Code of Conduct

I. Introduction

DebateCraft is a platform dedicated to the art of debating. Our goal is to foster an environment where members can engage and debate ideas openly. This Code of Conduct defines behavioral expectations, ethical boundaries, and enforcement tools necessary to maintain site integrity and quality.

Administrators and moderators retain the power to adjust this Code of Conduct at any time by a majority vote. However, admins and moderators will typically appeal to the community first before making any major change or adjustment. Our site owner, airmax1227, shall have final authority in all administration and moderator decisions.

II. Account Rules

• All users must be at minimum 13 years old.
• Each user may only have one active account. Users may request to close their account and start fresh with a new one.
• Usernames and profile pictures may not:
  • Contain profanities or slurs
  • Contain graphic or grotesque content
  • Impersonate DebateCraft, an administrator or moderator
• Accounts reasonably believed to be bots may be banned and their contributions removed.
• Coordinated multi‑account behavior intended to skew debates, votes, or moderation outcomes is prohibited.
• Impersonating public figures for the purpose of criticism, satire, and comedy is permitted.

III. Core Conduct Rules

These rules govern the basic standards that we hold everyone accountable to. The purpose of these rules is not to stifle debate or free speech, but to foster an environment where all can truly be heard and respected.

DebateCraft allows a wide range of content, but just because something is permitted does not mean it is encouraged. While mods will not intervene every time a user says something in poor taste, site members are strongly encouraged not to be jerks to each other or be a headache for the mods. This is not to say that “being a jerk” is against the rules if it doesn’t stray into posting prohibited content, but we’d rather that the free speech on this site is seen as something we can be proud of and not a necessary evil.

Basic Conduct

Users are encouraged to:

• Treat all users with respect.
• Attack the argument and not the arguer.
• Not start or ignite flame wars.

Prohibited Content

The following content is prohibited (note this is not a comprehensive list):

• Hardcore or softcore pornography.
• Advocating for sexual assault, rape, pedophilia, incest, bestiality, or other sex crimes.
• Advocating for violence against groups of people or individuals.
• Incitement of terrorism or terrorist activities
• Direct calls to violence or direct threats
• Anything that infringes on another person’s intellectual property.

Discussions about those topics are permitted provided that they do not stray into advocacy for illegal activity. Such topics would be marked as offensive by the moderation team.

While users are permitted to advocate for changes to the law or defend the morality of past crimes or hypothetical actions in the abstract, incitement or encouragement of specific criminal activity is prohibited.

Prohibited Conduct

The following conduct is prohibited and could result in sanctions up to and including a permanent ban from the site (again, note that this is not an exhaustive list):

• Use of DebateCraft to conduct criminal activity
• Use of DebateCraft to gamble
• Using multiple accounts to manipulate debate votes, moderation outcomes, or to circumvent moderator sanctions and blocks.
• Doxxing, or threatening to dox, another member.
• Using malware, phishing, credential theft, or other malicious tools against DebateCraft or its users.
• Substantial unsolicited advertising spam or large-scale repetitive nonsense.
• Harassment, defined as conduct such as repeated personal attacks or unwanted advances against a user who has requested you stop and stopped engaging. In gray areas, a post would be considered a personal attack if a reasonable person would consider the post primarily motivated by an attempt to offend or attack the target user, rather than an earnest belief that may happen to also be offensive.
• Large-scale automated or AI-assisted flooding that substantially interferes with site function or ordinary participation.
• Even if a single post does not violate the rules in isolation, a body of work that constitutes harassment, spam, or direct threats when viewed as a whole would still warrant moderator action

Sensitive and Offensive Content

As a debate site, sensitive and offensive content is sure to come up. If you do not wish to see threads and posts marked as offensive, then you may hide those posts automatically by going to your profile, opening Settings, and selecting “Hide content marked as offensive”.

AI Use in Forum

Users are permitted to use AI to write a full forum post or comment a maximum of once a day and a maximum of three times a week.

IV. Formal Debate Rules and Expectations

DebateCraft offers three formal debate formats: Unrated debates, rated debates, and ultrarated debates.

• Unrated debates are debates which do not affect participants’ Elo ranking.
• Rated debates are debates that affect participants’ Elo ranking.
• Ultrarated debates are debates where you are given a randomized topic, a randomized side to argue, and a randomized opponent. In order to participate in ultrarated debates you must obtain the topic and voter badges by going to your profile, opening Badges, and taking the voter and topic quizzes. You will need 3 voter and 3 topic points to start an ultrarated debate.

The purpose of these rules is to protect the integrity of formal debates and outline expectations that we have for voters and debaters.

As a Debater

Authorship and Plagiarism

• Presenting another person’s work as one’s own is plagiarism.
• Presenting AI-generated arguments as one’s own reasoning and arguments is treated like plagiarism.

Use of AI in Formal Debates

• Substantial AI contributions to arguments require disclosures
• Undisclosed reliance on AI-generated argumentation may invalidate debates, result in debate removal, or trigger enforcement actions as defined in the enforcement tools section.

Scroll horizontally to compare all three debate formats.

As a Voter

The role of voters is to grade arguments objectively, analysing the logic of each side to determine which debater defends their side more effectively. It is not simply to say which arguments they personally like better or which side they agree with.

In order for a vote to pass moderator review in rated or ultrarated debates, the reason for decision (RFD) must at minimum:

• Votes solely based on relative strength of arguments made in the debate, and analysis of these arguments by the debaters, including relevant responses and weighing analysis.
• Explains why the arguments analyzed are enough to determine the outcome, not ignoring key arguments that could change the outcome.
• Displays neutrality, making clear that any personal opinions mentioned do not affect how arguments are weighed.
• Votes based on the scope set by the debate resolution and rules.
• Votes based on a framework provided in the debate, or, if none was given, weighs arguments case by case.
• If disagreeing with the debate's framing, the voter clearly establishes why their interpretation is more faithful and how it influences their vote
• If giving weight to material introduced in the final round when there is no room for the other debater to respond, addresses how this material was (a) seeded earlier in the debate such that the point was implied, or (b) addresses why this point could not have been made earlier (i.e. it’s responding to a newly introduced point by the other debater in the final round)
• If giving weight to material introduced in the final round when there is still one more chance for the other debater to respond, addresses how this material meets (a) or (b) above, or (c) does not dominate so much of their final round that having to respond to this amount of new material puts an undue burden on the final round debater.

For a more detailed guide visit Voting rubric

In order to vote on ultrarated debates, you must take and pass the voter quiz: Voter quiz

Please note that the following conduct is prohibited and will result in moderation action:

• Using AI to create an RFD
• Using multiple accounts to vote on the same debate
• Creating an alternative account to vote for yourself on a debate

Note that if multiple votes are removed due to insufficient RFDs the moderation team may temporarily revoke voting permissions.

The following debates will not be moderated for votes:

• Troll debates
• Debates that are inherently subjective (i.e. rap battles, music battles, etc.)
• Debates that are full forfeits (unless you vote for the side that forfeited). A full forfeit is defined when a debater forfeited all rounds in a debate, or, in debates with 3+ rounds, all rounds except one.
• Mutual full forfeit debates where neither side makes an argument will be deleted.

V. Enforcement Tools

The moderation team has multiple methods to enforce this code of conduct.

Bans

Bans are reserved for serious or repeated violations where other corrective measures have failed or are clearly insufficient.

The minimum ban length shall be 3 days.

Warnings

Warnings may be issued privately or publicly. Public warnings clarify expectations for others and do not imply greater severity than private warnings.

Loss of Privileges

Privilege restrictions are directly tied to the offense and will almost always be preceded by a warning. These include, but are not limited to:

• Repeated bad-faith voting or posting a series of insufficient RFDs.
• Repeated creation of spam threads
• Repeated creation of spam posts.

Editing or Removal of Content

Moderation may edit or remove content in the following circumstances:

• Debates:
  • Spam debates will be deleted
  • Abandoned debates with no arguments will be deleted
• Votes
  • Votes in violation of the voting policy will be deleted.
• Forum posts and content
  • Content that violates the code of conduct may be edited, removed, or marked as offensive by the moderation team
  • Direct attacks and slurs against users may be curated.

No Action Merited

The actions listed here are some examples of content that would not warrant moderator action when in isolation:

• Vague, satirical, or non-literal calls for violence (e.g. “Politicians should be shot” or “We need more rioting”) provided such statements do not become specific, targeted, or serious.
• Defense of civilian casualties in war, provided no hostility is directed at victims.
• References to statistics that paint groups in a negative light when presented with neutrality and without personal attack

Users may not be sanctioned for conduct that did not violate an applicable rule when it occurred. Amendments apply prospectively from their effective date

Public Moderation Decisions

In order to maintain trust between moderation and users, all major moderation decisions will be made public. This includes bans, permission losses, and major changes to the COC. These changes shall be logged in the public moderation thread viewed here: Public Moderation Log

VI. Community Ballot Initiatives

Community members are permitted to petition for a site-wide referendum concerning moderation policies, COC provisions, or other subjects relevant to community moderation.

A petition that receives the required number of valid signatures shall trigger a referendum. Once the moderation team verifies the signatures are valid, they shall create an official thread and send a global announcement to all users informing them about the referendum.

Currently, 9 signatures are required to trigger a referendum. For a signature to be valid, the account must have been active for at least 30 days with some prior site participation.

VII. Appeals

Users who are not banned can appeal moderator sanctions by directly contacting a member of the DebateCraft moderation team on DebateCraft or on Discord. Banned users must contact the moderation team through Discord, because banned accounts cannot send messages on DebateCraft.