Feedback from new user

User feedback

See above. Idk if this tagging works or who else I need to tag.

See above. Sorry if I forgot to tag some moderator. I dont know how many moderators there are.

Without requiring RFDs, the quality of votes goes way down to almost worthless. We gotta have some metric for determining who made better arguments. With any complicated debate, most voters aren't gonna bother to track all the arguments and will just go with who they agree with. Also if they want us to get rid of voting, couldn't they just...not vote, and it would be the same effect? Or comment who they think won?

Feedback can be good to have, still. . . I think.

I like the layout and look of the site.

Voting rubric seems clear enough, though could be a bit more visible to people.

https://www.debatecraft.com/debates/vote-rubric

I 'think a person could create a vote free debate if they wanted, they'd just need to specify such in the description rules.

Admittedly the vote option is still there, but they can just set vote time short and ask mods to remove any votes that occur.

People can even have loose votes for a debate, if they put such in the description rules.

I'd say the purpose of voting depends on the people who create the system for voting.

I can't comment on the removed vote, since I don't know which vote it was.

(I'm not asking which vote it was)

I think the site is pretty easy to use,

The Ultrarated Tournaments have a 'bit of a wall, but it's 'really not that high.

Without requiring RFDs, the quality of votes goes way down to almost worthless.

I mean, what is our goal here?

Because if its more users, we aint achieving it for sure this way. two new users took issue with voting standards, and one quit the site and server, stating the voting issues on site as main reason.

You cant demand quality from new users, because thats missing the point of any idea of customer service. We are supposed to offer to users a way to express, not demand from them too much.

If users want to be able to vote on all debates freely, we are not providing that, and they quit.

So this isnt about "users can do this instead". Its about what users actually want to be able to do on the site.

I 'think a person could create a vote free debate if they wanted

Person can also quit the site, apparently, and thats what happens much more.

I'm not studied in what makes various websites or communities stick.

I don't know why DDO took off,

Maybe it was just lucky, arrived at the right moment of social media,

Maybe it was advertised right or at lucky time,

Maybe it was the Opinions and Polls,

(Shrug) I don't know.

DebateArt, arguably has less restrictions currently than DebateCraft does.

But DebateArt also has population problem.

. . .

Many of the people invited from Discord, already 'have Discord, even 'if we changed, I'm doubtful they'd stick around 'too long.

. . .

Theoretical. . . What does a debate site offer?

A means of settling dispute with randoms or known people,

Disagree with some fellow in the YouTube comments, how do you two decide who was right?

A DUEL I SAY!

Of reason, rhetoric, and source.

I suppose one could also disagree in Discord, and this site again is the option.

Sure you might judge success on YouTube or Discord by thumbs up of other random or known people,

. . But that's not quality, that's not a voter held accountable or giving 'real feedback.

So this isnt about "users can do this instead". Its about what users actually want to be able to do on the site.

You have to consider the current user base too though. They seem to care a lot more about vote quality. Plenty of people might leave if we change things, but we don't see them complaining because they are happy. The current user base are also the ones investing a ton of effort into growing the site.

Also, the type of user who doesn't want voting is just gonna ditch us for Modern-Day Debate eventually, they can get way more of what they want there. Our only unique feature, really, is the leaderboard. That can be a big asset long term, but not if we kill the quality of votes.

You have to consider the current user base too though. They seem to care a lot more about vote quality

the current userbase has left this site just about dead. Novice quit because, in his words, "voting quality was bad" (So not everyone even thinks we have quality, so what are we offering then?). Most of top debaters from leaderboard currently dont have any debate going on or voting at all, and this is true for months now. Our discord sees more activity than this site, despite our discord not really offering anything "unique" compared to other servers.

Just because something is "unique" doesnt make it good.

Many of the people invited from Discord, already 'have Discord, even 'if we changed, I'm doubtful they'd stick around 'too long.

If you want for site to grow, you absolutely have to listen to wishes of users, not just current users, but new users as well.

So when new users give me complaints about voting system, and then say thats their reason for quitting site, I must logically assume we would have more users if voting system was different.

Voting system will always be corrupt, but if we also make it demanding and difficult, then it just means less users long term.

As for our discord server, currently 50% of invited people who come to server, leave server. We retain about 50% so far, which is nice enough. Better than this site so far, which seems to be not retaining almost any new users, and also losing old ones, and somehow our discord seems to be more desirable than our site, so directing users to site might not even be a good idea because we are directing them to less desirable place.

Fair point, new people's want 'do have a degree of value.

And likely some people have left out of frustration if they disagreed with mods removing their vote.

I don't know if such votes were or were not reported,

. . . But theoretical, let's assume they 'were reported by one of the debaters.

They had an expectation of minimum requirements for votes on their debate, by the rules of the site.

If votes that don't meet standards are allowed a pass,

Then we alienate the debater.

If someone is always going to be alienated,

Then perhaps it is better we alienate a person who does not share our ideals on voting. Rather than the longer standing member of the community.

Voting 'is optional, and one learns to avoid voting or accepting certain debates, due to. . . mismatch of personalities and values.

. . .

I would imagine part of the issue for gaining a community for this site,

Is for it to be something people want to join, there needs to be many people,

But because it is relatively new site, there are not many people.

Catch 22.

. . . . Course, that is why some people want to focus on marketing and ads I suppose, try to get that traction and community, so that new people see there is community and join.

. . .

It might not be 'bad to include debate voting option when creating debate, that voter does not need to meet DebateCraft Vote standards.

But I also think too many options, too much complexity is bad too.

If people 'wanted or didn't care about votes of low quality, they can state such as a rule in their debate description.

the usual rule of community growth is that bigger communities grow more easily, because more people hear about them from other people, due to communities being famous.

However, I am effectively bypassing that rule a bit by making people hear about our discord from me, instead of waiting for community to grow enough to achieve that.

And our discord seems to be doing well so far. If we keep getting 4 users per day, and 2 of those stay, its long term 600 users within a year. Long term planning and hard work for years, but sure.

Our youtube channel and google ads didnt achieve even close to same effect as private invites of discord.

I wish we could program a bot to send invites, but we gotta figure out how to make bot avoid captcha, because bots cant solve those.

Right now, I have to manually solve captcha at each invite to send invites.

When it comes to complaints from new users, I do have to take them into consideration and present their case here. And their opinion is shared by some current users too. If we cant fix voting system, then a better idea might be to just remove it because we will never have quality which pleases users. Good debater might quit site if he feels votes on his debate are unjust, and that has already happened a lot. Its not avoidable and we are not solving it by raising voting standards.

Alright, I made alt for discord, and successfully joined modern day debate again. My alt doesnt seem to have captcha issues mostly. But I only sent like 3 invites in one day on alt.

Bro just say you don't want this website to be a debate website already and move on with your life.

Debating isnt the issue. Voting system seems to be. Our discord has no voting system, but plenty of debating there, more than here. It seems that here, we disappoint both groups. those that want quality votes are more often disappointed than not, and those who want for voting to be easy are also disappointed. So what is advantage of this system we use?

Novice quit because, in his words, "voting quality was bad"

He never did UltraRated

Our discord has no voting system, but plenty of debating there,

Correction. There's plenty of discussions that happen on there. Those same types of discussions happen on the forums. If you want to do a formalized, competitive debate, like what the entire point of this site is supposed to be for, voting is something that needs to exist.

Ultrarated debates also suffer greatly from lack of votes, and arent attractive much to new users due to being too demanding. But when it comes to rated debates specifically, no, voting quality there did not satisfy or motivate many users, including top debaters, many of who just quit. And if top debaters quit, thats like more harm to site than if some bad debater quit, but we see both top debaters and regular debaters quit.

Ultrarated debates also suffer greatly from lack of votes

Once we have enough people to do tournaments regularly, it'll start moving fast enough that it'll probably get more popular.

If you want to do a formalized, competitive debate, like what the entire point of this site is supposed to be for, voting is something that needs to exist.

Formal competitive debate is one thing. You can have formal competitive debate without any voters. And if good voting system exists which motivates competitive debating, great. But it doesnt. Unlike wins in chess which are pretty straight forward, win in debate here is often decided by bad votes. And that is no longer competitive debating. Which causes users to quit. A bad voting system is worse than no voting system, because bad voting system effectively punishes quality. I have been on these sites long enough to see them slowly die. And they die from the very thing they worship. the existence of opposite votes on debates pretty much shows there is no any objective "win standard" regulating votes.Its like if there was a chess game, and one judge said you won, and the other said you lost. Would that make sense? Users endlessly arguing with voters, until they quit. Because the effort is not worth it.

I simply have to make case for new users here, who find it extremely difficult to use the site. they in most cases cant figure out how to vote properly, cant bother to enter ultrarated. So if majority of people interested in debating quits our site, that is not good. Our site so far appeals only to people interested in arguing, and at same time repels most of those people. How is that any good sign?

the existence of opposite votes on debates pretty much shows there is no any objective "win standard" regulating votes.Its like if there was a chess game, and one judge said you won, and the other said you lost. Would that make sense?

The win condition is maximizing what percent of voters vote for you. That's an objectively measurable thing. The criteria for voting are to ensure it's not arbitrary. After enough debates, everyone learns the biases of the user base, so it's a level playing field.

You can have formal competitive debate without any voters.

No, you literally cannot. Even practice rounds has someone acting as a judge.

win in debate here is often decided by bad votes.

That's just...like...your opinion, man. Voting quality on DC has actually been pretty high from what I've seen, just infrequent.

the existence of opposite votes on debates pretty much shows there is no any objective "win standard" regulating votes.

The idea of regulating votes is, in itself, fucking hilarious. The only level of 'regulation' that sound exist on votes is some effort to push people towards actually reading the debate and understanding what is being said. Otherwise, people should absolutely be free to vote however they'd like. But they do, in fact, have to do the bare minimum of reading the debate and voting based on what was said in the round.

That being said, there is no such thing as an 'objective win standard' for votes because each debate is different. There's an infinite possibility of different topics that exist, and even in debates where the topics are the same, the arguments presented within by either/both sides could vary wildly. Given that voting should be based solely off of what was said in the round, to try and impose some 'objective' standard to this is impossible and stupid to try.

So yes, voting requires effort. Just as much as actually competing in the debate does. It's certainly a doable level of effort, and if you're on here the idea shouldn't really faze you that much. But if you're legitimately put off by the thought of putting in effort to reading a debate and voting based on what was said and not just whatever you want to say, then you should absolutely not vote.

I simply have to make case for new users here

Or! Or! Or, and bear with me here, you could just not. Let the site grow organically instead of spamming people's discord notifications.

Our discord server saw a big rise in users. We went from under 120 members to 146 in less than a week thanks to invites. thats 26 more users in less than week, even when including all who left. However, that wont translate well to site with a crappy voting system. Zora, for example, was somewhat happy with our discord. But when she came to site, she was so disappointed with voting system that she quit both site and discord, and made a complaint which was messaged to me in private messages on discord. And one more new user is complaining about voting system. So when we have both top debaters and new users complaining about voting system, thats not good. We will lose most of new users who come, unless voting system is improved, just as we lost many of old users due to very same system.

Only a minority of people in world are debaters. And we are only suitable for minority of debaters right now. So we only suit minority of minority. that has to change. We can make users like Novice and others come back if we have a better voting system.

Because, I repeat, we lost like majority of top debaters. So if we are losing top debaters and new users, what are we gaining?

So what is your proposed voting system that pleases everyone?

Right now, we are pleasing almost no one. Historically, we lost majority of our users, top debaters and regulars, due to voting system which didn't suit either of those two groups.

When I asked Novice why he quit, he said he was dealing with bad voters for years, and he didn't want to deal with them anymore. And this is guy with hundreds of debates and 97% win rate.

And he was like one of best debaters. Even Bones (other debater in top 10) considered him best debater on site.

So this is not just my opinion anymore. It's opinion of majority of debaters and top debaters who quit the site.

To please both top debaters and new users, is difficult, but the only solution is dual system.

Ultrarated for top debaters, rated for new users.

So in ultrarated, a better more strict voting system with clear voting standards, where voters apply deductive logic to explain who won.

In rated, voting which has no requirements, and no vote removals. So whatever vote users cast in rated, it's fine. Other additional option also is to have votes in rated which don't affect elo or win rate. Users just write opinion on who won and that's it. (This removes negative effect of bad votes in rated on debating users).

Any other solution either results in great disappointment of overwhelming majority of new users and casual debaters, or great disappointment of most of top debaters. (Current system disappoints both).

Removing voting system (alternative solution) as a whole would remove all corruption which comes with voting systems, but I am aware that solution is something which won't pass here, and some users enjoy being purely voters not debaters, so I don't want to lose those users, but current voting system loses those users too a lot. Voting system which doesn't affect elo or win rate, and has no voting standards, is ideal for rated for new users and casual debaters, and those who like voting. For top debaters, ultrarated with more strict standards.

Maybe have a setting "unmodded votes" on debates then? Or no vote standards for casual?

Or just have no any vote standard for all non-ultrarated debates. Because I don't see many "non-modded debates" right now new users can cast votes on. It's easier to divide all debates on just two groups: ultrarated and casual. Casual has no elo or win rate, and voting there is unmoderated. So that would encourage those who seek ELO and high competition and high voting standards to do ultrarated, while casual debaters and casual voters can stick to casual unmoderated debates which have no ELO or win rate. This essentially pleases all major groups: casual voters, casual debaters, and high standards debaters.

How is the voting rubric accessed without having the website link you provided. It should be a mended item, along with CoC, etc, like DART had