Voting for Yourself in a Debate

In your debates, do you vote for your case ?

I have, but I'm bothered by doing so.

The competitor in me wants to win. But I also want to get an unbiased assessment of the merits of the debate. So these two tendencies are in conflict.

I'm interested in your opinion.

Of course I do. Most do. If you have the ability to vote, then use it.

But, if you're going to vote, then vote based on how you actually think the debate went, even if it means giving a point to the other guy.

As well, if your opponent cannot vote, but you can, then there is clearly an unfair advantage there. Voting then should be discouraged; if we had any updates to the system, it would be good if there was a way to not allow people to vote on their own debates if the system knows their opponent also cannot vote.

I usually only vote when it is obvious that my opponent voted, or if the win is obvious (i.e. the opponent forfeited all but the first round).

At 10/31/2009 8:59:20 PM, dogparktom wrote:
In your debates, do you vote for your case ?

I have, but I'm bothered by doing so.

its not biased if you believe what your saying is true then vote for yourself. don't be bothered by voting what you debate for

It depends on how well you did. If you feel you have done horribly, it probably wouldn't be ethical to vote yourself just for the win. But of course you should vote for yourself, if you debated at the best of your ability and you think you personally did a better job.

That's one reason why I don't vote here, even for my own debates.

To me, in order to win a debate, you should earn enough votes/points from others without needing your own.

I think it would be best if noone were able to vote on their own topic.
There's a clear conflict of interest which isn't there if people don't.
This irked me on my one debate because I didn't know if my opponent did, but I didn't want to if he didn't.

perhaps the voter transparency, *coming soon, should make this less of an issue.