvious since a serial multi-accountant will pick up conversations from their previous account without missing a beat. When people go that far is when we have to start deleting their threads and such.

There's also some technical stuff the website looks at and tells us in the admin panels. My usual way of acting on this, is just asking users what their connection to each other is. Some people go to school together so share a computer for example, and that's fine so long as they're honest and aren't being exploitative.

First ensure intended topic is clear (use the full description for extra details as needed), and you have two or three contentions in your head which precisely support that. Ideally the logical leaps of faith from your contentions to the truth of the resolution should be minimal.

Select an appropriate category for the angles you will use. For example, something listed as politics (what the law of the land should be), will often be weighted differently than something listed as religion (what some traditions are interpreted to say on the subject).

The position of the instigator should be pro. Writing votes the other way adds needless extra work.

Number of rounds gets a little tricky. The most easy to vote are single round debates, as the instigator has no chance to reply to anything (I honestly believe single round debates should not be an option). For this I would consider the character limit; a high character limit should have less rounds. Basically too much scrolling will scare people off, but there should be enough room to talk. If I had to pick one, I would say 4; as much as I usually know the winner by the end of 3.

Voting system should usually be left at the default of be open voting for maximum opportunity. Granted, I do find judicial decisions easier to weigh, as I expect less challenge when they have pre-agreed to have me vote.

Voting period should probably be two months. People get busy, their interest wanes for periods, etc.

For point systems, as much as I'm a fan of categorical votes, winner selection is easier for most and avoids many votes being invalidated for mistakes in allotments.

Time for arguments rarely affects voting (I'll admit, I'll consider the misconduct of a forfeiture worse for a long period than a short one). Use whatever you and your opponent feel is best. I suggest going slightly higher than you think you need, to give a buffer in case of anything (as an example: You could have a rule that the conduct penalty applies if someone takes more than three days to post, but have the timer technically set for a week so they aren't trying to post late in the comment section).

Rated vs. Unrated is something I've never factored into any vote.

Characters per argument... As seen with rounds, keep those two things restrained by each other. That said, a decent tactic for this is to pre-write your opening round, then double the character count and apply rounding. This assures there is space for both analysis of it, and counterpoints. Of course, use the characters well, particularly in regards to being organized (way easier to follow a train of thought between rounds when it has a heading).

Required rating, is again something I've not factored into any votes. Unfortunately it cannot be changed after initiating the debate, so it's functionality as a lock for the old "apply in comments" doesn't work.

Contender is fine if you're discussing with them before initiating, but often people will refuse and you'll have to recreate the debate as an open challenge for others anyway. Another problem with this, is that the comment section is not enabled until they accept, so they don't even become a good place to discuss refinements.

Short description is useful to draw people in, voters and opponents alike.

Full description should have some work put into it, such as definitions, to minimize the work voters have to put in during the debate.

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Sorry for the delay. I hope this is helpful.

You can opt to make a new account and retire your current. There is no way to otherwise reset your debate scores and such.

With the exception of John McCain, I vote third party to express "no confidence" in the main two choices (I think not voting does not convey this nearly so well).

I do however believe the optimal tactic is to register as a republican, to vote in their primary to encourage better candidates from them. The same cannot be said for the democratic party, which in 2016 took a stand against internal democracy resulting in giving Trump the white house.

Less.

We can't even keep a balanced checkbook, so we're clearly not a responsible adult yet.

Yes.

While not perfect, no other system has come close to the level of success enjoyed by it.

Neatly I hear people talk about how we should get away from it and switch to a barter system... Which is ironic, since it is a barter system. That we have an agreed unit of exchange for IOUs for most things, doesn't make them somehow not that.

First when I was like 13 I tried German, but my Neo-Nazi older brother got jealous so stole all my notes and CDs.

Early in college I tried to learn French, but... this is weird and pathetic, a neighborhood dog really hated the language. Maybe it had PTSD or something, but even listening to it with headphones on, would sent the dog into a fit of very loud and aggressive barking.

In the Army I tried to learn Arabic, you know, for deployment to Iraq... I know it didn't work out, but the why is lost to the memory gaps I ended up suffering during deployment.

However, I have successfully learned a couple coding languages.

If memory serves, on this one I advocated its swift deletion within the moderator chat. The key thing being swift deletion, once a debater put time and effort into it, a harm would be inflicted by its removal. There is a minimal harm for such junk existing, but it's a one off, and I'm not the quality police.

Biden will in the popular vote. Donald Trump will still win.

Negative campaigning is the key failing. Making the focus is on un-electing Trump, further entrenches Trump supporters, while not gaining any loyalists for Biden. The focus should be on electing Biden, while deifying would be too far, focus on how things he already did improved your life.

At least this time it was not because the DNC decided they preferred Trump as president... It's not that I think Bernie Sanders was guaranteed to beat Trump in 2016, but Clinton clearly could not. Their decision to suspend democracy within their party (highly ironic given the name), added extra optics of hypocrisy which further hurt Clinton's chance of getting important swing state votes. Much like complaints that we still use the electoral college, this anti-democracy stance will continue to hurt them in future elections (much as the electoral college discourages voters, since the overall numbers don't matter).

And yes, this will be really embarrassing if I'm proven wrong in five weeks.

My basic ideas for this are admittedly imperfect, and ripe for Kritik given that they are anti-democratic...

Before anything else, I should specify that my key problem with debt, is that the interest payments are often greater than the debt itself.

In short: I'd just hire an accountant, and then actually follow their advice.

At length:

1. Fire all politicians who think Rent-To-Own is a good idea for the consumers. Possibly require the rest to pass a test of resisting a shyster used car salesman. ... Did you know that for only 10 easy payments of $100, you can have this $300 playstation plus a free game? What about a big screen TV, you can't just save up for that and spend a few hundred, when renting you can have it for just a few grand! Oh how about a cash advance on your paycheck? Sure you'll need another due to the money the cash advance cost, but that's nothing another cash advance can't solve...

2. Decrease foreign aid. I say this as someone who knows it's only a tiny fraction of our budget. If I was in debt up to my eyeballs, that Orange Mocha Frappuccino might only represent 1% of my income for a week, but each time that 1% is put into paying down debt, the interest on that debt decreases, so I've effectively upped the amount of Orange Mocha Frappuccinos I can afford long term.

3. Decrease military spending. I say this as someone who thinks members of our military should be a lot paid more. However, as someone who served, I've seen too much massive wastefulness. So pay our military more, but less frivolous ego driven new toys (the old uniforms are fine, and even if changing them out, don't start us over with men being forced to wear women's pants; you can literally just print a new pattern onto the old design). I would say that we should have military spending capped at about 25% of our budget. As anyone who has played resource management games knows, the more you spend on upkeep for a military instead of infrastructure, the less you have of both.
On this subject, honestly, a few treason trials for corrupt former officers who became highly paid "consultants" to companies they authorized expensive contracts with, might help get these things in line.

4. Increase investment in education. $0.50 in education now, is a couple less whole dollars in our criminal justice system later. Without even getting into morality, from an ROI standpoint this is a no brainer, I don't have a clue why this is controversial.

5. So many other little tweeks... a quarter of a percent here and there, adds up to us getting ahead on the interest payments, rather than having growing debt. Still, no matter what we do, sacrifices are required to get out of the hole we've dug ourselves.

Further readings (smarter people than I, have done much better analysis for this subject):
https://www.thebalance.com/will-the-u-s-debt-ever-be-paid-off-3970473
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/24/facts-about-the-national-debt/

Drafterman designed a few different moderator ones.

While there is no requirement for anyone on the moderator team using them, out of respect for him I embraced it.

Incidentally purple is my favorite color, and Drafterman realized after designing them that the purple ones are reminiscent of the decepticon logo, which adds extra coolness IMO.

Note: When this question was answered, my avatar was two upward facing purple chevrons, with a in the open space under them.

With most things it depends on the topic.

In general, plenty of people are more skilled than I. Both Raisor and Bluesteel are among them.

A good argument is a subjective thing, which I would say has a baseline of being sufficient for the claim made. The bigger the claim, the higher the baseline needs to be. It can be supported with good reasoning, and evidence; ideally both. However, it still might not overcome the counter evidence.

When judging, I suppose the most important thing I look for is the warrants or connection between the case and the conclusion it attempts to draw. This is because without understanding them, my vote might be a non-sequitur as it relates to the debate; that said, an argument without those, is pretty much guaranteed to be that. This paradox of course leads to some awkward moments of doubt. ... On this I should point out that I need not agree with the conclusion, to acknowledge how the the connection was made.

Formatting is the first impression you make. Good formatting, guides people to your points, thus magnifying the quality within. It further makes voting far less difficult. Intuitively, the person that could be easily understood has a better chance at winning.

Sources can be tricky. There's a few factors which make them more or less trustworthy. Obviously if a source has a clear agenda other than the truth, it's not trustable. If in doubt, imagine what it would take for the source to change their mind; if unwilling to consider being wrong, they're only as likely to be right as a broken clock. A source is of course improved if it's a valid authority on a topic, which may be strongly implied by being a government of educational website.

Arguing in favor of the side to which you're actually opposed (or at least do not agree).

An atheist might argue in favor of God existing, and a Catholic might argue against it. The most important thing to be able to do this, is possessing a healthy amount of empathy.

Interestingly, this is not an all or nothing thing. Two examples from abortion debates: a pro-choice person might bring up the rape exception, even while not thinking that is from where womens rights stem. Likewise a pro-life choice person confronted with the slavery problem, even while not hating women, might argue they are real-estate so cannot be defined as slaves.

Scissors cut power cord. ✂

Scissors.

US Army, 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg NC, and spent some time in Iraq.
I often refer to Fort Bragg as hell, and Iraq as merely purgatory.

A feature Mike (the site owner) is beta-testing.

They will probably be able to be earned slowly with site activities, or awarded via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DebateArt

They currently allow boosting of topics for a day, and highlighting posts within the forums.

The site owner grants us access to an extra tool-set.

Short of banning someone, there's literally a dozen other controls we can directly edit on any user account, such as preventing someone with no impulse control from creating forum topics.

However, the vast majority of the time when someone crosses the line to merit moderation intervention, a simple reminder to chill out a little about whatever issue is enough.

Yes. That I am trusted with it, suggests appreciation for the consistent quality of my contributions to this community.

I however would not suggest it to most people, as it requires very thick skin.

As per the voter eligibility clause in the Voting Policy: https://info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy#voter-eligibility

"In order for users to be eligible to vote on debates, user's current accounts must reflect that they have read the site's COC AND either completed at least 2 non-troll debates without any forfeits or posted 100 forum posts"

At the time of this writing, you have two active debates, but neither have entered the voting window (which is when they are considered complete). Thankfully neither of your opponents are likely to forfeit (which is something I would like to change in the policy, as that would reflect on them, not you).

RO is shorthand for Restraining Order.

When things spiral out of control usually first I'll ask the two in dispute to chill out, then formally warn, then issue an RO, and finally a ban.

The message people receive if an RO is put into effect includes the following text:
"The moderation team is placing a restraining order between you and X for Y-days (expiring [T+Y]). During this time, please do not have any communication with them whatsoever. This includes, but is not limited to:

1) PM'ing each other
2) Replying to each other's forum topic
3) Replying to each other's forum post
4) Voting on each other's debates
5) Accepting each other's debates
6) Name dropping each other in the forums.

Any violation of the R/O between either of you will result in a temp-ban."

The list of six things should not be needed, but we've had people complain that the specific way they tried to evade it was not expressly forbidden. The context of the violation would play a role in the punishment (something clearly accidental without malice, would most likely just receive a warning instead of a ban).

Hockey and beer! ... Just kidding.

I could point out some key differences within certain institutions, but broadly speaking there's not too much. On average people in Canada are a little more polite.

Of course, there's better data than my opinions:
https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/canada,the-usa/

You're pretty good.

I'll say that I'm big on structure, so in preference:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1218/should-the-bible-be-used-as-a-moral-compass
>
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1118/should-the-bible-be-used-as-a-moral-compass

Granted now that I look, I see the one I prefer even while being listed with an earlier conclusion, was actually initiated much later. So great job on already improving!

Occasionally. However, it tends to just inform me that someone's opinion isn't worth the oxygen they're expelling to state it.

Due to my unusual upbringing, I was not exposed to formal debating until I was in a college writing class.

I guess it just developed naturally with time, in response to various feedback, and seeing what I liked and disliked in other peoples debates.

Bill Murray is the king.

I'll also give honorable mentions to:
Rowan Atkinson, mainly due to Black Adder.
John Cleese, as a bit of a stand-in for the whole of Monty Python.

In regards to online argumentation:
Desperate for attention trolls will insist on getting the last word in (often repeatedly when ignored). They will frequently disagree just for the sake of disagreeing in and of itself, in their confusion mistaking that for argumentation. While it may seem cruel, it's usually best to just stop feeding such individuals.

Everything ends up getting numbers assigned to it. I will use the classic troll debate "Fetuses as a replacement for the USD" as a reference.

The URL assigned is https://www.debateart.com/debates/866/fetuses-as-a-replacement-for-the-usd
However the shorthand goes to the same place https://www.debateart.com/debates/866/
This is useful in the system since changes to the debate's name do not affect the cataloging system, which pulls information from the 866th debate topic be created here.

Votes get a unique number for votes, but are linked to within the debate: https://www.debateart.com/debates/866/vote_links/2140
The number on the end tells us it is the 2140th vote cast on this site.
A vote cast today, would get assigned an integer >= 4676.
The link can be copied from the top right corner of the vote (for this one, the local reference of "#1").

Within the comment tab they are similarly given unique numbers, such as: https://www.debateart.com/debates/866/comment_links/10902
These can also be found on the top right, in this case "#28." For this I really wish the end numbers were local counts rather than site wide, as it would easily dispelled certain myths about deleted comments.

This also applies to the forums for both threads and posts within, and is often more useful there as it gives a direct link to a specific comment made within the greater conversation. Such as when people deny having said something, you have easy access to a link to their exact wording (not that trolls will care what actually happened...).

I consider DDO to have died when they updated the code to cause debates to never end if any rounds were forfeited.

Why they chose to do that, is still a mystery to me.

...

Other people consider it to have died when they pushed spambots over real users, or various other problems.

Debate.org (DDO) was the debate website from which most of the userbase here migrated. The owners began trying to scam ad providers (they even hid a dictionary in the site to show up on more random searches...), and as spam looked like activity, they chose spam over the actual user base.

Text based for sure!

First of all, I have not done any formal debating in the other formats.

Second, I'm huge on evidence. Heck when pictures are an option, I'll even use them to set the mood.