Guide of the CaV Debater.

So, i noticed a big wave of newcomers in the vine that are looking forward to show off their knowledge on certain characters as well as improve their debating skills while challenging another viner.

I was reading through quite a few debates of these people nowadays and saw myself thinking in 7 out of 10 debates about the format and the way people develop in the debate. After noticing the obvious pattern in these debates, a question came to my mind... If there's a thread explaining what a CaV is, why there isn't a thread explaining how to make the CaV challenging in the first place?

So, the point of this thread is give those newcomers some kind of basic guidance to trace a new starting line in their debating skills which i thought would be well received in the vine.

Getting Prepared

In this stage, you'll find yourself posting in the "Challenge a Viner" thread, looking for a debate. You may find a challenger quite fast given the increasing population of knowledgeable people around. These are the points you need to take into account to make it a good CaV.

• Before starting to debate, make a quick research on the character you've been put against to. It's always better to have at least minor knowledge on your opponents character. It gives you more debatable field.
• You MUST be knowledgeable on the usage of the texting palette. That being said, organize your ideas, information and graphic proof. Make yourself READY to debate. This avoids prolonged debates which sometimes are forgotten and lose importance.

Following this points will make you able to start with the right foot always.

Starting the Debate

The CaV has begun and you're discussing with your challenger who is giving the opener.

Opening the Debate

If you both agreed you'll be starting the debate, so be it... These are the points you should follow in order to make a good opener.

• If your challenger doesn't know your character that much, post a short, very brief introduction about your character. You should include everything relevant to the debate. i.e Physical attributes, superhuman abilities and personality to avoid any interruption by ignorance in the debate.
• You MUST state a point that shows why your character beats his/her character. You shouldn't leave an opener as a mere description of your character.

On the countering side

Same as above, you both agreed your challenger will do the opener... That leaves you on the countering side, which i myself prefer to start always.

• Read VERY carefully your opponent's opener, this is KEY for the development of the debate.
• If your opponent does not know your character very well, do the same as him/her, post a short introduction about your character as well.
• Same as if opening the debate, you MUST state points that counters his/her points, hence the side you took.

Climax

When both of you already stated your points, this is when the debate turns interesting. It's all up to you to show and convince the people why your character wins. In this stage, a few factors are involved.

1. Debating Skills: How good you defend/counter points.
2. Reliable Proof: whether is citing or graphic proof.
3. Knowledge: Proof that you actually know about your character. This also applies for knowing about your opponent's character.

In order to start tasting the win, you MUST show off at least 2 of these factors.

Debating Skills

This is by far the hardest one to achieve. However, once you've got it, debating turns as easy as breathing. These skills are mainly based on how strong and valid your points are as well as how good you disable your opponent's points.

This has nothing to do with your character anymore, this is something you and you only can guarantee... These skills tend to vary between the people, however, these are probably the most common factors between the good debaters.

• Always pay close attention to details, you'll always find something useful in your opponent's argument that you can use against him/herself. There's no need to always come up with an argument yourself, which often ends in short debates leaving a very wide portion of debatable field.
• Use 1 instance to support multiple points. In other words... Don't waste your proof, you'll probably get overwhelmed by your opponent if this happens.

Reliable Proof

This is the most common between the people, given the fact there's a lot of "respect threads" and battle threads that often are full of scans of characters you may want to use in CaVs.

The term "Reliable" is KEY in this aspect... Showing proof is not always enough, you must show it's actually legit proof. This is often achieved by people citing as well as posting the scans of such cite, it just takes a quick google search to know if the instance is "canon" or not. Of course this may vary with the rules. i.e If both of you agree on using non-canon feats.

Knowledge

If people ask me, i would recommend people to focus on this one the most. Mainly because having knowledge makes achieving the other 2 aspects significantly easier.

Knowledge is self explanatory... It's to show people you actually know what you're talking about. Having knowledge also guarantees some of your points could be irrefutable due to the lack of knowledge by your opponent's side. As well as pretty much win the debate if continuously correcting your opponent. Largely underestimated yet pretty much the real deciding factor.

"Context" is another factor dependent on the amount of knowledge you posses. And that my friends, it's KEY to make your proof any useful. You shouldn't post scans without knowing the context behind it, i've made such mistake before, it's not cool when people constantly corrects you, true story.

Esthetics

Esthetics, even though they don't play a huge role, it's actually quite important.

By "Esthetics" im referring to formatting... The way you're going to post your comment. The way you're going to arrange your scans, organize your points and deliver you game breaking arguments.

This, in my humble opinion, its KEY to have a decent/good debate.

Scans

This is probably the most common factor between people and their formatting skills. Every single one of you viners want to post scans and show off how much you know about a character in a total graphic way. However, you MUST keep your argument as clean as possible since your almighty scans are NOT the things that will make you win, actually it's your text.

In this case, the texting palette comes into play, you MUST familiarize yourself with it, since it makes it easier for you to express without turning your post into a "wordsearch". Helping you, Helping others.

• First, if you want to post more than 1 scan of an instance that has several panels, it's strongly recommended to post it as a miniature series of scans which become bigger if you click on them, something like a graphic link.
• Second, if you want to post an instance with several panels but making emphasis in 1, you should post everything in the miniature series but the one you're trying to make emphasis on... Which would be centered and expanded in a large image. After this, you MUST put the big image in "Spoiler Block" (See in the bottom left corner of you texting palette)
• NO MEDIUM NOR SMALL SCANS... Personally, i think it's very tedious to look at small and medium scans. The abusive usage of large scans affects the esthetics of your post as well. If you want to make emphasis in some area of the scan without obstructing the way of your argument, there's always the "crop" feature, although its only applicable to already uploaded scans.

That being said, im going to re-take my previous points and tell you again. There's no need to post a lot of scans as long as you prove your point clearly. As a matter of fact, it's often better to cite the instances instead of posting several series of scans. This may turn into laziness by you or your opponent's side if any of you posts a huge quantity of scans. Keep it clean.

Quoting

This is my most used option in the texting palette. Maybe because i do pay a lot of attention to details and because im some sort of nit-picky person.

Anyway, this option lets you quote what other people have said, in this case, your opponent. Im not talking about the option of quoting the whole comment, im talking about the option in your text palette. This is very useful when countering points given the fact it lets you quote your opponent by parts, paragraphs, even sentences and words which makes easier to write down good counters. As well as ignoring parts of irrelevant text your opponent may post. By both doing this, the number of irrelevances is reduced GREATLY, helping the debate stay as clear as possible.

With the quoting feature... You MUST try to avoid quoting your opponent's whole argument, try to use the quoting feature in the text palette instead of the other, which appears once you put the mouse pointer on top of other arguments. Again, Keep it clean.

Videos

This is not so popular, but still happens. Sometimes, people use characters that are mainly based on video games, and for that reason, they need to post videos as their graphic proof. As well as some Manga characters.

That being said, it's good for you to know, you can't abuse of the video posting feature, threads tend to collapse because of the quantity of videos posted in the same page. if you need to post several videos, post 2 or 3 and then give links as well as learn how to use 1 instance to represent multiple points. It would be gladly appreciated by the general population of the vine.

Voting

This stage is when both you and your opponent decide to end the debate and call people to vote.

Instead of calling for people that may vote for you because they are your friends. Call for people you admire and/or have respect for as a debater. They may take the time and read through your debate, to ultimately come with a very decent constructive critic overall. This is helpful for both you and your opponent, keep it in mind.

Hope this helps.

If anything could be added to this, feel free to reply to me. :)

@ghostravage: New viners am I right.

@homicidalmaniac:

owwwww! that hurts!

@ghostravage:Somebody pin this.

Some CaV's I see can get clustered, and this is really helpful. TBH I was reluctant to do CaV's because the rules weren't firmly planted. Thanks.

@cjdavis103:

Look at my CAV with Nickzmbuto and you can see some of the problems with some new viners.

@retconcrisis: Thank you :)

@homicidalmaniac Oh stop it youuu... :P

@ghostravage: If every pork-chop was prefect.....We wouldn't have hot dogs.

I approve.

This is too deep for my understanding. :P

Anyway, @yourneighborhoodcomicgeek@higorm@kidman560@monsterstomp you know how to roll in CaV, what do you think of this?

Glad to hear this. Thank you.

But more importantly, I also approve.

Sincerely,

Yes, I wish this topic was there before I started my first ever CAV. lol

@jokergeist: Thank you. ;)

@lowlaville Hopefully this gets pinned to prevent such things :P

@ghostravage: Awesome thread man. I agree with everything that has been said.

Sweet stuff.

YOU SAID IT!!^-^ n_n :D

you know i often ponder the great things of life like why my socks smell, how many hairs are on my left foot, why is the Earth round and not cube like, ect... But this, this is beyond my level of thinking

hmmm yes this is a good write-up. I particularly condone the idea of using people's arguments against them, and again that's something which can only be done if you pay close attention to an argument.

this should be stickied.

Pretty good for starters. Remember though, in the end there is no really perfect debate formula. I have a debating style which some people care for and others do not. In the end it is more the taste of the voters who determine the winner, whether like like scans of evidence with context, or a simple few scans with mostly plans of attack text. There is many debate styles and some people will always gravitate to one style over another for voting.

Just my input.

@ghostravage: excellent job, I couldn´t have done better. Hope the new viners read this before start anything around here :)

@kingofash:

If I need to cite a tv episode (such as if I'm using a character from Heroes) do I simply reference the episode and time when something happened?

@monsterstomp: Thank you man, i used our CaV to come up with some things in here :P.

@wolverine08 Thank you mate.

@higorm Thanks! Glad to see a veteran of the CaV agreeing with this, hopefully this gets sticked.

@the_imperator What i do when im using videos it's search for them in youtube, right click on top of it and copy from the minute i want it to play, it shortens the video and makes it lighter. However, you should keep the thread with 2-3 videos per page, even less if possible to keep the thread from collapsing. So yeah, you can refer the episode and the minute where it happened if you already have a few videos uploaded.

@deranged_midget@vance_astro@citizenbane You mods, what do you think of this?

@ghostravage: What if, for instance, the clip you want is not on youtube? Is the name of the movie/episode, the time of the feat, and a description of the feat sufficient?

This is nice. I think you did a good job of summarizing some key points and needs in a proper CaV.

its detailed and good.

wasnt this basic, common knowledge? eh, whatever, as long as it helps

Personally, i think it would be pretty odd if a clip does not appear in Youtube. However, if that's the case, this is directly connected to the preparation area, you should know if that particular piece of proof is as hard to find as your saying, you should find a new way for it. That of course if your opponent doesn't know/haven't seen the movie in which case you can figure out a way to agree on something.

@ghostravage: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCC - I was going to make something like this today, and then I come on to see this. ¥£¥€£*£¥+^€_ oh well, good job...I guess..

@ghostravage: I'm no good with ripping stuff off DVDs, but thank you for the information.

Great thread.

@ghostravage: nice job. Well put together. Sadly barely any of the new users read the stuff that's pinned or mandatory to read before you start. I remember when i started i was scared of everyone and didn't know what to do so i read everything that was pinned to make sure i was doing things right (plus i made some really nice friends that helped me out along the way) but now people just make an account and their first post is a thread that has been repeated several times such as Sherlock Holmes vs. Batman. There should be something that FORCES the new members to read that stuff before they start so people aren't annoyed by them.

-DS

Yeah, would help them and their debating skills a lot.

@nighthunder: Hahaha... Too slow, too slow ;)

@deathstroke19 Thank you mate and i agree with you that people don't read most of the pinned information, however, it's better to have the information for any interested person than not have it for anyone. I have a good feeling about this, i personally think people that looks for CaV debates will stop by and at least skim this thread. After all, CaV thread its pinned, what's stopping you from clicking on a thread that is directly connected to that one?

@pierpat Thank you.

@cadencev2 I agree with you, actually, i mentioned your same point in the thread in the "debating skills" part. Thank you btw.

@ghostravage: no prob. CaV is one of the best parts of Comicvine.

@ghostravage said:

Nice thread idea, makes alot of sense, well thought out..but I think alot of the problem with new users is, they don't read ANYTHING. They don't read the rules, they don't read any threads that would helpful to them as far as these forums is concerned and I don't know if pinning this thread will change that. No disrespect to you.

@vance_astro: I concur that most of new users wont read any of the information that is pinned. However, i would say, it's better to have the information available than not have the information at all. I noticed a few users below 1k posts and below 1.5k posts that found this helpful. It's clear this wont be read by most of the new users, but if it helps just a few of the bunch, i'll take it.

Of course, it's all up to the mods to pin or not to pin this and i respect any kind of opinion about this. It was a rush of good will by my part :P

No disrespect at all :)

@vance_astro: lol i said the exact same thing a few messages up.

@deathstroke19 said:

I didn't see it because your post actually didn't exist when I started writing mine. I left the window open and did something else, and then posted when I came back. Great Minds think alike though :)

@vance_astro: exactly. Lol. Hey did you get my other callout? Just checking no rush or anything.

Almost 500 posts in and I still got things to learn about debating

The day you get out of bed and life doesn't have something new to teach you is the day you better start looking out for buckets in your pathway (that you might kick). You should learn something new about a lot of things no matter how experienced you are in anything

I am a firm believing in presenting evidence to support your case, without which, its nothing more than argument that could be fought forever with lettinf down.

I didn't notice this thread until now, but good job!

Wow, some good stuff. Too bad this wasn't here when I first started this site=)

@wyldsong: @jashro44: Thank you!It's kind of odd nobody made this before, but now it's all good. Im planning to do a texting palette guide as well. But that will take significant time.

@ghostravage: No problem!

@ghostravage: Good post

@xlab3000: Thank you mate!