More DebateThis

I read over the two long posts concerning DebateThis and I wrote down some of my thoughts. I've also been working on a quick mockup of how I envision some of the DT pages including the front page (with the top 10 list and all) and the DebateSpace profile page.

After going over the whole project I had one small bit I was iffy about and I want to hear what others think about it as well. The whole idea of DebateThis being a competition with a rankings ladder and handing out rewards to those who do the best seems almost a little too, for lack of a better word, competitive for my tastes. I'm not saying we should scrap any part of the points system but I think we need to tweak how rewards (and what rewards) are distributed in the community.

First off, I don't think certain members should have a privilege over other members to post audio and video, not to mention giving higher ranked members more space to voice their opinion. I feel like other members, especially newbies, would get the impression that these other debaters have an unfair advantage over them and this might affect their decision to stay with the site. In my opinion all members should be given the same functionality in their posts off the bat.

Something I've observed on Digg. Members like to post news regardless of their celebrity. There are some members who post a great deal more news than others but their main motivation is not getting known on Digg. In my opinion they just want to make some positive contributions to a site they really like. They don't do it for fame (but the community still recognizes them as big name posters). I don't think our members should be motivated by fame either, and if they are they're getting involved in debate for all the wrong reasons). This doesn't mean we should get rid of the rankings system or points. We just need to improve it a little.

I'm still a little fuzzy on how one accumulates points for their rank. Is it solely based on how highly rated their posts were? How does one really decide who has won or lost at a particular debate? I feel as though the debate rank, the thing that determines your "place" in the community, should be based on two things. First a sum total of the time you've spent debating/posting/commenting in a particular thread should be taken into account. This will help judge how much time and effort a particular member has spent on their arguments. This number is complemented by a set of "quality points", or, how highly or disdainfully the community votes your posts. This would also depend on us having a mature and honest community of debaters, but depending on how many positive (or negative) votes your posts receive your ranking would change positively or negatively. This holds members accountable for what they say and how intelligent/well thought out their posts are.

Finally, if one can't earn the ability to post videos or audio in their threads what value does the ranking and points system have? Well, it's true that with my model those things would be available to members for free but I think we're missing a critical thing here that could really boost traffic and discourse on the site. Debaters will still earn points if their arguments score accordingly but instead of being able to trounce other members with extra features they've bought how about if the points could go towards extra options in the DebateSpace profiles?

When members start at the site their DebateSpace will only give them a few fields to describe themselves with (picture, birthday, town, high school, ect). After earning enough points though users could choose to "buy" more pieces to add to their profile (favorite things, a wall, more space for pictures, ect), and with Facebook apps becoming all the rage the possibilities for extras on ones profile could be limitless. Taking a page from wikipedia (ha ha, bad pun) we could also create a series of "badges" a member could buy and add to their profile. They would be little graphics that describe something about the member in question. Check out a wikipedia profile page here. We could also add other things members can buy such as merchandise (who doesn't want a DebateThis polo shirt?!) and other things I'm too tired to come up with at the moment.

Anyway, what are people's thoughts on this? We need to tone down the competitive aspect to ensure the site is still fun and challenging but at the same time we need an incentive for people to participate and I think being able to add more to your profile (self promote in a sense) is a pretty good incentive.