Judge the argument, not the room.
Agoracrux scores every round against a rubric you set, keeps each judge's reasoning attached to the score that carries it, and turns ballots into standings that hold up when a team asks how they lost.
- Rubric-bound
- Judges score named criteria at fixed weights, not an overall impression.
- On the record
- Every score carries the written reason that justifies it.
- Auditable
- Standings recompute from ballots, so any rank can be traced back.
This house would abolish closed primaries
Sample · SemifinalThe point of a round is to be understood, not just to score one.
Underneath the ballot is a live discourse engine. It runs while the round is happening, so the two sides are arguing with each other instead of past each other.
Nugget Board
Every claim breaks down into a thought nugget. Agoracrux synthesizes each side's nuggets into a steelmanned version of what they're actually arguing, so neither side can dismiss a position it hasn't understood.
Live fact-check
No more “can you provide a source — I'll wait.” Claims get pulled, checked, and synthesized against sources while the round keeps moving, so the debate argues from a shared set of facts instead of stalling on them.
Crux detection
Tracks the actual point of disagreement in the current exchange — not just what each side said, but what they're truly trying to convey, and the worldview their words are coming from.
Dialogue-tree guardrails
Distinguishes a dodge from a setup. A speaker laying groundwork for a larger point gets walked down a direct line of questions, instead of the opposition hearing a dogwhistle in a foundational question and fighting it early.
Viewer lens
Anyone watching can click a word, an idea, or a whole nugget and get a steelmanned, plain-language version of it — so a dense, high-level point doesn't lose the room.
An end-of-round takeaway, not just a winner.
Every round closes with a scorecard, scored on engagement the way the round itself was judged on argument — concessions made, questions left unanswered, and whether either side was steelmanning in good faith or just running out the clock.
Scorecard — This house would abolish closed primaries
Sample · Post-roundA score means nothing until it names what it measured.
You define the criteria and their weights before the round opens. Judges score against those criteria and nothing else, which is what makes two ballots comparable.
Weighted criteria
Build the rubric your format already uses — British Parliamentary, Lincoln–Douglas, policy, or your own. Weights are fixed at publication so they can't drift mid-tournament.
Reason-giving
A score outside the expected band asks the judge to say why before the ballot will submit. The reason travels with the score into the record.
Independent ballots
Panellists can't see each other's scores until all ballots are in, so the first submission doesn't anchor the rest of the panel.
Judge calibration
Agoracrux tracks how far each judge sits from panel consensus over time and surfaces persistent drift — a judge who runs generous on delivery, or harsh on evidence.
Rankings that recompute from the ballots underneath them.
Ratings update as each round resolves. Every figure below traces back to the ballots that produced it — open a team and you get the rounds, the panels, and the reasoning.
| # | Team | Institution | Rating | W–L | Avg margin | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kestrel A1 seed | Northgate | 1842 | 14–2 | +6.4 | +23 |
| 2 | Meridian B | St. Alban | 1798 | 13–3 | +4.9 | −11 |
| 3 | Thornbury A | Thornbury | 1776 | 12–4 | +3.8 | +8 |
| 4 | Halloway C | Halloway | 1741 | 11–5 | +2.1 | +14 |
| 5 | Ravensmoor A | Ravensmoor | 1709 | 10–6 | +1.3 | −6 |
The unedited vision, for now.
The sections above are the working translation. This is the raw source, kept on the page verbatim while it's still being built out.
i want people to be able to have a debate/discussion/discourse and not talk past eachother, i want them to genuinly be able to understand what the otherside is trying to convey like a steelman version of an argument, this is shown with the synthisys of the though nuggets on the nuggetboard
real time fact checking, no more " ok we are in the middle of a conversation but can you provide a source for that, ill wait", things like that derail conversations and when sourses are provided it is not feasable to have someone digest what they are given within the confines of a conversation, having the ability to pull and synthasize the related informaiton so that the conversation can operate on truth and sound arguments
people talk past eachother so having the ability to understand the crux of the current back and fourth is important, understanding what someone is saying , but not only that, understanding what they are truly trying to convey with their words and where their words are coming from within the framework of their worldview
activly see if someone is dogging a question or hearing a dogwhistle and fighting immediatly with what they percieve someone is saying instead of directly being walked down a dialogue tree, some times we just need a response to a question directly so the person who is trying to lay the groundwork of a point can build up to the greater point makings ure the opposition is with them along the way
the ability for viewers in the debate to interact with the program and find definiitons of words or even entire ideas or whole nuggets, sometimes people talk in such a high level that others who do not know what ontologically means, or when someone brings up a dense point the viewers that are not as estute can follow along with a steelmaned boiled down understanding that a layman could grasp
an end of the debate scorecard that shows points conceeded, questions left unanswered, how well each participant did in the context of enguagement, things like: conceeding to another person when appropriate, steelmanning arguments, not waffeling or waisting talk time, being good faith and not trying to paint what the other person said in a bad light when it was clear what they were trying to convey, the scorecard will have other features to be determined but it will be a rich, end of debate takeaway the allows each speaker to digest what happened in that exchange, to maybe show how they messed up or how the other side succeeded in an optics fashion, the scorecard will also have the entire transcript that is searchable and nugget board(able to be searched and clicked through advancing next and previous to show the flow of the conversation) attactched to it
Open your first round.
Bring a rubric and a bracket. Agoracrux handles the ballots, the panel, and the table.