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Terms of Service

These Terms govern your use of Debate Tournament. They are short on purpose: the platform is a tool for running debating tournaments, and the rules below are what using that tool fairly requires.

1. Who we are and what this is

“Debate Tournament” is an online platform for running competitive debating tournaments: sign-in through Discord, tab-room tools (draws, motions, results, feedback), debate rooms in Discord voice, and public pages for the draw, results and break. In these Terms, “we” means the operators of the platform, and “the tab room” means the administrators of a particular tournament.

2. Acceptance of these Terms

By signing in, entering a tournament, or using any page on this platform, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the platform. If you are entering a tournament on behalf of a school or organisation, you confirm you may act for it.

3. Your account

There is no separate registration: your account is created from your Discord identity the first time you sign in. You agree to:

  • Keep your Discord account secure, since sign-in happens through it

  • Give honest details where the platform or a tab room asks for them (name, alias, eligibility for a restricted break)

  • Accept responsibility for ballots and feedback submitted through your account or your private ballot link — treat that link like a password

  • Tell the tab room or us if someone else is using your identity

4. The tab room runs the tournament

A tournament on this platform is run by its tab room, not by us. The tab room decides who is entered, what the draw is, when rounds start, what is published publicly, and who breaks. We provide the tools and the record; we do not referee the arguments. If you disagree with a tab decision — a result, a feedback score, an exclusion — take it up with that tournament’s tab room first.

5. Fair play

When taking part in a tournament through this platform, you agree not to:

  • Submit a ballot or feedback that is not your honest judgement, or submit one on someone’s behalf

  • Share private ballot or feedback links, or any tournament content the tab room has not published

  • Enter under a false identity, or help someone who is not eligible appear eligible for a restricted break

  • Record, distribute or publish a debate — audio, video or transcript — unless the tab room has put it where the public can reach it

  • Use another participant’s personal details, chat messages or feedback to harass them, on or off the platform

6. Acceptable use of the platform

For everyone, whether taking part or just reading, you agree not to:

  • Use the platform for any unlawful purpose

  • Attempt to access data your role in a tournament does not entitle you to

  • Transmit viruses or harmful code, or interfere with the service’s operation

  • Scrape, overload or automate access to the platform without permission

7. Your content

You keep ownership of what you write — ballots, feedback, motions, chat messages — and of your generated avatar. By using the platform you give us and your tournament’s tab room permission to store, process and display that content for the running and recording of the tournament, in line with the publication switches the tab room sets. Feedback is given to the tab room and the debater it concerns; do not submit feedback you would not be willing to have read aloud.

8. Discord

Much of the service depends on Discord: sign-in, the tournament server, the voice rooms. Your use of Discord is governed by Discord’s own terms and policies. We can move you into your debate’s room and manage tournament roles on the tournament’s server; we cannot help with Discord account problems, and Discord outages may interrupt the service in ways we cannot fix.

9. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect and who sees it. In short: we collect what running a tournament needs, participants see only what a paper tournament would publish, and nothing is sold.

10. Fees

Where a tournament charges entry, the fee and what it covers are set by that tournament’s organisers, and payments are processed by our payment processor. Platform-side fees, if any are ever introduced, will be shown before you are charged.

11. Disclaimer

The service is provided “as is” and “as available”. We do not promise it will be uninterrupted or error-free — a draw generator is clever, not infallible, and the internet happens. The tab room is responsible for checking its own results before announcing them.

12. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses — lost profits, lost data, lost reputations, or a debate lost to a technical fault. Where liability cannot be excluded, it is limited to what the law requires.

13. Suspension and termination

A tab room may remove a person or team from its own tournament. We may suspend an account that breaks these Terms, is used to abuse participants, or puts the service or other tournaments at risk. You can stop using the platform at any time; disconnect it from your Discord account to end your sign-in. Published results of completed tournaments survive, as the historical record.

14. Changes

We may change these Terms; the current version is always on this page. Material changes will be announced on the platform. Continuing to use the platform after a change means you accept the updated Terms.

15. Contact

Questions about these Terms go to the platform administrator through the contact link on this site. Questions about a specific tournament go to its tab room.