Farewell

I don't think there is a solution to voting bias anywhere on earth. There would be some bias in my voting, no matter how hard I try. The win ration reflects a combination of debating skills, closeness of viewpoint to popular opinion and list of loyal friends who will vote on your debates.

Rather than vote-bombs, the bigger problem is that very few people are reading any serious debates. Most of the votes now are on forfeited or small debates with obvious results. Is it possible that fear of being questioned about RFD is driving away less knowledgeable debaters from voting on well contested serious debates?

At 4/5/2012 8:56:22 AM, baggins wrote:
I don't think there is a solution to voting bias anywhere on earth. There would be some bias in my voting, no matter how hard I try. The win ration reflects a combination of debating skills, closeness of viewpoint to popular opinion and list of loyal friends who will vote on your debates.

Rather than vote-bombs, the bigger problem is that very few people are reading any serious debates. Most of the votes now are on forfeited or small debates with obvious results. Is it possible that fear of being questioned about RFD is driving away less knowledgeable debaters from voting on well contested serious debates?

I don't know. It's possible I just needed to vent about it. I've actually had people ask me to stay (which I seriously didn't think anyone would, necessarily -- I just debate, I don't really stick to the forums too often, so I didn't know if anyone would even notice I'd be gone). I wish there was a way we could just disable voting altogether, since it doesn't seem to be a very functional element of the site.

Dude, your keytar skillz are mad!

Of course we want you to stay!

At 4/5/2012 8:20:36 AM, royalpaladin wrote:
Keytar, which specific debates are you unhappy with? In general, there seems to be a Conservative bias on the site.

That may be true, but if nobody reads the debates then all it takes is those with a liberal bias to vote against you to make you lose.

I don't want to call anyone out specifically, but I recently debated someone on atheism versus theism, and I was ahead. This person comes in and votes, giving my opponent five points and letting him win the debate. His RFD was basically that he gave my opponent the win because burden of proof was shared, and he didn't think I adequately supported my position so I didn't meet burden of proof. But he said that if burden of proof was on my opponent, I would have won for sure. So what he's saying is that I would have won if my opponent had burden of proof, so he didn't meet his burden of proof either. But he gave arguments to my opponent when they should have been tied (causing my opponent to win). Now, he did give my opponent sources and rightly so; he used many more sources than I did. Giving him sources and nothing else would have caused a draw. It was frustrating because he clearly gave my opponent the argument bid so that he would win the debate.

Plus, I can't debate homosexuality without those with a pro-homosexual bias voting on my debates. They say things like I never responded to my opponent's arguments, which is clearly false. I responded to them. You may think my responses are unconvincing, and that's fine. But don't say I didn't respond to them.

Additionally, I debated the KCA against an opponent. I used the common form of the KCA which is used by many Christian philosophers, such as Norman Geisler. However, my opponent used the entire debate trying to show me that the form of the KCA I was arguing isn't the KCA (which was obviously wrong), and plus when he tried to rebut a form of the KCA I wasn't using (which I established in the opening round), I rebutted his arguments and for no less than two rounds, he completely ignored my rebuttals. He ended up winning by a pretty huge margin.

At 4/5/2012 9:14:05 AM, OberHerr wrote:
Dude, your keytar skillz are mad!

Of course we want you to stay!

Well, there is that, I suppose. lol

Okay, so I've decided to stay. From hence forth, I just won't care about the voting. I will simply be using this site to hone my arguments. Thanks for listening to me vent and I apologize if anyone considered it a waste of their time.

At 4/5/2012 8:36:59 PM, KeytarHero wrote:
Okay, so I've decided to stay. From hence forth, I just won't care about the voting. I will simply be using this site to hone my arguments. Thanks for listening to me vent and I apologize if anyone considered it a waste of their time.

I think a lot of people get frustrated with DDO in this way every now and again.

No need to apologize.

At 4/5/2012 8:36:59 PM, KeytarHero wrote:
Okay, so I've decided to stay. From hence forth, I just won't care about the voting. I will simply be using this site to hone my arguments. Thanks for listening to me vent and I apologize if anyone considered it a waste of their time.

It's understandable, I'm annoyed with the bias voting too.. but I'm glad to hear you are gona stay Key

What if we had an option where only 5-10 (or more) selected members by the community could vote on a debate if the instigator chose that option? I think it could work. If a member feels that his debates get a lot of biased votes against him, he could choose the safe side and enable only the chosen members to vote. Someone like RoyLatham votes often and regardless of the topic. He's rarely biased.

At 4/5/2012 9:28:15 PM, Mirza wrote:
What if we had an option where only 5-10 (or more) selected members by the community could vote on a debate if the instigator chose that option? I think it could work. If a member feels that his debates get a lot of biased votes against him, he could choose the safe side and enable only the chosen members to vote. Someone like RoyLatham votes often and regardless of the topic. He's rarely biased.

Not a bad idea. I've actually thought of something similar, except I would say allot more than ten. If it happened I think it should be an on-going thing, where members keep getting added to the list. There are allot of un-biased voters who read the whole debate on this site. Only question is how it's decided whose listed. But yes maybe not too much. Otherwise that option will be too commonly chosen.

At 4/5/2012 9:28:15 PM, Mirza wrote:
What if we had an option where only 5-10 (or more) selected members by the community could vote on a debate if the instigator chose that option? I think it could work. If a member feels that his debates get a lot of biased votes against him, he could choose the safe side and enable only the chosen members to vote. Someone like RoyLatham votes often and regardless of the topic. He's rarely biased.

That would assume that those 5-10 people are interested in reading the debate and have time to do so. Getting votes is tough as it is, someone adding limitations would just keep people from reading his debate all together.

Also, Roylatham is bias. He reads the debate yes, he gives an honest RFD, yes...but he rarely goes against the position he supports especially when it comes to mainstream left/right political issues like abortion.

At 4/5/2012 10:42:54 PM, phantom wrote:

At 4/5/2012 9:28:15 PM, Mirza wrote:
What if we had an option where only 5-10 (or more) selected members by the community could vote on a debate if the instigator chose that option? I think it could work. If a member feels that his debates get a lot of biased votes against him, he could choose the safe side and enable only the chosen members to vote. Someone like RoyLatham votes often and regardless of the topic. He's rarely biased.

Not a bad idea. I've actually thought of something similar, except I would say allot more than ten. If it happened I think it should be an on-going thing, where members keep getting added to the list. There are allot of un-biased voters who read the whole debate on this site. Only question is how it's decided whose listed. But yes maybe not too much. Otherwise that option will be too commonly chosen.

I don't think choosing good judges would be very complex, but it would take a long time. As for whether it should be on-going, I wouldn't say at the beginning - only after the option has been tried and concluded on.

I agree that the problem with these kind of options is that they might be too useful not be used all the time. However, I'm adding several ideas to the Paid Feature system, and one could be that if this system is implemented, it should be included only if one has a premium account. And the active members mostly accept debates rather than instigate, which would mean that the new members would not have this option because they would most likely not have bought a premium account.

At 4/5/2012 9:28:15 PM, Mirza wrote:
What if we had an option where only 5-10 (or more) selected members by the community could vote on a debate if the instigator chose that option? I think it could work. If a member feels that his debates get a lot of biased votes against him, he could choose the safe side and enable only the chosen members to vote. Someone like RoyLatham votes often and regardless of the topic. He's rarely biased.

those people would kill themselves, half of the debates on here arent worth the vote, 40% are just idiotic, and the last 10% is long as sh*t

At 4/5/2012 9:28:15 PM, Mirza wrote:
What if we had an option where only 5-10 (or more) selected members by the community could vote on a debate if the instigator chose that option? I think it could work. If a member feels that his debates get a lot of biased votes against him, he could choose the safe side and enable only the chosen members to vote. Someone like RoyLatham votes often and regardless of the topic. He's rarely biased.

lol seems good in theory... but then all the non-biased voters might get pretty annoyed by it

At 4/5/2012 10:46:04 PM, 000ike wrote:

At 4/5/2012 9:28:15 PM, Mirza wrote:
What if we had an option where only 5-10 (or more) selected members by the community could vote on a debate if the instigator chose that option? I think it could work. If a member feels that his debates get a lot of biased votes against him, he could choose the safe side and enable only the chosen members to vote. Someone like RoyLatham votes often and regardless of the topic. He's rarely biased.

That would assume that those 5-10 people are interested in reading the debate and have time to do so. Getting votes is tough as it is, someone adding limitations would just keep people from reading his debate all together.

Yeah, that's why I'm thinking allot more than 10.

Also, Roylatham is bias. He reads the debate yes, he gives an honest RFD, yes...but he rarely goes against the position he supports especially when it comes to mainstream left/right political issues like abortion.

I unfortunately agree.

At 4/5/2012 10:46:04 PM, 000ike wrote:

At 4/5/2012 9:28:15 PM, Mirza wrote:
What if we had an option where only 5-10 (or more) selected members by the community could vote on a debate if the instigator chose that option? I think it could work. If a member feels that his debates get a lot of biased votes against him, he could choose the safe side and enable only the chosen members to vote. Someone like RoyLatham votes often and regardless of the topic. He's rarely biased.

That would assume that those 5-10 people are interested in reading the debate and have time to do so. Getting votes is tough as it is, someone adding limitations would just keep people from reading his debate all together.

Also, Roylatham is bias. He reads the debate yes, he gives an honest RFD, yes...but he rarely goes against the position he supports especially when it comes to mainstream left/right political issues like abortion.

Whaaaat?? I'm pretty sure I've seen him vote against his beliefs specifically on abortion a few times at least.

At 4/5/2012 10:46:04 PM, 000ike wrote:

At 4/5/2012 9:28:15 PM, Mirza wrote:
What if we had an option where only 5-10 (or more) selected members by the community could vote on a debate if the instigator chose that option? I think it could work. If a member feels that his debates get a lot of biased votes against him, he could choose the safe side and enable only the chosen members to vote. Someone like RoyLatham votes often and regardless of the topic. He's rarely biased.

That would assume that those 5-10 people are interested in reading the debate and have time to do so.

If they don't have the interest and time, would they be picked? No.

Getting votes is tough as it is, someone adding limitations would just keep people from reading his debate all together.

It wouldn't be any harder to get votes whatsoever.

Also, Roylatham is bias. He reads the debate yes, he gives an honest RFD, yes...but he rarely goes against the position he supports especially when it comes to mainstream left/right political issues like abortion.

First, I haven't seen anyone vote more than Roy, which makes him a very useful judge if he'd be willing to participate. Second, he definitely does vote against his own beliefs. I've seen that in my own debates and many others where he voted. Nobody is perfect, but Roy is doing a good job as a voter.

imabench, I said that this option could be an additional feature (paid for). This would mean that only the most active members would most likely be able to choose the option that only specific judges can vote on their debates. And since most active members do not instigate their own debates, but accept debates of less active members, then I think that there would not be too many debates that only the judges can vote on, at all.

At 4/5/2012 10:48:36 PM, Mirza wrote:

At 4/5/2012 10:42:54 PM, phantom wrote:

At 4/5/2012 9:28:15 PM, Mirza wrote:
What if we had an option where only 5-10 (or more) selected members by the community could vote on a debate if the instigator chose that option? I think it could work. If a member feels that his debates get a lot of biased votes against him, he could choose the safe side and enable only the chosen members to vote. Someone like RoyLatham votes often and regardless of the topic. He's rarely biased.

Not a bad idea. I've actually thought of something similar, except I would say allot more than ten. If it happened I think it should be an on-going thing, where members keep getting added to the list. There are allot of un-biased voters who read the whole debate on this site. Only question is how it's decided whose listed. But yes maybe not too much. Otherwise that option will be too commonly chosen.

I don't think choosing good judges would be very complex, but it would take a long time. As for whether it should be on-going, I wouldn't say at the beginning - only after the option has been tried and concluded on.

I think the main issue would be who decides, and their agreement on who should be included, and then, whether the general ddo community agrees.

I agree that the problem with these kind of options is that they might be too useful not be used all the time. However, I'm adding several ideas to the Paid Feature system, and one could be that if this system is implemented, it should be included only if one has a premium account. And the active members mostly accept debates rather than instigate, which would mean that the new members would not have this option because they would most likely not have bought a premium account.

I can see both upsides and downsides of a paid option but I'm not sure I like the idea. It would make juggle pay more attention to the site and thus maybe improve it, but I just don't really like the thought of having to pay in order to access certain features. It's hard to explain, but it's just not appealing to me.

At 4/5/2012 10:57:26 PM, phantom wrote:

At 4/5/2012 10:48:36 PM, Mirza wrote:

At 4/5/2012 10:42:54 PM, phantom wrote:

At 4/5/2012 9:28:15 PM, Mirza wrote:
What if we had an option where only 5-10 (or more) selected members by the community could vote on a debate if the instigator chose that option? I think it could work. If a member feels that his debates get a lot of biased votes against him, he could choose the safe side and enable only the chosen members to vote. Someone like RoyLatham votes often and regardless of the topic. He's rarely biased.

Not a bad idea. I've actually thought of something similar, except I would say allot more than ten. If it happened I think it should be an on-going thing, where members keep getting added to the list. There are allot of un-biased voters who read the whole debate on this site. Only question is how it's decided whose listed. But yes maybe not too much. Otherwise that option will be too commonly chosen.

I don't think choosing good judges would be very complex, but it would take a long time. As for whether it should be on-going, I wouldn't say at the beginning - only after the option has been tried and concluded on.

I think the main issue would be who decides, and their agreement on who should be included, and then, whether the general ddo community agrees.

You mean, who should decide the judges? That should be something the DDO community does by voting or something similar. And the judges would be notified anytime a debate - which has this option on - is finished.

I agree that the problem with these kind of options is that they might be too useful not be used all the time. However, I'm adding several ideas to the Paid Feature system, and one could be that if this system is implemented, it should be included only if one has a premium account. And the active members mostly accept debates rather than instigate, which would mean that the new members would not have this option because they would most likely not have bought a premium account.

I can see both upsides and downsides of a paid option but I'm not sure I like the idea. It would make juggle pay more attention to the site and thus maybe improve it, but I just don't really like the thought of having to pay in order to access certain features. It's hard to explain, but it's just not appealing to me.

I think we'd all like free stuff, but that just doesn't happen. Profit for doing something is generally preferable to no profit for doing something.