ultrarated debates are a bad idea?

Some people like sports, competition,

Whether watching or achieving.

Ranked and Unranked exist in video games,

Unranked being more casual relaxed I think.

Ranked, higher expectations of ability.

Separations of people is not always bad,

People look forward to high ranked individuals sometimes, ranking allows them to be more easily found,

Ranking allows people looking for even looking fights, to find people of similar skill.

Though I've never been terribly concerned with my rank in debates before.

So a few of the issues you're bringing up are partly what the ultrarated system was intended to address. I'll preface my response by saying that this is all theoretical at the moment, and it will be easier to judge once we see ultrarated debates in practice.

The concept of ultra debating is as flawed as the former DART version of it, you segregate people based on effort instead of ideas, you create a vaccum and gate keeping effect that spirals towards echo chamberism

Ultrarated debates are effectively what competitive debate tournaments do. Those don't prevent people from having informal debates, but I think the formal debates tend to be more productive anyway and more focused on arguments instead of personal attacks. You talk about effort as being a negative, but do we not want to reward effort?

With regard to echo chamberism, I think ordinary debates are more susceptible to it since people can choose what to vote on, and there are fewer guidelines to ensure the votes are unbiased. Non-ultrarated debates tended to reward noob sniping or semantic abuse. And in ultrarated, people can be forced to argue against their actual view, which should reduce the echo chamber effect somewhat.

Further, the concept insist upon its self and build egoism, "look at me, im great cause of my rating or debate wins!" When on any given day someone smarter or more eloquent can come along and win in a debate against you by bringing better arguements. The ratings, the rankings are meaningless.

Could this not effectively be said about chess or other skill-based competitions? I think your thesis is that debates shouldn't be competitive in this regard, but then why have voters or ELO in the first place?

I think they're neat. Raising the stakes... ideal for tournaments.

I made mention on some of these things in another thread. Egoism doesnt make a website to prosper. You have seen dart and ddo. How long did having a high rank make people stay? Less than 2 years on average, its community that keeps the platform going.

Debating on a website is not a sport. People would rather watch rl debates, so that as an arguement is shot down.

If this website wants new debaters, its gonna need new values. This isnt dart 2.0.

Im genuinely sorry if the people here feel otherwise, all they know is what they desire.

Frankly thats nonsensical. Every topic is worthy of a person's best. Now if you wanna rate topics as lesser value, that generally speaking is subjective.

If debates are objectively non realistic, perhaps.

But even still, the concept of ranking is flawed.

As for voting? Thats basically just formalized opinions. Why should people grandize a person who has a lot of people liking their arguementation or approving their logic?

Vanity.

But to seek truth and to weigh the subject matters are useful for consideration of a point of view.

What stakes? You literally lose nothing but time. If you lose.

I don't particularly agree with the premise that a competitive system is incongruent with a thriving community. For starters, a community can prioritize things other than absolute retention or numbers. For example, if this website was a general-purpose forum for political discussion, I'm sure it would have more people, but it would also stray from the fundamental purpose of this site: to be a place to foster civil debate.

The main value of debate comes from the skills it teaches. In a few years, you might not remember what happened in your 15th debate here, but the skills you put into researching, analyzing, and engaging with the topic will remain. Thus, a website about debate ought to encourage that.

Fundamentally speaking, the educational value of debate comes from an organized and competitive format. It forces a higher level of rigor in research and discourages bad argumentation by virtue of two values. First, fairness - having a set format, a balanced topic, relatively neutral judges, etc, distinguishes a debate from a competition over who can make more misleading points in a louder manner. Second, accountability - an outside judge to adjudicate a debate in a competitive context forces people to truly engage with the topic, since making biased points that don't engage with the other side is an easy loss. I've had many debate rounds which I've won, yet changed my mind on the topic as a result of said engagement.

That's my justification for why formalized debate is good. Could it perhaps take away from the informal aspect of debate? I don't particularly think so, considering that it's not like there's a limited pool of resources to share between both - instead, they're mutually reinforcing, because they're part of the same growing community, with significant overlap regardless. That aside, the current system doesn't imply any sort of hierarchy; organization or formality has no association with moral value, and it'd be a leap of logic to say so.

What stakes? You literally lose nothing but time. If you lose.

It seems like you answered the question yourself, to an extent. If the only stakes behind formal debate is the time you put into it, then by what metric does it create a sense of superiority over informal debate? Similarly, if rating is truly meaningless, then how does it create the impression that some people's ideas are more valuable than others?

A formalized system has unique and compelling advantages. Furthermore, the value of such a system comes solely to what the participants get out of it, and I don't see a compelling reason to deny that opportunity.

Ego building. In contrast distances people from others in debating non ultra topics.

Ego, to an extent, drives many competitive activities. It's not an inherently bad thing - by definition, it means a person's sense of self-esteem. Ego is the reason why I try to make myself a better person each day.

You can make an argument that any sort of competitive system distances itself from casual forms of the same activity, but that's a truism. We can strive for equality of treatment, but that's not synonymous with equality of opportunity; the easiest way to achieve the latter is to restrict people's options as much as possible so that only the most accessible options remain, yet that brings no tangible benefits beyond achieving an ideal.

People who want to debate informally can do so, while people who want to debate formally now have a place to do that. And as mentioned before, growth within one aspect of the community benefits the website as a whole.

I don't have a strong stake in this, I'm just someone who debated a lot in the past and enjoyed doing so. But I joined the site specifically because it was the only place I could find with a system for formal written debates, and it would be nice to see it stay.

You appreciate order then. I have no qualms with that. Ego is not inspiration enough, will is, the will to contest ideas, the will to be proven right.

Competition is a folly for vanity, i have no regard for it.

For sure competition can be a power trip for the vain.

And an emotional outlet for the inadequate.

Sort of mirrors social structure doesn't it?

If people want to do them, who cares. I personally never cared for any win/lose system in a debate because each is flawed and pointless, but I can understand how some people like seeing those numbers go up just as I like when my tik tok grows by 100 in followers.