Help us win recognition by nominating us!  Nominations close Sunday, November 16th at 11:59 pm PST so there’s no time to sleep on this. Just enter you email address below and click submit to nominate CreateDebate!

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Well, the final count is in, and here are the winners. Drumroll please!

Place	Person	Points Earned
1	Kuklapolitan	+ 358
2	Tamisan	+ 333
3	joecavalry	+ 331
4	andsoccer16	+ 199
5	Jamais	+ 157

Congratulations to the winners of these great books from the Hachette Group. We’d like to thank everyone for participating in the contest, hopefully you found it as interesting as we did.

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One of the statistics we use to judge the strength of a debater is the efficiency percent.  We calculate this by dividing your number of positive votes by the total number of votes.  Essentially, it shows if people think your arguments are solid, use good supporting evidence, and are well reasoned.  A recent look at some negatively scored arguments shows personal attacks, opinion without any reasoning behind it, and a few racist remarks.  The vote attack made the victim’s efficiency drop to the point that they looked like they were debating with the logic of a raving fanatic.

Any site that allows open debate or open posting where anyone can easily sign up and start putting their opinion online will inevitably get a few trolls.  Some sites deal with the problem by using moderators who vet every posting before they become visible on a site.  Some sites use moderators who watch and remove troll posts.  A more democratic version of the moderating system is to let everyone become a moderator, which is the system we’ve gone with.  Aside from showing which arguments are the best in a debate, the argument voting system allows people to vote down arguments by the trolls until they’re no longer visible, essentially making everyone a moderator.

The karma bomb we recently saw is a reflection of people using their power as a moderator to personally attack another user.  So in addition to rolling back the massive amount of downvotes, we put in place a system that watches for karma bombs like this one.  If a large number of votes are going to attack or artificially inflate people’s points, the vote system enforces a cool-down period.  The cool-down period should guide people instead to rebut arguments with well-developed arguments.

From watching the growth and evolution of many other websites who try to tackle the problem of trolls, it’s a constant battle between the “griefers” and the community.  Wikipedia, digg, reddit, mixx, facebook, myspace, and plenty of other social sites all have their own system for dealing with the problem, but it the more well developed sites all rely on the community to watch itself for trolls. We’re toying with some ideas from these sites, like how digg lets you see who voted on your arguments, or how twitter allows you to block users from showing up in your version of the site.  At the same time we need protection from trolls, we also don’t want to lose the core democratic debate process, where everyone has a say.

We’re constantly trying to make the debate experience better at CreateDebate, so let us know if the karma bomb protection is as annoying as airport security, and if you think it needs to be tweaked, or if it’s unobtrusive enough that the benefits we all get make it worth the effort.  We’re still thinking through changes to our overall points system, but this system should work in the meantime.  And as always, let us know what you think, either through site messages, or by using the feedback page.

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1. Mike’s Election Guide By Michael Moore

It’s a great year to be an American and a voter. Don’t miss out on MIKE’S ELECTION GUIDE - the indispensable book that belongs in every American’s back pocket this season.- Also available as audio book  ISBN: 97804465462702.


2. The Preacher and the Presidents By Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy.

Reveals how the world’s most powerful men and world’s most famous evangelist, Billy Graham, knit faith and politics together.- Also available as audio book. ISBN: 97815999510413.

3. Hard Call By John McCain.

In Hard Call, acclaimed authors John McCain and Mark Salter describe the anatomy of great decisions in history by telling the remarkable stories of men and women who have exemplified composure, wisdom, and intellect in the face of life’s toughest decisions.- Also available as audio book.  ISBN: 97804466991124.

4. The American Journey of Barack Obama By The Editors of Life Magazine

Covers the candidate Barack Obama from his childhood and adolescence to his time as editor of The Harvard Law Review and his Chicago activist years, culminating with the excitement and fervor of the historic 2008 Democratic National Convention.  ISBN: 97803160456055.

5. Goodnight Bush By Erich Origen and Gan Golan.

A hilarious and poignant visual requiem for the Bush administration.  ISBN: 97803160404196.

6. Takeover By Charlie Savage

Takeover tells the story of how a group of true believers, led by VP Cheney, set out to establish near-monarchical executive powers that, in the words of one conservative critic, “will lie around like a loaded weapon” for any future president.  ISBN: 97803161180577.

7. Her Way By Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr.

The first truly balanced investigation into the life and career of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr.’s masterful biography.- Also available as audio book.  ISBN: 97803160174358.

8. Dream in Color By Congresswoman Linda Sánchez and Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez.

Often considered Congress’s Odd Couple, these warm witty sisters are not only perfect role models for young Latinas in the US, but for all young women looking to break out and create a brighter future for themselves.  ISBN: 97804465080499.

9. From Hope to Higher Ground By Mike Huckabee

In his insightful and plainspoken manner, Mike Huckabee carries hope to Americans and provides practical solutions to current problems in our nation.ISBN: 978159995155310.

10. The Revolution By Ron Paul

In this book, Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul provides answers to questions that few even dare to ask.  ISBN: 978044653751311.

11. What You Should Know About Politics . . . But Don’t: A Nonpartisan Guide to the Issues By Jessamyn Conrad.

The first and only issue-based nonpartisan guide to contemporary American politics.

We look forward to seeing a lot of great arguments supporting your candidates in these next three weeks before the election.

UPDATE:

With only 11 days to go until November 4th, here is how the contest is shaping up:

Contest Leaderboard:
1   Tamisan  +181 points
2   joecavalry  +164 points
3   Kuklapolitan  +97 points
4   Inkwell  +93 points
5   andsoccer16  +67 points
6   waaykuul  +67 points
7   ThePyg  +63 points
8   kirstie1126  +45 points
9   dcool15  +34 points
10 bmountain  +29 points

Remember, only the top 5 users that accumulate the most points will receive a prize!  BTW, wouldn’t it be sweet if you could view a leaderboard like this from the front page whenever you’d like? Stay tuned!

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We’ve been putting up the election debates, like tonight’s Vice Presidential Debate Transcript, and the VP debate stats show that Palin used more complicated phrasing than Biden.  We’re using a standard formula to rate the grade level of the arguments called the Flesh-Kincaid Readability Grade Level formula.  It takes into account the average length of sentences and the average number of syllables in those words to determine the readability of the arguments.

Since the graph of word lengths shows that Biden and Palin used about the same length words, that means her sentences were longer overall. The stats for the Presidential Foreign Policy Debate show that the language level McCain and Obama used was more similar.  Both spoke at an 11th grade level of understandability.

As always, let us know what you think about the stats page, and any suggestions about other sorts of info you would want to know about debates you’re participating in.

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Please help us inform the populace by embedding this widget on your blog, website or social network profile!  The widget is below, give it a whirl and use the get & share tab to distribute.

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McCain will prioritize the debate practice on Thursday, and doesn’t have a person dedicated to giving rebuttals and cross-talk.  At this point, they’re reviewing facts and questions that are likely to come up.

The two approaches focus on different aspects of the debate.  Obama is prepping hard for the activity of debating, making sure he’s ready for the pace and actions involved in exposing weaknesses in arguments, crafting your own arguments so they withstand fire from your opponent.  At this point McCain is concentrating on the facts, the technicalities that underlie the debate.  He’s memorizing facts and figures that will support his argument when he finally makes them.

Obviously both candidates are preparing for all parts of the debate, but at this point an analogy might be that if they were teams preparing for a big game.  The McCain team is running drills, concentrating on their fundamentals.  The Obama team is doing scrimmages and running game tape to analyze the opponent for weaknesses.  They are concentrating on the overall game.

What the cnn article glosses over is what these preparations might signal about the leadership skills of the candidates.  When the future president prepares to meet with foreign heads of state, what will their preparations be?  When the future president addresses the UN or the congress, how will they approach it?  We’ve had debates about whether the changes in the Vice President debate format were fair, and what the implications for the real world might be.  Watching how the candidates juggle all their obligations and the priorities they assign to the pieces of their campaigns gives us a glimpse at what the future of America might be under their presidency.

Which of the Candidates will be better prepared?   We’ll have to wait till the debate to see.   Let us know what you think about which candidate will win the presidential debate in the debate we have up.

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During an election year many people start to channel television pundits such as Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews or Rachel Maddow. They spend so much time arguing over the water cooler that they start to talk about sending off an audition tape to a number of their favorite cable news shows. And now they have yet another way to sharpen their arguing skills.

Two relatively young Web sites — CreateDebate.com and Debate.com — have recently unveiled election-focused sites that allow aspiring pundits to debate each other online.

While the original sites allowed visitors to debate everything from the best video games to the worst sports teams, the updated sites focus on candidates, political races and local issues.

“I think the whole idea of finding places to debate like this online is catching on,” said Georgetown University political science associate professor Diana Owen. But, she warned, these sites are unlikely to have much effect on the national election.

Owen said she “always gets excited” to see candidates and outside groups develop new Internet ventures to get voters involved but that few of these, including candidate Web sites and YouTube videos, have changed the outcomes of elections.

Entrepreneurs like Bryan Orme hope she’s wrong. His site, CreateDebate.com, is gearing up for the general election by promoting a new politics alias, CreateDebate2008.com, which he and his partners launched in August. The site allows users to initiate a discussion over a political topic — say, Obama vs. McCain — and then support their views. Users argue for one side or the other and then vote for the best arguments. The most popular arguments rise to the top, while unpopular arguments disappear.

For example, in a debate over who will be the next president, user “Kneville” supplied the most popular argument in favor of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

“As much as I think we need a change in the White House, I think that McCain is liberal enough of a Republican to be elected,” Kneville wrote. “Obama is too polarizing and too liberal for the majority of the country. ”

On the other side, a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) identified as “Sysiphuslove” wrote, “Obama was nominated in an entirely new way — with the power of the Internet behind him, and everything that entails — and he isn’t a serf of the big-money interests that have kept real change from taking place in Washington.”

Orme said high interest in the election made the addition of a separate site focused on politics a natural extension.

“Our target audience is people that are interested in the issues pertinent to that particular debate and want a platform to debate those,” Orme said.

Orme hopes that as the site grows, more users will weigh in on state and local races. When users register on the politics site, they can enter their ZIP codes and see lists of debates on federal races in their area. He also sees it as another tool candidates or staffers could use online. For instance, a candidate could use it to see what his constituents are talking about and even offer rebuttals to those who may misunderstand or disagree with his decisions.

Owen said the idea of these sites having an impact at a local level is more realistic. She said that similar sites in the U.K. and Germany created two years ago helped politicians see which issues their Internet-savvy constituents cared most about.

The second site, Debate.com, began as a relatively simple site late last year. The brainchild of husband-and-wife team Philip and Crystal Ferreira, it has grown to more than 5,000 registered users and was relaunched last week in its third iteration.

The Ferreiras’ site allows an “instigator” to establish a debate topic and a specific number of rounds in the debate. That instigator can then invite another user to represent the other side or wait for someone else to join independently. In the newest version of the site, users can search for opponents based on ideology, geographic location, gender or other characteristics. Once the last round is over, other individuals can cast a vote in favor of one debater or the other, ultimately choosing the winner.

Philip Ferreira said the couple’s own political discussions inspired the idea for Debate.com, though the site hosts debates on a wide variety of subjects. He said they haven’t done much to promote Debate.com at this point and have attracted users by word of mouth, but they will begin advertising now that the most recent update is public.

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Most Outspoken: number of arguments posted
Most Creative: number of debates created
Most Provocative: how many people vote for your arguments
Most Persuasive: how many people like your arguments

The cool part about the people categories is the Activity Period filter. Whenever you change the period, the rankings are determined on-the-fly. Everyday I check to see who’s tops for the day.

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Twitter works great with mobile phones so now its possible to keep up with CreateDebate while you’re on the road.  If you are lucky enough to have an iPhone, try using the Twitterrific app, it works great. On that note, since CreateDebate is optimized for Safari, the entire site looks and works great on the iPhone.

We also just rolled out some small, yet significant changes to The Waterfall.  The Public Waterfall still lists all of the newest arguments, spanning every debate. In addition, there is now a personal waterfall for each user, which only includes the arguments written by that user. To find somebody’s personal waterfall, go to their profile and click “View All” under the Arguments heading.

Every waterfall (public or personal) also has an RSS feed that makes it possible to keep track of your arguments (or anybody else’s) by using a feed reader.  Ultimately, that makes it possible to pull your arguments from CreateDebate into many other sites, like Facebook or MySpace. If you set up something cool this feature, let us know about it!

We could make it possible for your arguments to be automatically pushed into FriendFeed or Twitter. If you’d be interested in something that, let us know!

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