Participation clearly dropped. When we discussed topic 2 I sent out emails to non-participating debaters asking me to let me know why they are not participating. I needed to learn from them if there was anything that I could do better. All responded to my emails. They were on sabbatical, they had sick relatives, the were too busy. Nobody told me that the debate was boring or irrelevant or what I could do better. But this does not mean that they were really thinking this. FW staff are very busy people and I was actually astounded how much time the active debaters put into this project which did not give them any brownie points.