Feature Request: Crowdsourced “People’s Choice” Judging #285
Description
Summary
Introduce an optional crowdsourced judging mechanism that allows live audience members to vote on debate arguments. The resulting People’s Choice verdict can be compared against the existing AI Judge decision to highlight differences between logical rigor and popular persuasion.
This feature adds a social and educational layer to DebateAI without altering the core debate flow.
Motivation
Debates are often judged differently by experts versus general audiences. While DebateAI already provides AI-based judging focused on logical quality, introducing audience voting can:
- Increase user engagement and replayability
- Highlight contrasts between emotional appeal and structured reasoning
- Encourage debaters to balance persuasion with logic
- Make DebateAI more interactive for spectators
Proposed Scope (Initial Phase)
To keep the feature maintainable and reviewable, the initial implementation could be limited to:
- Allow spectators to cast a vote after each debate round or at debate completion
- Store votes in aggregate (no per-user vote history required initially)
- Compute a simple People’s Choice winner based on majority or weighted votes
- Display the result alongside the AI Judge verdict (e.g., AI Judge: Pro | People’s Choice: Con)
No real-time UI updates or reputation systems are required in Phase 1.
Technical Considerations (High-Level)
- Extend debate session state to record audience votes
- Simple REST or WebSocket endpoint for submitting votes
- Basic validation (one vote per spectator per round/session)
- Backend-only implementation possible initially, with minimal frontend hooks
Expected Impact
- Adds a social dimension to debates
- Improves educational value by exposing differences between popular opinion and logical assessment
- Makes debates more engaging for non-participating users
Future Extensions (Out of Scope for Initial Implementation)
- Weighted voting (expert vs general audience)
- Argument-level voting instead of round-level
- Reputation-based voter influence
- Real-time vote visualization
- Post-debate analytics and breakdowns
Willingness to Contribute
I’m willing to:
- Prototype the backend voting logic
- Define the data schema for votes and verdict comparison
- Open a focused PR for Phase 1 if this aligns with the project roadmap
Please let me know if this direction fits DebateAI’s vision or if scope adjustments are preferred.
I am willing to submit a PR.