http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/26/obama.debate/index.html

I hope we continue to have judges.

why’s that?

the ’scrolling’ issue is not a problem in speeches as much as it is during prep. no file is going to be organized in such a way that you read the same pages in the same order every time. copying/pasting cards out of files is way more time consuming than flipping through and reorganizing a stack of papers. i do everything digitally that i possibly can (i have not physically cut a card in a long time and i flow on my laptop) but its not really practical to roll w/ no paper unless youre the type of team that doesnt need tubs anyway.

of course, theres also a lot of human factors research shows significantly slower reading speeds (as much as 30%) when reading from a computer instead of paper, particularly if the document was not formatted for a computer screen (i.e. the tons of scanned backfiles everyone has)

Lexy’s probably right about the immediate positive impacts, though I remain convinced that eventually, with the establishment of community norms, digitization will be the way to go.

There’s liability with everything. With tubs, things will inevitably spill (best scenario: novice policy team knocked everything out of their tub, then proceed to spilled water everywhere, and then decided to spread the evidence across the auditorium floor, air drying each page separately), people will forget them somewhere, or the airline will lose them in the deep abyss of other hopelessly lost luggages.

The only genuine flaws about why digitization is bad is that sharing evidence is going to be difficult and the ethical concerns that might arise. Other than that, it’s all about “Goddamn it. It’s such a hassle to press a button on my computer and scroll down the page.”

the thing about policy tubs full of files is that its much more accessible and reliable. if you rely on your laptop and you lose your laptop, it crashes, etc. before or in round you are screwed. one thing that happened to me was i was reading off my laptop during a round and norton antivirus decided to have a random scan, which threw off my speech.

I expect that what will really happen is that many will pay the extra bag fee, while there will also be pressure to cut tubs. I know that we plan to try for a three tub limit next year, which should work so long as LD and policy folk travel together. I hope that the bag limit will have the following positive impacts–

1)Encouraging teams to carry their least frequently used files/backfiles digitally, to be printed only as needed. Of course this would require each team to carry a printer, which presents another bag limit challenge.

2)Encouraging debaters to write better files. In most cases, nothing needs to be over 100 pages. I’m sick of seeing 500 page heg files that are really unedited compilations of various generations of camp files. These files are practically useless in round, because the crap to quality ratio is so poor. I think we need to change our perspective as coaches and not praise debaters for generating giant files. We need to give page limits with our assignments to force our debaters to select only the best evidence. The attitude should never be that more is better. The debater should be able to justify the the inclusion of each piece of evidence she puts in the file.

I do anticipate at least one neutral impact–the abandonment of expandos for all but the most important files. I’m convinced that much of the recent tub proliferation is not a result of teams carrying more files, but a product the files taking up more space.

I mean, we’re as guilty of this of this as anyone — Bronx Science has more than twenty policy teams — and there are many valid reasons for sticking to paper that I’ve heard from folks who actively coach policy. But in an age of decreasing costs for laptops, and high costs of mass photocopying, I can’t help but wonder if a day of digitization is finally not too far off.