Online debating has never been better

Whether you consider yourself a top debater or a new one, whether you're in to Lincoln-Douglas or British Parliamentary, EDEB8.com has something to offer you. Connect with other debaters around the world. Join or make your own virtual team. Climb the world rankings. And debate like nowhere else on the web with our revolutionary system.

Judge and be judged via our adjudication system, which is designed to help facilitate good, constructive feedback while accomodating a wide variety of judging styles. Improve your debate skills through our coaching facilitation program. Be a part of a community that's active and listens to what you have to say. The developer behind the site is often on the forum and always happy to hear feedback and suggestions. Complaints are always resolved very quickly. And the best part? It's all free forever.

Debates

A debate is a kind of formal argument where opposing views on a topic are discussed by two or more teams or individuals. There are many types of debate around the world. Debates on EDEB8.com fall into two categories: text and video (live debates coming soon). A text debate allows you to debate in written form, while for a video debate you'll need to post a video in each round. There are also special kinds of rounds used in different styles, like reply rounds or cross-examination.

You can challenge others to debates at any time. The site has extensive messaging and live chat features to help you arrange the kind of debate you want to have. When you create a debate, you can either pick your own topic/resolution or have a "secret topic" debate. "Secret topic" is a format exclusive to EDEB8 among online debating sites but common in the real world, where a topic is pulled at random from an ever expanding database of fair and relevant topics, and only revealed to all the debaters when the debate actually begins. It adds more challenge and excitement to debating but it's also more difficult. Both kinds of debates can be done on your own or with a team. You can either choose to defend the topic (pro) or reject the topic (con). Like in "British Parliamentary" style, you may opt to have two affirmative/negative teams instead of the usual one (the teams being called OG for the first affirmative, OO for the first negative, CG for the second affirmative, and CO for the second negative). You can choose your opponents or leave some spots open for other people/teams to take. For videos you may optionally specify a maximum video length in each round. For text debates you can specify a maximum number of characters per round up to 10,000, whether or not to allow images, and many other options. You can also configure a custom time to post each round and a time period for judging. The variety of time settings available is among the most flexible in the world.

As well as individual debates, you can also debate in teams. Team debates allow you and your team-mates to collaborate on your argument each round and post it when you are ready. EDEB8.com has the most extensive collaboration features of any debate site. Additionally, if you just want a fast and simple debate, you can also choose a "quick debate" for a more informal, fun experience.

Community

Although we're a young site, we have a ton of community features that are rare at best elsewhere on the web. You can go discuss stuff on our safe and friendly forum and its ever-popular shoutbox. You can add new friends to your profile, and chat with them live. You can also message people to keep in touch, or post status updates to your profile. Being attacked? You can also block anybody whom you don't like, meaning they won't hear from you and you won't have to deal with them. This is an all-ages site, and while naturally sometimes some people will inevitably try to ruin the experience for everybody, but we're always doing our best to stop it.

You can join or start groups, which are like little corners of edeb8 where users with similar interests can hang out. Groups get their own shoutboxes and forums to discuss matters relevant to their interests.

You can also take part in teams, which are groups of up to five members who debate together. Teams are led by the founder of the team, whom you will need to ask permission if you want to join. Anyone (aside from blocked members) may apply to join a team. When you're in a team, you may join and create team debates.

We also offer a place to post applications for one-to-one coaching to hone your debating skills. A successful coach can be as famous as a successful debater, and all good debaters know they can definitely use any feedback they can get, so it really is a win-win. To help you track your progress there are all manner of leaderboards, and judges are strongly encouraged to give helpful feedback.

Judges

A debate site is nothing without judges. Special emphasis is placed on giving debaters valuable feedback to help them improve their argument, and if possible, giving an in-depth analysis of the debate. Ongoing discussion about the debate and seeking additional feedback is encouraged as that helps both debaters and judges. Heckling or asking a judge to change their judgement in your favor is not. Judges can also be rated, and there is a judging leaderboard for the best judges on the site.

In order to encourage more members to "have a go" at judging, we use a three-tiered judging model. Any member can leave their opinion of who won on the debate without needing to justify that at all. This judgement is counted and valued on the site. However, if feedback is provided, the judgement is worth triple the points and can be rated. If feedback and constructive comments (ie ideas for how to improve) are provided to the debaters, then the judgement is worth quadruple the points. This provides an incentive to improve the quality of voting, hopefully without discouraging those who are new to debating from voicing their opinion.

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