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?
Some existing alternatives
https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Should_animal_testing_be_leg...
https://idebate.org/debatabase/environment-animals-philosoph...
What's the difference vs a reddit poll?
Hey HN!
My name is Rob and I built Debatable. Very excited to launch on HN, will be here to answer any questions :)
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.
Would you be able to comment on a debate that is “archived”? Let’s say if you had an opinion?
Interesting… It would be great if you could see how users voted as you read through comments
Debate of the Day: "Is YC still a good deal?"
I'm curious how this one turns out.
Is the vote before/after supposed to be a way to determine the winner?
I'm interested to see how it evolves!
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!