TOC Final Panel Named
posted by Jon Cruz on April 13th, 2008
LEXINGTON, Ky. — “As most of you know, we have been pre-selecting the final LD judge panel for some time,” noted J.W. Patterson in an e-mail this morning. “The reason for this is to avoid situations like we used to face in which we had insufficient numbers to put together a final panel. Please note that these nine people and the three alternates cannot be struck from the final panel.This does not preclude you from striking any of them in all other rounds.”
THE PANEL
Jason Baldwin
Chris Castillo
Stephen Hess
Cherian Koshy
Dave McGinnis
Stacy Thomas
Aaron Timmons
Liz Scoggin
Joe Vaughan
THE ALTERNATES
Wesley Craven
Jon Cruz
Adam Nelson
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26 Responses to “TOC Final Panel Named”
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Posted from: 209.98.146.245
April 13th, 2008 10:41
Huh, this is a departure from precedent. Me like.
Posted from: 68.209.198.15
April 13th, 2008 10:58
this is a really solid panel
Posted from: 24.6.177.101
April 13th, 2008 11:39
+1.
Posted from: 74.186.137.114
April 13th, 2008 11:41
i like it
Posted from: 76.211.64.163
April 13th, 2008 12:50
sick.
Posted from: 69.120.236.168
April 13th, 2008 16:24
Why do they need 3 alts (do they expect 1/3 of the panel to run away)? Also, is there some form of alt hierarchy?
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 13th, 2008 16:37
alternates are used, among other things, in the event of a conflict of interest (if, for example, finals was theis v moerner then i imagine both shess and cherian would have to come off the panel).
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
April 13th, 2008 17:29
to quote dem franchise boyz: oh, i think they like it
tremors in the ground, not giant worms, but the end of the world rumbling towards us. will you be ready when the reaper man comes?
Posted from: 140.247.103.21
April 13th, 2008 20:40
This panel is better than the fixed panels of the past few years (in my opinion, they’ve gotten better with each year since they instituted the pre-selected panel), but I do have one quick complaint. There are some camp directors on the unstrikable final round panel (Timmons, Stacy, maybe Cherian?). I don’t think that camp directors should ever be unstrikable at TOC. There are two basic reasons for that: first, camp directors may have fiscal or political incentives to vote for one debater over another which outstrip those of most judges, and second, even honorable camp directors can be accused of voting one way rather than another on the basis of said incentives, which de-legitimizes the results of tournaments if they are not liable to strike. I’m glad they’ve never put me on this panel, and I’m glad Victor and Paul Bellus are no longer featured on it. Not because I think I would be biased, or because I think either of them would be, but because no student should have to go home feeling like they got cheated because they went to the wrong camp.
Again, I am not “questioning the integrity” of anyone involved (past or present). I’m just saying that the perceptual issue should not exist, at the very least.
There’s two ways you could go to fix that. You could give people a couple strikes for the final round and leave the camp directors on (possibly expanding the size of the panel) or you could just not put camp directors on the panel. Either route seems fine to me.
And I guess before anyone jumps on me and says “oh Eric just wants a different panel for the sake of his kids” - know that in my four year tenure at MVLA, we have never struck Stacy Thomas at any tournament or from any outround panel.
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
April 14th, 2008 12:17
I think that the elimination of Bellus is probably a good idea. The man’s a great coach, but he is not the most pleasant person to disagree with. I personally enjoyed him at camp, but there were people who were scared of him/by him. But I really don’t think that if I were to be in the final round of the TOC, I really couldn’t object to this pannel
Posted from: 76.167.241.95
April 14th, 2008 13:32
Should camp directors strike themselves from ever judging kids that attended their camp?
Should this be at all tournaments or the just the TOC?
Are directors more invested (financially or other) than others that are involved with the camp?
For the last two years I took the step of recusing myself from judging anyone to whom VBI had offered jobs. I’m unsure if other camp directors have done the same.
Posted from: 140.247.103.21
April 14th, 2008 15:19
Bietz, I think we’re roughly on the same page here, but I think the more important issue is that camp directors should be *strikable* and not that they strike themselves from everyone they’re hiring or who went to their camp or whatever. The basic reason for that is that it should be up to the debater whether or not they trust that director to be fair. We make the decision all the time that Stacy (for one). This just means: don’t put directors in situations where they are unstrikable, or don’t have no-strike contexts (like this final round panel).
Ideally, I would say the “no unstrikable directors” policy should apply at every tournament. At most tournaments we go to, we don’t have to worry about this because very few major tournaments have no-strike contexts anymore. There are, of course, exceptions (Emory finals for example).
As for whether or not camp directors are more invested than other people involved with the camp, I’d say for most camps that is very much true, just because profit is variable and contracts are fixed. I guess there may be some people who are particularly invested in a camp regardless, but I think these may be instances of political bias for which it is impossible to draw a principled bright line. I guess in those situations I just hope that people will use good sense and strike themselves from kids who they are incapable of objectively evaluating for whatever reason (like where they went to camp, love their coach, hate their coach, whatever).
As for whether or not I strike myself from judging people NSD has hired, I don’t, because I feel that I am still impartial with respect to those people. Others who disagree (for whatever reason) can, and do strike me. Good for them; I wouldn’t want someone to feel like they lost a round because they don’t work for NSD or similar (even though subjectively I’m quite certain that I’ve never dropped anyone for any reason other than that I felt they lost the round).
Posted from: 64.91.217.43
April 14th, 2008 18:22
yay to castillo. he’s a great judge.the others are too
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
April 14th, 2008 20:50
the inclusion of big shess makes that panel totally illegit.
Posted from: 199.189.10.9
April 15th, 2008 10:16
Essentially, I agree with Mr. Bietz and Mr. Palmer regarding the need to avoid the appearance of impropriety. However, I don’t see a significant difference between an institute director that may hire someone and has a financial interest or a lab leader that has worked with someone, who also has a financial (more likely to get rehired if lab students do well in the season?) and professional (reputation?) interest in the debater’s success.
If my equating the two potential sources of bias is accepted, then it would be almost impossible to find a panel of judges at late elims that are not affiliated with the debaters in some objective way. I agree in principal, but I wonder about what this may do to the ability to find panels on elim day at the TOC or any other national/regional tournanment.
I can be persuaded to belive that the two sources I outlined as not truly equal. The financial conflict for an institute director may be greater than a single lab leader, but I don’t know if this difference is significant to warrant justifying different tournament procedures.
Further, I think judges’ excluding themselves from hearing a particular debater IN ALL CASES for professional reasons is better than the debaters/coaches choosing what to do. Bietz’s desire to avoid the conflict by removing himself from any debater VBI plans to hire is very different that Palmer’s choosing which ones to strike and which ones not. It’s objective, consistent, predictable, and fair.
Posted from: 140.247.103.21
April 15th, 2008 21:51
Thanks for the response Mr. Malis. I fully understand your position on strikes for the final round, even if I am inclined to disagree.
Just a clarification: I did not mean to imply that judges should select who to strike themselves from arbitrarily. I think people should strike themselves from judging certain debaters when they think they can’t objectively do so. There is no picking or choosing there; and while it may be subjective in a way (in the sense that one has to judge what attitudes one holds towards someone), this makes more sense to me than choosing an objective criterion (like, “I hired this person”) which doesn’actually represent what biases you hold. Someone might be completely impartial with respect to people who they have hired, but very biased with respect to some other group of people. In that case, I say that person should strike themselves from the people they’re actually biased against.
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
April 16th, 2008 20:01
its interesting to me that a lot of traditionally knee-deep circuit judges aren’t going to be at the TOC this year. i know Anjan has a case, right? but Petey Gil’s out of the game too. i can’t think of any other notable examples, but they’re out there.
Posted from: 68.48.175.11
April 16th, 2008 20:12
While I shiver at the description of being “knee-deep” in the circuit, I will, alas, be preparing for a trial that starts the Monday of TOC.
Good luck to all though, esp. Vivian and the Whitman trio!
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
April 18th, 2008 11:01
On behalf of Blake LD, I hope that Liz Scoggin cannot judge the final round because of connections to one of the debaters. And yes, this is another wacky prediction similar to the obsessive posting on tournament threads predicting closeouts :)
Posted from: 128.54.50.191
April 18th, 2008 16:11
zomg, lol, Scoggs judging finals
and plus one to phil
Posted from: 69.121.162.215
April 18th, 2008 19:50
christopher castillo: a preferred national critic
jonathan cruz: an alternate
OUCH.
Posted from: 169.232.233.11
April 27th, 2008 22:03
hahaha are you kidding me?! Liz Scoggin is judging the final round of the TOC? oh my god the world is going to implode. i demand that she flow only in pictures on a poster board.
On another note, Stephen will hack. I know so, because he told me.
Before anyone jumps on me, I don’t mean to criticize anyone’s judging talent. This panel is just so bizarre…I can still remember hanging with these kids when we were like 15.
I look forward to seeing everyone this weekend! Especially my main man Rebar.
Posted from: 74.36.136.254
April 28th, 2008 16:15
Christian Tarsney for final round panel 2009.
Haha but yeah, I like this panel. Should be interesting to see the adaptation of both debaters.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
April 28th, 2008 16:34
this is a really good panel
Posted from: 24.140.53.64
May 3rd, 2008 18:14
I’m glad to see the diversity in styles on this panel, especially having Jason on again. It could only be better if they put mangus on too, just for the highly contrasting styles on there. It would be interesting to see the adaptation. Of course, you’ve already got people like AT and Cherian, so it should be interesting either way.
(and I agree w/ Mr. Palmer)
Posted from: 65.8.80.78
May 5th, 2008 14:34
mangus was quite close to calling the final round