Rules of Engagement

The rubric — how every argument is scored

Each argument is scored out of 80 points:

• Clarity (20) — is your position clearly stated?
• Evidence (20) — quality and relevance of your support.
• Logic (20) — do your conclusions follow from your premises?
• Rebuttal (20) — did you address your opponent’s specific points?
• Fallacy penalty (−15 each) — deducted per fallacy detected, with the offending quote named.

In Blitz and Lightning formats, brevity is not a defect — the judge scores density of reasoning, not length.

The sixteen named fallacies

Ad hominem · Straw man · False dichotomy · Appeal to authority · Slippery slope · Cherry picking · Circular reasoning · Anecdotal evidence · Bandwagon · Moving goalposts · Red herring · Tu quoque · Appeal to emotion · False cause · Hasty generalization · Loaded question. Commit one and the Oracle will quote you doing it. Definitions, examples, and how to spot each live on the Know Your Fallacies codex.

Conduct

• Attack the argument, never the person. Ad hominem costs points — harassment costs your account.
• No hate speech, threats, doxxing, or sexual content involving minors. Zero tolerance.
• No spam, advertising, or flooding the arena with low-effort content.
• Public debates, comments, war entries, and challenges are visible to everyone — write accordingly.

Turns and timers

• Standard debates allow 10 minutes per turn; Blitz turns run 90 seconds.
• Abandoned turns are auto-forfeited by the arena keeper. The keeper waits a little longer than the visible clock — roughly a minute of grace in standard play, thirty seconds in Blitz — so an argument submitted as the timer expires still counts. Repeated abandonment of ranked matches may restrict matchmaking.
• You may resign at any time; a resignation counts as a loss in ranked play.

Ranked integrity

• No prompt injection. Attempting to instruct or manipulate the judge is itself weak argumentation and is penalized; systematic attempts are a bannable offense.
• No multi-accounting or Elo manipulation — win-trading, deliberate losses to farm opponents, or boosting.
• No plagiarism — arguments must be your own words.
• New ratings are provisional. Your first five ranked results are treated as provisional, and rating moves are larger while you are new (K=32 for your first thirty ranked games, K=16 afterwards) so the ladder finds your true level quickly and settles once it has.

Reporting and enforcement

Every argument and profile carries a report action, and you can block any user. Violations may result in content removal, score voiding, rating rollback, or account termination depending on severity. The Oracle’s verdicts are automated and final — if you believe a verdict was defective, report it; the rubric is recalibrated over time, but individual match results are not re-adjudicated.