Blocked at your school? Send this to IT.

01 What this site is

Debatable is a practice platform for competitive debate. A student picks a motion, argues a side against a clock in one of 15 competitive formats, and an AI judge returns a written ballot with speaker points and a reason for decision. It is built for high school and college debaters, their coaches, and classroom teachers who want speech practice without needing a second person free at the same hour.

02 Why a filter blocked it

Straight answer. Automated classifiers read vocabulary, not purpose, and three things on this site read badly to them.

• Live video rounds between matched students Debaters can be matched with another debater for a one-to-one video round. Classifiers read peer video matching as anonymous chat, which most K-12 policies block by default. The rounds are moderated, sign-in is required, and they are a small part of the site, not the core of it.
• A play-credit prediction layer Viewers can back a side on a round using play credits. There is no cash value, nothing to purchase, and nothing to withdraw. Classifiers read the vocabulary as gambling.
• Prize tournaments with published rules The site runs occasional debate tournaments with cash prizes and published official rules. Classifiers read the words prize and entry fee as gambling.

None of those are required to use the site for practice. All three sit on separate paths and can be blocked individually while the practice rooms stay open. That policy is in section 04.

03 Copy this into your IT ticket

Written so a network administrator can act on it without reading the rest of this page.

Subject: Web filter review request, itsdebatable.com (educational)

Hello,

I am requesting a review of a blocked domain for instructional use.

  Domain:    itsdebatable.com
  Requested: Education / Reference
  Requested by: [your name], [your department]
  Purpose:   Speech and debate practice for our debate program

What it is: Debatable is a competitive debate practice platform.
Students argue a motion against a clock and receive a written
judge ballot with speaker points and a reason for decision. It
covers 15 competitive formats used by school and college debate
circuits.

Why it may have been auto-categorized as Chat or Gambling:
the site also hosts peer-to-peer video debate rounds and a
play-credit prediction feature that carries no cash value. Both
sit on separate URL paths and can be blocked independently.

If our policy restricts peer video or wagering vocabulary,
please allow only these paths:

  /practice        typed rounds against an AI opponent
  /voice-debate    spoken rounds against an AI opponent
  /newvoice        spoken rounds against an AI opponent
  /learn           format instruction and drills
  /flow            flowing and note-taking practice
  /judge           submit a round for an AI ballot
  /topics          motion and topic library
  /masterclass     8-week debate curriculum
  /how-it-works    product overview
  /leaderboard     public standings

and block these:

  /spar, /live, /live-round, /rounds     peer video rounds
  /predict, /floor, /ladder              play-credit prediction
  /tokens, /tournaments                  purchases and prize events

Hosts required for the allowed paths:

  itsdebatable.com          site and API, required
  www.gstatic.com           Google sign-in SDK
  accounts.google.com       Google sign-in
  apis.google.com           Google sign-in
  *.googleapis.com          account and data storage
  debateos-78ac5.firebaseapp.com        authentication
  debateos-78ac5.firebasestorage.app    user file storage
  api.openai.com            spoken rounds, browser to API directly

Additional hosts, only if peer video rounds are permitted:

  *.daily.co, api.daily.co, unpkg.com   video round infrastructure

Thank you.

04 Allow the practice rooms, block the rest

If your policy prohibits peer video or wagering vocabulary, you do not have to block the whole domain. These paths involve no matching with other users and no credits of any kind.

05 Hosts to allow

The site loads no third-party fonts, CDNs, or advertising. Page loads are first-party only. These are the external hosts, and what breaks without each one.

Voice and video rounds use the microphone and camera and need WebRTC. If your network blocks UDP outbound, those rounds will fail to connect while every typed surface keeps working.

06 Ask the filter vendor to recategorize

Path rules fix one district. A category correction at the vendor fixes every district using that vendor. Most run a free review tool, and the text in section 03 is what to paste into it.

• Zscaler sitereview.zscaler.com
• Palo Alto Networks urlfiltering.paloaltonetworks.com
• Symantec and Broadcom sitereview.bluecoat.com
• FortiGuard fortiguard.com
• Cisco Talos talosintelligence.com

Securly, GoGuardian, Lightspeed, iBoss, ContentKeeper, and Linewize handle recategorization through a support ticket rather than a public form. Open a ticket with your vendor and paste the same text.

07 Still blocked?