The Cleaners

Everyone knows about vote bombing, which is the practice of a small group pouring all their votes with no justification onto one person. Purposes for doing so may range from just wanting to raise each others' percentages to purposely trashing another person's win rate.

Whether or not CWO, as made infamous by the other debate, exists to vote bomb or not, one fact is clear: vote bombing exists.

I myself have been victim to it several times. The first few by a single person who made several accounts. Logical_Master was also a victim in that case.

In addition, I have debated several Early Earth Creationists who, unable to stand their constant losses against me, decided to vote bomb me as well.

The most recent case on this site would be after I posted a few statements on the CWO debate criticizing the Instigator, a member of CWO. Today, I wake up to find Tatarize's message in my message box stating "Wow, you got vote bombed just as hard as I did, you went from about 70 wins to 35"

Although I have gotten to the point where win rate isn't quite as important anymore, I was shocked to see that both Tatarize and I were victims of such injustice just overnight.

Thus, my proposal: I will be forming a group of highly intelligent, unbiased debaters. This group will be large enough to wield significant power, but always with justification. Should any situation arise in which vote-bombing has occurred without any rhyme or reason, The Cleaners shall intervene and put right where there is wrong.

There will be harsh guidelines to restrict membership, but this is only to prevent abuse of power. I would like to field questions both in this debate and in the comment section.

First, a few observations and thoughts:

1) ANYONE who tries to improve the quality of the site by ANY means will be criticized by others for various reasons, both vocally and "in practice."
a) This does not mean that we should not still try and improve the community.

2) "Vote-bombing" exists and will continue, probably no matter what anyone does or says. There are simply too many childish, petty, and ignorant users in the community.
a) This does not mean that we should not try and stop this trend, or at least curb it.

3) Some members seem to be against "groups" of ANY kind. I personally am against a group that is a voting bloc, i.e. one that votes blindly for or against an ideology or other stance.
a) It is not groups themselves that necessarily have this in mind. There are, however, individuals within the groups that will act in this manner of their own initiative, and would/will act like this whether the group existed or not and whether they were/are a member of whatever group.
b) As there is soon a feature called "Groups" coming to the site, we should all get used to groups.

I do not personally think that The Cleaners as envisioned by Kleptin would be a voting bloc. As he said, it would be more of a Court of Appeals type deal, as well as set the example for voting responsibly and objectively as possible. NO ONE can deny that this is a problem, in as much as voting is concerned. I for one would love the feedback - how are any of us supposed to become better debaters, etc. without constructive criticism. Yes, win percentage is a fairly irrelevant and superficial way of telling how good a debater is. That said, it is not losing that bothers me. However, it would be nice to know WHY people thought I lost (or won).

Now, the somewhat controversial CWO was ostensibly NOT a voting bloc. It was created in order to help conservative debaters. A noble cause, indeed. However, it soon deteriorated into that, from all evidence I have seen, because someone felt disrespected/insulted. It is not my wish to bring this controversy back to life. But here we are. The difference I see between the CWO and The Cleaners is that the CWO was secretive and private, and only catered to one ideology, whereas The Cleaners are to be public and open and serve to better both all debaters individually as well as the community as a whole.

There are, of course, questions to be answered. As it is Kleptin's idea, he bears the responsibility for answering them, as he has been doing in the comments section.

1) Can we see a more specific idea of the rubric and membership requirements?

2) Can you give a working example of what an action by The Cleaners would look like?

3) Can you guarantee no vote-bombing or abuse of power? If so, how?

4) Will there be anything like an "independent counsel" to oversee The Cleaners if needed?

5) Is the idea for The Cleaners merely a reaction to the CWO?

6) How will the "appeals process" work precisely?

That's all I have for now.
Back to Kleptin.

Britt

1) The rubric is simple. It is simply to follow the rules of voting as established by debate.com

As we know, many people allocate the points fully to one person regardless of category. These are "Spelling and Grammar", "Reliability of Source", "Strength of Argument", and "Quality of Conduct". Each cleaner will be required to explain why he has allocated points of each category, not just give a blanket statement. This is to make sure that nobody gives the "Spelling and Grammar" points to someone just because their opponent's argument was far inferior.

As for the membership requirements, I will not be looking for much. I will first start out with members of the leaderboard who have demonstrated that they harbor no strong political or idealogical biases and who would be as adept at critiquing debates as they are at debating.

After an initial trial period, I will begin accepting requests to "audition". The audition process is essentially submission of debates, and I will be looking at them for the following:

A. Competency in Debate and understanding how debates are won, lost, and carried out.
B. Adaptability. I will ask recruits to argue on both sides of a particular point and get accustomed to doing so.

The final part would be the actual submission of reviews. These are cases in which they find debates, give a thorough and detailed analysis of the arguments given, and an equally detailed explanation as to how they allocated points for each category.

2) I have not yet assembled a group, so I cannot put them in action to give a visible example. I can, however, detail the steps.

First, we will have a mode of contact. Those who wish to "report" a debate will do so on a forum topic I will set up after our group is formed. While there is no guarantee that other people who view the topic will give it consideration, Cleaner members *must* submit their analyses and vote accordingly by a deadline. Possibly a week. Having 10 dedicated people offering input and voting with little to no bias will make results much more accurate, but the number will most likely grow by then.

That is the essential method of how the cleaners would work. If need be, I shall implement new methods of communication, division of labor, having subgroups handle divided reports, etc. But it will maintain the integrity of the cleaners because at the very root, I am only directing the focus of voting, not the way votes are carried out.

3) I can guarantee that no vote bombing will occur because vote bombing is the unjustified allocation of points by a mass group of people. All cleaners are required to post a lengthy analysis to explain their votes. In addition, I can guarantee that there will be no abuse of power because there is no power. I myself will only have the responsibility and power of a taxi cab dispatcher, directing the members to go where needed, and making sure that members who are due to vote, vote. Since I have no say in HOW they vote, only that they vote, and vote with justification, it is impossible for me to abuse my power.

4) If the Cleaners work out the way I want it to, there will be no need. My short term goal is to create a police force. my long term goal is to increase the members of the Cleaners to encompass all of debate.com, so that each and every member will take up the habit of posting detailed explanations of their votes. However, in the event that there is too much work to handle, I will assign people to monitor smaller divisions of the Cleaners. The division is that simple, just to make sure people vote in the debates they are assigned.

5) Yes and No. I have had the idea for a while, and the controversy of the CWO was merely the straw that broke the camel's back. My very first debate on this site (The Walmart Debate) started out as a loss and continues to be a loss even though I personally know that my argument was far superior. The comment section was filled with spam with no productive input, and dominated by my opponent's debate buddy, and the votes are always against my favor. I have also encountered vote bombing several times by fundamentalist, young earth creationists who were angry that they lost debates to me time and time again, as well as for being Logical_Master and Yraelz and Beem0r at the same time.

When CWO popped up, vote bombing no longer became a shadowy occurrence. There was now a group dedicated to it, and this prompted my action, fearing that debate.com would eventually turn into a battlefield of cliques as opposed to a place of debate.

6) The "appeals process" will be done via forum. I will set up a topic for people to submit debates for "appeal". In addition, i will also be assigning debates from the "Official I should not have lost" thread. If there are no assignments, Cleaners should habitually vote on whatever debates they find, and if they find injustice, should bring it to the attention of the other Cleaners.

I'll be happy to field any more questions.

Well, you've covered all of my questions quite sufficiently. I would ask more, but no one in the comments section seems to have any, either. Perhaps something will come to me for R3.

Danke

Britt

I'll be taking any other questions in the comment section.

When groups are set up, I'll make it official.

Well, I'm convinced this is a good way to go.

Add my name to the group if you feel it appropriate:)