I think polling people before the debate to get the "initial odds" and then after to see how the consensus has shifted and combining that with some sort of score like CMW does would go a long way to advance the gamification!
Big fan of Intelligence Squared but haven't seen ChangeMyView before, thanks for sharing.
Regarding the polling suggestion, that's actually how it works! Clearly need to work on the messaging a bit, to make that more apparent. There's an initial poll and then you're asked if you've changed your mind after a minute of reading the arguments.
I've had something like this idea for a long time and I have a feeling it's one of those ideas in the idea-o-sphere that lots of people have that is either impossible to implement or get traction on(I have a feeling the latter). Maybe it's because people don't want to see someone win an argument, they just want to vocalize their opinions as loudly as possible?
Anyways, what is your strategic advantage? How do you imagine debatable progressing? Could it ever be as big as one of the social media networks, or at least a well known niche? Are there competitors who've done something similar?
Great questions! All consumer apps have a hard time getting traction. We're taking an iterative approach here.
The strategic advantage here is focus. Just like there's only one Wordle, or the front cover of NYTimes, per day, we're creating artificial scarcity by focusing peoples attention on just one debate at the day.
I would consider this a success if people start asking themselves, "hey, have you heard the debate of the day?"
In terms of how big this could get, keeping an open mind and seeing how folks use the site.
1) Artificial scarcity - like Wordle or a NYTimes cover photo, there's only one per day. This focuses attention to one topic at a time.
2) Before/after polling. The audience is polled initially and then asked if they've changed their mind after a while reading arguments. The winner is the debate that changes the most minds.
Interesting idea. I agree with above users in that a better comment management system could be created to make debates more clear. I could see this being used within corporations to debate ideas.
Good question! Archived debates are considered complete so you can't vote or comment...but you can always re-suggest the topic if you feel there's more to talk about.
I've been a big fan of ChangeMyView(https://www.changemyview.co/) and Intelligence Squared (https://www.youtube.com/user/iqsquared) and this seems like potentially a great combination of both!
I think polling people before the debate to get the "initial odds" and then after to see how the consensus has shifted and combining that with some sort of score like CMW does would go a long way to advance the gamification!