Really guys. Almost every candidates lives in EST and refused the irc debate. It's quite sad.
I know this isn't the actual problem, but it reflects the actual problem: people don't want to change Atlasia but want it to slowly die instead. Theoretically Atlasia should be constantly growing since there are more new users registered each election cycle, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. The main reason people want an IRC debate is because it's interactive and IRC is fun for most people who visit the Atlas.
Yes, this is the point I was trying to make, though clearly my wording was misunderstood. I'm in no way arguing that refusing to take part in a modern debate means you want Atlasia to die, nor that the absence of such a debate would directly contribute to Atlasia's "death", but that everyone cooperating in such a thing could lead to increased game activity and attract new users to the forum, thus lengthening its lifespan. The fact that most people are against these small changes is sad, indeed, simply because of their potential to make this process more interesting.
Now to quickly address a couple of these points made against my idea. I for one, do not believe that holding a video debate would lead to people getting elected simply because of their visual appeal or performance in that one debate. I'd like to believe that very few of us are dim-witted enough to vote for a candidate based solely on his or her appearance, and being 'politicos', we need substance, and that would only be added through video. I would never think less of a candidate if they didn't participate in a video debate, nor one with IRC. I guarantee you the polls would display the same results they do now. Also, I disagree sharply with the sentiment "it's worked fine this long, so..", but I am a leftist, after all.
Oakvale, I would propose the addition of one Youtube debate (if only candidates expressing their own ambitions) and one IRC debate to that calender, both being completely optional and open to public view and scrutiny. It is only an experiment, and might just fail, but I'm sure many of us would like to see this play out.
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