Argue-It! - A Platform for Debating

Debate with other users about anything and everything

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Inspiration

All of us saw that the debates and arguments that happened were toxic, rude, and most of all discouraging. This was damaging to people with mental health issues and after some research on it, we concluded there should be a separate platform for people to debate in a controlled environment

What it does

This app will give a platform for people to debate about a topic in a live chat with someone who has a differing opinion to your own. The productive debaters will be promoted through ranks and the not-so-constructive trolls will have a much harder time doing the same. This will have a provide a platform where serious debaters can debate with other serious people, and trolls can lay at the bottom with other trolls

How we built it

We started with an idea, and we built on it. We fleshed out some ideas, concepts, and functionalities. We anticipated issues such as dissatisfaction due to the scoring system, incentivising users to participate and handling trolls. Initially, we spent lots of time conceptualizing, however we were unable to gather enough information due to certain complications to complete a functional program.

Challenges we ran into

The Internet went out for a significant amount of time, hindering our progress greatly right out of the gate. Additionally, the IDE we planned to use did not work as expected, so we had to switch to a far less functional IDE. Trying to figure out the Java GUI was a significant hindrance as well. Lastly, understanding the consequences of each of our decisions for the apps management took a large portion of our time, as we wanted to ensure our app was fair and inclusive.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to create a functional local server and develop a beautiful and simple UI and UX.

What we learned

We learned that hackathons are incredibly stressful and that it makes life considerably easier if we were to have a strategy for implementing certain key features. We also learned that working together allows for the production of a much better program. Working together allowed us to balance out features and to generate a significant amount of new ideas.

What's next for Argue-It! - A Platform for Debating

We plan on implementing a live arguing feature, which will allow users of a high rank to have their very own audience. As well, users will be allowed to choose "other" as an option as opposed to simply for and against. This will allow for a more diverse range of topics, including postmodern perspectives on current issues. Lastly, users will be able to opt in for a research time prior to their arguments so that they may be more constructive in the time they do spend arguing.

Room #: IC208

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