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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
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| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.28813 |
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| _version_ | 1866912989765959680 |
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| author | Marandi, Ramtin Zargari |
| author_facet | Marandi, Ramtin Zargari |
| contents | In multi-agent debate (MAD) systems, performance gains are often reported; however, because the debate protocol (e.g., number of agents, rounds, and aggregation rule) is typically held fixed while model-related factors vary, it is difficult to disentangle protocol effects from model effects. To isolate these effects, we compare three main protocols, Within-Round (WR; agents see only current-round contributions), Cross-Round (CR; full prior-round context), and novel Rank-Adaptive Cross-Round (RA-CR; dynamically reorders agents and silences one per round via an external judge model), against a No-Interaction baseline (NI; independent responses without peer visibility). In a controlled macroeconomic case study (20 diverse events, five random seeds, matched prompts/decoding), RA-CR achieves faster convergence than CR, WR shows higher peer-referencing, and NI maximizes Argument Diversity (unaffected across the main protocols). These results reveal a trade-off between interaction (peer-referencing rate) and convergence (consensus formation), confirming protocol design matters. When consensus is prioritized, RA-CR outperforms the others. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_28813 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The impact of multi-agent debate protocols on debate quality: a controlled case study Marandi, Ramtin Zargari Multiagent Systems Artificial Intelligence In multi-agent debate (MAD) systems, performance gains are often reported; however, because the debate protocol (e.g., number of agents, rounds, and aggregation rule) is typically held fixed while model-related factors vary, it is difficult to disentangle protocol effects from model effects. To isolate these effects, we compare three main protocols, Within-Round (WR; agents see only current-round contributions), Cross-Round (CR; full prior-round context), and novel Rank-Adaptive Cross-Round (RA-CR; dynamically reorders agents and silences one per round via an external judge model), against a No-Interaction baseline (NI; independent responses without peer visibility). In a controlled macroeconomic case study (20 diverse events, five random seeds, matched prompts/decoding), RA-CR achieves faster convergence than CR, WR shows higher peer-referencing, and NI maximizes Argument Diversity (unaffected across the main protocols). These results reveal a trade-off between interaction (peer-referencing rate) and convergence (consensus formation), confirming protocol design matters. When consensus is prioritized, RA-CR outperforms the others. |
| title | The impact of multi-agent debate protocols on debate quality: a controlled case study |
| topic | Multiagent Systems Artificial Intelligence |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.28813 |