Rather than complain

Here are some suggestions to improve the site and user retention. Of course, most of these suggesstions are going to be promptly ignored by the all-knowing but failing Edeb8 administrator.

1. Clean up all non-debates and unfinished debates. This will reinforce the site as a place for quality debates

2. Remove ELO. I think it is pretty obvious this does not influence anybody in a positive way, and discourages taking risks. I don't mind a little bit of competitiveness, but ELO goes beyond that in creating a competitive culture.

3. Re-design the site to highlight debating a lot more. Even the front page is just bleack of info-boxes. The debate page should be the central page of the site IMO, and it isn't.

4. Re-design the site to look more professional and stylish. There is lots of white space that could be used.

5. If we are going to have social features, they should at least be partially locked for people who do not participate in a couple of debates. Forcing new members to invest and get a taste for debates would increase the number of dedicated members.

6. Dissolve topical discussion from the forums. This is a debating site, and the forums should mostly be used for utility, questions, suggestions, and announcements.

7. Move the shoutbox over to the debating page and rid it of the forums.

8. Remove groups. They are a failure as far as I can tell, and they distract from the debating aspect of the site.

9. Meld the Judging and Debating pages into one. This goes back to all the white space which could be filled on pages.

10. Create a side-bar preview of a featured debate on the debating page.

My opinion is that this site's practical design is awful. It is a disorganized mess that cannot promote a coherent and attractive message to prospective individuals with strong opinions.

One thing to keep in mind, is that the site has had plenty of traffic at times, but no sustainable activity.

The interest for a site for debating is there, but upon actually looking at or trying the site, people are turned off.

What scares me the most in the total disinterest to experiment. There is just a stubbornness to stick behind something that isn't working.

The site is practically a ghost town. Why hasn't there been any motivation to try and work on a successful formula?

Crow: It's a stable site, not an experimental one. Any given changes will be incremental just by the nature of a stable product. We're not going down the New Coke road.

admin: You don't have a stable site. You have a broken one.

If you want to fix something that is broken, you have to try different things to make it work.

Crow: There's the premise that we differ on.

admin: It goes beyond being delusional. You literally are incapable of recognizing a problem.

Remember...

Committed Members = Me, You, Microagressor