Changelog | SuperDebate

Aug 14, 2026

Reworked the Persuasion section on /why-debate with a fuller two-photo layout

Replaced a single small floating photo that left half the section empty with two photos and real scroll parallax

Smoother loading and animations across the site, especially on mobile

Fixed the /world-class hero slider showing black cards before photos loaded
Logged-in visitors on mobile now see their account immediately instead of a flash of the signed-out header
Faster page-to-page navigation with instant loading screens instead of blank pauses
Consistent animations across pages, with automated checks to keep it that way going forward

Aug 13, 2026

Why-debate rebuilt, city nights on the front door, showcase moves to October

The why-debate page is rebuilt as the shareable pitch page: everyday scenes, the night explained plainly, and four doors in, the first of which is just watching.
The world-class page adds a SuperDebate Hangout slide and a live list of the Chicago, Austin, and New York City online debate nights.
The Chicago Debate Showcase is now Friday, October 2.

Why Debate page redesigned

The /why-debate page has a new look and deeper copy explaining what debate teaches beyond persuasion, plus a scrolling photo showcase in the hero.

Coach analytics: cleaner opponent-strength stats

The admin coach dashboard no longer files solo drills under an unknown opponent strength. Drills practice alone, so they sit out that list.

World-class hero: a real mobile carousel

The /world-class hero now has a proper native swipe carousel on mobile instead of a shrunken desktop slider, with portrait-cropped photos so no one's face gets cut off.

Aug 12, 2026

New landing page: Real Clash. Better Thinking.

Added /world-class, a new homepage-style landing page with a hero slider, featured debates, and clear paths to watch, join a club, debate online, or practice with The Contrarian.

The world-class page, rebuilt shot by shot

The /world-class page got a full redesign pass: new photography throughout, a clearer hero, an auto-scrolling topics band, and tighter copy in every section.
Debate watch pages now say plainly when nothing is live yet and what starts the round.

Aug 7, 2026

Featured Debates page rewritten

Clearer walkthrough of how a debate works, from the resolution through to the recording you keep.
The roster now leads with the researchers and their questions.

A booking page for researchers and professors

Academics can bring a question they want argued, and we find the person best placed to argue the other side.
The round structure is laid out speech by speech, and every part of it can be adjusted. Scoring is optional.
Book a 30-minute call with John directly on the page, or email him.

Aug 6, 2026

Classroom hero gets a photo, clearer copy, and card-by-card animation across both new pages

Classroom hero now uses a real photo (two debaters at podiums) with the kit tiles on glass panels, instead of a flat cream background
Rewrote confusing instructions: the exercise's closing step now tells you exactly what to say, and every mention of a loud vs quiet student became a plain description of the timer
Cards, grids, and numbered steps on classroom, why-debate, and the shared example-debates section now cascade in one at a time instead of popping in as one block

Biweekly Hangout scheduling, plus admin control for event cadence and cancellation

SuperDebate Hangout now runs every other week, with the next 4 sessions open for RSVP
Admins can set an event's repeat cadence and cancel a single session from /admin/events
Fixed: featuring an event from admin was silently ignored for standard (non-custom-page) events
Fixed: a below-fold section could get permanently stuck invisible on some pages

The whole site got faster and smoother

Pages respond noticeably faster, especially when you are signed in: navigation no longer waits on a hidden account check, and busy pages like clubs, topics, events, search and the blog reuse recent results instead of re-asking the database on every visit.
Animations are now consistent everywhere: content appears instantly, glides in as you scroll, and never gets stuck invisible, including after using the back button, on slow connections, or with reduced-motion settings.
Phones stopped downloading desktop-sized images: every hero and card now loads exactly one image sized for your screen.
Fixed a broken event card image on the events page.

Example debates on the classroom and why-debate pages, sharper hero copy

New /classroom hero: reads like a teaching kit cover (the exercise, the Draw deck, the AI coach) instead of a sales pitch
/why-debate hero rewritten to say what you actually get and where you practice
Both pages now show three real recorded SuperDebates (Jordan vs LeBron, DEI, UBI) as watchable example cards, same as the Open page
Example-debates fetch and display logic is now one shared component, used by three pages instead of copy-pasted

Aug 5, 2026

Two new landing pages, Draw restored, and example debates on the Open

New /why-debate page: why debate is worth your time, built around getting what you want
New /classroom page: a fifteen minute debate exercise any instructor can run, with the free AI training
Draw is back: /draw and /draw/play restored, linked from both new pages
SuperDebate Open now shows three recorded example debates so entrants can watch the format before registering

Events list in date order, and drafts out of search

Events now sort by date everywhere. Featured is a badge, not a position, so a debate can no longer jump the queue on a hand-typed priority number. The featured strip shows the next six upcoming debates and nothing that has already finished.
Fixed four debates that displayed a date ten days earlier than their real one, because details hardcoded in the code were overriding the database. Rescheduling from the admin panel now takes effect on the page.
The Watch badge now appears only where a recording actually exists. Nine finished debates were inviting a click to a video that was not there.
More Debates, at the bottom of every debate page, now recommends upcoming debates. It had been showing the same four long-finished ones on all 45 pages.
Site search no longer returns unpublished draft events, and orders results by what is happening soonest rather than furthest away.
Moved five debates that never took place to early September, and gave Messi vs Ronaldo a real record so it can be edited from the admin panel.

Run a tournament start to finish from one screen

Organizers now run every multi-round tournament from a single dashboard with a Run of Show strip that always shows the one next thing to do: import competitors, pair the round, assign judges, reveal the topic, start, collect ballots, finalize, then generate semifinals and the final.
New round format: three resolutions are revealed together, the Opposition strikes one, and the Proposition confirms the debate resolution from the remaining two, each debate deciding its own. Rounds with a single motion work exactly as before.
Debaters get self check-in and a live strike-and-confirm card in My Room. Judges see who they are judging plus a direct link into the video room, and can now write feedback for each side on the ballot.
Fixed: finalizing a round could never succeed for events without a club, scores were read in a way that returned no ballots at all, and judges brought by a competitor could be assigned to judge that competitor.

A sharper Open page

The tournament page got a design pass: one clean title lockup in the hero, consistent type sizes, and section headers without the overlapping watermark numbers.
Prize and entry cards now sit on clean elevated surfaces, and the two entry options no longer repeat their own names.

Claim your Open spot now, pay closer to tournament day

Entry into the Inaugural SuperDebate Open no longer waits on card payment: claim your spot with nothing owed today and we collect the entry fee before tournament day.
Claimed competitors get the same confirmation email, judge nomination flow, and entry hub as paid entries.
Checkout now explains when online payment is not yet open instead of showing an error.

The Inaugural SuperDebate Open

Our first open online tournament goes live: one day, 1-on-1, five rounds, Friday September 18
Two entry options: $25 bring-your-own-judge or $150 with a certified judge included
Competitors name their judge right on the register page, and judges get an email invite with their portal link
Volunteers can sign up to judge with one click, and organizers see judge coverage per competitor in the admin
Presented with Accelerate (Custom AI Solutions), with a become-a-sponsor funnel on the page

Aug 4, 2026

Pitch deck polish: coherency, copy, and a rotating scoreboard

Fixed round stage, city pipeline, and ambition copy to match the canonical brand facts everywhere in the deck.
Tightened copy on six slides: problem, big idea, platform, unit economics, defensibility, and the ask.
The live match card now cycles through three real debate resolutions instead of a single static example.
Migrated remaining hardcoded deck colors to design tokens.

Aug 3, 2026

Reactions button in the video call bar

The reactions surface now has a button in the main call bar next to mic and camera, instead of sitting behind a separate toggle.
Judged rooms are unaffected: floating emoji stay off wherever scoring happens.
The video box no longer changes height when the live picture appears.

36 debate pages are now discoverable

36 published debate pages had never been linked from anywhere. They now appear in the More Debates section, taking cross-linked debates from 10 to 46.
Anonymous lead forms now use a one-time expiring token instead of trusting a URL id.
Hosts can see who a registrant is at a glance when checking people in.

Faster, leaner codebase

Removed about 20,000 lines of duplicated and unused code, roughly 7% of the site's codebase.
Database changes now take one step instead of two, removing a manual duplicate edit that had caused bugs before.
No change to how any page looks or works.

Jul 31, 2026

You control the room door now

From your host page you can let people in whenever you like, close the room while you take a break, and open it again when the conversation carries on.
Leaving it alone keeps the old behaviour: guests arrive fifteen minutes before you start, and the room closes a couple of hours after you finish.
You can always get into your own room, whatever the door is set to, so you can never lock yourself out of your own session.

A clearer seat chart when building your debate

The roster editor is now a seat chart: see both sides, who is in each seat, and what is still open at a glance.

Recordings and live streams now carry the SuperDebate mark

Every recording and broadcast is composited with the logo and a caption naming the event and round, or the debate motion.
It works no matter what device anyone joined on.
If the branding cannot be applied for any reason, the recording still goes ahead without it.

Calls now filter out background noise on their own

Noise reduction is on by default for everyone, so a barking dog or a busy room no longer lands on everybody else.
Unlike background blur, this one works on phones too.
If a device cannot keep up, it switches itself off and turns the microphone back on rather than leaving someone silently muted.

Blur your background, or pick a backdrop

A new Background button inside the call lets you blur whatever is behind you, or choose one of five backdrops.
Your choice is remembered on that device and comes back on its own the next time you join.
Background effects need a desktop browser. On a phone the button simply is not there, rather than showing you something that cannot work.

Ask a question without leaving the call

Attendees can now ask and upvote questions from inside the room, in the same panel the host moderates from. Before this you had to leave the call to ask anything.
Turning up to an online session now records you as having attended, so hosts can see who actually came and follow up with the people who did not.

Every email is readable in dark mode

Text that kept its light-mode colour on a dark background has been corrected across every template.
Checked by measuring the real contrast of every line in both light and dark, rather than by eye.

The connection test now actually tests your connection

It used to report a pass for almost everyone, because the check it ran could not really fail.
It now checks separately that your network can reach the video servers and that video itself can get through, which catches a work firewall or a VPN before a debate instead of during one.
It also tells you whether background effects will work on your device.

Unsubscribe now works without signing in

The unsubscribe link at the bottom of emails now works even when you are signed out, and confirms on its own page instead of bouncing you to a login.

The join button now actually joins

Joining a debate used to report success while seating nobody. Taking a seat now really takes it, and withdrawing really withdraws.
Debate listings now say which side is open instead of a bare participant count.

Find your opponent: declare a side and be found

Pick a topic, say which side you would argue, and you are findable. When someone opens a matching seat, you hear about it first, by email and phone notification.
Debates Wanted shows every open seat and every topic people are waiting to argue, in the menu under Community.
Hosts with an open seat see how many people already want that debate and can alert them with one tap.
Manage or renew your declarations any time from My Debates.

Jul 30, 2026

Two quiet bugs in recurring sessions, fixed

If you asked to be notified about a weekly series, you would never have got the email when a session went live. The reminder looked for the specific date, while your request was filed under the series itself.
A series with an end date could lose its final session, because the end date was read as ending in London rather than where the event actually happens.

Audience questions now live inside the video call

When you host a session, the audience question queue sits beside the video instead of on a separate page. Publish a question, mark it covered, or dismiss it without leaving the call.
A question asked while you are live shows up on its own, and the count stays accurate even with the panel closed.
On a phone the questions slide up over the call, and on a tablet or a phone held sideways they sit beside it, so you can always see who is speaking.
Only the host can record a session. Previously any attendee could start a recording, which we found and closed.
The live room now fills the whole screen on a phone. It used to render as a clipped strip with the join button off the edge.

Member locations now show in the admin user table

The user table shows where each member is, from their onboarding answer or a location lookup. About two thirds of members have one.
It reads as city and state at home, city and country abroad, and it no longer repeats the state when the city already includes it.
Location is included in the CSV export alongside every other visible column.

Hosts can open their own room whenever they want

As the host you can now walk into your own event room at any time, to check your camera or try something out. You are no longer held at the door until fifteen minutes before you start.
Nothing changes for guests. They still arrive when the doors open, and your walking in early does not let anyone else in.

What's new.

2026

Reworked the Persuasion section on /why-debate with a fuller two-photo layout

Smoother loading and animations across the site, especially on mobile

Why-debate rebuilt, city nights on the front door, showcase moves to October

Why Debate page redesigned

Coach analytics: cleaner opponent-strength stats

World-class hero: a real mobile carousel

New landing page: Real Clash. Better Thinking.

The world-class page, rebuilt shot by shot

Featured Debates page rewritten

A booking page for researchers and professors

Classroom hero gets a photo, clearer copy, and card-by-card animation across both new pages

Biweekly Hangout scheduling, plus admin control for event cadence and cancellation

The whole site got faster and smoother

Example debates on the classroom and why-debate pages, sharper hero copy

Two new landing pages, Draw restored, and example debates on the Open

Events list in date order, and drafts out of search

Run a tournament start to finish from one screen

A sharper Open page

Claim your Open spot now, pay closer to tournament day

The Inaugural SuperDebate Open

Pitch deck polish: coherency, copy, and a rotating scoreboard

Reactions button in the video call bar

36 debate pages are now discoverable

Faster, leaner codebase

You control the room door now

A clearer seat chart when building your debate

Recordings and live streams now carry the SuperDebate mark

Calls now filter out background noise on their own

Blur your background, or pick a backdrop

Ask a question without leaving the call

Every email is readable in dark mode

The connection test now actually tests your connection

Unsubscribe now works without signing in

The join button now actually joins

Find your opponent: declare a side and be found

Two quiet bugs in recurring sessions, fixed

Audience questions now live inside the video call

Member locations now show in the admin user table

Hosts can open their own room whenever they want