Chris Theis Wins the TOC
Greenhill Wins Third Policy TOC Title;
North Allegheny Wins PF; Nova Takes Congress
LEXINGTON, Ky. — This year’s Tournament of Champions concluded with an intense final round between Apple Valley High School’s Chris Theis and the Kinkaid School’s Becca Traber.
Chris Castillo, Wesley Craven, Jon Cruz, Dave McGinnis, Adam Nelson, Liz Scoggin, and Aaron Timmons adjudicated. On a 6-1 decision — Craven dissented — Chris took home the title for Apple Valley. He is the fourth Apple Valley debater to reach finals and the first to win. Congratulations to both debaters!
Chris is only the second junior in history to win the TOC in Lincoln-Douglas debate.
Chris is coached by Pam Cady Wycoff, Cherian Koshy, and Tim Hogan; Becca is coached by Eric Emerson and Ryan Cooper.
As a junior in the elimination rounds, Chris Theis has already qualified to the 2009 Tournament of Champions. Underclassmen Ross Brown of Valley High School, Daniel Garber of Mountain View High School, Daniel Moerner of Los Altos High School, Jake Nebel of Trinity Preparatory School, and Shivani Vohra of the Hockaday School also advanced into the elimination rounds and also received auto-qualifications to the 2009 TOC.
Preliminary rounds in Lincoln-Douglas debate can be accessed by clicking here; results from the elimination rounds are, as always, available below.
The oldest event at the Tournament of Champions — policy debate — came to a close at approximately 3:00 AM on Tuesday following a challenging final round. On the affirmative: Greenhill School’s twin debaters, Nick Rogan and Olivia Rogan. On the negative, Colleyville Heritage High School’s Evan DeFillipis and James Hamraie.
The round featured teams from both schools whose coaches were, early Monday morning, honored with induction into the TOC Coaches Hall of Fame.
On a 2-1 decision — with John Warden and Aaron Hardy in the majority and Jacob Polin dissenting — Greenhill bested Colleyville to take the title. Congratulations to both teams!
Nick and Olivia are coached by Aaron Timmons and Jonathan Paul; Evan and James are coached by David Huston.
The Tournament of Champions in Public Forum Debate cleared to a full octafinal round; the final round pitted the first seed, North Allegheny, against the tenth seed, Collegiate. Congratulations to both teams!
North Allegheny High School’s team of Naz El-Khatib and Claire Kairys defeated the Collegiate School’s Jonathan Yip and Charles Giardina on a 4-3 decision to win the TOC title. Scott Wunn, Aarron Schurevich, Jonathan Peele, and Henry Soong made up the majority; Fred Robertson, Carol Green, and Charlie Cavalier dissented.
Naz and Claire are coached by Sharon Volpe; Jonathan and Charles are coached by Sean Mumper and Michael Mangus.
Finally, congratulations are in order for the top two contestants in the Tournament of Champions in Student Congress. Placing first was Ben Berkman of Nova High School; placing second was Kevin Eaton of Duncanville High School. Congratulations to both competitors, to the Top Six at the TOC, and to all those who advanced to the final legislative session.
Ben is coached by Lisa Miller; Kevin is coached by Barbara T. Garner.
—
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE
RUN-OFF ROUND
(14) Valley RB def. (19) Scarsdale MH (Matt Hershey)
3-0 (Cherian Koshy, Michael Mangus, Tim Case)
(18) Mountain View DG def. (15) Walt Whitman CS (Caroline Sherrard)
3-0 (Mike Bietz, Tim Hogan, Liz Scoggin)
(17) Mount Vernon RN def. (16) Montgomery Bell CM (Corey Metzman)
2-1 (Dan Meyers, Adam Nelson, Chetan Hertzig)
OCTAS
(1) Hockaday JG def. (16) Mount Vernon RN (Rebar Niemi)
3-0 (Tommy Clancy, Jon Cruz, Aaron Timmons)
(2) Los Altos DM over (15) Mountain View DG (Daniel Garber)
(3) Kinkaid BT def. (14) Valley RB (Ross Brown)
2-1 (Ajay Ketkar, *Tom Evnen, Dan Meyers)
(4) Apple Valley CT def. (13) Strake Jesuit TL (Todd Liipfert)
3-0 (Joe Vaughan, Wesley Craven, Chetan Hertzig)
(12) Elkins AC def. (5) Sacred Heart SZ (Shadman Zaman)
2-1 (Gary Johnson, *Sam Duby, Eric Melin)
(6) Trinity Prep JN def. (11) Hockaday SV (Shivani Vohra)
2-1 (Tim Case, *Ernie Rose, Stephen Hess)
(7) Oak Mountain WH def. (10) Analy CC (Chris Catterton)
3-0 (Sean Mumper, Eric Palmer, Ryan Cooper)
(8) Hockaday LD def. (9) Strake Jesuit DD (David Donatti)
2-1 (Adam Nelson, Pam Cady Wycoff, *Kris Wright)
QUARTERS
(1) Hockaday JG over (8) Hockaday LD (Lindsay Dolan)
(2) Los Altos DM def. (7) Oak Mountain WH (Wade Houston)
2-1 (Michael Mangus, *Larry McGrath, Adam Nelson)
(3) Kinkaid BT def. (6) Trinity Prep JN (Jake Nebel)
3-0 (Eric Palmer, David Weeks, Ernie Rose)
(4) Apple Valley CT def. (12) Elkins AC (Andrew Cockroft)
2-1 (*Tom Evnen, Dan Meyers, Mike Bietz)
SEMIS
(4) Apple Valley CT def. (1) Hockday JG (Joan Gass)
3-2 (Eric Melin, Ernie Rose, *Wesley Craven, *Joe Vaughan, Liz Scoggin)
(3) Kinkaid BT def. (2) Los Altos DM (Daniel Moerner)
4-1 (Ryan Lawrence, *Tom Evnen, Larry McGrath, Dan Meyers, Tim Hogan)
FINALS
(4) Apple Valley CT def. (3) Kinkaid BT (Becca Traber)
6-1 (Chris Castillo, *Wesley Craven, Jon Cruz, Dave McGinnis, Adam Nelson, Liz Scoggin, Aaron Timmons)
TOC CHAMPION
(4) Apple Valley CT (Chris Theis)
—
TOP SPEAKERS
1. Daniel Moerner — Los Altos High School (CA) [Walter Alan Ulrich Award]
2. Becca Traber — The Kinkaid School (TX)
3. Joan Gass — The Hockaday School (TX)
4. Chris Theis — Apple Valley High School (MN)
5. Shadman Zaman — Sacred Heart High School (MA)
6. Jake Nebel — Trinity Preparatory School (FL)
7. Danielle Smogard — Greenhill School (TX)
8. Wade Houston — Oak Mountain High School (AL)
9. Ken Hershey — Scarsdale High School (NY)
10. Lindsay Dolan — The Hockaday School (TX)
11. John Scoggin — The Blake School (MN)
12. David Donatti — Strake Jesuit College Preparatory School (TX)
13. Jason Zhou — Lexington High School (MA)
14. Paul Tyger — Strake Jesuit College Preparatory School (TX)
15. Catherine Tarsney — St. Louis Park High School (MN)
—
POLICY DEBATE
OCTAS
(1) Colleyville Heritage DH def. (16) Cathedral Prep CH (Mike Carlotti & Leo Hayes)
(2) Greenhill RR def. (15) Pace AL (Jennifer Armstrong & Peyton Lee)
(14) Rowland Hall-St. Mark’s BL def. (3) Groves BG (Maya Bhardwaj & Sophia Goren)
(4) Damien CG def. (13) Glenbrook North OZ (Lucy Zhu & Debbie Oh)
(5) St. Mark’s KB def. (12) Colleyville Heritage MN (Andrew Murray & Alex Nasr)
(6) Bishop Guertin CP def. (11) Greenhill HS (Bryant Huang & Hayden Schottlaender)
(7) Chattahoochee FL def. (12) Meadows KS (Bobby Kim & Jeremy Selesner)
(9) Carrollton Sacred Heart HS def. (8) Bronx Science GB (Kristina Gunnarsdottir & Francisco Bencosme)
QUARTERS
(1) Colleyville Heritage DH def. Carrollton Sacred Heart HS (Catalina Santos & Dorothy Hector)
(2) Greenhill RR def. (7) Chattahoochee FL (Matthew Foretich & Michael Lacy)
(3) Damien CG def. (6) Bishop Guertin CP (Katryna Cadle & Chris Power)
(5) St. Mark’s BK def. (14) Rowland Hall-St. Mark’s BL (Chase Burton & Melissa Leeworthy)
SEMIS
(1) Colleyville Heritage DH def. (5) St. Mark’s BK (Jordan Blumenthal & Alex Katz)
(2) Greenhill RR def. (3) Damien CG (Trevor Chenoweth & Andres Gannon)
FINALS
(2) Greenhill RR def. (1) Colleyville Heritage DH (Evan DeFilippis and James Hamraie)
TOC CHAMPIONS
(2) Greenhill RR (Nick Rogan & Olivia Rogan)
—
TOP SPEAKERS
1. William Karlson — Stratford Academy (TX) [Mark Shelton Award]
2. Chase Burton — Rowland Hall-St. Mark’s High School (UT)
3. Katryna Cadle — Bishop Guertin High School (NH)
4. Evan Matthews — Woodward Academy (GA)
5. Daniel Sharp – The Kinkaid School (TX)
6. James Hamraie – Colleyville Heritage High School (TX)
7. Jordan Blumenthal – St. Mark’s School of Texas (TX)
8. Matt Foretich – Chattahoochee High School (GA)
9. Robin Gray – Fullerton Union High School (CA)
10. Kristina Gunnarsdottir — The Bronx High School of Science (NY)
11. Nick Rogan — Greenhill School (TX)
12. Hillary Ledwell — Little Rock Central High School (AR)
13. Sophia Goren — Groves High School (MI)
14. Rajesh Jegadeesh — Westminster Schools (GA)
15. Alex Katz — St. Mark’s School of Texas (TX)
16. Ryan Beiermeister — The Kinkaid School (TX)
17. Simon Mettler — Chattahoochee High School (GA)
18. Sean O’Brien — Dallas Jesuit College Preparatory School (TX)
19. Anshu Sathian — Westminster Schools (GA)
20. Andrew Murray — Colleyville Heritage High School (TX)
—
PUBLIC FORUM DEBATE
OCTAS
(1) North Allegheny KK def. (16) Durham ZK (Josh Zoffer & Robert Kindman)
(15) Walt Whitman SE def. (2) Ransom Everglades CS (Austin Crider & Amanda Scherker)
(3) Timber Creek WS def. (14) Walt Whitman WU (Ben Wolcott & Rachel Umans)
(13) Ransom Everglades BB def. (4) Harker AB (Raghav Aggarwal & Mohit Bansal)
(12) Montgomery HJ def. (5) Bronx Science RJ (Lev Raslin & Rohan Jotwani)
(13) North Allegheny VL def. (6) Harker HG (Kelsey Hilbrich & Kaavya Gowda)
(10) Collegiate YG def. (7) Manchester Essex EP (Max Elder & Jamie Pates)
(8) New Trier GC def. (9) Chapparral RU (Riley Roberts & Max Ullman)
QUARTERS
(1) North Allegheny KK def. (8) New Trier GC (Joey Glickman & Zach Collins)
(10) Collegiate YG def. (15) Walt Whitman SE (Aaron Schifrin & Alex Edelman)
(3) Timber Creek WS def. (13) Ransom Everglades BB (Jose Bengochea & Charles Barr)
(13) North Allegheny VL def. (12) Montgomery HJ (George Highwood & Rush Jones)
SEMIS
(1) North Allegheny KK over (13) North Allegheny VL (Greg Vose & Vicky Lopez)
(10) Collegiate YG def. (3) Timber Creek WS (Kaitlyn Westerberg & Dave Schneider)
FINALS
(1) North Allegheny KK def. (10) Collegiate YG (Jonathan Yip & Charles Giardina)
TOC CHAMPIONS
(1) North Allegheny KK (Naz El-Khatib & Claire Kairys)
—
STUDENT CONGRESS
TOP SIX
1. Ben Berkman — Nova High School (FL)
2. Kevin Eaton — Duncanville High School (TX)
3. Dominic Pody — Holy Ghost Preparatory School (PA)
4. Tommy Maranges — St. Thomas Aquinas High School (FL)
5. Jordan Stone — Adlai E. Stevenson High School (IL)
6. Brad Dlatt — Adlai E. Stevenson High School (IL)
FINALISTS
7. Christian Chauvet — St. Thomas Aquinas High School (FL)
8. Reid Spitzer — Ridge High School (NJ)
9. Nate Blevins — Gilmour Academy (OH)
10. Mitchell Blenden — University School (FL)
11. Alex Henderson — Charlotte Latin High School (NC)
12. Tom Nally — Loyola High School (IL)
PRESIDING OFFICER FOR FINAL STUDENT CONGRESS
3. Dominic Pody – Holy Ghost (PA)
—
LIVE COVERAGE OF THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS
J.W. Patterson began the morning by welcoming us all to the thirty-seventh annual Breakfast of Champions at the National High School Tournament of Champions.
Dr. Patterson first introduced Scott Wunn, who spoke on behalf of the National Forensic League; he congratulated the debaters who qualified for the TOC and he got the audience excited about next month’s Desert Lights National Tournament in Las Vegas.
Ted Belch, formerly of Glenbrook North High School — and now of Las Vegas — then spoke on behalf of the National Tournament itself.
Afterwards, Tara Tate spoke on behalf of the National Debate Coaches Association, discussing program initiatives of the organization and announcing that the 2009 NDCA Championships will bring debaters back to Las Vegas.
Billy Tate spoke next, a member of the Coaches Hall of Fame present, introduced the other members who are here this year: Ted Belch of Glenbrook North, Alex Pritchard of Westwood, Eric Di Michele of Regis, Tim Averill of Manchester Essex, and Pam Cady Wycoff of Apple Valley.
Marie Dzuris, dean of the Hall of Distinguished Service, spoke on behalf of that institution; she remembered Walter Alan Ulrich and recognized David Hingstman, Steve Mancuso, Minh A. Luong, and Michael Burton.
She then had the pleasure of inducting the newest member of the Hall of Distinguished Service, one of the great coaches, one of the great givers in this community, and one of the great people in this community: Greg Malis of Glenbrook North High School. Congratulations, Greg!
(Editorial aside: I have had the privilege of knowing Greg for some time. He is a friend and a colleague whom I greatly respect. I had a conversation with him yesterday on topics ranging from the importance of local circuit competition to his continued support in the rebuilding of the Isidore Newman tournament and program. I just flat out can’t think of a person more deserving of this honor. So, again, congratulations!)
Bill Smelko is introducing the keynote speaker for this year’s Tournament of Champions, the man widely hailed as the greatest college debater in the history of forensics, Tom Rollins.
Tom is now the coach at the Potomac School just outside Washington, D.C. (I’d like to make an editorial aside here, too: I’m proud to call him my friend and I can say without reservation that Tom is one of the most incredible coaches — and incredible people — I have ever met in this activity. I literally cannot think of a more appropriate speaker for this event.)
And by the way, his speech is great. (No surprise!)
And now, Pam Cady Wycoff is introducing the newest inductee into the Coaches Hall of Fame. This is a truly incredible and emotional introduction.
Clue one: it is a man.
Clue two: he has achieved great success in both Lincoln-Douglas and policy debate.
Her descriptions of him: “Great debate mind.” “Focused.” “Thorough.” “Intense.” “Unafraid to speak is mind.” “Cares deeply about this activity.” “Cares deeply about his wife and family.”
CONGRATULATIONS AARON TIMMONS!!!
(Do I even need to make an editorial aside? The most telling thing: there were debaters audibly surprised before the remarks began that AT wasn’t already a member of the Coaches Hall of Fame, and the standing ovation that preceded his remarks upon induction was one of the longest I’ve seen at a debate event. Thank you for being so supportive to newer members of the national circuit and to debaters at Greenhill and across the country. This is a tremendously deserved honor — congratulations!)
Alex Pritchard acknowledged Lizzie Patterson (who hosted the TOC Advisory Committee Luncheon) before making a second presentation.
Clue one: it is a man.
Clue two: he coached in Iowa and then in Texas.
I already figured out who it was before that clue! It had to be him, given his years of service to the debate community, phenomenal coaching record (underscored by having two teams in the policy outrounds pool this year!), intensity for his support of his own debaters and of the larger debate community,
CONGRATULATIONS DAVE HUSTON!!!
“No one wants to hear me talk; if you’re like me, you want to find out who is debating and who is judging.”
(Final editorial aside: Again, it seems an editorial aside isn’t even needed. I have often said that Dave has one of the intense presences of any person I’ve ever met in this activity — so it really underscored the significance of this honor by seeing a few tears! I mean it. As before, there was audible surprise that he was not already a member. Like AT, Dave has been a model of coaching excellence for me and, I must say, someone who has been very supportive of me and many other younger coaches. Congratulations!)
Dr. Patterson then acknowledged those who are leaving the high school debate community this season: Doug Springer, Ed Williams, James Herndon, and Nick Coburn-Palo.
Marilyn Burke has introduced the Julia Burke Award, which recognizes a debater who “demonstrates goodness of heart despite the pressures of competition at the highest level,” an ideal Julia embodied.
Jon Cowperthwait, alumnus of College Preparatory School, presented the award to the 2008 recipient: James Hamraie of Colleyville Heritage High School.
Adam Jacobi was then called forward to recognize the top contestants in Student Congress.
Tim Averill was then called forward to recognize the top contestants in Public Forum Debate.
Greg Malis was then called forward to recognize the top speakers in Lincoln-Douglas debate.
Congratulations to one of the hardest working competitors in the debate community, the recipient of this year’s Walter Alan Ulrich Award for placing a top speaker: DANIEL MOERNER OF LOS ALTOS!
And afterwards, David Hingstman was then called forward to recognize the top speakers in policy debate.
Congratulations to William Karlson of Statford Academy, the recipient of the Mark Shelton Top Speaker Award! (Although he wasn’t present.)
J.W. Patterson: “GOOD LUCK…WE GO TO THE END NOW!”
Popularity: 49% [?]
test
Posted from: 72.255.2.10
May 2nd, 2008 23:18
Who wants a horsey?
Posted from: 66.64.221.35
May 2nd, 2008 23:43
i do
Posted from: 150.108.232.25
May 3rd, 2008 00:55
David, Todd, and Paul,
The improvement all three of you have accomplished and the amount of work you three have done before this tournament is nothing short of amazing. For lack of a better way of relating this to you, I will have to explain this in terms of our favorite NBA team. The Houston Rockets sadly ended their season today, but I can rest assured that you will avenge them (especially if there are a few Jazz fans in Kentucky). Even if only one of you can be T-Mac (it would be David because he’s the star), Shane Battier (Todd because he’s the most underrated and because he wrecks shit up), and Rafer Alston (Paul because he’s the most ballin’ of the three and displays the most natural talent and unexpected success). The best of luck and all of my wishes go to you three. I have the utmost confidence in you. You make me proud that I went to Strake Jesuit and had the opportunity of being there when you needed. I love all of you.
Two pumps is all that you require,
Brian Matthew Kwik
Posted from: 128.101.49.122
May 3rd, 2008 01:59
ALRIGHT YE ALL. THIS BE IT! SHOW ME WHAT YOU CAN DO. WHAT YOU CAN GET DONE. WHAT YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH. THIS IS THE ONE TOURNAMENT EVERYONE PAYS ATTENTION TO. THIS IS THE ONE TOURNAMENT EVERYONE CARES ABOUT. THIS IS THE ONE TOURNAMENT EVERYONE STRIVES TO DO THEIR BEST AT. THIS IS THE ONE TOURNAMENT WHERE ALL THAT SWEAT AND THEM TEARS BE PAYING OFF. THIS IS THE ONE TOURNAMENT YOU WANT TO LOOK BACK ON AND SAY “I COULD NOT HAVE DONE ANY BETTER, BECAUSE I AM THE G.O.A.T.” BALL IT UP WHILE YOURE AT IT BUT DONT FORGET THE TRUE REASON YOU BE THERE, FOR SERIOUS!
DONT STOP, I KNOW ITZ IN YOUR VEINS
Posted from: 199.76.152.132
May 3rd, 2008 05:21
There are currently ten people watching Round 1A between Los Altos DM and Trinity Prep RS. Epic.
Posted from: 206.240.25.47
May 3rd, 2008 06:04
rd 1A: Los Altos DM def. Trinity Prep RS
Posted from: 199.76.167.33
May 3rd, 2008 06:08
Isn’t it weird that everyone loves this tournament despite the fact that roughly 7 out of every 10 rounds are decided by judges repping out or just hacking for their friends?
Posted from: 128.163.243.50
May 3rd, 2008 06:17
lol, great statistical analysis. I’d counter your claim with 9 out of 10 anon posters are dipshits.
Posted from: 24.186.38.46
May 3rd, 2008 06:33
though i’m sure “repping out” happens on occasion, i’d be happy to know how you got 7/10. rather precise.
Posted from: 128.163.243.50
May 3rd, 2008 06:42
nah…he/she/it said ‘roughly’, so there’s clearly some variance…i’m still confident in the accuracy of my claim.
Posted from: 24.186.38.46
May 3rd, 2008 06:43
haha i’ll take your word for it
Posted from: 68.230.73.179
May 3rd, 2008 06:59
Good Luck Delta Force, may the force be with you.
and Frank Willet too.
Posted from: 69.118.140.49
May 3rd, 2008 07:12
Good luck Matt, Ken, Nikita, Daniel and Marcus.
Posted from: 199.76.186.166
May 3rd, 2008 07:17
gasp – VBD covering policy:
Round 1 (Aff, Neg, Judge)
Colleyville DH v. Mercer Island CK – Osborne
Lexington LS v. GBS QZ – Lundeen
Lakeland RW v. Greenhill HS – Rubaie
College Prep KV v. Stratford CK – Jennings
Sheboygan North KM v. Bellarmine DR – Jaswa
Westminster AS v. Groves BG – Jones, Mike
Chattahoochee KM v. Grapevine BP – Ewing
MBA AM v. Bishop Guertin CP – Groves
GBN OZ v. Pace AL – Abelkop
Brophy MM v. SFA BR – Sanchez
Calhoun HJ v. Cathedral Prep – Bethiaume
Coppell BK v. Meadows BS – Turner
Kinkaid BS v. Meadows KS – Tribble
Fort Lauderdale BM v. New Trier GH – Lingel
Head Royce SZ v. Bronx Science BM – Gordon
Greenhill BL v. Chattahoochee FL – Petit
Highland Park TX PY v. Lexington TZ – Reed
Damien CG v. Woodward MN – Greenstein
Fullerton GS v. New Trier BR – Polin
Dallas Jesuit HN v. Chattahoochee PS – Olsen
Rowland BL v. Dallas Jesuit GO – Clark, Josh
Centerville CY v. Chattahoochee CZ – Clark, Kathryn
Walter Payton RT v. Greenhill RR – Schultz
Highland Park GO v. Milton BL – Lazarevic
Bronx Science BG v. Damien EN – Serrano
St Stephen’s PV v. Chattahoochee BP – McFarland
St Marks BK v. Notre Dame AD – Berggren
Valley HR v. Westminster AJ – Farra
College Prep CH v. Notre Dame BP – Antonucci
Kinkaid KS v. Carrollton School – Hill
Little Rock LS v. Damien HR – Burshteyn
Colleyville MN v. NFA BP – Quinn
GBS LP v. Head Royce BZ – Silber
Jenks KS v. Chattahooche LR – Heidt, J
Posted from: 199.76.186.166
May 3rd, 2008 07:33
Round 2
Bellarmine DR v. Westminster AS – Petit
Bishop Guertin CP v. Chattahoochee KM – Polin
Bronx Science BM v. Greenhill BL – Antonucci
Carrollton HS v. College Prep CH – Clark, Josh
Cathedral Prep CH v. Coppell BK – Olsen
Chattahoochee BP v. Bronx Science BG – Burshteyn
Chattahoochee CZ v. Rowland BL – Jones, Mike
Chattahoochee FL v. Head Royce SZ – Ewing
Chattahoochee LR v. GBS LP – Mulholland
Chattahoochee PS v. Fullerton – Jaswa
Dallas Jesuit GO v. Centerville CY – Lee, Ed
Damien EN v. St Stephen PV – Farra
Damien HR v. Colleyville MN – Greenstein
GBS QZ v. Colleyville DH – Akelkop
Grapevine BP v. MBA AM – Schultz, Jim
Greenhill HS v. College Prep KV – Osborne
Greenhill RR v. Highland Park GO – Batik
Groves BG v. Sheboygan North KM – Schy, Rueben
Head Royce v. Jenks KS – Lundeen
Lexington TZ v. Damien CG – Quinn
Mercer Island CK v. Lexington LS – Reed
Milton BL v. Walter Payton RT – Munksgaard
New Trier BR v. Dallas Jesuit HN – Rubaie
New Trier GH v. Kinkaid BS – Berthiaume
NFA BP v. Little Rock LS – Smith
Stratford CK v. Lakeland RW – Lawson
Meadows BS v. Calhoun HJ – Tribble
Meadows KS v. Fort Lauderdale BM – Sanchez
Westminster AJ v. St Marks BK – Jennings
Woodward MN v. Highland Park TX PY – Mapes
Posted from: 71.169.17.239
May 3rd, 2008 07:45
Go NFA BP
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
May 3rd, 2008 07:53
Greenhill HS v. College Prep KV – Osborne
omg epic
no jk idk lol
Posted from: 66.68.159.87
May 3rd, 2008 07:53
Go SFA BR!
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
May 3rd, 2008 07:54
John Scoggin is 1-0
Posted from: 74.70.112.133
May 3rd, 2008 07:55
Go wade!
Posted from: 74.70.112.133
May 3rd, 2008 07:57
and good luck to Sdale, Maeshal and the Valley squad, and anyone else i’m forgetting
Posted from: 208.120.129.233
May 3rd, 2008 08:07
ney1 know bronx records?
Posted from: 68.192.165.197
May 3rd, 2008 08:08
Good luck Alan and Steph!!
also good luck to Marc and the scarsdale squad
i think alan may be 2-0, but positive
Posted from: 98.194.2.241
May 3rd, 2008 08:15
Good luck to everyone from Texas: Cockroft, Todd, Paul, David, Courtney, Devin, Ben, Becca, Vivian, Will, Shivani, Joan, Lindsey, Arti, Rahim, Danielle and Ryan. You are all amazing, and I have no doubt y’all will do great.
Also, to those not from Texas that I know, good luck to Gurdane, Wade, and Ravi
Posted from: 12.227.177.160
May 3rd, 2008 08:21
OmgAWD.
Lolz.
Posted from: 209.98.146.245
May 3rd, 2008 08:29
Go Catherine and Jason!
How many rounds are on the schedule today?
Posted from: 128.163.240.104
May 3rd, 2008 08:30
Round ones:
Marcus V def Westlake
Westwood BC def Presentation N
Round two:
Westwood BC def Apple Valley CT
Posted from: 199.76.152.72
May 3rd, 2008 08:40
Round 2:
Westlake DR def. Meadows AK
Posted from: 128.6.30.197
May 3rd, 2008 08:41
good luck to the ridge crew
NJ ftw
Posted from: 199.76.170.186
May 3rd, 2008 08:43
one:
Kinkaid BT def Perkiomen Valley KG
two:
Perkiomen Valley KG def Bronx Science MD
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
May 3rd, 2008 08:56
John Scagga is now 2-0.
Posted from: 128.36.87.180
May 3rd, 2008 09:08
GO BMAC/BDMcD!
McDonald FTW!!!
Posted from: 69.115.18.52
May 3rd, 2008 09:24
Good luck to Vineet, Karlyn, Gurdane (sorry if i butchered the spelling of ur name)and most importantly the ridge team!
go jersey!
Posted from: 66.171.182.10
May 3rd, 2008 09:28
Any PF results?
Posted from: 68.196.201.226
May 3rd, 2008 09:39
good luck to ridge
jersey!!
Posted from: 70.124.52.133
May 3rd, 2008 10:06
Are rounds being taped there?
Posted from: 24.164.191.184
May 3rd, 2008 10:44
Good luck to so many people, but especially the NE crew – Bx, Sdale, Marc, Lex, PA, etc etc
Posted from: 199.76.186.166
May 3rd, 2008 10:58
policy round 3, courtsey of Jeffery Miller at GAFD.
Bronx BG Damien CG
Bronx BM St. Stephens VP
Centerville CY Greenhill BL
Chattahoochee BP SFA BR
Chattahoochee LR Coppell BK
Chattahoochee PS Calhoun HJ
Dallas Jesuit GO College Prep CH
Dallas Jesuit HN Chattahoochee KM
Damien EN Westminster AS
Ft Laud BM Lexington TZ
GBS LP Colleyville DH
GBS QZ Mercer CK
Grapevine BP Bishop Guertin CP
Greenhill HS GBN OZ
Groves BG Notre Dame BP
Head Royce BZ Brophy MM
Head Royce SZ Colleyville MN
Highland Park GO Notre Dame AD
Highland Park PY College Prep KV
Jenks KS Stratford CK
Kinkaid BS Sheboygan KM
Lakeland RW New Trier BR
Lexington LS Milton BL
Little Rock LS Chattahoochee CZ
MBA AM Carrollton HS
Meadows BS Greenhill RR
Meadows KS NFA BP
New Trier GH Bellarmine DR
Pace AL Westminster AJ
Valley HR Kinkaid KS
Walter Payton RT Chattahoochee FL
Woodward MN
Fullerton GS
St. Marks BK
Damien HR
Cathedral CH
Rowland Hall BL
Posted from: 66.32.47.192
May 3rd, 2008 11:15
gl to rusty
Posted from: 69.115.223.185
May 3rd, 2008 11:18
go alan and steph!
Posted from: 24.164.191.184
May 3rd, 2008 11:28
oh. and gl NJ crowd
Posted from: 71.190.114.206
May 3rd, 2008 11:37
GO BRONX!!!!
Posted from: 216.250.178.113
May 3rd, 2008 11:43
Good luck MN debaters!
Posted from: 66.245.9.56
May 3rd, 2008 12:05
Palo Alto Rahul is 2-0.
Go Rahul!!!
Posted from: 128.163.238.118
May 3rd, 2008 12:32
Los Altos DM 3-0
Valley RB 3-0
Palo Alto RR 2-1
Valley MA 2-1
Mountain View DK 1-2
Ridge SC 2-1
Paul Tyger, Chris Theis, Becca Traber, Wade Houston, Ken Hershey, Ravi Sankar, and Danielle Smogard were all down 1 after 2 rounds.
Posted from: 74.73.188.174
May 3rd, 2008 12:53
Bronx Science MD 0-2
Bronx Science ST 1-1
Bronx Science VS 1-1
they may have finished round three by now but im not sure
Posted from: 199.76.171.100
May 3rd, 2008 12:54
Blake JS 2-1
Posted from: 199.76.185.95
May 3rd, 2008 13:06
Bronx Science MD 1-2 — def. Presentation NA
Bronx Science ST 1-2 — def. Scarsdale DD
Bronx Science VS 2-1 — def. Edina DM, Scarsdale KH
Posted from: 76.187.116.216
May 3rd, 2008 13:07
Good luck to arti, rahim, ryan, william and shaggy! Have fun =]
Posted from: 74.73.188.174
May 3rd, 2008 13:09
Bx Sci VS is 2-1
Bx Sci MD and ST are both 1-2
Posted from: 74.73.188.174
May 3rd, 2008 13:09
sry i didnt see that cruz just posted thaht
Posted from: 199.76.185.95
May 3rd, 2008 13:21
Trinity Prep JN 2-1
Valley RB 3-0
Posted from: 199.76.187.248
May 3rd, 2008 13:35
mount vernon rn 2-1
south eugene bs 1-2
Posted from: 68.193.75.170
May 3rd, 2008 13:42
Go NJ :)
Posted from: 206.240.25.149
May 3rd, 2008 13:51
me and scara are 2-1
Posted from: 206.240.25.149
May 3rd, 2008 13:54
by scara i mean ridge sc
Posted from: 208.120.129.233
May 3rd, 2008 14:26
chris theis is 1-2?
Posted from: 208.120.129.233
May 3rd, 2008 14:29
nvm lol
Posted from: 75.25.130.115
May 3rd, 2008 14:35
3-0
Los Altos DM (WWW)
Valley RB (WWW)
2-1
Blake JS
Bronx Science VS (LWW)
Mount Vernon RN (?W?)
Palo Alto RR (WWL)
Ridge SC
Ridge AT
Trinity Prep JN 2-1 (W??)
Valley MA (WWL)
1-2
Bronx Science MD (LLW)
Bronx Science ST (WLL)
Mountain View DK
South Eugene BS
0-3
2-0
Westwood BC (WW)
1-1
Aple Valley CT (WL?)
Kinkaid BT (WL?)
Marcus VH (WL?)
Oak Mountain WH
Perkiomen Valley KG (LW?)
Scarsdale KH (??L)
Strake Jesuit PT
Trinity Prep RS (LW?)
Westlake DR (LW?)
0-2
Presentation NA (L?L)
1-0
0-1
Brophy Prep FW (L??)
Edina DM (?L?)
Meadows AK (?L?)
Northland Christian CN (L??)
Scarsdale DD (L??)
Scarsdale MH (?L?)
Stoneman Douglas LP (?L?)
Torrey Pines VF (L??)
Posted from: 75.25.130.115
May 3rd, 2008 14:41
Btw, didn’t Nick Bratton get an at-large? Why are there only two Meadows debaters then?
Posted from: 141.149.40.184
May 3rd, 2008 14:45
go bronx!!
Posted from: 150.108.232.25
May 3rd, 2008 14:47
GOOD LUCK MATT, SETH, VINEET, AND ALL MY FAVORITE DEBATERS – YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!! <3
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 3rd, 2008 14:55
becca is 2-1 thus far (wlw)
Posted from: 128.54.51.253
May 3rd, 2008 15:27
wait, Ross Brown is 3-0? that’s awesome! Go Valley!
also, Go BMac! you may have had the hardest draw for presets, but you can do it man.
Posted from: 76.245.208.119
May 3rd, 2008 15:42
Good Luck Cockroft, eveyone from Elkins is rooting for you. I heard you were 2-0, good beast it and come home with a trophy. You can do it.
Posted from: 70.21.162.58
May 3rd, 2008 16:00
COCKROFT … LMAO
Posted from: 199.76.148.53
May 3rd, 2008 16:21
a
Posted from: 71.104.136.34
May 3rd, 2008 16:33
rancho bernardo cb: 2-2
Posted from: 76.93.164.26
May 3rd, 2008 16:36
go cameron.
you’re officially a bronco, and i’m cheering you on from san diego.
Posted from: 69.105.108.177
May 3rd, 2008 16:47
when becca traber wins the final round on the neg, i’ll tell you that i told you so.
Posted from: 70.2.20.121
May 3rd, 2008 17:01
GO BECCA TRABER!
Posted from: 70.59.85.197
May 3rd, 2008 17:13
Blake JS (John Scoggin): 2-2, dropped in round 4 to Wade Houston
Posted from: 71.193.137.54
May 3rd, 2008 17:37
Benj, great job and just watch out for those Scoggins. They seem to have some strange power over Schifbergs?!? Love you!
Posted from: 71.136.236.111
May 3rd, 2008 17:51
Come on Cameron! We believe in you man.
Posted from: 75.40.38.58
May 3rd, 2008 18:00
Does anyone know if rounds are being filmed? If so, whose, and when/where will they be posted?
Posted from: 69.115.18.52
May 3rd, 2008 18:00
go ridge!
Posted from: 69.115.18.52
May 3rd, 2008 18:17
btw best of luck to gurdane, karlyn, and vineet!
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
May 3rd, 2008 18:40
Good luck tomorrow to Catterton, Valley, and the Minnesota Contingency.
Posted from: 70.59.85.197
May 3rd, 2008 18:55
Going into round 3, Edina DM was 1-2. Edina BH is 3-1, and Lakeville S. CK is 1-3
Posted from: 12.37.85.2
May 3rd, 2008 19:00
Ross Brown (robro) is 4-0. Daniel Everett Moerner is 4-0. Lots of very good debaters are 3-1.
Posted from: 76.17.212.97
May 3rd, 2008 19:01
Good luck Minnesota!
Posted from: 75.72.51.82
May 3rd, 2008 19:08
Hopkins CD is 2-2.
Posted from: 24.117.47.31
May 3rd, 2008 19:18
Good Luck Connor
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
May 3rd, 2008 19:21
Ross Brown is 4-0? I remember him tearing it up at Harker, and hearing about him dominating at Omaha, but 4-0 at TOC as a Soph? That’s amazing
Posted from: 72.255.55.51
May 3rd, 2008 19:31
yo,
mount vernon rn 3-1
south eugene bs 2-2
Posted from: 98.197.141.241
May 3rd, 2008 19:40
strake rh 7-0, bye to finals
Posted from: 66.167.79.19
May 3rd, 2008 19:42
ross brown is 4-0. this kid is incredible. goodluck tomorrow everybody.
Posted from: 72.255.52.80
May 3rd, 2008 19:46
Berkley Carrol IB is 1-3
Westwood BC is 2-2
Greenhil DS is 2-2
Kinkaid BT is 3-1
Hockaday SV is 3-1
Hockaday JG is 4-0
Hockaday LD is 2-1
Posted from: 72.255.52.80
May 3rd, 2008 19:48
Sorry,Lindsey is three one
Posted from: 72.255.30.178
May 3rd, 2008 19:50
lex JZ 3-1
Posted from: 75.168.10.199
May 3rd, 2008 20:04
someone ought to be making a bracket
Posted from: 71.28.207.173
May 3rd, 2008 20:07
@31: Nick Bratton had to drop from the tournament- making space for me.
Posted from: 24.242.71.57
May 3rd, 2008 20:20
Go Cameron!
You’re an amazing debater and have worked so hard for this.
Posted from: 38.118.12.10
May 3rd, 2008 20:23
Walt Whitman CS 4-0
Walt Whitman EN 3-1
Torrey Pines VF 2-2
Walt Whitman JK 1-3
Walt Whitman BL 1-3
Posted from: 68.192.165.197
May 3rd, 2008 20:42
Alan is 3-1 (WWLW)
Steph is 2-2 (LWWL)
Posted from: 75.73.239.12
May 3rd, 2008 20:44
Go conor (and the rest of MN people).
Also, my labmate Ben Lewis is just about the coolest kid ever.
Posted from: 70.253.202.50
May 3rd, 2008 21:07
Ben Clancy is beast.
Posted from: 69.118.140.49
May 3rd, 2008 21:24
Any one know how Scarsdale is doing?
Posted from: 71.28.207.173
May 3rd, 2008 21:44
Re: Bx Science Parent :o)
PF:
Bronx Science RJ — 3-1
Bronx Science WR — Unknown (believed 2-2)
Bronx Science KM — 1-3
Posted from: 71.28.207.173
May 3rd, 2008 21:45
In LD, Bronx Science MD and Bronx Science VS are both 2-2.
Posted from: 75.25.130.115
May 3rd, 2008 22:13
I hope this doesn’t have mistakes, since part of the info was deduced rather than copied, so one mistake can screw over everything else.
4-0
Hockaday JG (WWWW)
Los Altos DM (WWWW)
Valley RB (WWWW)
Walt Whitman CS (WWWW)
3-1
Edina BH (WWWL)
Elkins AC (WWWL)
Hockaday LD (WWWL)
Hockaday SV (WWWL)
Kinkaid BT (WLWW)
Lexington JZ (????)
Mount Vernon RN (?W?W)
Ridge AT (WWLW)
Walt Whitman EN (WWLW)
2-2
Blake JS (WWLL)
Bronx Science MD (LLWW)
Bronx Science VS (LWWL)
Greenhill DS (BL??)
Hopkins CD (????)
Rancho Bernardo CB (?L??)
Ridge SC (LWWL)
South Eugene BS (LLWW)
Torrey Pines VF (L???)
Westwood BC (WWLL)
1-3
Berkley Carroll IB (????)
Lakeville South CK (?L??)
Mountain View DK (??LL)
Walt Whitman JK 1-3 (????)
Walt Whitman BL 1-3 (?L??)
0-4
3-0
Sacred Heart SZ (?BWW)
2-1
Apple Valley CT (WL?W)
Oak Mountain WH (???W)
Palo Alto RR (WWL?)
Trinity Prep JN (WWL?)
Valley MA (WWL?)
1-2
Bronx Science ST (WLL?)
Edina DM (?L??)
0-3
Presentation NA (LLL?)
2-0
1-1
Marcus VH (WL??)
Perkiomen Valley KG (LW??)
Scarsdale KH (??L?)
Scarsdale MH (?L?W)
Strake Jesuit DD (W?L?)
Strake Jesuit PT (WL??)
Trinity Prep RS (LW??)
Westlake DR (LW??)
0-2
Colleyville Heritage RS (?L?L)
Grapevine WH (LL??)
Meadows AK (?LL?)
Meadows AS (?L?L)
Scarsdale NL (??LL)
St. Joseph’s RZ (FF)
1-0
0-1
Brophy Prep FW (L???)
College Prep LS (L???)
Collegiate MW (???L)
Monte Vista AW (L???)
Mountain View DG (?L??)
Northland Christian CN (L???)
Scarsdale DD (L???)
Scarsdale MM (??L?)
Southlake Carroll RB (L???)
St. Louis Park CT (L???)
Stoneman Douglas LP (?L??)
Strake Jesuit TL (L???)
Upper St. Clair JG (L???)
Vestavia Hills RM (???L)
Posted from: 129.62.101.99
May 3rd, 2008 22:58
Go out in style Metzman.
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 3rd, 2008 23:36
analy cc is 3-1, wwwl
monta vista oa is 3-1, lwwww
Posted from: 75.80.137.244
May 4th, 2008 00:38
Yay, Vivian!! You’re awesome. <3
Posted from: 68.11.25.35
May 4th, 2008 06:24
Thanks, Compilation (whoever you are), for the work. Preciate it greatly.
Posted from: 74.65.203.175
May 4th, 2008 06:48
GO BRONX!
Posted from: 69.120.226.236
May 4th, 2008 06:57
Lake Highland GB is 2-2
Posted from: 199.76.185.95
May 4th, 2008 07:08
Bronx Science VS is 3-2.
Posted from: 199.76.163.92
May 4th, 2008 07:26
I’m judging:
Hockaday JG v. Valley RB
Walt Whitman CS v. Sacred Heart SZ
Posted from: 199.76.179.56
May 4th, 2008 07:34
3: Oak Mountain WH def Perkiomen Valley KG
4: Brophy Prep FS def Perkiomen Valley KG
5: Perkiomen Valley KG def Bronx Science ST
just to help out with compilation.
Posted from: 24.140.53.64
May 4th, 2008 07:34
Hey bietz, mind posting how you vote in those? ;-)
Posted from: 128.163.249.3
May 4th, 2008 07:59
Joan won.
Shadman won.
Posted from: 199.76.187.248
May 4th, 2008 08:18
up on the datez
mount vernon rn 4-1
south eugene bs 2-3
NOTHING IZ TRUE, BUT I STILL LUV BEN SCHIFBERG.
Posted from: 69.115.18.52
May 4th, 2008 08:24
come on jersey!
Posted from: 71.193.137.54
May 4th, 2008 08:27
Thanks for the update, Rebar! Now you’ve got to represent! We love you Benj!!!
Posted from: 199.76.191.194
May 4th, 2008 08:29
moerner 5-0
shadman 5-0
joan 5-0
garber 4-1
theis 4-1
catterton 4-1
wade 4-1
matt hershey 4-1
cockroft 4-1
lindsay 4-1
ross brown 4-1
becca 4-1
ken hershey 3-2
om alladi 3-2
rahul 3-2
vivian feig 3-2
vivian ho 3-2
nebel 3-2
todd 3-2
paul tyger 3-2
donatti 3-2
shivani 3-2
alan tong 3-2
alex zhang 2-3
marc wallach 2-3
dfk 2-3
matt kawahara 2-3
Posted from: 199.76.191.194
May 4th, 2008 08:31
ryan bennett 3-2
john scoggin 3-2
catherine tarsney 3-2
rusty mawn 3-2
Posted from: 199.76.191.194
May 4th, 2008 08:31
maeshal 3-2
Posted from: 199.76.191.194
May 4th, 2008 08:32
jason zhou 3-2
Posted from: 199.76.191.194
May 4th, 2008 08:34
ravi sankar 4-1
Posted from: 199.76.191.194
May 4th, 2008 08:36
natalee pei 3-2
Posted from: 72.80.235.8
May 4th, 2008 09:07
any bronx records?
Posted from: 69.118.234.129
May 4th, 2008 09:13
rd. 6
wade houston vs. matt hershey (neg), christian tarsney
rebar niemi vs. ken hershey (neg), dunno
go get ‘em bros.
Posted from: 199.76.167.33
May 4th, 2008 09:17
it amuses me people are already clamoring for videos.
Posted from: 71.104.136.34
May 4th, 2008 09:27
rancho bernardo cb: 3-2
eye of the tiger.
round 6:
rancho bernardo cb vs. upper st. clair jg
judge:
eric melin
Posted from: 68.173.139.74
May 4th, 2008 09:40
¿donde esta will hix?
Posted from: 72.153.114.151
May 4th, 2008 09:43
REEEEEEEBAR!
also, how’s louis paine (Stoneman Douglas LP) doing?
Posted from: 199.76.145.55
May 4th, 2008 10:00
Catherine’s 3-2.
Posted from: 76.17.212.97
May 4th, 2008 10:04
Keep it up, Catherine!
Posted from: 204.198.76.197
May 4th, 2008 10:15
Gass Def. Shadman(aff) (Weeks)
Posted from: 199.76.153.50
May 4th, 2008 10:18
Will Hix esta aqui. Pero no tengo un registro victorioso.
Posted from: 71.169.17.239
May 4th, 2008 10:22
Does anyone have any policy pairings or results?
Posted from: 71.139.53.180
May 4th, 2008 10:26
Georgia Forensics Daily is posting regularly
http://gaforensics.com/
Posted from: 98.197.93.55
May 4th, 2008 10:33
the Georgia forensic site doesnt have elkins AC and many other debaters are missing
Posted from: 206.240.25.94
May 4th, 2008 10:40
it says “policy pairings” if you didn’t notice.
Posted from: 38.118.12.10
May 4th, 2008 10:48
Walt Whitman CS def. Trinity RS
That puts her as 5-1 as a sophomore.
Posted from: 72.153.114.151
May 4th, 2008 10:55
Anjan; how are the PFers doing?
Posted from: 206.240.26.105
May 4th, 2008 11:04
mount vernon rn 5-1
scarsdale kh 3-3
that puts him/it/them at 5-1 as a senior. GAME SEVEN TONITE, NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME.
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
May 4th, 2008 11:07
OMG R VIDEOS UP YET?
David McNeil was 2-2, I don’t know about the fifth round.
Posted from: 204.180.72.105
May 4th, 2008 11:10
Valley MA (and I assume at least one other debater) is missing from the round 6 pairing.
Posted from: 38.118.12.10
May 4th, 2008 11:11
Re: 137
Jose, we don’t really have a good idea about how the PFers are doing as rounds have not been as regularly disclosed. We believe both Whitman PF teams are at least 4-2 and probably 5-1.
Posted from: 128.135.224.231
May 4th, 2008 11:20
matt and catterton are 5-1
Posted from: 199.76.179.56
May 4th, 2008 11:22
6
Bronx Science ST forfeit to Lakeville South CK
Perkiomen Valley KG def Collegiate MW
Mountain View DK def Lake Highland GB
Posted from: 69.118.234.129
May 4th, 2008 11:23
bigtime congrats to matt hershey!
Posted from: 76.245.208.119
May 4th, 2008 11:23
Come on cockroft just one more win to break you can do it. We’re all rooting for you!
Posted from: 71.118.131.118
May 4th, 2008 11:24
rancho bernardo cb: 4-2
eye of the tiger.
Posted from: 98.197.141.241
May 4th, 2008 11:37
how did strake do 5th and 6th round?
Posted from: 128.135.224.231
May 4th, 2008 11:47
theis d. moerner
they are both 5-1 now I believe
Posted from: 66.25.150.155
May 4th, 2008 11:54
Good luck Devin! Hope you’re doing well so far. Also, same goes to all my other Texas (and out-of-state) friends debating this weekend.
On a side-note:
My mom is from Louisville, so I can second the statement about Hot Browns. Very very delicious.
Posted from: 72.80.235.8
May 4th, 2008 11:56
what is a hot brown?
Posted from: 199.76.179.56
May 4th, 2008 12:03
6: Westwood BC def Bronx Science VS
Posted from: 24.186.38.46
May 4th, 2008 12:04
who remains undefeated?
Posted from: 72.80.235.8
May 4th, 2008 12:06
Its alright BX… we’re still very proud of you guys
Posted from: 72.153.114.151
May 4th, 2008 12:08
I’m guessing Joan Gass is 6-0 if she picked up vs. Shadman
Posted from: 68.108.104.144
May 4th, 2008 12:08
Any Meadows results?
Posted from: 24.186.38.46
May 4th, 2008 12:13
Does that mean that Joan is the only undefeated left?
Posted from: 68.196.195.40
May 4th, 2008 12:19
who dropped out for the bye?
Posted from: 66.25.150.155
May 4th, 2008 12:22
Bobby,
A hot brown is a type of open face sandwich with turkey and bacon created by the Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky early in the century. It’s deliciouos, if I remember correctly. Granted, it’s been something like two years since I’ve had one.
Posted from: 72.153.114.151
May 4th, 2008 12:27
@156: I think so, unless she dropped 7th round (idk if TOCs are @ round 7 yet).
I’m not sure if Moerner and Theis dropped 6th, but if 148 is right, then yeah, Joan is the only 60.
Posted from: 24.186.38.46
May 4th, 2008 12:36
thanks a lot
Posted from: 67.168.66.202
May 4th, 2008 12:49
Rebar!! Nice record so far. Good luck w/ the rest of your rounds!
Posted from: 68.196.195.40
May 4th, 2008 13:00
nvm Jon didn’t post who had the bye rounds 2-5 before
Posted from: 199.76.160.115
May 4th, 2008 13:00
Hot browns rule.
Seth Teleky fell ill and had to forfeit; that is why there is no bye in round 7.
Posted from: 199.76.167.33
May 4th, 2008 13:07
Vestavia RM v Trinity Prep JN Cherian Koshy
Oak Mtn. WH v Mtn View NP Tim Hogan
Trinity Prep RS v Elkins AC tim Case
Hockaday SV v Valley MA Wes Craven
Edina BH v Valley RB Wes Craven
Strake Jesuit PT v Mountain View DG Tim Case
Rancho Bernardo CB v Mont. Bell CM Tim Hogan
and possibly
Westwood Bc v Strake Jesuit TL Cherian
Posted from: 199.76.149.181
May 4th, 2008 13:19
re-bar
re-bar
re-bar
re-bar
great tournament so far man, keep it up. same to strake and cockroft and ben and trin prep. too bad a lot of great people have to debate that round now (the bump) instead of like quarters
Posted from: 199.76.149.181
May 4th, 2008 13:20
whoops that last post was me not ocon, he was using my computer earlier
Posted from: 69.115.18.52
May 4th, 2008 13:26
any word on jersey ridge Sc or ridge at?
btw this tournament is intense
*an understatement i know
oh btw Jon. sucks that Seth fell ill
hope he gets better/ its nothing serious
go northeast people!
Posted from: 68.193.75.170
May 4th, 2008 13:36
last I heard steph and alan were both 3-3.
Posted from: 69.115.18.52
May 4th, 2008 13:40
re:168
thnks Jackie
and tough break
u guys still did well tho!
Posted from: 74.70.112.133
May 4th, 2008 13:43
ROSS!
Win that round, baby
Posted from: 208.120.129.233
May 4th, 2008 13:57
its arite bronx, great job guys!
Posted from: 216.250.178.113
May 4th, 2008 13:57
When is round 7?
Posted from: 128.135.224.231
May 4th, 2008 14:00
theis d. rebar
shivani d. maeshal
Posted from: 199.76.178.85
May 4th, 2008 14:05
Rd 7 is posted on GFD:
Lakeville South CK v Marcus VH – Tidhar
Palo Alto RR v Mountain View DK – Tidhar
Torrey Pines VF v Brophy FW – Olivarez
Whitman EN v Blake JS – Olivarez
College Prep LS v Northland Christian CN – Price
Stoneman Douglas LP v Presentation NA – Price
Kinkaid BT v Scarsdale MH – Timmons
Hockaday LD v Sacred Heart SZ – Timmons
Bronx MD v Colleyville RS – Mitchell
Greenhill DS v Pace AZ – Mitchell
Scarsdale DD v Wwhitman BL – McCobin
Meadows AK v Monte Vista Danville AW – McCobin
Southlake Carroll RB v Strake Jesuit DD – Cooper
Bronx VS v St Louis Park CT – Cooper
Ridge At v Monta Vista OA – Hasan
Ridge SC v Lexington JZ – Hasan
Collegiate MW v New Trier BM – Jain
Grapevine WH v Upper St Clair JG – Jain
Colleyville AB v Lake Highland GB – Bhatnagar
Berkeley Carroll IB v Hunter College AB – Bhatnagar
Hopkins CD v Valley MK – Miller
Harker DR v Scarsdale NL – Miller
Apple Valley CT v Mt Vernon RN – McGrath
Analy CC v Hockaday JG – McGrath
Whitman CS v Los Altos DM – Evnen
South Eugene BS v Edina DM – Moore
Scarsdale KH v Perkiomen Valley KG – Moore
Oak Mountain WH v Mt View NP – Hogan
Westwood BC v Strake Jesuit TL – Koshy
Rancho Bernardo CB v MBA CM – Hogan
Vestavia RM v Trinity Prep JN – Koshy
Strake Jesuit PT v Mt View DG – Case
Hockaday SV v Valley MA – Craven
Trinity RS v Elkins AC – Case
Edina BH v Valley RB – Craven
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 4th, 2008 14:06
update on records anyone?
Posted from: 96.226.57.8
May 4th, 2008 14:09
Vivian Ho is 4-3
Posted from: 64.12.116.76
May 4th, 2008 14:10
good job to bronx
good luck to matt and vineet
feel better seth
Posted from: 199.76.149.181
May 4th, 2008 14:14
COCKROFT DEF RAVI RD 7
that really blows ravi, i like that kid a lot, but yessssssss to cockroft. way to make it happen. just keep winning
Posted from: 98.194.2.241
May 4th, 2008 14:16
Huge congrats to Cockroft! Keep it going man!
Posted from: 199.76.169.25
May 4th, 2008 14:27
Rebar: 5-2
Theis 6-1
Posted from: 199.76.169.25
May 4th, 2008 14:28
MV NP: 4-3
Oak Mtn WH: 5-2
Posted from: 70.21.162.58
May 4th, 2008 14:29
COCKROFT.. LMAO
Posted from: 99.169.8.238
May 4th, 2008 14:34
does anyone have the result for rancho bernardo cb in round 7??
Posted from: 66.68.159.87
May 4th, 2008 14:36
Cockroft PWNS!! what happend to devin?
Posted from: 72.255.38.236
May 4th, 2008 14:38
Scarsdale KH def Perkiomen Valley KG
making ken 4-3 and myself 3-4
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 4th, 2008 14:40
anyone have updates on Texas debaters?
Posted from: 71.236.138.137
May 4th, 2008 14:53
Anyone know what happened in the david Mcneil vs. ben schifberg round?
Posted from: 199.76.169.25
May 4th, 2008 14:56
ken hershey ended up 4-3
Posted from: 38.118.12.10
May 4th, 2008 14:57
Torrey Pines VF ends up 4-3
Posted from: 128.135.224.231
May 4th, 2008 15:17
joan d. catterton
ross d. ben
Posted from: 74.70.112.133
May 4th, 2008 15:22
ROSS!
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
May 4th, 2008 15:24
daaaaaag yo
Posted from: 75.25.130.115
May 4th, 2008 15:25
I believe Valley MA and Strake TL are missing from round 6.
Breaking:
Analy CC
Apple Valley CT
Hockaday JG
Hockaday LD
Los Altos DM
Mount Vernon RN
Oak Mtn WH
Sacred Heart SZ
Scarsdale MH
Valley RB
Walt Whitman CS
Rounds 1-6:
6-0
Hockaday JG (WWWWWW)
5-1
Analy CC (WWWLWW)
Apple Valley CT (WLWWWW)
Hockaday LD (WWWLWW)
Mount Vernon RN (?W?WWW)
Los Altos DM (WWWWWL)
Sacred Heart SZ (WBWWWL)
Scarsdale MH (WLWWWW)
Walt Whitman CS (WWWWLW)
4-2
Edina BH (WWWLLW)
Elkins AC (WWWLWL)
Hockaday SV (WWWLLW)
Kinkaid BT (WLWWWW)
Montgomery Bell CM (???L?W)
Mountain View DG (WLWWWL)
Mountain View NP (????LW)
Oak Mountain WH (??WWWL)
Rancho Bernardo CB (LLWWWW)
Strake Jesuit TL (LLWWWW)
Trinity Prep JN (WWL?LW)
Trinity Prep RS (LWWWWL)
Valley MA (WWLWLW)
Valley RB (WWWWLL)
Vestavia Hills RM (???LLW)
3-3
Blake JS (WWLLWL)
Bronx Science VS (LWWLWL)
Lexington JZ (???WLL)
Marcus VH (WLWLWL)
Mountain View DK (??LLWW)
Perkiomen Valley KG (LWLLWW)
Ridge AT (WWLWLL)
Ridge SC (LWWLLW)
Scarsdale KH (??L??L)
St. Louis Park CT (LWLWWL)
Strake Jesuit PT (WL??L?)
Walt Whitman EN (WWLWLL)
2-4
Collegiate MW (??LL?L)
Pace AZ (???LL?)
0-6
St. Joseph’s RZ (FFFFFF)
3-2
Monta Vista OA (LWWWL?)
Palo Alto RR (WWL???)
Southlake Carroll RB (L?????)
Strake Jesuit DD (W?L???)
Torrey Pines VF (L??LW?)
Westwood BC (WWLL?W)
2-3
Greenhill DS (BL?LL?)
Lake Highland GB (?????L)
Lakeville South CK (LL??B?)
Valley MK (??????)
South Eugene BS (LLWWL?)
1-4
Berkley Carroll IB (??L??L)
Bronx Science ST (WLL?FF)
2-2
Bronx Science MD (LLWW??)
Edina DM (?L?W??)
Hopkins CD (??????)
1-3
Presentation NA (LLL??B)
Walt Whitman JK 1-3 (L?????)
Walt Whitman BL 1-3 (?L????)
1-2
Brophy Prep FW (L??WL?)
Monte Vista AW (L?BL??)
Westlake DR (LW??L?)
0-3
Meadows AS (?LLL??)
New Trier BM (LL??L?)
Scarsdale NL (??LLL?)
Upper St. Clair JG (L?L??L)
1-1
Hunter College AB (??LB??)
0-2
Colleyville Heritage RS (?L?L??)
Grapevine WH (LL????)
Meadows AK (?LL???)
Scarsdale DD (L??L??)
0-1
College Prep LS (L?????)
Harker DR (??L???)
Northland Christian CN (L?????)
Scarsdale MM (??L???)
Stoneman Douglas LP (?L????)
No info:
Colleyville Heritage AB (??????)
Posted from: 70.111.121.137
May 4th, 2008 15:43
Um, it says Becca Traber is 4-2 but the round records show that she’s 5-1
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 4th, 2008 15:45
from what i have heard, she is 5-1…so she would be breaking
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 4th, 2008 15:45
7-0: Hockaday JG
6-1: Los Altos DM, Apple Valley CT, winner of Hockaday LD/Sacred Heart SZ, winner of Kinkaid BT/Scarsdale MH
5-2: Analy CC, Elkins AC, Valley RB, Hockaday SV, Whitman CS, Mount Vernon RN, Oak Mountain WH, loser of Hockaday/Sacred Heart, loser of Kinkaid/Scarsdale, winner of Strake PT/MV DG, winner of Vestavia RM/Trinity Prep JN, winner of Rancho Bernardo CB/MBA CM, winner of Westwood BC/Strake TL
Posted from: 71.118.131.118
May 4th, 2008 15:48
fillin in blanks,
rancho bernardo cb drops to montegomery cm
meaning that cm is going to break round and cb is 4-3.
cameron baghai:
you are amazing. break or no break. for a pretty much self coached debater the whole year (with bietz coaching you for the toc), you have givin small schools something to be proud for. thanks. also, you represented rancho bernardo well, very well. your dream will come true, i promise.
thanks for being so fucken awesome,
Paras Kumar
-eye of the tiger.
Posted from: 72.80.235.8
May 4th, 2008 15:53
Run-offs?
Posted from: 199.76.183.202
May 4th, 2008 15:56
runoffs:
Walt Whitman CS v. Mountain View DG (bietz hogan scoggin)
Valley RB v. Scarsdale MH
MBA CM v. Mount Vernon RN
Posted from: 38.118.12.10
May 4th, 2008 15:57
One run-off is:
Mountain View DG vs. Walt Whitman CS
(Hogan, Scoggin, Bietz)
Posted from: 206.240.25.59
May 4th, 2008 15:59
valley rb vs scarsdale mh panel is cherian koshy, michael mangus, and tim case
mount vernon rn vs mba cm is dan meyers, adam nelson, and chetan hertzig
Posted from: 71.141.229.92
May 4th, 2008 16:03
Is taping going to happen? Or are the at-home followers not going to be able to receive visual stimuli?
Posted from: 199.76.183.202
May 4th, 2008 16:04
i think donatti is 5-2?
Posted from: 199.76.173.244
May 4th, 2008 16:05
donatti is indeed 5-2, and taping is happening for the metzman rebar round
Posted from: 199.76.183.202
May 4th, 2008 16:05
we are recording but rounds will not be posted until after the TOC.
Posted from: 71.141.229.92
May 4th, 2008 16:06
excellent.
much obliged bietz, much obliged.
Posted from: 24.186.38.46
May 4th, 2008 16:11
anyone know what happen with st.joseph’s rz (ryan zhener)?
Posted from: 70.253.202.50
May 4th, 2008 16:14
Westwood BC v. Strake TL
who won?
Posted from: 70.111.121.137
May 4th, 2008 16:16
@Mike:
I think Ryan didn’t show up
Posted from: 67.67.223.238
May 4th, 2008 16:19
Sandra: Todd picked up.
Posted from: 70.21.162.58
May 4th, 2008 16:39
who cleared??
Posted from: 75.25.130.115
May 4th, 2008 16:40
Analy CC (’08)
Apple Valley CT (’09)
Elkins AC (’08)
Hockaday JG (’08)
Hockaday LD (’08)
Hockaday SV (’09)
Kinkaid BT (’08)
Los Altos DM (’09)
Strake TL (’08)
Strake DD (’08)
Oak Mtn WH (’08)
Sacred Heart SZ (’08)
Vestavia RM (’09) or Trinity Prep JN (’09)
Walt Whitman CS(’10) or Mountain View DG (’09)
Scarsdale MH(’09) or Valley RB(’10)
MBA CM (’08) or Mount Vernon RN (’08)
Meaning that there will be 6 autoquals next year.
Posted from: 75.90.199.22
May 4th, 2008 16:46
jake beat rusty
Posted from: 68.173.139.74
May 4th, 2008 16:46
rm = 08
Posted from: 69.134.16.205
May 4th, 2008 16:52
I thought Rusty was 08…
Posted from: 74.73.188.174
May 4th, 2008 16:54
are octas tonight?
Posted from: 69.115.18.52
May 4th, 2008 16:58
go scarsdale MH! u appear to be the last person from the north east
Posted from: 69.115.18.52
May 4th, 2008 16:59
*strike that i forgot about shadman
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 4th, 2008 17:03
valley rb def scarsdale mh, 3-0
Posted from: 75.25.130.115
May 4th, 2008 17:04
He won the second-year nationals last year, so I always thought he is a junior. I might be wrong though.
Posted from: 76.238.3.195
May 4th, 2008 17:13
No Rusty is a senior.
Posted from: 130.64.132.68
May 4th, 2008 17:19
Great showing TX! I’m proud as always.
Posted from: 98.193.111.90
May 4th, 2008 17:22
thought i would post policy breaks here.
6-1
Damien CG
Greenhill RR
Colleyville DH
Groves BG
5-2
Bishop Guertin CP
Bronx Science BG
Chattahoochee FL
Pace AL
Colleyville MN
Cathedral Prep CH
GBN OZ
Greenhill HS
Meadows KS
St. Marks KB
Carrollton HS
Rowland Hall BL or Head Royce SZ
Posted from: 38.118.12.10
May 4th, 2008 17:29
Mountain View DG def. Whitman CS
Posted from: 66.27.93.144
May 4th, 2008 17:30
[Spam]
Posted from: 68.173.139.74
May 4th, 2008 17:36
CONGRATSSSS FRANNY AND KRISSY!
Posted from: 68.117.37.249
May 4th, 2008 17:37
PF Octos if anyone’s interested:
Montgomery HJ defeats Bronx JR
North Allegheny VL defeats Harker HG
Collegiate YG defeats Manchester Essex EP
New Trier GC defeats Chapparral RU
North Allegheny KK defeats Durham Academy ZK
Ransom Everglades BB defeats Harker AB
Whitman SE defeats Ransom Everglades CS
Timber Creek WS defeats Whitman WU
Posted from: 75.90.199.22
May 4th, 2008 17:40
rebar def metzman on a 2-1
Posted from: 70.111.121.137
May 4th, 2008 17:44
Octas:
Analy CC
Apple Valley CT
Elkins AC
Hockaday JG
Hockaday LD
Hockaday SV
Kinkaid BT
Los Altos DM
Strake TL
Strake DD
Oak Mtn WH
Sacred Heart SZ
Trinity Prep JN
Mountain View DG
Valley RB
Mount Vernon RN
Posted from: 75.90.199.22
May 4th, 2008 17:44
ben holguin was 4-3 and so was maeshal abid
Posted from: 71.82.2.202
May 4th, 2008 17:47
good job ross brown
Posted from: 71.214.247.174
May 4th, 2008 17:48
Nice job to Ross and the rest of the Valley debaters!
Posted from: 69.118.230.217
May 4th, 2008 17:50
congrats to Matt and the rest of the Scarsdale debaters.
Posted from: 68.173.139.74
May 4th, 2008 17:50
grats also to rohan and dj levittown
Posted from: 72.255.13.236
May 4th, 2008 17:51
Congrats to everyone who cleared, especially to Becca and Garber for giving me one of the very few rounds this year that I’ve actually enjoyed judging (at least, that I’ve actually enjoyed judging because of the content of the debate).
But I also wanted to quickly give props to a few of the really phenomenal debaters who didn’t clear, e.g. Catherine (you’ve got negating down pat, so just learn to affirm and you’ll never lose :-) ), Ben and David from Edina, Ken Hershey, Ravi, Maeshal, Jason, and my dark horse picks Christian Keil and Rusty Mawn. The depth and parity in this year’s pool was really remarkable, so lots of people who were easily good enough to make it to outrounds and even go deep didn’t end up making it.
Posted from: 76.93.164.26
May 4th, 2008 17:54
congrats Cameracci.
good luck to chris catterton (and all the debaters still in…)
Posted from: 76.245.208.119
May 4th, 2008 17:56
Yay congrats cockroft and all the other Houston and texas debaters. Texas has 7 out of the top 16. Congrats everyone.
Posted from: 64.12.116.76
May 4th, 2008 17:57
I’m not sure this will be a TOC field remembered for its Superstars, but I think the depth of this field is as impressive as any in the past few years. Good Luck to those still competing and congrats to all those who earned a spot at this tournament.
Posted from: 199.120.105.71
May 4th, 2008 17:58
Way to go Ross!!! Don’t let Dave judge finals!
Posted from: 207.200.116.74
May 4th, 2008 18:08
major congrats on making it this far, rebar. good luck in outrounds. :]
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
May 4th, 2008 18:11
Ross Brown-
You need to stop being so amazing.
Posted from: 71.136.236.111
May 4th, 2008 18:13
Way to represent our small debate school Cameron.
U are amazing!
Posted from: 70.121.250.204
May 4th, 2008 18:16
Do it Jake
Posted from: 69.115.18.52
May 4th, 2008 18:20
texas dominated
however
2 people left from the east coast
go jake and shadman!
Posted from: 70.116.31.157
May 4th, 2008 18:22
there is one noticeable difference in the geographic distribution of outrounds participants. for the first time ever, houston not only has more competitors than dallas, but the most in the nation. good job becca, cockroft, david, and todd!
Posted from: 12.30.180.99
May 4th, 2008 18:31
major congrats to andrew cockroft. keep taking down the rep.
Posted from: 70.21.162.58
May 4th, 2008 18:35
are pairings out?
Posted from: 67.40.152.116
May 4th, 2008 18:39
A hearty congrats should go out to everyone who competes at the TOC. It’s an honor to attend the event.
I want to say word up to Rebar and Mershey from the Delta Force Debate lab.
Rebar: I guess we can take some notches off the creepy board. Nice job Rebar — very well done.
Mershey: way to have a break out tournament and rep your team.
Good luck to all students who are competing tomorrow.
Michelin Massey
Posted from: 68.230.73.179
May 4th, 2008 19:02
Take it all the way REBAR
Posted from: 128.2.247.156
May 4th, 2008 19:05
good job om and cameron for putting in so much hard work and coming so far from programs that were barely visible on the circuit prior to this year.
and good luck to norcal/the bay tomorrow!
Posted from: 75.80.137.244
May 4th, 2008 19:13
CONGRATS VIVIAN! 4-3 is amazing. <3
Posted from: 96.241.94.95
May 4th, 2008 19:26
Congrats Caroline! Awesome job!
Posted from: 12.227.177.160
May 4th, 2008 19:38
congrats maeshal, you’ve worked so hard and you got screwed, more than once. You really deserved this, bud. I’m sorry :(
Posted from: 72.73.166.117
May 4th, 2008 19:40
Major congrats Cockroft.
Posted from: 68.192.165.197
May 4th, 2008 19:45
Congrats to Steph for closing out her debate career with an incredible showing at the TOC. You definitely deserve this with all the work you’ve put in over the years!
Also congrats to Alan Tong, representing Ridge!
Posted from: 98.197.234.195
May 4th, 2008 19:51
Break and no bubble – Congrats Andrew (Cockroft)…Bonnette even cheered…oh and keep Nigrelli from sleeping or cleaning out the coaches’ lounge
All that was, is, and ever will be…CHER…I mean COCKROFT
MMMAAAPPPSSS!!
Posted from: 68.192.31.214
May 4th, 2008 20:03
David, there’s still Nationals.
:)
Congratulations to all Northeastern debaters–namely Tong, Stephanie, Shadman.
Also good job to all the sophomores. It’s been quite an impressive showing this year (Ross Brown and Caroline Sherrard, special congratulations!)
Posted from: 71.163.39.67
May 4th, 2008 20:17
Waytago Caroline! Great job Ellen.
Congrats to all the WW Vikings….
Posted from: 70.111.121.137
May 4th, 2008 20:35
Congrats to Steph and Tong for repping NJ well.
And maybe next year, the prophecy of a NJ winner will be fulfilled.
Posted from: 76.17.212.97
May 4th, 2008 20:38
Good job, Minnesota debaters! You all did really well, even if only one of you cleared.
Good luck tomorrow to Chris and Ross – way to represent the midwest!
Posted from: 71.28.207.173
May 4th, 2008 21:11
Outrounds geographic spread seems more or less similar to the past few TOC’s.
Houston—4
Dallas—3
NorCal—3
Midwest—2
Southeast—2
Northwest–1
Northeast(& Bangladesh!)– 1
Congratulations to all competitors and to all who cleared– good luck tomorrow!!
Posted from: 71.128.200.31
May 4th, 2008 21:17
Nice job Vivian Feig! 4-3 is solid.
ps. I would like my shirt back thank you v much
Posted from: 75.90.199.22
May 4th, 2008 21:22
so what happened with the dave mcginnis outburst i’ve been hearing about?
Posted from: 71.28.207.173
May 4th, 2008 21:23
Congratulations to those who cleared in LD! The senior class put its collective foot down and claimed a majority of the spots in this year’s elimination rounds.
Personal notes:
Congratulations to Bronx Science’s Kristina Gunnarsdottir and Francisco Bencosme for breaking to octas in policy debate!
And, congratulations to Bronx Science’s Lev Raslin and Rohan Jotwani for making team history by becoming our first Public Forum team in the outrounds at the TOC.
Matt Dunay, Seth Teleky, and Joseph Gazzola are recovering from an outbreak of the bubonic plague. Or a stomach virus. In any case, they’re feeling better.
I salute you, Vineet Singal. It has been an honor and a pleasure working with you since your novice year.
Posted from: 69.115.223.185
May 4th, 2008 21:32
congrats steph and alan on a great job at TOC! also congrats to all the others who made it to this tournament/cleared
Posted from: 98.197.21.3
May 4th, 2008 21:32
Cockroft, please win.
Posted from: 68.165.2.174
May 4th, 2008 21:44
ross go get them tomorrow
Posted from: 71.227.255.139
May 4th, 2008 21:53
fantastic performance, Rebar! way to bring represent Washington. you’ve brought glory to our state, now win yourself something beautiful
Posted from: 72.255.7.64
May 4th, 2008 22:28
i am so happy to see a lot of awesome people clear, especially people who were just starting as i was ending competition. houston had SUCH a great performance this year overall, and at this tournament, and it’s refreshing to see houston make such a big comeback from last year.
Posted from: 72.255.41.139
May 4th, 2008 22:43
ashan’s post was me. i was on his computer. whoops
Posted from: 71.86.115.6
May 4th, 2008 23:32
Congrats to Joan, David, Todd, and everyone else who cleared.
Posted from: 71.156.63.173
May 5th, 2008 00:25
Congrats everyone but david donatti win take the title
Posted from: 72.255.47.244
May 5th, 2008 04:48
there was no runoff round in policy. RHSM/Head Royce was just one rd GFD didn’t know the results to.
Posted from: 75.173.173.197
May 5th, 2008 05:48
Way to represent Iowa, Ross. Let’s see a spectacular win at the final round.
Posted from: 204.186.151.4
May 5th, 2008 07:37
Are there any outround reports?
Posted from: 72.255.20.197
May 5th, 2008 07:51
Outrounds will begin at 11:45 AM. I have posted pairings above.
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 5th, 2008 07:54
some bracketology:
(1) hockaday jg v. (16) mt vernon rn
(2) los altos dm v. (15) mtn view dg
(3) kinkaid bt v. (14) valley rb
(4) apple valley ct v. (13) strake tl
(5) sacred heart sz v. (12) elkins ac
(6) trinity prep jn v. (11) hockaday sv
(7) oak mtn wh v. (10) analy cc
(8) hockaday ld v. (9) strake dd
Posted from: 204.137.64.112
May 5th, 2008 08:00
ROSS BROWN!!
Posted from: 64.113.165.254
May 5th, 2008 08:19
REBAR!!!
Win this man.
Posted from: 67.50.220.2
May 5th, 2008 09:19
interesting thought…..
for the year that some said was dominated by juniors.
the majority of kiddos breaking are seniors.
08!
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
May 5th, 2008 09:22
Congrats to Hockaday for breaking 3 for two years in a row. Wow. Big congrats to Strake for the predictably phenomenal performance. Congrats and good luck to Becca, Theis, Todd, Shadman, and Nebel. Also, way to go Cockroft! And congratulations to Moerner, Ross, Catterton, and Garber. Great field!
b
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
May 5th, 2008 09:59
This just in:
Dolan over Donatti
Theis over Liipfert
Becca over Ross Brown
Joan over Rebar
Nebel over Shivani
b
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
May 5th, 2008 09:59
Cockroft over Shadman
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 5th, 2008 10:01
wade over catterton
moerner over garber (coach over)
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 5th, 2008 10:03
which leaves us with
hockaday jg v hockaday ld
los altos dm v. oak mtn wh
kinkaid bt v. trinity prep jn
apple valley ct v. elkins ac
Posted from: 65.125.148.226
May 5th, 2008 10:18
Congrats to all of the debaters who are in the quarters! A big shout-out should go to Hockaday LD who looks to be in the same bracket as her higher seeded teammate. You’ve had a tremendous career, Miss Dolan.
Michelin Massey
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 10:47
W/ REGARDS TO DABIT, I PLEAD THE 5TH. OR WESLEY MADE ME DO IT. ONE OF THE TWO.
congratulations to joan for a great TOC octas round, and of course good luck to absolutely everyone that’s advancing. condolences to hockaday for the coach over in quarters.
SEE Y’ALL IN VEGAS, I AIN’T DONE YET.
Posted from: 72.255.47.190
May 5th, 2008 10:54
I want to say congrats to Ross Brown. He’s a pleasure to coach: hard working, fiercely intelligent, and always there with a positive attitude. These are all attributes he shares with his teammate Matt Kawahara, btw. IDNRAGS.
And I want to say a HUGE congratulations to CHRIS CATTERTON. For those of you not in the know, a couple of years ago Chris was among the best parli debaters in California, and he decided that he wanted to try circuit-style debate. I had the great good fortune to get to know him at a couple of the old BACDL tournaments, and his intellect and drive have paid off. What a stellar rise! To go, in one brief season, from a student of national circuit debate to among its very best practitioners, is surely an accomplishment to be deeply proud of. And contratulations, to, to new coach MIKE SPIRTOS, who exemplifies what can happen when someone with a passion for debate decides to give back. Spirtos’ level of attention, energy, and a drive to help his student improve were evident throughout the season. As an ancient coach of 33, it’s gratifying to see young coaches with that kind of work ethic and great attitude. Congrats!
Posted from: 72.255.35.223
May 5th, 2008 10:58
Joan coaches over Lindsay
Posted from: 72.255.36.109
May 5th, 2008 11:08
i’ll take responsibility for your horsey, if that’s what you mean bar.
i’m very proud of your hard work, looking forward to nationals and your future college career.
Posted from: 72.255.36.109
May 5th, 2008 11:36
and just so it’s clear: rebar worked harder than any debater i’ve ever worked with…so hard that we had some tough strategic decisions to make, what with all those cases to choose from!
proud of you rebar, and next year ben and earl are gonna be relying on you to put us in that same strategic bind…
Posted from: 72.255.35.223
May 5th, 2008 11:54
i think karlyn gorski is the best debater ever
Posted from: 32.132.198.253
May 5th, 2008 12:00
Traber over nebel
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 5th, 2008 12:06
sems is:
hockaday jg v. apple valley ct
los altos dm v. kinkaid bt
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
May 5th, 2008 12:20
Lets go Theis, MN pride baby!
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
May 5th, 2008 12:23
This is like an NCAA tournament with all 4 no. 1 seeds making it to the final 4 (like this year, ironically enough).
Posted from: 24.140.53.64
May 5th, 2008 12:43
Midwest Represent!
Win it for us Theis!
Posted from: 130.64.132.68
May 5th, 2008 12:48
Cockroft, great run! I’m crazy proud of you.
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 12:52
introducing live blogging from the becca traber daniel moerner semifinal round of the tournament of champions.
the round has yet to start. flash games are being played in the back of the room. dan meyers looks restless. moerner just walked in, right in front of wade houston with a box of krispy kreme donutz. BECCA HAS ARRIVED. COOP PACES IN SANDALS. LETS GET IT ON.
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 12:59
larry mcgrath says he won’t vote on theory, moerner is affirming. chris catterton has also shown up, with valley and todd liipfert in tow. quite the conglomeration of stars here to watch the fate of the free world begin to be decided.
ryan lawrence is making faces at the end of the judges table, readable despite the fact that your humble author is behind him. epalm and bietz are stalking the room. the tension is building. I CAN’T WAIT NO MORE, START THE SHOW.
Posted from: 76.125.198.116
May 5th, 2008 13:07
Congratulations to Naz and Claire (North Allegheny KK) –
I couldn’t be more proud of you than I am.
And Vicky and Greg (North Allegheny LV) – so cool. Amazing job.
If I didn’t hate the thought of being near you – I would so hug you!!!!! (Note: tearing up!!!)
Posted from: 75.53.151.136
May 5th, 2008 13:07
Major congrats cockroft. I hope Joan and Becca up, that would be awesom to have a texas close out.
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 13:17
the AC just ended. some crazy bizness up in here, featuring all the favorites: zupan, schell, powell.
sitting in the back of the room makes it hard to hear/flow, but somehow we’ll soldier on. THE ARGUMENT IS A TRICHOTOMY. that’s the highlight sentence of the first cross ex. gotta end bloggin now, comp battery can’t handle it.
Posted from: 128.237.251.184
May 5th, 2008 13:20
another norcal appearance in finals would be sweet.
Posted from: 76.17.212.97
May 5th, 2008 13:21
Good luck, Chris – win it for Minnesota! Congrats, Ross, on a great tournament!
Posted from: 71.112.179.104
May 5th, 2008 13:22
what’s happening now, Rebar?
Posted from: 216.250.178.113
May 5th, 2008 13:26
Congrats Ross! Way to go Chris represent MN!
Posted from: 75.73.214.32
May 5th, 2008 13:45
vote ctheis 09
Posted from: 72.255.42.106
May 5th, 2008 13:52
im not sure if this has been said but larry sat out in quarters for wade.
on a related: big props to collegiate’s public forum team – charles giardina and jonathan yip – for reaching the final round where they were defeated on a 4-3 by north allegheny. for a team who didnt start doing PF until this year and got in on an at large, that’s pretty damn impressive and we’re very proud of them.
Posted from: 71.63.142.165
May 5th, 2008 14:07
Theis picks up
Posted from: 65.8.80.78
May 5th, 2008 14:10
Congrats to Ben in PF & Ransom Everglades BB for making it to outrounds!
Posted from: 68.117.37.249
May 5th, 2008 14:18
Minnesota VS. Texas
Go Chris!
Posted from: 74.73.188.174
May 5th, 2008 14:22
when do finals start?
Posted from: 208.120.129.233
May 5th, 2008 14:23
cruz shud provide live covrge.
Posted from: 68.117.35.197
May 5th, 2008 14:27
good luck chris. win it for MN
Posted from: 205.188.116.76
May 5th, 2008 14:31
in agreement with comment 314
Posted from: 72.80.223.48
May 5th, 2008 14:32
Are they sticking to the final panel or have some alternates been swapped in?
Sides?
Posted from: 71.60.209.85
May 5th, 2008 14:33
finals = becca vs theis
Posted from: 72.20.139.135
May 5th, 2008 14:34
Way to go Texas!
Good luck to Becca and Chris in finals. You are both outstanding debaters. It is sure to be a good round.
Posted from: 12.30.180.99
May 5th, 2008 14:44
Go Becca, you deserve it.
Posted from: 72.255.35.223
May 5th, 2008 14:44
panel: nelson, cruz, castillo, craven, scoggin, mcginnis and timmons
Posted from: 65.8.80.78
May 5th, 2008 14:48
Record that shit.
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
May 5th, 2008 14:49
OH SNAPPLE
Posted from: 75.73.239.12
May 5th, 2008 14:53
Wow…this is going to be intense.
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 5th, 2008 14:54
becca im sure youve already heard this thousands of times, but good luck. but you don’t need luck to win this, you’ve got it. you know how to debate exceptionally well and there is nothing stopping you, its just like any other normal round. have fun becca and remember, the awkward layne smile that you normally see will be magnified if you win this.
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 14:57
LIVE BLOGGING FROM THE FINAL ROUND.
RGKN: i am sacrificing my ability to comment on the final round decision with any veracity (flowing) in favor of constantly updated live blogging.
john scoggin will be providing color commentary throughout, and your faithful narrator will be continuing to document the highs and lows, tropes and tricks.
APPLE VALLEY AND KINKAID. MEET ME AT THE SPOT, IT’S GOING DOWN.
these debaters are no longer individuals, but manifestations of their TEAM. THIS IS THE BIG KAHUNA. NOD OFF AT YOUR OWN PERIL.
JS: coin flip falls theis. i was theis’ coinflip assistant, since he will not call the coin himself. becca called heads per superstition and lost.
Posted from: 72.255.35.223
May 5th, 2008 14:59
theis is neg
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 15:02
RGKN: BOOM. the nuke ourselves advocacy hits the flow. a lone fist pump occurs silently in a room of bowed heads and scratching pens.
JS: I hate it.
RGKN: What kind of topicality is this? FX? EX? DX? I KNOW, IT’S T-SPEC.
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 15:07
RGKN: I think we need predictions
JS: 6-1 Theis
RGKN: 4-3 Becca. SHE MINDS IF YOU DO FLEX!!!!
JS: But you can still write during CX. Lincolon and Couglas would be confused.
RGKN: Yes, they would be. I love Lincolon.
Posted from: 75.73.239.12
May 5th, 2008 15:10
I am watching the round in spirits through the commentary. This is strange.
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 15:14
RGKN: TOC final round fashion check. Chris Theis’ outrounds outfit is suspiciously reminiscent of Nick Tourville. whether this has implications for the round, I don’t know. Orange looks good tye-dyed.
JS: Joe Vaughan would deduct at least half a speaker point for lack of dress shoes. (For Becca) I have the ballot to prove it.
RGKN: Stirring stuff John.
JS: Didn’t forsee discussion of burning children.
RGKN: If I could have any two superheroes debate, it would have to be Dr. Doom v Batman. Becca seems to be on a bit of a “virtual threats” trip. She ran it in the semifinals as well. We’ll see if it pays off in this round. I personally think it’s not a super strategic argument, but it’s interesting academically.
Posted from: 75.173.173.197
May 5th, 2008 15:17
There should be a twitter feed for this round.
Posted from: 74.70.112.133
May 5th, 2008 15:17
A huge congrats to Wade Houston for being dominant even considering this is his 2nd year of national circuit debate. Also to Catterton, Octos in his first year of debate…WOW. Last but not least, ROBRO! Gonna need to repeat the magic next year (and the year after).
Posted from: 74.70.112.133
May 5th, 2008 15:19
even = especially*
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 15:21
JS: OMG CONTRACTZ.
RGKN: If the social contract could intend, it would <3 debate. Chris goes for “attacking our own citizens” is illegal. Someone send the NYPD a memo.
JS: John Locke is rolling in his grave. I can’t believe my sister’s on the final round panel. So proud.
RGKN: TURN NO BRINK, TURN NO LINK, TURN NO WARRANT. Apparently there’s no timeframe on crushing existential nuclear dispair. Prolif is a pretty good thang, you knowz? I think Chris is slowing down for the panel.
JS: Prolif good mutually exclusive with nuking ourselves?
RGKN: Hrmmmm… good catch there John. WE’RE PRETTY FRICKIN’ CRAZY.
Posted from: 72.255.35.223
May 5th, 2008 15:27
you like that dont u rebar
Posted from: 72.255.35.223
May 5th, 2008 15:29
1AR TIME REBAR
FLOW
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 15:29
RGKN: HAD TO END AN ARGUMENT AS THE TIMER WENT OFF… FOX PAUSE OR STRATEGIC DECISION?
JS: BUT DOES THE NC COME FIRST?
RGKN: Breaking contrax unjust son, rek-og-nize. Consensual agreements FTW.
JS: Chris brings AP US history into the round. Will Becca use her AP Spanish skills?
RGKN: I sincerely hope so, Chris probably isn’t conjugating his subjunctive verbs correctly. If this round comes down to theory, I’m buying Wesley dinner tonight. Actually, I’m probably doing that anyways.
JS: Becca writes feverishly as she is about to attempt the most difficult speech LD debate has ever conceived of: the 1AR.
RGKN: It hurts to think about what this 1AR will attempt to cover.
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
May 5th, 2008 15:34
“RGKN: If the social contract could intend, it would <3 debate. Chris goes for “attacking our own citizens” is illegal. Someone send the NYPD a memo.”
that comment is money
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 15:38
RKGN: What does it feel like to be comfortably numb? I told you yo, I ain’t flowing so you, the reader, can have my full attention focused on the more important features of the round: JS + I’s excellent commentary. I like the creation of the AC in acts. AS A SIDENOTE: I like the virtual threats argument in the AC, just not the argument that you would run independently on the NC. Chris is a master of the skeptical glance up whenever his opponent makes an argument he might have to respond to. It’s an important skill.
JS: STAND UP NR
RGKN: Uh oh, that doesn’t bode well for the heroine of this tale. The framework analysis of the NR sounds pretty solid. JS with Becca’s situation going into the 2AR:
JS: It’s grim. But admittedly I’m biased.
RGKN: See, we’re the best fox-journalists evah. Chris is really angry at that water jug; he keeps pointing forcefully at it. His analysis is however, quite good. JS has stopped flowing, let’s see if his sister agrees with his hasty judgment on the case flow.
Posted from: 205.188.116.76
May 5th, 2008 15:39
prediction 5-2 theisthanks4 the commentary
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
May 5th, 2008 15:42
“Chris is a master of the skeptical glance up whenever his opponent makes an argument he might have to respond to. It’s an important skill.”
aight nevermind this one tops the last one. I died.
Posted from: 69.119.154.118
May 5th, 2008 15:44
Rebar is an amazing commentator who deserves his own sports (competitive academic activities?) channel. NDN anyone?
Commentary aside, major props to Matt Hershey for being a balla and reppin’ Scarsdale. Congrats also to Ross and Caroline for beasting it up for the class of 2010, and to Rebar for breaking and being all-around skeptical. And awesome too, I suppose. Find aesthetic value in that! And keep up the commentary.
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 15:45
JS: Although it is important to note Rebar that this Scoggin’s ballot does not count.
RGKN: Another face in the crowd, Madeline Vuong, agrees with Scoggin the younger, yet she is still flowing.
JS: Thakns to the Radisson for supplying us with delicious butterscotch candy.
RKGN: I didn’t get any. Chris has also stopped flowing, he is leaning back and raising eyebrows. OH SNAP, HE STARTED FLOWING AGAIN.
THE TIMER WENT OFF, THE ROUND IS OVER, WHICH WAY COULD IT POSSIBLY GO!??!?!?!?!?!
WE’LL KNOW SHORTLY. PREPARE FOR YOUR LIFE TO BE IRREVOCABLY ALTERED.
Posted from: 74.73.188.174
May 5th, 2008 15:45
rebar, this commentary idea is a stroke of genius.
Posted from: 72.255.35.223
May 5th, 2008 15:48
IS THE ROUND OVER RABER?
IS IT?
Posted from: 205.188.116.76
May 5th, 2008 15:51
thanks for the commentary; these 45 minutes have been well spent sitting at my computer have been spent reading about the round.
THANKS!!!
Posted from: 205.188.116.76
May 5th, 2008 15:51
thanks for the commentary; these 45 minutes have been well spent sitting at my computer have been spent reading about the round.
THANKS!!!
Posted from: 208.120.129.233
May 5th, 2008 15:51
second matt
Posted from: 72.255.35.223
May 5th, 2008 15:52
naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
Posted from: 65.125.148.226
May 5th, 2008 15:57
Congratulations to everyone involved in the final round — Becca and Chris have both had baller seasons (and careers). The tension and suspense have been magnified by the RGKN analysis!
As for subplots, I see two… AV holds the TOC LD record for the most final round appearances without a ring. Will Theis avenge the memories of such greats like Dave Singh, Kelsey Olson, and Tim Hogan?
Kinkaid rolls in to their first LD TOC final with the Becca who was once the prodigy, but now is the senior with mad skill. Will the Tommy Clancy coaching tree of Sarah Smith and now Ryan Cooper see their student bring the TOC title back to Texas?
michelin massey
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 16:03
RGKN: THE DECISION, SHE IS A’ COMING. QUOTE OVERHEARD FROM THE CROWD: “Can I piggyback ride on you?” hopefully that was about smuggling nuclear weapons into the US on the backs of livestock.
JS: Your (predicted) TOC champion: Chris Theis.
RGKN: BECCA HAS SNATCHED BOTH TROPHIES. THE DECISION HAS BEEN JURY-NULLIFIED. TAKE THAT FINAL PANEL. No, she gave them back. The actual decision is… is… DID WES SQUIREEL?!?!?!?!?! TWO YRS IN A ROW, PLZ???
RGKN: And your actual winner : Chris Theis
GO HOME LOSERZ, NOTHING ELSE LEFT TO WIN.
JS: I believe I called that.
RGKN: What does this mean? A junior won? For those at home, my coach has squirreled two consecutive times in the final round of the TOC> I am blessed. JW just called him the “great dissenter of Lincolon Couglas debate”
JS: Was going to say something, but nevermind.
RGKN: I’m not buying Wesley dinner now. He says that Chris wasn’t directly responsive to the AC, only tried to preclude the calculus w/ con-trax. If Chris wins next yr, is he the best ever? Kudos to the AV deus ex machina and Chris Theis on championing the last frontier.
Posted from: 75.73.239.12
May 5th, 2008 16:08
Great job to all.
Posted from: 208.120.129.233
May 5th, 2008 16:11
congrats 2 chris
Posted from: 66.32.47.192
May 5th, 2008 16:24
congrats to theis for being oh so beastly and to rusty for reppin vestavia and almost breaking
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 5th, 2008 16:34
Congrats to Chris and Becca. I am not at all surprised to see the two of you do so well. And big congrats to their outstanding coaches!
Posted from: 75.40.32.184
May 5th, 2008 16:35
congrats to all!
and mr bietz, is there an estimated time for videos?
Posted from: 69.180.210.210
May 5th, 2008 16:38
congrats to theis for winning the whole thing and for becca on finals! also congrats to jake, wade, catterton, lindsay, joan, garber, ross, rebar, matt. special props to moerner for top speaker as well.
Posted from: 128.54.48.12
May 5th, 2008 16:40
Congrats to Chris for ballin through ToC and bringing the title back to the midwest. Also, huge congrats to Moerner for getting top speaker as a junior!
Finally, congrats to Ross Brown for winning the run-off round and clearing at ToC as a sophomore and on his b-day.
Posted from: 98.197.201.79
May 5th, 2008 16:48
Good job Becca. You are amazing
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 5th, 2008 16:49
congrats to apple valley on the ring. it’s refreshing to see y’all break the runner-up curse.
i haven’t made it out of california much over the last 2 years so i can’t speak to the successes of most of the pool, but i do want to extend my congratulations to daniel moerner, chris catterton, and daniel garber on representing california well. it’s always nice to see the best coast do well at the big dance.
Posted from: 69.253.230.13
May 5th, 2008 16:50
congrats to becca for being phenomenal
way to go hockaday!!! i’m so happy for you girls =)
congrats as well to everyone who broke, and to everyone who was there. fun time.
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
May 5th, 2008 16:52
ultimatum: videos not up in 12 hours or I and others will bother everyone else incessantly, unnecessarily, and to a ridiculous extent.
Posted from: 71.112.179.104
May 5th, 2008 17:04
I agree with post 363
Posted from: 67.159.44.138
May 5th, 2008 17:08
I agree with post 364
Posted from: 71.214.247.174
May 5th, 2008 17:16
I agree with posts 363,364, and 365
Posted from: 69.115.223.185
May 5th, 2008 17:17
congrats becca! you definitely were really intelligent in our bookgroup!
Posted from: 66.41.177.175
May 5th, 2008 17:29
Chris you are a straight up baller
Posted from: 129.67.43.175
May 5th, 2008 17:29
Congrats to Chris, Cherian, and the Apple Valley program – the title is long overdue.
Posted from: 68.117.63.118
May 5th, 2008 17:31
Even though I know C. Theis really really wanted to be Minnesota state champion, I think he can settle and be TOC champion…..
Posted from: 12.189.118.150
May 5th, 2008 17:36
CUBS WIN!
Posted from: 67.40.152.116
May 5th, 2008 17:38
I want to give a big congratulations to Chris Theis and the Apple Valley crew for this win. As a person who’s personally seen the effort that AV puts into this activity every single year, it’s definitely a well-deserved honor!
michelin massey
Posted from: 98.197.201.79
May 5th, 2008 17:40
Becca had to go Aff twice in finals now… (TOC and State)…still 2nd overall and 2nd speaker is beast
Posted from: 76.248.11.11
May 5th, 2008 17:42
thank you for the amazing coverage Rebar.Congrats to Chris and Becca. I dont personally know either of you, but I am looking forward to a VBI with both of you there.
Posted from: 98.193.50.96
May 5th, 2008 17:51
Policy Results
Quaters
Damien CG d. Bishop Guertin CP
Colleyville DH d. Carrollton HS
Greenhill RR d. Chattahoochee FL
St. Marks BK d. RHSM BL
Sems
3. Damien CG v. 2. Greenhill RR
1. Colleyville DH v. 5. St. Marks BK
Posted from: 24.186.38.46
May 5th, 2008 18:00
I apologize if this has already been answered – i’m too lazy to read through the most recent posts. But, who dissented?
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 5th, 2008 18:02
i believe it was timmons
Posted from: 98.193.50.96
May 5th, 2008 18:03
Huge congrats to everyone who cleared (esp. ross, catterton, metzman, garber, wade, moerner, and obviously theis for winning it)
Also congrats to bmac, matt kawahara, and ken hershey, all of whom have had outstanding years.
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
May 5th, 2008 18:10
CHRIS THEIS!!!!
John Scoggin makes an amazing color commentator. I knew it all along. He’s boring giving the play-by-play, but he can figure out a way to make anything interesting. Epic broadcast, with a great champion.
Congrats to Theis. You really deserve it.
Posted from: 75.40.32.184
May 5th, 2008 18:10
I thought wes craven dissented?
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 5th, 2008 18:23
Prolly wes.
Posted from: 75.82.16.64
May 5th, 2008 18:31
A huge congratulations to both Chris and Becca, and their coaches. You’re all incredibly deserving of this honor, and it comes as little surprise to me.
Also, a shout-out to Hockaday and Strake for their depth and consistency. I was very glad to see you all do so well. Finally, to Jake Nebel for a very impressive and respectable end to arguably the most dominant “regular” season in recent memory.
Posted from: 98.197.21.3
May 5th, 2008 18:51
Massive Congrats to Cockroft for making it to quarters, it only goes to show that something good can actually come out of elkins high school.
Posted from: 98.193.111.90
May 5th, 2008 19:02
in policy semis:
greenhill RR d.damien CG 3-0
Posted from: 74.143.198.34
May 5th, 2008 19:15
I noticed an interesting trend when discussing rounds with people at the tournament that I think is worth bringing to light in a public forum like this one. As a disclaimer I would just like to say that this is not a personal attack against any individual debater or judge, just a noteworthy phenomenon.
When a round occurs where a debater from Texas debates a debater not from Texas in front of a judge from Texas, their winning percentage was 68%. If we want to translate this into an average record for seven rounds, 5-2 most closely resembles this percentage.
When a round occurs where a debater from Texas debates a debater not From Texas in front of a judge not from Texas, their winning percentage was 57%. Similar translation approximates a 4-3 record.
It seems to me that there is a pretty blatant and significant regional bias. Do people agree, and if so how do people think we can combat this?
Posted from: 76.204.193.253
May 5th, 2008 19:21
mabye theyre just good debaters
Posted from: 74.143.198.34
May 5th, 2008 19:25
Obviously they are good debaters, seeing as their winning percentage is above 50% at the TOC regardless of the judge. I do, however, see what seems to be bias when it comes to this specific situation and would have to agree with John. Do people tend to agree with this sentiment, and if so, what can we do to combat it?
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 5th, 2008 19:27
small sample size + inadequate controls, but nice try
Posted from: 165.123.231.123
May 5th, 2008 19:28
I’m sure if you looked up the stats for the Northeast, you’d find the same results. I don’t think it reflects any sort of bias on the part of the judges. Rather, it reflects three things: (1) Usually kids from certain areas debate in a particular style; the judges from that area are typically used to that style the most, (2) The kids from a certain area are used to debating in front of these judges, since they do it frequently, and therefore know how to adapt, and (3) Their coaches know how to help them adapt since they interact more frequently with the judges from that area and in fact judge in that area themselves.
Also, kids from Texas are usually pretty good at debate, and usually dominate the TOC regardless of the judging they get…so perhaps TOC isn’t the best sample.
Posted from: 71.141.229.92
May 5th, 2008 19:31
assuming that most bids gathered are from places like texas, then most judges would also have to be from texas (as well as debaters).
if both of the above statements are true, then it is easier to ascribe the statistic scoggin provides to coincidence rather than regional bias. (ie, with greater concentrations of texas judges and texas competitors, the chance is more likely that they are going to vote for their regional brethren).
i however, could be totally wrong. i suck at statistics, and should be studying for that ap exam right now. gah.
Posted from: 12.189.118.150
May 5th, 2008 19:36
A confounding variable (also confounding factor, lurking variable, a confound, or confounder) is an extraneous variable in a statistical model that correlates (positively or negatively) with both the dependent variable and the independent variable.
Posted from: 76.17.236.195
May 5th, 2008 19:36
Congrats to everyone on a great tournament. Particular congrats to Becca, who debated at an incredibly high level all weekend (both in the round I judged her and from hearing separately from multiple people who judged her as well). Also particular congrats to Chris et al at AV. It is impossible to overstate how hard everyone over there works, and they really deserve this championship.
Posted from: 98.210.141.198
May 5th, 2008 19:39
correlation without causation.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 5th, 2008 19:45
Ali’s explanation is correct. 11% difference… come on. What an unfortunate comment.
Posted from: 76.17.212.97
May 5th, 2008 19:54
Congratulations, Chris! Way to bring it home for Minnesota. You are an incredible debater – this is really awesome!
Posted from: 76.187.125.74
May 5th, 2008 19:56
Congrats to Rahim and Arti for doing well at the TOC! There were so many great debaters here that sometimes I feel as if they should ALL clear, because they certainly deserve to.
Congratulations also to Alex and Andrew for clearing in policy, and for Evan and James for finals at the very least. Congrats to James for also receiving the Julia Burke award and “exemplifying integrity even with the pressures of competition”!
Congrats to Strake and Hockaday, and everyone else as well.
Umm…congratulations to Mr. Huston, too.
Posted from: 68.117.35.197
May 5th, 2008 19:57
Nice job Chris and all of Apple Valley. I would like to say jayant did call this a long time ago.
Posted from: 71.163.39.67
May 5th, 2008 20:03
Major congrats Caroline, you are simply amazing. You are extremely hard working and skilled and will only continue becoming more and more outstanding. Congrats to Chris as well for the big win.
Posted from: 75.90.199.22
May 5th, 2008 20:06
KARLYN GORSKI YOU’RE MY HERO. THANKS FOR POSTING ALL YOUR WINS ON VBD FOR EVERYONE TO SEE.
Posted from: 74.143.198.34
May 5th, 2008 20:14
Sorry Smitty 1049 rounds were not available for sample. This is the best I can do with the data available. I think we’d get similar results with expanded sample size. At the very least I can legitimately claim that I am more likely right that bias exists than the claim that it does not. Never claimed to have an error margin of 3% or anything of the like. Nice try though.
Name the variable that matters and I’ll either show why it doesn’t matter or recalculate.
To Ali: Yes you are absolutely correct (in my opinion). I think these are exactly on point as to why this happens, never said it was some dark conspiracy. I think that it would be more desirable to have debates adjudicated on the skill and preparation of debaters rather than who you or your coaches know.
To Josh Specifically: I’m glad you have a high enough opinion of me to think I’d just randomly bash regions. As I said earlier I don’t think its any judge or debater from Texas’s fault, its what Ali talks about. It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that 11% doesn’t matter. The best equation of that to TOC records is the difference between 5-2 and 4-3, I know all too well what a difference that makes at the TOC.
To Correlation/Coincidence: Point of post was to determine causation. I think its probably more likely what Ali says than coincidence.
Posted from: 165.123.229.24
May 5th, 2008 20:20
Okay, to clarify what I said: I’m not saying that kids win more in front of judges from their area because they *know* them personally. Obviously that could be a reason, but my argument was that they win because they typically have similar stylistic preferences. Your statement “I think that it would be more desirable to have debates adjudicated on the skill and preparation of debaters rather than who you or your coaches know” seems to suggest that I agree with you that judges are biased. I don’t. I think my argument is pretty clearly that, if you’re from Texas, you’re more likely to debate in a way that a Texas judge prefers and is used to. It has nothing to do with whether or not you know that judge personally.
I don’t really have the time to post any more on this issue, but since my post was misconstrued to say “judges are biased based on who they are friends with,” I wanted to clarify.
Posted from: 74.143.198.34
May 5th, 2008 20:33
Ali. I didn’t at all mean to infer that you meant because of the personal relationships they win more. I meant because debaters from Texas have a distinct regional style that judges from Texas are more inclined to vote for because they are used to that style. That is what I meant by bias. The definition of bias: a particular tendency or inclination (esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice. Prejudice=any preconceived opinion or feeling.)
In other words, “if you’re from Texas, you’re more likely to debate in a way that a Texas judge prefers and is used to.” = bias. That is what I mean, and what the definition of the word seems to mean.
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
May 5th, 2008 20:35
I agree with Ali/John. When texas has so many bids (deservedly so), and wins so many bids (deservedly so), and therefore has a bunch of judges at the TOC, their style of debate gets preferenced.
For instance, to use Scoggin as an example (because I’m sure he’ll find this one at least somewhat amusing), if we were to hold a round robin with scoggin as the only judge, and everyone were to be from a different region, and debated as such, with me using scoggin’s Iran AC and “Nations can’t have moral agency” position, chances are I’d do pretty well if only because I was using arguments that Scoggin likes (although with John, I’m not so sure that he’d pick me up so many times). It’s part of judge adaptation. A debater who doesn’t have to adapt will generally do better than a debater who does have to adapt in a round.
Posted from: 68.113.89.230
May 5th, 2008 20:40
is that the first junior?
Posted from: 75.90.199.22
May 5th, 2008 20:43
yo pwneill do us all a big favor and stfu
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 5th, 2008 20:46
whether or not people will openly agree or disagree with John in this forum, I will say that I have heard many many many debaters and coaches express similar concern, and I think most of us would be lying if we were to say that we have never heard the term “Texas-hack”, whether or not “Texas hacking” actually is a serious problem.
With that aside, there are serious congratulations to be made. Primarily to Chris and Becca, who have both had outstanding seasons. Jake as well, Garber, Moerner…everyone else who cleared, etc. I wanted to also congratulate Wade Houston on an extremely solid finish to his career and also to highlight that the last 15 seconds of his last speech ever (2NR) was unbelievable.
Most importantly – props to MHersh. Making the run-off is huge.
Posted from: 165.123.229.24
May 5th, 2008 20:46
This is my last post on the topic. John, I just don’t quite agree that this is a problem: just because certain debaters can adapt well and can adapt to judges from their region well is just not a problem. Strike Texas judges if it makes you uncomfortable. Talk to people from different regions and adapt. I think it’d be far worse to ban debaters from debating in front of judges they feel the most comfortable with.
Finally, I still don’t think TOC is a good sample. The sample size may suck, but I also think what I said before is still true–Texas has always done well at TOC.
Posted from: 12.30.180.99
May 5th, 2008 20:50
all i wanted to point out is a regional uniqueness to texas. it’s not like 7458950719807 people from texas are qualified for TOC; rather, students from texas that are qualified usually are about 2-4 times over (the top 2 bid holders in the nation are both from TX [houston specifically, houston heg]). john’s argument may have some value if there was a consensus on paradigm, but the fact is there isn’t. until there is a conclusion regarding what a good LD debate round consists of, regional preferences will continue to exist. it’s not an issue of fairness, it’s an issue of how well traveled you are. although, i do think it’s valuable to mention that texas debaters this year have been very successful in other regions ( ie todd liipfert in finals of AV, becca winning berk, joan winning bronx, strake closing out vbt, etc).
Posted from: 74.143.198.34
May 5th, 2008 20:57
Ali – debaters should be able to use strikes on overall big picture stylistic differences (big picture vs. line-by-line etc.) rather than having to use them all on a region. I just think its unfair that a certain region has to adapt less than others. The Texas has done well argument just begs the question.
Quinn – regional preferences will probably always exist, I just don’t think that should be a factor in deciding rounds at the TOC.
Posted from: 98.194.2.241
May 5th, 2008 21:01
A huge congrats to Becca on finals. I don’t know Chris or anyone at AV personally, but congrats on the win :)
Also, congrats to Hockaday, (Joan, Lindsey, and Shivani) on an amazing showing in out rounds, as well as to the Strake Guys (Todd and David). Both schools have amazing coaches and students, and I’m sure there will many future successes.
And lastly, to Mr. Andrew Cockroft. What a way to cap off a phenomenal season (It may not be over if you qualled for nats, I don’t know the results from your district). You put an amazing amount of effort in to all you did this year, and your success at the TOC was well deserved.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 5th, 2008 21:02
I forgot to congratulate Rebar, Metzman, and Catterton. these people all deserve positive recognition as well (I’m probably still omitting people).
Posted from: 38.118.12.10
May 5th, 2008 21:04
Big props to Chris, Becca, Cherian, and Cooper! (Trust me, I was there in spirit, IMs with spirtos, and lots of texts.)
Posted from: 150.108.232.25
May 5th, 2008 21:07
this topic of conversation gets boring after a while.
Posted from: 74.63.75.227
May 5th, 2008 21:13
does anyone know which rounds were recorded?
Posted from: 75.90.199.22
May 5th, 2008 21:22
CAN U ALL SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT THE ROUNDS ALREADY
Posted from: 74.143.198.34
May 5th, 2008 21:33
heaven forbid we talk about debate rounds on VBD
Posted from: 71.236.138.137
May 5th, 2008 21:38
And wes squirrels again.
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 5th, 2008 21:43
http://www.vi-r-us.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/squirrel.jpg
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 5th, 2008 21:43
just kidding
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 21:47
YOU KNOW WHAT REGION REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS?
THE NORTHWEST. Look at their overall ballot winning percentage at the TOC: 61%!!!
How many total rounds did their judges judge in prelims? 6 TOTAL!!!
HOW MANY ROUNDS DID THEIR JUDGES SQUIRREL IN THAT WERE THE FINAL ROUND OR SEMIFINALS? 100%!!!!
completely damning. also, i heard they tried to run skepticism in every negative round. that’s like running normativity disguised with a different name!!!
but you know what grinds my gears even more than that region? YO. no peeps forced y’all to even look at VBD. I was however really amused when you switched the letters around in my name so that it read “Raber.” THAT SHIT WAS HI-LARIOUS!!!!!!!!
Posted from: 134.84.101.210
May 5th, 2008 21:54
there are only six judges listed on the final round panel….who was the other judge?
Posted from: 70.142.29.233
May 5th, 2008 21:58
Anyone have the TOC results link? Seems like in years past you could find it on JOT.
Posted from: 70.111.156.122
May 5th, 2008 22:09
It might have been JW Patterson.
Posted from: 75.90.199.22
May 5th, 2008 22:28
ok RABER you’re taking this “shit” too far man. you need to calm down. you cleared didnt u? and wtf is skpeticism sounds like a dumb argument
Posted from: 128.135.190.8
May 5th, 2008 22:36
i thought rebar was joking….
Posted from: 70.116.31.157
May 5th, 2008 22:43
there is a very large difference between saying that texas judges vote for texans because they’re from texas and texas judges vote for texans because of similar paradigms and a greater ability to adapt. it makes literally no sense to say “regional preferences should not determine decisions” when the manner in which they do is through different ideas of what constitutes good debate. those preferences regarding good debate just happen to be regionally concentrated. you are functionally saying “paradigms should not determine decisions” which is self-evidently absurd. i think this is what ali is really trying to get at. a bias in the negative sense is more than “oh, there seems to be something causing these debaters to win more.” it’s not biased for a debater who’s good at theory to pick up a theory hack.
next, you don’t just get to reject all statistical considerations because you did the best you could do “with the available data” and assume that if you did run an accurate statistical test that the data would work out in your favor. 11% clearly borders on statistical insignificance even if for some reason it’s analogous to 5-2 vs. 4-3 records. the point is not that the bias exists, but is so small as to not be important, but that the evidence provided does not in fact prove the bias at all. go run some numbers from the last couple of toc’s and maybe this argument will be worth listening to.
additionally, the biggest problem i see is that even if your argument is completely true, as ali points out, run the numbers for northeastern judges and debaters and you will probably see similar patterns. i’m sure there’s lots of anecdotal evidence about judges being texas hacks, but i’ve told numerous students of mine that they should strike notorious cali-hacks and other region-hacks. so it’s a little preposterous to a. single out texas and b. pretend like texas debaters have some significant advantage walking into tournaments because they have to adapt less.
finally, i wouldn’t have taken this much time but i find it more than a little troubling that immediately after texan debaters do well you find it necessary to insinuate that there were other factors behind their performance besides good debating. in this context, i think it’s pretty lame and reflective more of sour grapes.
so after that unpleasantness, congrats to chris and becca for a well-deserved final round, to david, todd, and paul who all worked incredibly hard for this tournament, to the always-dominant team hockaday and incredible coaching staff, to jake nebel for capping a great year, and last but not least, to andrew cockroft for being an absolute baller.
Posted from: 74.143.198.34
May 5th, 2008 22:51
Scoggin has been ranting about this for like two days which has annoyed the hell out of me.
But Lewis how does your argument about “cali hacks” not prove his point? Agreed that back in our day everyone thought that cali hacked for cali and now people think texas hacks for texas… how is that sour grapes and not just pointing out an opinion that a lot of the community holds to be true?
ex-texan,
dp
Posted from: 12.30.90.98
May 5th, 2008 22:55
dave mcginnis is the missing final round judge.
congrats are, of course, in order for a large number of people.
to everyone who competed this weekend: regardless of whether you’ve got a trophy to take home, getting to the tournament is truly an accomplishment. qualifying to such a prestigious tournament is no joke…before you get down on yourself for not doing as well as you might have hoped, therefore, i hope you pause to consider just how much of an honor you’ve earned by competing here.
to those talented and fortunate enough to make it to elimination rounds – congrats on showing just how skilled you really are. many of you are good friends of mine, and i was really glad to see you rise to the occasion in the manner you did. special congrats are in order, of course, to moerner for repping norcal so well, becca for a fantastic finish to a great career, and theis for ending the AV curse.
the rest of you are pretty amazing, too. =)
oh, and a final congrats to messrs huston and timmons for their well-deserved accolades. i don’t know either of them particularly well, but i have seen enough to know that if i’m ever half the coach either of them is, i’ll have done something right. thank you for your continued service to the community, and for giving younger coaches like myself a model to learn from.
Posted from: 70.116.31.157
May 5th, 2008 23:03
because my argument is precisely that regional preference can be attributed to general paradigmatic differences. that’s not negative if you think paradigms should have any weight in determining how judges make decisions. if you don’t, well, then i don’t really know what to tell you.
if thats the case, then a. it might meet a dictionary definition of bias but it’s definitely not something to be concerned about, b. the jury is definitely still out on whether or not regional preference actually does affect rounds and isn’t just a product of what disgruntled students think, and c. is shared equally by all regions and so it’s not really a problem.
granted, there are of course some judges who vote for people they know, but i don’t think this is the next problem plaguing debate like the a-priori or camp wars. there are a couple judges making bad decisions because they live 15 minutes away from a debater but that means virtually nothing. so to answer your question, yes there were once thought to be cali-hacks, but that doesn’t mean there are texas hacks or that it was ever a problem to begin with.
Posted from: 72.255.42.106
May 5th, 2008 23:05
i have a novel idea: why doesnt someone compute this data using actual statistical tests.
Posted from: 12.30.180.99
May 5th, 2008 23:17
i think john’s argument is kind of a long and explanatory way of what i said: there is no universal ld paradigm, so you vote on what you see.
toc was fun. congrats to strake for ballin, cockroft i’ve been congratzing you all weekend, becca great job, and it’s always good to see hockaday do so well. oh and congrats to nebel on quarters and rebar on avenging t-mac.
special congrats to jason zhou, it was fun to see you have a good weekend, good luck at northwestern. someone should hire this kid next year, he’s real smart.
Posted from: 75.90.199.22
May 5th, 2008 23:20
why did moerner coach over garber. seems like a bit unfair that garber didn’t get a chance to advance. disclaimer: i know they’re from the same “team” but i also know that they are not from the same school.
Posted from: 75.90.199.22
May 5th, 2008 23:23
also, i’ve heard that the jake/becca round was a bit of a disappointment in terms of the decision, like i heard that the judges were consulting each other after the round to discuss arguments. what DID happen in the round, now that the TOC is over.
Posted from: 72.255.16.229
May 5th, 2008 23:25
yo, chill bro dude.
lolz, mirror neurons and garbanzo are coached by the same person, Eric Palmer is the sovereign and he defined a state of exception.
ya, pre-figuration is lik, totally unnecessry cuz you can use aesthetic judgements.
Posted from: 128.135.190.8
May 5th, 2008 23:31
since rebar isnt really saying why
it’s because it is team policy to not debate in outrounds, since tehy functionally are the same team i.e. entering as mvla everywhere else and they work together and are coached by the same staff..DM walked over
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 5th, 2008 23:57
policy finals: greenhill def colleyville 2-1, warden hardy *polin
Posted from: 129.15.131.248
May 6th, 2008 03:32
Congrats to Chris
Posted from: 204.180.72.105
May 6th, 2008 03:42
To those questioning results:
“Yo”: I don’t see why you’re saying the decision is biased when you weren’t even at the tournament, much less watching the round. Guess what: A 6-1 decision is pretty decisive. CEDA finals (college policy) was a 7-4 decision, that was considered decision. This final round was even more of a facecrush than the 11-2 decision in CEDA finals last year.
John Scoggin: You can’t use the technical definition of “bias” and then claim that it’s bad. For example, I’m biased against food that will make me violently ill. I’m willing to say that’s a good bias. Similarly, Ali basically said that, in front of Texas judges, Texas debaters debate better than non-Texas debaters. That’s not because of some irrational preference, or because they’re repping out, but because the Texas debaters debated better for that judge and deserve to win. I don’t see how you can claim that’s bad.
Besides, I think the bigger issue is that Texas debaters won 58% of their rounds in front of non-Texas judges. Clearly the category “Lincoln Douglas judges at the TOC” hack for Texas, since it couldn’t be that this year’s debaters from Texas are generally good at debate.
Posted from: 204.180.72.105
May 6th, 2008 03:48
Also, mutual-preference judging solves you impacts. Pref the judges you can debate for well, and it doesn’t matter whether or not you get a Texas judge. If your data’s right, it means either 1. non-Texas debaters suck at adapting, or 2. non-Texas debaters filled out their judge prefs stupidly.
Posted from: 128.135.190.175
May 6th, 2008 06:40
No judge consulted any other judge until after their decision was made. Our “consulting” was more “laughing at how hilarious it was that Wesley managed to squirrel again”. No one talked to another judge before they signed their ballot other than to ask them if they had made their decision yet. Cute rumor though.
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
May 6th, 2008 06:59
Yo: Who are you? What do you have against me? I’ll take criticism from people who have the respect to tell me who they are, but if you won’t give me your identity, I couldn’t care less about what you have to say.
Go back home to Little Rock, and stop making dumb, anonymous comments
Posted from: 74.67.55.150
May 6th, 2008 07:04
Johns concern, even if it is legitimate, sounds like a problem without a solution to me.
Posted from: 204.186.151.4
May 6th, 2008 07:19
Congrats to all ht epeople at TOC for starters, but a special congratulations to JP for a great rep of PA all year, and Lindsay Dolan for PDI rep!!!!!
Posted from: 75.90.199.22
May 6th, 2008 07:23
if you read my post again, you’ll realize that I’m talking about a totally different round.
Posted from: 24.205.209.139
May 6th, 2008 08:00
They only hit each other once…
Posted from: 74.143.198.34
May 6th, 2008 08:09
Lewis: You are just wrong on several levels. Every other region shouldn’t have the disadvantage of an inability to adapt to the same extant as Texans can just because they are outnumbered. The sheer number of Texas judges has the effect that Texans can show up to the TOC and not adapt and most other regions can’t. Your analogy is terrible, being good a theory is a skill, being good at being a Texan is not. You should pick up rounds for being skilled, not because of where you live. You misunderstand the statistics argument, anyone who thinks that 11% is insignificant is just wrong, in a close round that would prove that being from Texas makes a difference, and at a tournament as competitive as TOC an 11% bias could be the difference from getting to finals and going 4-3. The small sample size argument is what you seem to hint at to prove your (unrelated) argument that its insignificant but I’ve already answered that. The existence of hacks from other regions would be something that we need to combat as well (despite the fact that this is very poor moral reasoning) , and does nothing to disprove my argument. Furthermore since Texans outnumber others at the TOC, they enjoy more benefits than those from the northeast or other regions. Just as a note Daryl is right about the Cali hacks argument as well.
Koslow: I already said its bad because debaters should be judged by the strength of their arguments not arbitrary stylistic distinctions. To go with your analogy, you probably shouldn’t be judging a food competition if one of the foods makes you ill. And your use of the word better is just wrong, I’m arguing they don’t debate better, rather more Texan. To MJP: This would be a great step at eliminating the problem.
Shea: The point of the post was to ask for solutions. Also, wouldn’t that logic preclude talking about problems we don’t know how to solve? Can I not claim that cancer is a problem without knowing how to cure it?
To Mangus: That is a great idea. I am not a statistician, I never claimed that my numbers had an acceptable margin of error, rather I just wanted to start a discussion about it. A more statistically sound evaluation of regional bias would be a logical next step. Although I don’t understand why you had to phrase your post in the manner you did, seemed unnecessarily condescending to me.
Posted from: 75.90.199.22
May 6th, 2008 08:19
I am talking about the JAKE/becca quarters round
Posted from: 72.25.137.106
May 6th, 2008 08:24
Congratulations to the Mighty Eagles.
Posted from: 68.209.198.15
May 6th, 2008 08:31
congrats to chris and becca – you were both consistently great in the regular season, and this finals matchup comes as no surprise.
also congrats to corey metzman, who did little to no work for this tournament (or this year in general, really) and still pulled off the 5-2 through raw talent.
ken hershey was debating great this weekend and really deserved to clear, but unfortunately it’s inevitable that some people will get screwed over by rough draws and bad luck since only 16 people can make it to outrounds. expect him to go far next year.
and congrats to todd on not losing in doubles.
Posted from: 68.209.198.15
May 6th, 2008 08:35
independently, this rant about regional hacks is silly. do i strike lots of judges from texas? you fucking bet i do. but that’s not because i feel like they’re inherently biased and will drop me if i’m debating someone from texas. it’s because regional trends influence paradigms and debating styles, and i am inferior at adapting to these types of judges relative to texas debaters.
Posted from: 68.209.198.15
May 6th, 2008 08:37
also, tom evnen sat out in semis, not tim hogan.
Posted from: 128.135.230.21
May 6th, 2008 08:40
Good job to AV on knowing unbroken cases
Good job to becca on trying to explain walking over to me
Good job to hockaday to clear so many consitently
Good job to moerner you are fast
Good job to wade you are from the south
Good job to Elkins you are from elkins
Good job to Jake you are smart
Good job to Rebar you wanted this
Good job to Garber you sir got walked over
Good job to Shadman you like jake are smart
Good job to Strake you are all guys
Good job to Chris Catterton…you like rebar deserved this. congrats on the clear it was a great run for your only ld year.
Hi everyone
Posted from: 12.30.180.99
May 6th, 2008 08:46
scoggin, i read your comment as a personal attack on texas and texas debaters. given there is no universal or even similar texas style or judging paradigm (other than a few notorious neg hacks), i have no idea how texas debaters debate in a way texas judges like. even within teams, there is no style specific to a team. i.e. david and todd aren’t that similar. next, hockaday does not debate more like strake than they do like scarsdale. but these are flawed comparisons because joan can debate differently than shivani and the hersheys debate differently than nikita. THERE IS NO STYLE. i dont even know what a style is? a winning style where you dont debate the same way every round? furthermore, teams that travel a lot (i.e. strake, kinkaid, and hockaday) debate just as much in front of cali, midwest, and northeast judges as texas judges. admittedly, strake debates more in texas than the northeast, but strake knows how to debate in front of joe vaughan and chetan just as well as tommy clancy and eric melin. so when you say texas picks up texas more, you say people like me, tommy, cooper, eric, castillo, and everyone else reps for texas or something. to me, it seems like an implicit call-out for texas judges voting for their friends.
i’d like to think that most people in the debate community care enough about the money and time people pour in not to rep for their friends, but to say there are not some very political people in the activity is just false.
so thank you, john, for bringing up this issue, but lets call out everyone and not just texas. i.e. call out cali and the northeast and call out people who rep for the camps they teach at (which i think is the biggest problem rather than this region rep thing)
regardless, congrats to apple valley and kinkaid. both very talented debaters.
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
May 6th, 2008 09:27
I agree with Gary. I think every region and institution has its hacks. I also think that, while it may not strictly correlate to geographic boundaries, there are ideological commitments that some judges and debaters might have in common. Strake may be able to adapt for a “Joe Vaughan” (must be nice to define a genre!), but there are undoubtedly debaters whose “style” (however tenuous a term) is a natural fit for Joe’s preferences.
In other words, “adaptation” may come more easily for some than others. And to some degree, familiarity with a judge–whether it is due to extensive travel or attending many of the same regional tournaments–obviously improves one’s odds.
With the travel circuit as it is, the significance of region is mitigated. But not everyone travels the same amount or at all. And for those who attend two or three out of state tournaments all year (something that happens for a lot of Texas debaters, since Texas has so many of its own bid tourneys), there are going to be a lot of judges debaters aren’t familiar with and vice versa.
In the midst of all this, it doesn’t surprise me that small trends emerge, no doubt due to a variety of other reasons as well. Ultimately, the significance of any perceived pattern is negligible.
Personally, I only vote for Texas debaters.
Posted from: 128.135.208.18
May 6th, 2008 09:39
“also, i’ve heard that the jake/becca round was a bit of a disappointment in terms of the decision, like i heard that the judges were consulting each other after the round to discuss arguments. what DID happen in the round, now that the TOC is over.”
Who the hell is saying this? All 3 RFDs and oral critiques were clear, well thought-out and consistent. At one point, all the judges were looking at the same cases and I think I heard Ernie make some kind of flippant remark, but this accusation is colossally stupid. These are three really good judges and they made good decisions in this round. I usually like “yo” when he tells pwneil to shut up, but this is just dumb.
And discussing all kinds of hackery is good. Everywhere else, people talk a big game online but are cowards in real-life, but the debate community is totally opposite: I’m kind of surprised that discussions of regional hacking (Cali, Texas, otherwise) are literally everywhere during tournaments but no one wants to even touch the issue online.
Congrats to all debaters who did well. Congrats especially to Catterton who was great to work for and be around all weekend and to Becca who in prelims gave the most devastating and impressive 2N I’ve seen in my debate career.
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
May 6th, 2008 09:52
I think one reason those kinds of sentiments are rarer online is that a lot of uninformed opinions are held in greater scrutiny online. It’s easy to speculate among friends about how legitimate a judge or decision is, no matter how absurd the speculation might be.
On the flip side, people are probably also afraid of political repercussions. Maybe that’s a good check on stupidity though. Being bold and honest doesn’t mean being correct.
Posted from: 70.116.31.157
May 6th, 2008 09:59
scoggin, i’m convinced that you’re completely illiterate. this is going to be my last post because i can’t see an answer coming anytime soon.
first, there is still absolutely zero answer to “regional preference, if it exists, is because of paradigmatic differences”, besides the comment you make to scott about how stylistic differences shouldn’t determine winners. that is drastically different from what everyone is saying. the analogy about theory simply suggests that bias is not bad in certain cases. judges who are theory hacks are more likely to pick up theory and so debaters who are good at theory are more likely to pick those judges up. that may be bias in a technical sense but unfortunately we have a community with no complete consensus on what constitutes good debate and so people develop these things called “paradigms”. that’s all the analogy means.
so, to make it specific to my argument, these aren’t “minor stylistic differences”, they are different ways people in regions are accustomed to view debate. i’m guessing you agree that its okay for paradigms to influence decisions since it would be borderline insane to suggest otherwise. if its true that region influences decisions because of paradigms then that should also be permissible. so you need to give a good reason why paradigms aren’t whats influencing regional trends for your arg to work. but i won’t hold my breath.
re: more texas judges. eh i don’t know about that and it seems like that would vary from year to year. but still not a problem. this is like saying persuasive, big-picture debaters are unfairly biased against because there are more line by line judges.
re: statistics. haha you still have no clue what you’re talking about. in statistics theres a phenomenon that happens where a number is bigger but is still “statistically insignificant”. insignificant doesn’t mean morally insignificant. it means that the number is within the normal range of variance for the test, i.e., if you ran the test again with a different sample of the data, its entirely possible that you could get opposite results. you saying that there’s an 11% difference here doesn’t mean texas judges are 11% more likely to pick up texas debaters. what i’m saying is that if you ran this with a different year we could easily find out texas judges are biased against texans.
ultimately i agree with babb et. al. that any perceived pattern is likely negligible anyway. but whatever pattern you do find has a simple and non-malicious explanation.
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
May 6th, 2008 10:10
I will just come out and say it. I think Wesley Craven is a hack, not for anyone in particular, just for debaters in general. He would vote for every debater if he could, because he is such a hack. The only reason he doesn’t vote for every debater is that there’s a rule that one debater has to lose. That rule, I believe (maybe Cruz can check the record books on this) is actually called the “Wesley Craven Not Everyone Can Win” rule. One time, back before they had the technology to video tape debate rounds and thus keep a third party check on hacking, I was judging a round on a panel with Wes and it was so illegit. One of the debaters so obviously lost the round, and yet Wes still tried to give a double-win. I was so angry at the injustice, and I still am.
I just think it’s time that someone call people like Wes out. Too many people care too much for the honor of this good activity for it to be derailed by Wes’s typical pseudo communism. Sure, I’ll take some heat for having the courage to say it. But without whistle-blowers, what would our community be?
Also, someone should definitely do a statistical study of Wes’s voting habits–there is probably no pattern whatsoever because he’s such an equal opportunity hack.
Posted from: 146.145.221.130
May 6th, 2008 10:15
Congress results:
Top 6
1. Ben Berkman – Nova (FL)
2. Kevin Eaton – Duncanville (TX)
3. Dominic Pody – Holy Ghost (PA) (Finals PO)
4. Tommy Maranges – St. Thomas Aquinas (FL)
5. Jordan Stone – Adlai E. Stevenson (IL)
6. Brad Dlatt – Adlai E. Stevenson (IL)
Finalists
7. Christian Chauvet – St. Thomas Aquinas (FL)
8. Reid Spitzer – Ridge (NJ)
9. Nate Blevins – Gilmour Academy (OH)
10. Mitchell Blenden – University School (FL)
11. Alex Henderson – Charlotte Latin (NC)
12. Tom Nally – Loyola (IL)
Posted from: 128.101.49.109
May 6th, 2008 10:21
babb – you are SUCH A LIAR!!! why do you hate on wes of all people. wtf :”(
congrats to all the people too numerous to name! sorry, i dont want to forget anyone, but you all know who you are :)
Posted from: 74.67.55.150
May 6th, 2008 10:24
John, my comment was not an attack on you, or even saying I disagreed with your position. (I don’t know if there’s enough data out there to make any kind of argument about hackery right now) It was rather a general comment from me that I do not know how to solve this problem in any other way than the current method of judging preferences that we have currently.
The causes of the problem: Texas kids deservedly getting quals -> Texas Judges in tournament -> Greater texas win % due to familiarity with judges preferences, in addition to regional stylistic differences, does not seem to me to be one which is going to remedied, and it even seems like an inherency to debate as a whole. (come to Columbia and see how many judges regis brings.)
I’m not indicting the process of searching for solutions, I’m merely saying that I do not think there is one.
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 6th, 2008 10:27
the problem is that these two causes are not mutually exclusive–i see no reason why hackery and stylistic preferences could not both be at work. in fact, if you believe that judges generally make decisions and then use the flow to justify/confirm that decision, rather than vice versa, hackery could easily be a factor in the initial “pick a debater to vote for” stage. even if you don’t believe this, i see no reason why hackery could not be a factor that would push a judge one way or the other when evaluating arguments on the flow, particularly in close rounds.
ultimately, though, i think this is more damning for scoggin’s argument than for ali’s/lewis’s, because it means it’s almost impossible to isolate hackery as a causal factor or determine with any degree of objectivity whether it’s a significant trend.
ps. unlike babb, i only vote for debaters from california, though you texas debaters probably knew that already.
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
May 6th, 2008 10:48
scoggin-
get off vbd and go to school (for once)
-Phela
Posted from: 67.80.215.195
May 6th, 2008 12:25
congrats to everyone. especially becca, shadman, and ben on intense prelim rounds. next year = edina close out!
Posted from: 67.80.215.195
May 6th, 2008 12:29
also, super super props to shadman for an awesome debate season. debating each other at pretty much every tournament ever has been an intense experience.
Posted from: 206.77.0.156
May 6th, 2008 12:57
CONGRATS CHRIS AND BECCA!!!
Also supersupersuper proud of REBAR, Double D, Hockaday, Andrew, an’ Oscars. :o) Great job guys.
Posted from: 65.125.148.226
May 6th, 2008 13:22
1) In looking at the information from VBD here, it looks like the are this many “Texas judges” in each of the rounds of the TOC:
Rd 1 = 4/19 = 21.05%
Rd 2 = 8/19 = 42.10%
Rd 3 = 7/19 = 36.84%
Rd 4 = 5/21 = 23.80%
Rd 5 = 4/19 = 21.05%
Rd 6 = 7/18 = 38.89%
Rd 7 = 4/19 = 21.05%
As a pool of the competition that completed the tournament, Texas students composed 15/74 of the competitors for a total of 20.27% of the field.
2) The percentage of Texas judge is higher than the number of Texas students for a couple of reasons:
a) those judges are high quality judges who are preferred by people who are NOT from Texas. When you look at the list of names of “Texas judges” you see the names of people who typically judge deep elimination debates at tournaments across the circuit.
b) those judges are not stylistically the same kind of judge, so they present opportunities for certain students. If someone is honestly going to say that Gary Johnson and Ryan Cooper see debate in the exact same way, they are deceiving themselves.
c) those judges spend plenty of time voting FOR students who are not from Texas. This would explain why 10 of the 15 people in the top 15 speakers were not from Texas. Among the people who WERE from Texas in that group, two were not in the elimination rounds.
3) I’m curious if Mr. Scoggin was using his own rounds as the basis for a statistical consideration… interestingly enough, he debated 2 people who are not from the mid-west with mid-west judging. If I’m reading some of the above 460+ postings correctly, he won both of them. Granted, he lost against two Texas debaters when he had Texas judges. If my memory serves me correctly, Ajay Ketkar and Kris Wright are fairly different in their approach to judging, however. This is similarly true to the distinction between CKoshy and DMac.
In the end, the reason why people prefer some judges over other judges (as reflected in MPJ and strike systems) is because they feel like they have a better chance to win in front of their preferred judges. Sometimes the judges are from the same region. Other times, the judges are not from the same region. I know that, from a few years back, Matt Shields really enjoyed Tim Case and Kris Wright judging him in big debates, even though one was from (then) Florida and Texas. Similarly, I am sure that Mr. Shields had preferences for people from the Northeast too.
It’s always about who gives you the best shot to win. If they’re from your state (or the state below yours) maybe there’s an advantage there too?
Michelin Massey
Posted from: 69.120.226.236
May 6th, 2008 13:25
Us debaters have a really bad habit of arguing in forums like we’re in a round. Read any of the angry posts.
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 6th, 2008 13:31
i don’t think there are regional biases beyond paradigmatic issues. but i do think that TOC should have MJP so that anyone who doesn’t feel like they get a fair shake can rank those judges accordingly, but not necessarily strike them. policy has had MJP forever, there is literally no reason for us not to have it.
wesley craven is such a hack.
Posted from: 66.176.212.116
May 6th, 2008 13:36
this discourse you all are having–particularly the college students who have not debated in two or more years, is hysterical. you guys are arguing about utter nonsense. when you step out of the debate world into the normal social world that is found in high school and college, discussing the idiotic issues you all are discussing will ostracize you and make you seem socially inept.
debate is a fun activity and should be seen as just that, and all the college students who are so involved are somewhat pathetic. grow up, get a social life going with kids your own age, get laid, and have fun. you are arguing about complete nonsense and unimportant issues
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 6th, 2008 13:44
…wooooow 471, the mannn.
huge congrats to wade, moerner, garber, jake, ross and catterton
Posted from: 74.70.112.133
May 6th, 2008 13:47
^says the kid who reads VBD though he is “thru” with debate.
And don’t pull this real world crap. Sports kids are obsessed about sports, art kids art, etc. Each and any of those groups can ostracize the other. So even if you don’t fit in with “normal kids” you have other people you can fit in with.
But thats assuming your idea that debaters are just debaters is true. We all have lives outside of debate that we enjoy. We all have friends, many of whom aren’t debaters and with whom we talk about non-debate things. This is a debate site. You are supposed to talk about debate.
Prolly most important is; chill dude. We aren’t messin with you so quit buggin. Go get laid and have fun. After all, you are arguing about complete nonsense and unimportant issues.
Posted from: 74.70.112.133
May 6th, 2008 13:48
@ 471 not mershey, who is a total baller
Posted from: 71.60.209.85
May 6th, 2008 14:03
1 – congrats to shadman, catterton (on an awesome 1st season), rebar, strake, corey, mershey,and wade.
2 – huge congrats to north allegheny for taking public forum. i am guessing this is pittsburgh’s 1st toc title of any variety
Posted from: 71.139.10.141
May 6th, 2008 14:30
if someone wants to compile statistics, why not compile % of neg rounds won?
Another interesting question are flips. Both Cockroft and I flipped aff in quarters but I am curious if anyone else flipped aff.
Posted from: 68.196.195.40
May 6th, 2008 14:45
can the TOC results packet be found online anywhere? I’m sure many people would be interested to take a look.
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 6th, 2008 14:51
moerner’s post sounds like a job for mr. cruz, once of course he has recovered from the week’s events.
Posted from: 134.84.75.32
May 6th, 2008 15:29
On the Texas thing: I agree with Ali’s explanation of John’s statistics. So, regional bias is both non-unique to Texas and isn’t reflective of any sort of malfeasance on anyone’s part.
What makes the issue worth talking about, though, is that some regions are much more heavily represented in the pool of judges/competitors than others. Texas represents a huge portion of the pool to begin with, and given how many excellent debaters tend to come out of Texas, how tough most of the Texas bids are, and how many Texan coaches are ‘A’ judges, that portion only gets bigger as you get into higher brackets in late rounds, and still bigger once you get into outrounds (7/16 octofinalists, 9/21 octos judges). So, debaters from, say, the Northeast (let alone the Southeast or Southwest) don’t have nearly as much of an opportunity to benefit from regional biases as others, especially in the rounds where the stakes are highest. Whether or not this actually changes the outcome of the tournament is anyone’s guess, and I’m not saying it does–certainly, all of the Texans who did well this weekend were, inidividually, easily good enough to do as well as they did without a single Texas judge in the pool. But at the very least there’s an undeniable perceptual problem (John’s certainly not the first person to suggest what he’s suggesting).
A minimal solution to this perceptual issue, that shouldn’t be too controversial or interfere with the logistics of the tournament overly much, is this: In outrounds, when two debaters from different states/regions are debating, don’t put more than one judge from either debater’s state/region on the panel. That would still let the tournament use as many Texan ‘A’ judges as it liked in Texas/Texas rounds or non-Texas/non-Texas rounds, and there shouldn’t be too much difficulty finding two non-Texas judges for the remaining rounds (obviously this would apply to places other than Texas; just sticking with it as the case in point). There could be more regional constraints implemented, even to the point of not letting judges judge debaters from their state/region period, just like (I think) is done at Nationals, but I don’t know that there’s any need to go that far. But the more restricted constraint strikes me as a fairly basic step to take that’s hard to argue against (Even if you don’t think there’s any bias worth worrying about, what harm could it do? It doesn’t seem likely to me that it would ever make it impossible to panel an outround with ‘A’ judges).
Posted from: 68.30.160.238
May 6th, 2008 15:40
If I am reading this right, the claim is that non-Texans are wronged because they win 43% of the time with non-Texas judges against a Texan, but only 32% of the time with Texas judges.
If that’s the claim, someone from Texas could just as easily use the same evidence to claim that they are wronged because they win only 55% of the time against a non-Texan with a non-Texan judge, but win 675 of the time when the judge is from Texas. Who knows with such thin data, maybe non-Texan’s are “hacking” for non-Texans and holding Texas back.
Did I just blow your mind or what?
Posted from: 65.125.148.226
May 6th, 2008 16:01
In response to Christian’s posting about regionally constraining judges in the elims…
I think this is a really bad idea. There are a finite number of judges who are good enough to judge the elimination rounds at the TOC. To say that the best judges in the tournament are incapable of judging the debates fairly because of their present location is an accusation that runs deeper than mere “regional bias”.
One of the beauties of national level debate is that it transcends borders and regions. Debaters can have favorite judges who are from both from and outside of their region. That is the benefit of being well-traveled when it comes to the deep elimination debates at the TOC.
As the circuit becomes smaller, regional distinctions are less pronounced. Gary’s right: there’s no longer a such thing as “Texas style” debate. There used to be “Texas style” debate that was very distinct from other parts of the LD National Circuit. Funny enough, that style is more like the style of this year’s Ulrich Award winner (not from Texas) and the recent TOC Champ (not from Texas) than, say, Hockaday LD (from Texas).
The TOC is designed to feature the best students debating in front of the best judges. Regardless of region, this is its mission. As history shows, this sort of thing evolves. In its inception, LDers from the Northeast and Southeast were dominant. In the 90s and early part of the new millennium, debaters from the the west coast, mid-west, and Texas started to make a splash along with debaters from the southeast. The northeast was less successful during this time.
In today’s climate, the southeast has been underrepresented at the TOC, whereas Californians, mid-westerners, Texans, and northeasterners have put their stamp on the activity.
Times change. If you keep losing to students from Texas with “Texas judges” then change up your strikes, hit up some Texas tournaments, or just get better.
Michelin Massey
PS: these are the same words of advice I gave to my friends from Texas when they complained about “West coast love” in the earlier part of this decade.
Posted from: 76.187.221.251
May 6th, 2008 16:16
I’m going to post twice. The first post is about the statistical claims made thus far, and the second will be about the existence of a Texas style, hacking, and its implications.
STATISTICS
I’m glad debate is at the point where a debater can complain about a bad decision in 1 out of 50 rounds after the TOC.
If Texans make up 20.27% of the judging pool, and Texas debaters have a 11% chance of getting an “illegit” win in front of a Texas judge (which is what John S. seems to be implying), then a Texas debater has a 2.2% chance of picking up an illegit win in any round (20.20% chance of getting a Texas judge times an 11% chance of that judge picking up a Texan when s/he shouldn’t). This, of course, assumes that Texans aren’t hitting each other and that nobody strikes Texans – neither of which are tenable and both of which would reduce that percentage further. Over the course of 7 prelim rounds, the Texan debater is likely to get .156 illegit wins. Multiply this times the 15 Texan debaters, and Texans illegitimately picked up 2.34 rounds.
LET’S BE CLEAR: WHETHER ATTRIBUTED TO REGIONAL VARIATION IN STYLE, FAMILIARITY WITH PARADIGMS, OR JUST PLAIN HACKING, WE’RE LIKELY TALKING ABOUT FEWER THAN 3 ROUNDS.
I would bet the following things are more significant:
1. Going negative in front of Texas judges
2. Wearing a black suit in front of judges over 25
3-5. Race/gender/sexual orientation in front judges with the same Race/gender/sexual orientation
Posted from: 24.190.144.211
May 6th, 2008 16:28
congrats to ben yu
Posted from: 76.187.221.251
May 6th, 2008 16:56
ON THE NON-EXISTANCE OF A TEXAS STYLE
On the issue of a “Texas Style,” I’m interested in knowing what it is. Texans aren’t aware of any Texas Style. When one coach from California identified Texas judges as “flow hacks who don’t use common sense,” I had to point out that back in the day, we called that “non-intervention.”
To be fair, I think that most national circuit judges from Texas have fairly low thresholds for pulling the trigger on non-substantive portions of the debate (e.g. theory, T, a two-sentence argument on the resolution being a tautology, etc.).
Texas debate used to be considered fast, empirical, and technical. Certain debaters from Texas certainly fit that mold. Almost all top circuit debate is fast and technical, and Texas is no longer particularly empirical. Even back when this was true, it was predominantly a DALLAS style. Houston complained about it all the time, and anyone who’s been to a tournament in West/South Texas knows better than to try that there. We’re talking about a huge state, with a tradition of regional stylistic variation, political infighting, and an abiding dislike for other regions. Texas is not monolithic.
Further, as has been pointed out, most schools don’t even have a style. If Danielle Smogard (who debated 3 years for Southlake Carroll) is a stereotypical Greenhill debater, I’ll eat an NFL pin with rubies for garnish. The Hockadaisies are not similar to each other at all. Strake debaters this year don’t much resemble, say, Patrick Mahoney – or each other. Even Becca is nothing like her teammates. If there’s one thing uniquely Texan about coaching, it’s that the most successful schools tend to be pluralistic. Most have multiple coaches who cater to different styles of debate – or at least a coach without dogmatic positions on the nature of debate. Tom Evnan is a different coach from Stacy Thomas, and Hockaday is enriched by both of their perspectives. Neil Conrad is not Aaron Timmons.
______________________________________
ON THE SUPERIORITY OF TEXAS DEBATERS AND JUDGES
I’m not trying to say that Texas local circuit debate is just as good as national circuit debate; it clearly is not. I am merely saying that on some local circuits in Texas, types of argumentation associated with national circuit debaters (kritiks, theory, etc.) and national circuit judges are common.
Since debaters always have the risk of hitting circuit-style argumentation, they should be well-prepared for more circuit arguments than those who don’t have to address those arguments when they debate locally. Since Texas judges frequently hear these types of arguments, they should be better at evaluating them than judges who don’t have to evaluate those arguments locally. Since the concentration of top debaters and judges in Dallas and Houston is unusually high, the debaters and judges are hitting/evaluating top competition more frequently than those from areas with a weaker concentration of top debaters.
In addition, there are local tournaments almost every weekend from September to March.
In this environment, Texas debaters and judges have every opportunity to be the best.
Posted from: 24.175.192.109
May 6th, 2008 16:59
huge congrats to
-Chris Theis for winning the whole thing for Hellz Bitchez, the Confederacy, vanderbabb, and our VBI room. you’re the best, bro.
-The class of 09 for a great showing, especially moerner for earning the top speaker award. i’m glad my prelim losses empowered other juniors, thanks to shivani and garber, who are cool peeps. congrats to matt on the runoff round, and as for ken, ben, and tyger, you’ll rip kids some new buttholes next year.
-Becca for being my favorite opponent of the year, making every round really intense. this was a great finish to a great career.
-hockaday and strake for being baller teams, specifically joan and david for leading their squads to victory. i really enjoyed debating y’all this year.
-catterton and rebar for a year of steady improvement and hard work, which really paid off
-wade for buying me lunch at mellow mushroom. i guess congrats to mr. houston too for that one. but more importantly, this was an awesome finish, and i wish we could’ve debated against each other this year so i wouldn’t have to admit i never had that challenge.
-maeshal for being dane cook, and a great friend. i’ll see you at NFLs, General.
-shadman for dominating this year, especially on this topic, and to beena and chetan for being experts at making tournaments much more challenging for TPrep.
-JScoggs for proving that if the state of texas had its way, all texans would break at TOC, or at least make the runoff round. tru.
-ravi for being my teammate–the brown, essential other half of the duo. this weekend truly marked the End of an Era, and i wish petey could’ve been there for it. cya, jibroni.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 6th, 2008 17:04
Jake, Maeshal >>>>> Dane Cook
Posted from: 209.98.146.245
May 6th, 2008 17:45
“To say that the best judges in the tournament are incapable of judging the debates fairly because of their present location is an accusation that runs deeper than mere ‘regional bias’.”
Is that also the message sent by regional constraints at NFL Nationals? If so, should we be lobbying the NFL to eliminate those constraints because they’re offensive to the judges involved? No one seems to have a problem with regional constraints once they’re already in place (which, if I’m not mistaken, they are at the NDT as well), and in fact everyone seems to understand and acquiesce to the rationale behind them in those cases. The fact that the constraints don’t already exist at TOC means that the perception is that anyone advocating them is calling into question the legitimacy of past results and insulting the debaters involved, which I’m making every effort not to do and which I think is absolutely unwarranted.
Regarding your point about limited numbers of qualified judges, see mine about there still being plenty of rounds into which any qualified judge can be put. It shouldn’t be terribly hard to avoid situations where two Texans are judging a Texan against a non-Texan (and the fact that that’s all I’m saying should be eliminated makes it pretty obvious that I’m not saying anything like that certain judges are unqualified to judge certain debates–I’m perfectly fine with any one judge who wasn’t struck by either debater judging any given round).
Regarding the rest of your post, see John’s stats. There is regional bias. The sample size is small, but I’m pretty sure the results are outside the margin of error. If you really think this year was an aberration, check packets from past years and I think you’ll see a similar trend. It’s not huge, but a 10% differential definitely means it alters the outcome of close rounds. Whether it’s ten rounds or one round the whole tournament, it still happens. It’s not the end of the world that it does, and it happens for perfectly innocent, non-malign reasons, but if there’s an easy way to significantly mitigate it, why not?
Posted from: 76.102.106.116
May 6th, 2008 17:59
congrats to moerner on sems,to garber on octas, and to the rest of 09 for an amazing showing. next year will be epic.
also, to acknowledge the end of some great careers:
maeshal
catterton
wade
rebar
ravi
david
we’ll miss you next year; congrats on graduation and good luck in college!
Posted from: 12.215.129.141
May 6th, 2008 18:01
As a judge from the quarters debate discussed above between Becca and Jake, if you have questions about my decision you can email me. However, I must warn you ahead of time, it was a conspiracy. Eric, David and I all had overwhelming reasons to want Becca to win that debate. We are all awful judges who care nothing about the integrity of the activity. Also, all of our RFD’s were exactly alike and entirely off base. Thank you Ryan Cooper for the 100 dollar check.
Give me a break people.
Posted from: 75.67.208.53
May 6th, 2008 18:02
WOW! What a long wait for a very talented team!! Special congrats to Chris obviously but also to the AVHS coaching staff. We all know you have a some magic that comes together at every TOC but it’s been a long wait that is very well deserved!
I think it should be noted that Dave Houston and Aaron Timmons deserve special recognition for their special honor. The TOC Hall of Fame is an elite accomplishment for any coach and it goes two very deserving men this year! Congrats!
Posted from: 74.73.188.174
May 6th, 2008 18:26
i second 471. and, even if u guys do wanna argue about this, plz choose a diff thread its kinda annoying to have to scroll through those posts ;)
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 6th, 2008 18:37
this also may be a good opportunity to resurrect the tradition of having the older debaters post some of their cases online to help younger debaters learn how to write “TOC-quality” cases and use strategic argumentation. If anyone is against this then w/e, but I remember really enjoying reading some of the class of ’06′s cases as a novice.
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 6th, 2008 18:43
yeah they were awesome
Posted from: 75.36.165.208
May 6th, 2008 18:45
i second 492
Posted from: 12.216.111.70
May 6th, 2008 18:46
congrats to:
rebar, catterton, garber, wade, moerner, etc.
ross brown for clearing as a sophmore. that is pretty sick.
finally, i’d like to give “mad props” to maeshal abid for being an overall warrior. he pulled off some great performances this weekend. brush that dirt off your shoulder bro; it ain’t over yet.
Posted from: 24.175.192.109
May 6th, 2008 18:57
i agree with ken (492), if someone can find a place to post those cases.
also, whoever “yo” is should chill out about my quarters round and stop disrespecting eric, david, ernie, and most importantly, becca. if you want to know about the round, ask someone who was there or wait until the video comes out. if you meant well, then thanks i guess, but you should understand that peeps will probably impute malign intention to an anonymous vbd poster.
and i don’t know how i forgot this in my earlier post, but huge congrats to Mr. Timmons on the Hall of Fame honor and Greenhill’s third policy championship.
Posted from: 71.29.67.99
May 6th, 2008 19:00
I third 492.
Posted from: 71.206.247.221
May 6th, 2008 19:12
re: posting cases – http://debate.michael-mangus.com/wiki/
Posted from: 74.36.136.254
May 6th, 2008 19:18
The trifecta (Myself, Tong, Gooderham) will prevail at TOC 2009.
Three bids, three wins will be six bids, six wins.
Posted from: 76.30.152.145
May 6th, 2008 19:18
Will the analytics/cards be posted as well? or just the outline of the AC/NC, like the ones currently on that site.
Posted from: 162.83.247.52
May 6th, 2008 19:45
Congratulations to everyone who cleared, especially Matt and Shadman for representing the northeast and Caroline Sherrard and Ross Brown for being such promising sophomores. Congrats also to Becca and Chris for a really enjoyable and memorable final round, and Chris for actualizing the inevitable: a junior win at the TOC.
Matt and Seth: You guys worked your asses off to prepare for this weekend and it sucked that you couldn’t compete to your fullest potential because of sickness (especially Seth who got sick during round 5 and had to forfeit rounds 6 and 7.) Regardless, just being at the TOC was an excellent end to an excellent junior year for both of you. I was a bit disappointed that both Bobby and Saboor couldn’t join us, especially Saboor, who had a tough start to the year but persevered and finished spectacularly, winning a bid tournament and finaling at a competitive round robin.
Finally, as I end my debate career, I would like to thank Jon Cruz for just being an all-around amazing coach. Jon, I think that is actually my “honor and pleasure” to be your student. I know I speak for the entire Bronx team when I say that your coaching abilities are the reason why we had 5 people bid this year in addition to the numerous championships and “big name wins” acquired by not one, but many of us. While there are a lot of excellent coaches like Jon in the country, one would be hard pressed to find a coach who also had the logistical genius to make sure that a team as large as Bronx Science was able to go on so many trips. (For example, I’ve been to over 20 overnight tournaments this year.) And if that weren’t enough, Jon’s technical and coaching genius are complemented by a self-sacrificing, motivating nature and a gifted sense of humor. Thank you, Coach Cruz, for making debate something I will always remember from my days at Bronx Science.
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 6th, 2008 19:58
yo, if anyone wants the official rebar niemi TOC prep filet (complete with 1AR overviews, theory frontlines, blocks, outdated bunker buster turns, and other zany stuff) give me a hollah.
email is linked above, but just in case…
rebar.niemi@gmail.com
also, we have a bunch of cases we didn’t run at TOC but have been running all year, and if anyone wants that stuff, let me know.
congratulations to jake nebel for continuing to rep the K, Catterton for being absolutely masterful on the stock flow, Chris for winnz, Becca for being awesome, Ken, Marcus, Corey, Maeshal, Wade, No Natti, Joan, Shivani, Lindsay, rossy boss, Matt, and everyone else. you know i love y’all.
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 6th, 2008 20:03
I KNOW Y’ALL WANT FUTURE SIMILARITY COUNTER-FACTUAL IMPACT SKEPTICISM.
Wes, you’re the best coach ever. We’ve got one more together amigo. WCWT. Seriously, you always have encouraged and fed my super-enthusiasm for the game and i don’t know many who love it more than you do. Now all you need is someone to shame schifberg into doing work, and you’ve got yourself a happy 08-09 debate season. This ain’t the end, its the beginning.
Posted from: 205.188.116.76
May 6th, 2008 20:18
I think the biggest struggle in terms of judges from specific regions isn’t a “Texas” or “Cali” paradigm. Ms. Thomas and Tom Evnen obviously don’t judge the same way. But if you’re from Texas, you know and probably can adapt to both of them more easily. Even if they aren’t your “preferred style”, you know what theirs is. This makes it easier for you to adapt to them. That’s all well and good, I don’t think they necessarily “hack” based on the arguments above, but it would be silly to say you don’t know the judges from your region better than others.
This is kind of lame when it comes to people qualling from states without much representation. For example, Brian was the only qual out of Illinois, the other Illinois judges there were his coaches, who couldn’t judge him obviously. I don’t think the magnitude of this is enormous, but it probably exists.
Would regional constraints like at NFLs be problematic? Prob would be a pain in the butt in terms of running an already difficult tournament (THANK YOU SO MUCH GREG MALIS YOU ARE INCREDIBLE) but it would get rid of a lot of the objections here.
Congrats to Chris and Becca, two of my favs, a real pleasure to judge you in finals.
Posted from: 68.209.198.15
May 6th, 2008 20:32
i mean let’s be honest. clearly the problem here is that there are not enough judges from the south. every single time i go to a tournament, i just feel discriminated against because ultimately whenever i debate someone from texas or california in front of one of their regional judges i have no chance of winning.
Posted from: 128.135.188.208
May 6th, 2008 21:03
jay rye was missing from the pool this year, if he were there he would have just hacked for wade until finals…clearly…
Posted from: 70.56.6.41
May 6th, 2008 21:04
congrats to all who cleared- catterton, rebar, garber, moerner, wade, becca, chris etc.
to echo matt’s comment, i’d also like to congratulate maeshal for having a great tournament and an incredible year.
Posted from: 12.215.129.141
May 6th, 2008 21:21
On a more serious note, congratulations to Maeshal on a–not quite finished–wonderful career. Not only did you have competitive success but you were an integral part of keeping Valley LD afloat the last few years; good job surviving the dark ages. Congratulations to everyone I’ve got to judge over the past few years that are graduating. Wade, good job moving beyond the same eight arguments you ran the entire corporations topic. Corey, way to come out of nowhere and make a run.
Ross and Matt, another good tournament. You two will be tough to deal with the next few years.
Good job all.
Posted from: 69.118.137.70
May 6th, 2008 21:35
SHOUTOUT TO COREY METZMAN FOR REPPING NSD 2ND LAB 07
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
May 6th, 2008 21:45
Mad lib time:
Texas [occupation] [verb]ed my [noun] and caused me to [verb] my [adjective] [noun] all over the [noun] outside of my [place].
Posted from: 72.179.143.223
May 6th, 2008 22:06
Texas zamboni driver licked my phone and caused me to write my shiny banana all over the shoe outside of my Taj Mahal
Posted from: 69.105.108.177
May 6th, 2008 22:14
how hilarious is it that there’s always an anonymous person giving shit to pwneill?? it’s just ridiculous. i have nothing against you, pwneill, and i don’t know you so i’ll assume you’re tight. but it’s just funny.
theis, great job
Posted from: 66.41.255.202
May 6th, 2008 22:33
props to the greenhill crew on the win, so sad that huston couldnt finally break through this year.
Posted from: 140.247.241.116
May 6th, 2008 23:56
- Obviously major congrats are in order to Chris and everyone at AV, but I wanted to take this opportunity to single out one member from that crew: one of my longstanding (and best) friends in the activity, Tim Hogan. Tim has been a great coach for years and I’m happy to see the culmination of all of that. Tim, stick around next year and be one of the last of the 04 mohicans with me.
- Rebar and Catterton: it really amazes me that two people from the 3rd and 4th labs at camp could turn into such forminable debaters so quickly. You guys are sick.
- Metzman: I love the comeback.
- Moerner: I like that your name will be joining mine on that tombstone looking thing.
Daniel “Aaron Burr” Garber: you finally have the warrior spirit.
- Ross Brown, and my beloved Valley team: sick soph clear and revival of the tradition. Maeshal, when it rains it pours, all I feel is pain, etc; but go win NFHell.
- Wade: I’m glad you got to go out the way you wanted to.
Other stuff:
(1) David, Ernie and I didn’t consult about the quarters round or whatever, except if by “consult” you mean “ask for cards the others were looking at”. And to say this was some kind of NSD conspiracy is hilarious (I assume this is the implication of the “ihat.ensd” or whatever email). Let me be real here: the considered judgment of the MVLA brain trust was that Moerner would match up better against Jake than Becca.
This isn’t because we think Jake is bad or something; far from it, I thought he was really impressive in quarters and I liked the round a lot. We just prefer a K debate to a grinding defensive struggle. But I mean, considerations like this have absolutely nothing to do with how I evaluate rounds; hence, I voted for Becca because I thought she won.
Note that I’m not implying that David and Ernie are part of the MVLA brain trust.
(2) Mich makes some interesting historical comparisons. You really associate Diehl and Moerner with old time tx? Spell this stuff out for us.
(3) One thing about tx style – back in the day the debaters from Dallas and San Antonio didn’t have an essentially different style from people in Minnesota or something. It wasn’t really faster or more empirical or whatever, though there were some slight differences in the types of arguments people liked (I found TX people liked stacked stock cases and sort of right wing arguments, whereas Minnesotans liked hyper-specific positional cases that were typically very lefty).
Really I think TX debate is a lot less homogenous now than it used to be. I do think I think it’s fair to say that when you go to TX today you get a larger number of judges who are very friendly to a prioris and very hostile to theory. This obviously isn’t a lawlike generalization, though.
Posted from: 140.247.241.116
May 7th, 2008 00:11
One more thing about MVLA: it isn’t just that the two schools have the same coaching staff and prep together; Mountain View and Los Altos are two high schools in the same district and share a common funding basis. We enter as two schools on account of the TOC’s bid policy.
There is nothing unusual about this: sometimes high schools in the same district will have unified sports teams too. My undergrad college (Pomona) had a joint athletic program with Pitzer College, and all of the five Claremont colleges had a common debate team (Claremont McKenna, Pomona, Pitzer, Harvey Mudd, and Scripps all debated as Claremont).
Mountain View and Los Altos were one team even before I was hired there in 2004. I think this isn’t commonly realized because Prashant and Stephen both hailed from Mountain View. As for why Moerner coached over: our team policy is highest seed advances.
Posted from: 67.40.152.116
May 7th, 2008 02:45
1. i had a post to respond to christian’s that’s on my laptop. then my internet connection failed. i’ll post that later.
2. moerner and theis debate like they are from dallas in 98 — at least that’s how they’ve debated when i’ve seen them. they’re each extremely fast, make multiple answers to nearly every position, and roll with a good deal of empirics. the fact that this style (along with a blend of critical argumentation) was so successful led to most of what we have today.
3. congrats to the crew at ghill for taking the policy ring back to addison!
michelin massey
Posted from: 74.67.55.150
May 7th, 2008 03:24
I think perhaps a better avenue of discussion is whether or not the format of LD debate is busted. I am yet to look at any raw data, but I remember at Lex RR I picked up maybe 1 affirmative, and at columbia I probably picked up at least 75-80% negative debaters.
My results may not be typical but I get the sense from talking to other debaters (For instance, on one occasion when a friend of mine lost an out round I asked him what happened, and he replied simply that he flipped neg) that there is at least the perception that when you walk into a debate round, one debater has a much harder job to do.
This may be all well and good for prelims of a tournament where each debater gets 3 of each, but for outrounds giving one of the debaters a distinct advantage seems to be a ridiculously bad thing to do.
Perhaps it’s time we considered expanding the AC to 5 minutes?
Posted from: 74.67.55.150
May 7th, 2008 03:28
And by that, I obviously meant the 1AR, and flipped aff. This is what happens when I type without sleep.
I am dead serious about the point, though.
Posted from: 98.169.51.84
May 7th, 2008 06:09
I just had a chance to read Jon Cruz’ narrative of the breakfast — many thanks for the compliments. The feeling, I hope you know, is entirely mutual. What you do for this activity is what keeps debate alive, growing, and something that, 35 years later, still makes me proud.
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
May 7th, 2008 06:57
Speech times have to be equal, Shea. Otherwise you just flip the advantage to the Aff.
Posted from: 76.187.221.251
May 7th, 2008 07:41
ADAPTATION & MPJ
Liz points out, correctly I think, that
“[T]he biggest struggle in terms of judges from specific regions isn’t a ‘Texas’ or ‘Cali’ paradigm. Ms. Thomas and Tom Evnen obviously don’t judge the same way. But if you’re from Texas, you know and probably can adapt to both of them more easily.”
Historically (i.e. 60′s-70′s in college), the increased knowledge debaters/teams had of certain judges was considered by some a reason to avoid MPJ. The theory was that MPJ disadvantaged schools who travelled less extensively because they wouldn’t know which judges to strike/pref. Since the spread of published paradigms on the internet, I’m not sure to what extent (if any) the problem goes away.
One thing I’ve seen as more and more teams developed particular types of argumentation to which the general debate community was initially hesitant to embrace (e.g. The Louisville Project in a couple of stylistic formulations), those embracing that type preferred strikes, but no MPJ. The reason for this was that if they were unlikely to get a friendly judge, they would be at a strategic advantage if the judge didn’t like what their opponent did either.
Posted from: 65.125.148.226
May 7th, 2008 07:53
This is the reply to Christian that I tried to send yesterday, but my wireless connection gave out…
Christian (and others):
(1a) The NFL Nationals is very distinct than the TOC in its mission. The NFL cares about geographic diversity. This is why it caps the number of competitors from a state based upon its qualification system. This is why it allows judges from places where debate is not very popular to judge the deep elimination rounds. The TOC is a tournament designed to get the best debating in front of the best.
By the way, from my experiences, the NDT or other college policy debate tournaments do not use any regional system. Every judge is rated by the teams. The mutuality of preference is most important. That trumps all considerations, including geography.
(1b) I don’t believe that you are in particular insinuating anything about past results. I’m simply saying that a geographical marker would ONLY make sense when judges are thought to be hacks for the people from their area.
(2a) You cross-applying your point about “multiple qualified judges” misses the boat. What if we have a year when one region is really good and that region has many judges who are really good? At the TOC, we want the best judges — not ones who are “perfectly acceptable”. We want the best judges sitting in the back.
(2b) You also neglect my argument about reverse preference: by taking away a judge from the home region of one of the competitors, you may disadvantage the debater you were originally trying to “help”. That is because circuit debate makes the world smaller; styles transcend the location of your high school.
(3) See my own stats about John’s debates! John doesn’t complain one iota about having the benefit of debating non mid-western students in front of the coaches of the last two TOC champions (who are from the mid-west incidentally). He only complains about the times when HE was disadvantaged.
The real issue is how he creates his preferences vis-a-vis strikes. If he felt like he couldn’t get the job done in front of certain judges because they’re bad, then he should’ve struck them.
One thing that we have not seen any analysis (or whining) about is how other regions with strong contingents of students did against competitors from outside their region in front of a judge from their home region. If it is not statistically different than the number of Texas judges who vote for Texas students, then it’s probably simply a feature of communication (i.e. it’s subjective) and the nature of preference in a small community.
Michelin Massey
Posted from: 66.41.255.202
May 7th, 2008 09:04
yo mich,
dave mcginnis didnt judge that round corbin cass did.
Posted from: 74.67.55.150
May 7th, 2008 09:39
Even if that’s true, pwneil, which I think it would be up to you to prove, it is not an indictment of my argument that speech times ought to be changed, it is rather an implementation problem with the specific plan I proposed. Why can’t we toy with the times while still keeping them equal?
My argument is simply that there is currently too much skew, and it should probably be compensated for. This isn’t unprecedented, look at policy switching from a 8-4 format to an 8-5 format.
Posted from: 74.67.55.150
May 7th, 2008 09:40
Oh, and a secondary argument is that this discussion is way more important than any discussion of supposed texas-hackery.
Posted from: 67.155.35.66
May 7th, 2008 10:27
I don’t think the problem is TX hackery or any other state for that matter. Most people who experienced some personal success in debate as coaches or competitors don’t really care what state the people they are judging are from. Maybe I’m just missing something but I don’t think Jane Boyd/Tommy Clancy/Aaron Timmons/Tom Evnen or myself care if a TOC Quarters trophy is sitting 15 miles down the road or 4000 miles down the road.
It’s not state based hacking that is the problem.
Here’s an equation that usually seems to hold true especially at the TOC
Under 25 + Unsuccessful High School Debater = Underqualified Judge in most meaningful rounds at TOC
Posted from: 70.129.53.125
May 7th, 2008 10:57
shea, speech times aren’t changing any time soon.
i’m done with the “texas-hackery” argument. the better discussion is what i proposed in #454 – “…and call out people who rep for the camps they teach at (which i think is the biggest problem rather than this region rep thing)”
someone with some time on their hands should run the numbers for how many times staff person at camp A voted for debater who went to camp A over debater who did not attend camp A. i guarantee this will return much more compelling results than this regional argument.
Posted from: 69.48.155.2
May 7th, 2008 11:56
If anyone decides to do any sort of statistical analysis, be sure to correct for who was negating. Greg Malis let me glimpse at the side winning percentages during the run off round and it seemed that the percentages were roughly 50% (slightly less) win percentage for Aff in R1 – 3. In round 4 it dipped into the high 30%’s, round 5 was about 30% and then it was in the low 30%’s for rounds 6 and 7. Any meaningful statistics had better be sure to control for side preference.
Most importantly, major congratulations are in order to Chris Theis and the AV coaching squad. A more dedicated and brilliant coaching staff is hard to find.
I also find it fitting that the two inductees into the Hall of Fame were both represented in a final round. Congratulations to Aaron Timmons and Dave Huston.
Posted from: 66.41.183.0
May 7th, 2008 12:39
I definitely can’t pretend to have read the over 500 comments thus far but I wanted to publicly thank and congratulate some folks so I’ve copied my Facebook note to post here.
It’s undoubtedly impossible to win a national championship without thanking a whole bunch of people and certainly to forget to thank several hundred people at the same time. I’ll attempt to do justice to that axiom now. <–That wasn’t an attempt at a lame debate joke, I promise.
First of all, it’s really important to note that, at the end of the day, the final round performance was entirely Chris. Aside from the obscene intelligence we collected over the weekend, we failed to catch Becca’s new case that she busted in octos and again in finals. We had prepped everything else she had except the case she ran in finals. So, in the words of Dave McGinnis: “mad props” on the finals strat, which I am interested to see on tape someday. Just remember “Posse Comitatus” next time. As well, Chris did yeoman’s work to prepare for this tournament and I’m glad it paid off for such a well-deserving debater. We’re all proud of his performance but particularly of the work he did to get there. It’s pretty easy to stay up late, wake up early, and otherwise work hard for someone like that. Congrats on being the shaggiest kid on the wall.
Second, I know I speak for Chris and the rest of the crew in thanking Andy Poker for his coaching over the weekend. It’s rare to have alumni not only volunteer to come to the tournament but also take days off to do so. Andy came to practice the week before, flew out on his own dime, and received ZERO compensation for being an integral and necessary part of this TOC championship. There’s no way we can thank him enough for all of his work. Certainly, Elkins is not appreciating that work right now. :)
Third, again, I know I speak for Chris in thanking the University of Iowa and Brian Severson in particular for his hard work over the weekend. It’s great to be able to count a NDT coach as your research warrior at the TOC and I know we wouldn’t have been ready to debate half the crap we needed prep on without Brian’s help.
Of course, we thank everyone at the tournament who helped us scout flows, provide us with intel/cards/strats, and otherwise helped us out or was just supportive throughout the tournament. I especially appreciate the girlfriend, the sister, and the other friends that helped to keep me sane and spent endless time on the phone or via text. Of course, thank you to all the people who have wished us well via email, Facebook, text message or phone.
Perhaps most importantly, congratulations are in order for so many competitors that made this incantation of the tournament an incredible experience. Obviously, congratulations to Becca on a tremendous senior year and TOC. She has consistently been a great competitor and a fantastic young woman that both Tim and I had the opportunity to work with over the years at institute. We’re definitely sending the tape of this round to Pat Bailey so she can eat crow! Congrats to Ryan and Eric and Sarah as well on their hard work and success at the tournament. When we sent Andy to scout Becca’s rounds, he IMed and said, “Kinkaid BT is my new favorite debater.”
Congratulations are also in order for Hockaday on their consistent performance at the TOC. As a team, they never cease to amaze me. In particular, congratulations to Joan who has always been the nicest person both inside and out of rounds. I remember Joan saying good luck to me before walking into the final round of the Iowa Round Robin against Chris and thinking that she was being disingenuous. Nothing could be further from the truth. I can say with confidence that the semis round was one of the rounds I was most frightened of and with good reason.
Undoubtedly, in the coming weeks, a shit-storm will appear on VBD as a result of the quarters round. I’ll say now, before all of that occurs, that I think Andrew was a great competitor and we bear him no ill-will. I do think that the discussion that will inevitably occur on VBD is a worthwhile one and we will certainly defend our position on the subject and strategy. Nonetheless, I wish we didn’t ever have to deploy that strategy even though we believe it was and is the right thing to do.
Also, congrats to Strake for whom I became a huge hack on Sunday. :)
Congratulations as well to Dave Huston and Aaron Timmons on their induction into the Hall of Fame and for their teams in the finals of the TOC. I guess they got that one right. ;)
I’m sure I left out many people to thank or congratulate but I hope you understand. For now, I’ll just say congratulations and thank you to everyone. If anyone’s wondering what the secret to winning the TOC is, it’s really simple: just get a debater who was going to win regardless of what you did, and put together a great team of coaches to stand around him all weekend.
I’m gonna take a quick 2-day nap. :)
Posted from: 71.82.133.154
May 7th, 2008 12:43
I was going to post something very similar to this but Cherian beat me to it (both here and on FB), so I think I will just make some additions.
First, I want to echo what Cherian said regarding all of the people who helped us out this weekend, He covered most of what needs to be said but I will add some of my thoughts. The Iowa debate team was a tremendous help and, the Iran case was remarkable. Obviously the flows provided by everyone from Beena to Spirtos went along way as well. A special thank you goes out to Andy Poker. Although I have only known him about two weeks, he is already one of my favorite people. His perspective was unique and invaluable at this tournament and in the work that went into it before hand. Also, although he was not their the phone call and text I got from Michael Arton after round 7 was the encouragement I needed at that moment. Thanks man, that was clutch.
Second, I want to thank all of the competitors/coaches/friends who made the tournament both fun and challenging. This weekend I saw some tremendous debaters and was sad to see the end of some awesome careers. This of course includes Becca, who is always incredibly prepared and smart, Wade, who I have maintained all year is one of the best in the game, Maeshal, who worked harder than anyone for the TOC and who I know was disappointed by the result, Todd, who is one of my favorite people in this activity, and Chris Catterton who, is one of the nicest kids out there, as well as one of the most incredible debaters I have ever witnessed (that round 7 was the sickest thing ever) and many others who are to numerous to name. The people at home who kept in touch and who were pulling for me all weekend (like Michelle, Amanda and Tim) also deserve some thanks. Your encouragement was appreciated.
Finally, I want to thank my coaches. Cherian and Tim, I have learned more from you guys, about debate and the world, than nearly every class I have taken (whether this says more about you or the public school system is an open question, but I like to think it is the former). Cherian is the most dedicated coach I have seen in action. He probably should be long gone from debate by now but I think he continues to do it because (although I doubt he would ever admit it) he really does enjoy helping idiots like me succeed. Tim, what can I say? You have done more for me than I could ever could have expected or asked for. Not only do you do a ridiculous amount of work you keep me in check when necessary. For gods sake you almost did not graduate because you came to help me out this weekend. It is hard to be more dedicated than that. Of course Ms. Wycoff deserves some recognition for keeping this program together and on a more personal note, encouraging me when I had disappointments and helping to calm my nerves before rounds. You all have deserved this for a long while and while I am positive you would have done it at some point without me, I am honored to be the one to break the curse.
Also,thanks to everyone for their kind words they mean alot.
Posted from: 75.72.158.189
May 7th, 2008 12:46
A little late but
- Major congratulations to Becca and Cooper. Becca you have come a long way since I met you at Iowa in 2005. Your demeanor in rounds is absolutely refreshing and your common sense approach to debate is something I really admire. You’re a brilliant person, congrats on an excellent finish.
- Congrats also to Catterton and Spirtos. Chris, you improved by more than leaps and bounds in only a few months, and I have seen few young coaches with as much heart and drive as Spirtos, you are an asset to the activity and anyone you coach.
- Thanks to everyone at Apple Valley including Andy Poker. You’ve always been around when AV needed your help, and there is no doubt that we couldn’t have done this without you. You volunteered your time and we’re very grateful.
- Theis, you killed the curse. You are without question the best student I have ever worked with, and this win is all yours. Congratulations. You’ve got a lot of heart, and you have to make a big decision about what you want next year. I hope you choose wisely, and I’m sure you will. Your job at the local AV gas station is pretty fulfilling, and I know you’d love to just kick back in your trailer for senior year, but I hope that after a break this summer you’ll return for one more run with the same intensity as 08. I’ll be ready, but only if you are.
Thanks for the kind words everyone.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 7th, 2008 12:55
Gary:
Camp hacking definitely is a big problem. No question. However, don’t you think that the idea that there may be paradigmatic differences between camps applies in this scenario in the same way that paradigmatic differences between regions applies in the Texas scenario? For instance, I think that it would be a very fair statement to say that on balance, NSD staff members who judge are more willing to vote on theory than VBI staff members who judge. Of course there are counter-examples, but this idea is rooted in a deep stereotype which I (and I think most people) would regard as true, whether or not willingness to vote on theory affects how good or bad a judge is. I think that it’s pretty clear that people instruct others how to debate based upon how they want them to debate – so to me then it only makes sense that NSD debaters are better than VBI debaters at getting NSD judges’ ballots and VBI debaters are better than NSD debaters at getting VBI judges’ ballots.
As a disclaimer: I’m not just talking about NSD and VBI because those are the only two camps or b/c they’re styles are so radically different, I think though that these camps are the only relevant players in this particular discussion.
I also should add that I don’t think that paradigmatic preferences can serve as an excuse for “hacking”, ever.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 7th, 2008 12:58
also, Gary, since I think we probably agree on this issue, I totally support your idea to run a statistical comparison of how likely judges from any camp are to pick up debaters from their given camp.
Posted from: 76.94.44.115
May 7th, 2008 13:21
what does it mean to vote on theory? are you saying that “vbi judges” just ignore theory or vote against it on face?
please explain this “camp hacking.” it seems to be incompatible with what you explain. how is camp hacking a big problem but also just a difference between known paradigms?
on that point, are you saying the vbi and nsd are so different that there is a complete paradigm incompatibility between the two camps and their instructors?
I don’t know what a statistic study from the TOC would show given the small sample size of both judges and competitors.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 7th, 2008 13:52
the fact that aff winning percentages were in the 30s after presets is absolutely appalling. forget camp or regional issues – THIRTY PERCENT? thats beyond absurd.
Posted from: 98.199.179.122
May 7th, 2008 13:56
this makes me realllly happy. what an amazing tournament. wish i could have watched.
Posted from: 75.73.217.69
May 7th, 2008 14:23
I was traveling yesterday so I didn’t have a chance to weigh in on recent comments. I noticed however that post 479 perfectly states how I feel on the issue, and proposes helpful and thoughtful solutions.
John Lewis: You are being unnecessarily hostile in post 458, and frankly quite juvenile. In addition to this you say nothing new or interesting. I already had stated that it was not regional preference, rather a better ability to know and adapt to certain judge’s paradigms that creates the bias, thus most of your post is inconsequential and repetitive. If you were reading my posts you would know I already answered the statistics argument when Smitty brought it up making it especially curious that you would bring into question MY literacy. Ultimately I was being civil until you brought this discussion down to ill-advised ad-homs. Although I admit wasn’t surprised by this fact as it was on par with the reasoning in the rest of your posts, rather I was disappointed because I had hoped I could bring up an issue without discussion of that issue devolving into personal attacks. I guess I should have foreseen that some immature people would surface in such a controversial matter. Thank you to the people that managed to disagree with me in thoughtful and respectful manners.
Michelin: First, Dave didn’t judge me. Second, I completely admit that I had an advantage in front of Cherian not because he hacks for me, rather because I have seen him judge many many times throughout my career and thus know how to debate in front of him better. Similarly I think I had big disadvantages in the other rounds. My situation is perfectly indicative of the problem; I had an advantage in one round and a disadvantage in two. The Texas bias isn’t thus different than any other regional bias, they just judge 29% of the rounds making it more prevalent.
Next, I don’t think we can claim that Texas judge’s are just better judges without MJP. In addition the unintentionally hurting a debater were trying to help argument could be very easily be solved by giving the debater the option to regionally balance rather than mandating it to happen. When the panel in an elim round contains two judges from the same region as one of the debaters the other debater has the opportunity to remove a judge from the overrepresented region and replace it with a judge from another region (selected by tab using the judge rankings system.)
Ultimately Christian and ls I think are most on point on the issue, and the notion that no one would complain about it after it was instituted makes Christian’s proposed solution even more attractive.
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 7th, 2008 14:25
i don’t think ken is saying that VBI judges are “bad theory judges” or that they just ignore theory all the time. instead, i think he’s pointing out a stylistic difference that definitely does exist to a certain extent. Of course, just like NSD debaters, VBI debaters are not homogeneous, but that doesn’t mean that a certain style doesn’t get carried over. For instance, two of the biggest VBI schools, Strake and Hockaday, are not thought of as “theory schools.” Paul Tyger himself told me this weekend that he never runs theory, and I noticed that Hockaday has only recently started to seriously engage the theory debate, and from what I hear they’re quite good at it. But i remember how shocked I was and many others i know were when Becca became a godly theory debater this year, because there just wasn’t any precedent. This points to that discrepancy between camps.
Maybe Ken and I are stereotyping, but it just seems like if you look at the people who are the big theory teams/debaters, with a few exceptions (Apple Valley comes to mind), they are generally aligned on the NSD axis.
This is simply to say that more often NSD debaters/judges are completely comfortable voting on theory right and left, and seeing it run in every round. I’ve noticed very specifically on many judges who are either from VBI or who send their kids to VBI that they have “high thresholds for theory.”
I want to emphasize that i am in no way calling anyone out for being a bad judge or implicating VBI as inferior on the theory flow, because I know lots of VBI debaters and judges who are da shit at it and would kick my butt. Instead, I’m pointing out that its just a slight stylistic difference.
A good example is this weekend. I ran my Skepticism NC against 4 opponents. I had theory run on it exactly zero times, and all four debaters I faced were VBI affiliated. Granted, some theoretical contestations were made, but no structured shells. I know of at least 10-20 NSD debaters who would have instantly dropped their “questioning assumptions bad” theory shells, rather than engage the argument any other way. Regardless of whether that is the correct strategic and tactical decision, it’s just a stylistic difference that would be dependent on judges and time.
I will say that VBI has been getting better and better at theory, but it seems like theory is more institutionally mandated by NSD, and many of the VBI theory initiates are school based rather than camp based in origin (Becca, AV, Hockaday), since competitively it makes sense to be on the up and up with regards to theory. Granted, VBI did put out those top lab theory blocks, but the important point is that every single lab at NSD does theory work like that the entire time.
I don’t think there’s an absolute paradigmatic disconnect, but I know as a competitor I am much less comfortable about running theory in front of some VBI judges (Adam Nelson being the divergent exception). I think the successes of many people prove that you don’t have to run theory to be successful, but that it doesn’t hurt.
Posted from: 70.116.31.157
May 7th, 2008 14:38
you know what, this is like talking to a wall. i give up. you didn’t answer my comment when my post came AFTER your response to smitty and in fact anticipated what you had already said. the argument is not that 11% wouldn’t make a difference if it actually exists. the argument is that 11% isn’t statistically significant. i could run a sample of three randomly selected debaters and if all three used theory in every round, i could then say that 100% of debaters use theory in every round. you don’t get to dismiss all statistical considerations because you didn’t go and actually calculate data, and you don’t get to assume that the data will bear out what you’re saying. 11% does not mean texas debaters have an 11% higher win ratio. that is absurd.
second, if you do agree that its a function of having similar paradigms or being better able to adapt to them, then you need an answer to “that kind of bias is morally permissible”. not hearing it yet. not all biases are the same. come on, this is easy. in your next post, just write “re: some biases are okay” and make some answers, since multiple people have made that objection to your position.
third, i find the comment that i have somehow dragged the debate down to ad-hominems to be frankly a little absurd. as many people initially commented, your post seems like an attempt to bash texas debaters after they did will. i’m not saying that engaging the topic at all would do that, but that specifically engaging it on the congratulatory TOC thread is clearly inappropriate and I think you owe all of the texas debaters an apology. but like a reasoned response, i don’t see that coming anytime soon.
peace,
john
Posted from: 70.116.31.157
May 7th, 2008 14:46
well* not will
also, what i now find to be a more interesting question is the topic of whether or not there actually is a “texas style”. i have always felt that there is. i don’t think it’s what used to define texas–fast, stacked cases, more empirics, etc. i think eric palmer actually stated my view perfectly:
“I do think I think it’s fair to say that when you go to TX today you get a larger number of judges who are very friendly to a prioris and very hostile to theory. This obviously isn’t a lawlike generalization, though.”
while there is some variance, this seems true to me. i think most texans on the national circuit tend to view the resolution as a rigid proposition that has to be proven true or false, and do not view debate as a competitive game with rules that need to be fair. as such, they embody what mangus has been calling the “truth-testing” paradigm. this isn’t to say that everyone in the area adheres to it or that this is unique to texas. i simply think that these attributes are more highly concentrated in texas.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 7th, 2008 14:51
at the risk of getting myself into a big shit storm here, this seems like as good a time as any to ask: does anyone want to take responsibility for the vbi theory file? ive been asking around and it seems that no one wants to accept the credit for that one.
Posted from: 75.6.49.202
May 7th, 2008 14:53
Adam Nelson votes on enough theory to cover the rest of the VBI staff.
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 7th, 2008 15:00
If John L is correct about what is the Texas paradigm, than I know a lot of people who don’t like it.
I thought the theory file was written by the top lab as a collaborative effort among the students.
Posted from: 65.125.148.226
May 7th, 2008 15:20
JUDGE RANDOMNESS
In the midst of the postings, I didn’t notice any solutions from Cherian. Presuming for a second that we do something similar to the NFL, I do not understand how it’d be possible for the tab room to “get approval” for a debater to have a judge from a region that’s not their own. The reality is that the tab room would use constraints based upon the region of the debaters in question.
This system obviates my replies to that… regions have evolving styles; regions have evolving levels of strength; stylistic disparities exist within schools/districts/regions; and, most importantly, the BEST judges are needed.
Let’s say the most neutral region for a lot of debates happens to be a region where the only available judge(s) are not very competent. Your argument allows those people to judge. What if those regions are underrepresented in the pool at-large and CANNOT fill the judging void?
These are scheduling issues that are impossible to to overcome. We should not add an additional complication that’s not reflective of preference to the mix for this reason.
My main complaint is that there’s no statistical study about how intra-regional judging affects the overall landscape of the tournament — not just from one region, but all regions. If those statistics are roughly equal, then I think that it’s a part of the game. Your recourse is to do your strikes differently and buck up in the debates where you don’t happen to have the advantage.
CAMP WARS — WAAAH
I’ve worked at both NSD and VBI. My labs at NSD did learn more from me about debate theory than other labs because LD debate has changed. Theoretical arguments have more of a place in contemporary LD because we have more policy oriented topics. Does VBI discourage theoretical discussions? I don’t know about the current pedagogical bent of that institute. My guess is that they want their students to win, so they do have people who are going to talk about theory.
However, I can say with confidence that there are many people who work at VBI who I happen to think are excellent critics who vote for theory arguments on a regular basis. There are others who I also think are excellent critics who don’t particularly care for theory. That’s what happens in debate; some people like certain argumentative trends while others do not.
What all of this really boils down to is the fact that communication is subjective. Some people “get” each other, whereas other people do not. As a result, when we mix that with competition, we have some give and take. In the end, the best and most well-prepared students seem to take home the hardwood at the TOC.
michelin massey
Posted from: 71.42.73.162
May 7th, 2008 15:24
maybe i’m just weird, but i thought that jeremy dudley was one of the better theory debaters of 06 when on his game, and he was very vbi. food for thought, i guess.
Posted from: 75.73.217.69
May 7th, 2008 15:30
Lewis: Answering your initial post over and over again get a bit boring, but I’ll try to be clearer.
Stats: A. My response to Smitty is still sufficient: “This is the best I can do with the data available. I think we’d get similar results with expanded sample size. At the very least I can legitimately claim that I am more likely right that bias exists than the claim that it does not. Never claimed to have an error margin of 3% or anything of the like. Nice try though.” B. I looked at every single round at this TOC where the conditions I initially proposed existed. If you want to question my statistics please actually cite specific areas where MY analysis is insufficient rather than a theoretical example that is nothing like how I calculated my data.
Paradigms: NO! I never agreed to that. In fact I agree with Gary et. al. that there is no specific Texas paradigm, rather I agree with Ali that its due to familiarity with specific paradigms that the phenomenon exists. Jane Boyd doesn’t judge rounds the same way Tom Evnen does, etc.
Ad-homs: You said: “i’m convinced that you’re completely illiterate”
I said: “I noticed an interesting trend when discussing rounds with people at the tournament that I think is worth bringing to light in a public forum like this one. As a disclaimer I would just like to say that this is not a personal attack against any individual debater or judge, just a noteworthy phenomenon.”
I told everyone this wasn’t an individual call out, not going to apologize if people read more into what I wrote than was actually there. You called me illiterate. Stop wasting my time you are far behind on this argument.
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 7th, 2008 15:39
EXTEND JOHN’S SPIKES, JOHN’S JUST NOT ANSWERING THEM!!!
Michelin: Probably right, as you usually are. Did you know that Strake is running “the best piece of evidence you’ve ever seen?”
Mjocon: Idk, i never saw Dudley do a theory debate, but damn did I love that guy.
Posted from: 205.221.1.47
May 7th, 2008 16:52
Congratulations to Chris Theis on an excellent win. And congratulations to Becca Traber on an interesting and excellent performance. The only thing missing was the cute and highly entertaining hat from Berkeley.
Though I agree with Cherian and Tim that the win goes to the debater, I also want to congratulate the AV debate program, especially Mrs. Cady Wycoff. I can say from experience that she is the best coach ever, and I am thrilled beyond thrilled for her and her team at this excellent win. You will not find a program that has been as consistently excellent for as long a time as Apple Valley, and that is down to Mrs. Wycoff’s passion for debate.
Posted from: 205.221.1.47
May 7th, 2008 16:52
I guess I like the word “excellent.”
Posted from: 24.6.237.64
May 7th, 2008 17:03
i’ll chime in on this discussion, but only to say a couple things:
1: Scoggin (referring to you by last name cause this is hella confusing otherwise), I’m not willing to buy your arguments about 11% being significant until and unless you do some actual statistical work to show significance. You’ve got the packet in front of you, so you’ve got all the data you need to calculate standard deviations, etc. Let me put it this way – it’s going to take you no more than 15 minutes to run that z-test (or chi-squared if you want, i guess…not a t-test if you’re gonna roll with proportions, though), and if it proves you right, your point will get taken a lot more seriously by a lot more people. My gut sense is that 11% isn’t large enough to show significance in a sample of this size, but who knows, my gut sense is probably influenced by the respect I have for so many texan competitors and judges, so you’re best served actually doing the ‘unbiased’ calculations. If you have questions on how to go about this, the Wiki page on statistical tests is actually pretty good. Until you do that, you’re just not making a real statistical argument.
2: I worked at VBI for the first time last year, had a great experience, and will almost definitely be returning. One of the things I really liked about working there was how much flexibility we had in terms of material taught. While a core curriculum was established, significant energy was also spent in ensuring that instructors had the autonomy to cover issues in a way they wanted. As such, and given the heterogeneous nature of the staff, talking about the “VBI approach” to ANY argument seems quite silly to me. While I’ve never been to NSD and can’t vouch for it to the same extent, I’d be surprised if the same wasn’t true for instructors there. While the camp wars have always struck me as ridiculous, therefore, this particular iteration seems exceptionally silly.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 7th, 2008 17:09
Bietz, you’re literally taking everything that I say and trying to contort it into something that I do not want to imply. My intent here is not to start a camp war. Those are stupid.
This is what I said:
“For instance, I think that it would be a very fair statement to say that on balance, NSD staff members who judge are more willing to vote on theory than VBI staff members who judge.”
In no way does that imply ANY of the conclusions that you are drawing from it. It does NOT mean that VBI judges never vote on theory (I’ve won on theory in front of many of them this year), it does NOT mean that VBI judges reject theory on face, etc. All it means is that NSD judges are ON BALANCE more receptive towards it.
Camp hacking is compatible with paradigmatic differences. I am saying that camp hacking exists (i.e. giving extra leeway to a debater from your camp and voting for them in close or even not close at all rounds), but the fact that there ARE paradigmatic differences b/t camps like VBI and NSD at least mitigates it or makes it somewhat less of an issue (since then the issue is not which camp you attend, rather whether or not you can adapt to a given judge).
Also, Bietz, just saying that paradigmatic differences may exist (which is what I said) doesn’t imply at all that the institutions have extremely radically different paradigms or methods of teaching (as a whole). Obviously this isn’t true, NSD students get VBI judges’ ballots all the time and vice versa. But nevertheless, I do think that it would be extremely foolish to argue that there are no stylistic differences between the two camps. Theory was just a good example because that’s probably the biggest difference.
Ultimately, all I said was that there may be paradigmatic differences, esp. when it comes to theory. I don’t know why this view is even controversial and I don’t know why you took it to such an extreme in your questioning.
Posted from: 69.105.108.177
May 7th, 2008 17:22
bietz, he’s trying to trick you. don’t listen to him. he’s an enemy now. i promise i will fight well. there is no more honorable death than a death for VBD.
Posted from: 71.38.164.136
May 7th, 2008 17:42
duby says:
“Here’s an equation that usually seems to hold true especially at the TOC
Under 25 + Unsuccessful High School Debater = Underqualified Judge in most meaningful rounds at TOC”
i’m not trying to nitpick, nor do i necessarily disagree, but i’m fairly curious: what do you consider a successful debate career?
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 7th, 2008 18:09
WESLEY CRAVEN TOTALLY COUNTS FOR THAT. even though he’s over the age barrier.
but yeah, thank god someone called out tommy clancy for ONLY being in finals as a senior.
Posted from: 76.17.236.195
May 7th, 2008 18:13
The major problem with the “hacking” debates (region hacking, theory hacking, camp hacking, hack a shaq-ing) is that the categories that are employed aren’t just problematic – they are aweful.
Regions aren’t just something less than homogenous. Every judge in a region interprets its “style” a different way. You can identify some broad stylistic elements, but what exactly any of them mean in the context of a particular argument and particular round is so up in the air based on experience, idiosyncratic preferences about small things, whether the judge is paying attention, what arguments they are familiar with, what authors they like or don’t like, how often they judge, whether they can hear well, whether they understand your accent, whether they are sick, whether they need a cigarette, whether they know you, etc. etc. etc. that lumping them into big categories and trying to make statistical judgments has to be an exercise in futility.
Tending to like or dislike different types of arguments like theory falls into the same trap. Does a judge like theory because its interesting, because they think it checks unfair trends, only when its run well? Do they like T but not Condo? What does it mean to have a high or low “threshold”? What are their precise thoughts on what constitutes education, fairness, predictability, ground, etc.
Camp staffs are incredibly diverse. What makes someone a “VBI” or “NSD” or “NDF” or any other of a million camps “judge”? Lots of people work at multiple camps. How much does anyone know about a camp they don’t go to? Curricular choices are not just “lets teach more or less theory”. Making decisions about curriculum has to do with huge number of choices, that include not only how much time to spend on something, but how to teach it, to whom to teach it, when to teach it, etc.
Beyond all that, what are the relevant dimensions to consider? If we start breaking down the various relevant ways to classify a judge, those classifications become so numerous so as to almost be non-sensical. Is a judge conservative, progressive, from mid-west/west coast/northeast/south/southwest. Are they from Texas, Minnesota, California, New York, Florida, Alabama, Iowa, etc.? Do they like theory? What kind? Do they like empirical or theoretical debate? Are they conservative or liberal? What camp(s) do they work at? Are they a teacher, a college student, some other profession entirely? Do they like the value/criterion model? Do they like the truth-testing paradigm, the comparative worldview paradigm, the best-justification paradigm, have they ever heard of a paradigm? Are they smart? Do they like critical theory, analytical philosophy, continental philosophy, enlightenment philosophy? Are they former debaters? What school did they go to? What school do they judge/coach for? Do they like speed? Can they flow speed? Will they yell clear? Do they like a prioris? Do they like off-case positions? Do they like kritiks, counter-plans, parametricization? Do they like line-by-line or “big picture”? Do they like persuasive speaking or particular norms of dress?
I’m not trying to be the annoying guy that says all categories are bad. I’m trying to say that judges (and debaters, for that matter) are so diverse on so many dimensions that trying to reduce them to any small number of classifications and put them on some kind of artificial spectrum is a recipe for breeding tribalism, resentment, otherization, and silly tiffs that are antithetical to what it is that this community offers us the chance at. I don’t know of any other atmosphere that is so intellectually exciting and so critically useful. I can also say that at the end of the day the things that constitute good debate look very much alike for most judges. I’m not saying anything as trite as “can’t we all just get along”, but maybe we should all stop being so ego-committed to our positions and “yelling” at each other on the internet over categories that don’t exist.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 18:17
Mangus: Students compiled it, with different groups responsible for different areas. Not sure how one would assign “credit”.
On Camp & Theory: This is an interesting discussion. I had a great talk about theory thresholds etc with Alex Smith, Corbin, Ashan, and Navot at Voices. Where there are differences of opinion, I think much has to do with variables like region, perhaps as they overlap with camp ideology.
Ankur is right that institutional pedagogy isn’t entirely homogeneous, BUT I do think camps can trend one way or another. Staff are frequently chosen with some model (however loose) of the ideal debater in mind. And those staff may not be micromanaged, but decisions about what information a camp should emphasize, (or who should teach it etc) also reflect particular persuasions.
It is probably fair to say NSD has historically emphasized theory more than VBI. I think that is changing, and in the last two years, has already changed a lot. I don’t think anyone at VBI “dislikes” theory. I’m not even sure what that would mean. Speaking for myself anyway, I think two issues should inform any educational approach to theory: (1) A commitment to judiciously used and well-executed theory argument and (2) a commitment to preserving other important elements of a round, including clash and substantive, topic-based argumentation. Those aren’t especially revolutionary expectations, but they do mean different things to different people… and apparently mean very little at all to some people. That said, my impression of NSD and the debaters it produces is not unlike my impression of VBI and its debaters. Some get it and some don’t.
I will say this: this is a difficult discussion to have when speaking in generalities. A lot of people seem to agree, for example, that it is “important to have a high threshold for theory.” But, that means completely different things to different judges and says very little about how any specific argument would be evaluated. I also don’t know what it means to “like” or “dislike” theory. I like arguments that check back ridiculous positions. I don’t like arguments that are deployed regularly as diversionary time sucks. I like arguments that explain how I should evaluate the round or what my jurisdiction is as a critic. I don’t like generic arguments that are very obviously being run in order to avoid having to make real/responsive arguments. All of that is true for theory, or any other kind of argument. And for each “like/dislike,” there are plenty of situational exceptions.
I think there is some rampant theory hackery. I also think there are some dogmatic knuckle-dragging theory haters. In between, there are probably a lot of people with different visions of “the good” and good reasons for feeling how they feel.
Posted from: 136.152.140.47
May 7th, 2008 18:38
heres a hint for everyone who complains about theory hacks: make arguments other than “fairness is not a voting issue” or “theory is illegitimate”. if you can provide a reasonable defense of what you’re doing, combined with arguments about why the specific ground loss in the debate did not occur or does not merit a ballot, you would find that many of those “theory hacks” will happily disregard it. generally this goes along with the idea that if you are lazy and cannot think on your feet you can and should lose to someone who can.
Posted from: 12.215.129.141
May 7th, 2008 18:45
second what smitty says
if your only response is fairness is not a voter you are gonna be a little behind the debate
Posted from: 71.38.164.136
May 7th, 2008 18:49
“like arguments that check back ridiculous positions. I don’t like arguments that are deployed regularly as diversionary time sucks. I like arguments that explain how I should evaluate the round or what my jurisdiction is as a critic.”
yes, same with every other judge ever. the question is: how do debaters appraoch with dealing with ridiculous positions? what positions are ‘ridiculous’? theory is just like any other argument in that it requires a specific structure. if a contention doesn’t have a warrant, it’s pointless. if a theory shell has no voter, it’s irrelevant.
if a debater can’t beat a theory shell that is just a time suck, that debater should probably work on learning how to answer theory.
Posted from: 71.38.164.136
May 7th, 2008 18:54
oops i didn’t see smitty’s post
i agree
Posted from: 68.209.198.15
May 7th, 2008 18:54
just a thought, maybe not a truth: i feel like the instructors at VBI who are the most influential are on balance older than most NSD instructors. theory as we see it now is sort of a new thing to ld, so people that have been around a while may be more skeptical in evaluating it. on the same hand, a lot of the oldest members of the current judging pool have such massive bullshit filters and just straight up won’t vote for horribly abusive strategies, though i can’t think of any vbi staff member in particular that that applies to. at least, i know a lot of the older instructors who do teach and have taught at nsd in the past are less receptive to theory unless the abuse is overwhelmingly clear (read: rick brundage, anthony berryhill)
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 7th, 2008 19:04
the idea that judges ought to have a high threshold for theory is pretty silly. my threshold is ‘did the debater win the argument.’ i am not a supporter of so-called “tabula rasa” judging because that paradigm does not in itself provide a way to resolve debates; however, it does begin with the correct first principle: decide the round based on the arguments made by the debaters, not your personal beliefs. judges whose paradigms say that they will vote on theory “if its justified” or “if there is abuse.” call me crazy, but im pretty sure whether its justified or if there is abuse are issues that ought to be contested by the competitors. smitty is dead on for calling out people’s moronic theory answers. its called a counter-interpretation folks. generating offense on theory does not mean reading your time skew RVI; it means giving reasons to prefer the practice youre using over the other debaters interp. no, this does not make it a voting issue for you. but it sure makes theory debate a whole hell of a lot easier to evaluate.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 7th, 2008 19:07
also on a related note (because im sure someone will say this at some point later on if they havent already): *VOTING ON THEORY DOES NOT REQUIRE JUDGES TO INTERVENE UNDER ANY MEANINGFUL CONCEPTION OF WHAT INTERVENTION IS.* non-intervention is founded on the idea of judges being neutral, *NOT* the idea that debaters can say and do whatever they want with no repercussions. insofar as theory arguments are deployed in the debate, they are within the purview of the judge’s decision.
Posted from: 76.167.241.95
May 7th, 2008 19:20
ken – what is your definition of a hack?
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 19:37
Re: Mangus–There are a lot of rounds in which the “arguments made by the debaters” aren’t in and of themselves conclusive. Absent a decisive extension or a preponderance of offense on key issues, those debates sometimes come down to a judge’s particular expectations. So, most judges probably share your threshold of “did the debater win the argument,” but what counts as having won the argument might vary by critic.
Re: “Man up”–A lot of you are expressing the sentiment that “people should just man up and answer theory arguments and quit complaining about them.” I guess my question is: How isn’t that already happening? And, what’s wrong with complaining about bad arguments, theory or otherwise, in addition to that happening? I saw some pretty good theory debates this year, and I saw some debaters do a good job of mitigating/quarantining a theory debate while winning off topic-related offense. Some people suck at answering theory. That’s true. Some people also suck at running it. And some people make bad decisions about when to run it. But, I don’t feel like there’s a huge problem with people just “crying abuse” against theory (oh the irony)–the most successful debaters are often the ones who can best run and defend against T, etc.
Re: Wade–Yah, you are correct in your demographics. And to think: there are still camps with even more ancient artefacts like Aaron Timmons (probably knows nothing about theory) or Cherian Koshy (no way he’s still got what it takes to coach in TODAY’s game). :-) In all fairness, I think what you’re saying is basically true. I guess I would just be careful about drawing conclusions. As far as influential people at VBI… I don’t think it’s a group that’s especially out of touch with things that are “sort of new to LD”. It could just be me being defensive, but I’d contend that people like Tommy, Neil, Anderson, Cooper, Wes, etc are pretty actively involved with the circuit as coaches and judges. They’re involved pretty successfully too, and a close examination of their students’ performances would, I think, suggest a solid grasp of theory and other “new” things (e.g. Clancy Squared, Cooper/Becca, Wes/Northwest, Neil/GreenhillDynasty). I don’t see any of that as being very old school.
Re: “Learn to make better args.”–Yah, when people say “fairness isn’t a voter” that’s a bad arg, but why does this mean, as Mangus says, that “smitty is dead on for calling out people’s moronic theory answers”. Why does this need a “Calling Out”? How is that any more timely than calling out people who run moronic theory? I also think it’s funny how people are “+1 ing” this whole “Oh yah ‘fairness isn’t a voter’ is such a bad arg” when its typical counter-point has what in way of a warrant? Oh, the irreproachable claim that IF DEBATE ROUNDS WEREN’T FAIR, NO ONE WOULD CONTINUE TO DEBATE! Bad debaters make bad arguments–none of this seems remotely unique to “debaters trying to answer theory”.
Posted from: 65.101.211.67
May 7th, 2008 19:46
On an interesting note, people in the debate community seem to regard me as a K or “crazy argument” hack as a judge — which is funny, because I hate short a prioris and off cases, and I voted for a K, usually begrudgingly, about one in five times one was run in front of me. I guess being a “K hack” means I won’t disregard Ks as a class of argument. Just like I guess I’m a theory hack because I don’t disregard theory arguments and could potentially vote on them. Go figure…
Posted from: 65.101.211.67
May 7th, 2008 19:49
Oh, and congrats to Hogan, Cherian and their debate Chris (who I’ve never met) for the victory over the weekend.
Also congrats to Wade — you’ve come a long way since lab with Shess and I.
And a final congrats to Eric on building a successful program with longevity over at Mountain View.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 7th, 2008 19:53
Bietz, before I answer your question, let me second something which Michael, Smitty, and Ernie said.
1) Smitty is absolutely right. If you don’t want to really engage the theory debate (i.e. run a counter-interp), just argue that your case is fair. Don’t run generics like “fairness isn’t a voter” or “ground is a bad standard”. Nobody buys those arguments anymore because they are not true.
2) I think (as Michael hinted) people have largely been misunderstanding/misusing the T is an RVI argument. I think that as of now, people are running T is an RVI in two ways: They either say that (1) T is a stupid time-suck which their opponent deserves to lose for running, or (2) that T shouldn’t be a “no-risk” issue and hence if the aff meets the violation he OR SHE (lolskies @ Rebar) wins.
I think that both of these arguments don’t really make sense, and maybe someone who thinks they are true can explain them to me. In the first scenario, the neg would automatically lose even if calling out a completely non-topical aff for being untopical. In the second scenario, the fact that the aff is topical somehow then means that the resolution is true (or desirable, depending on how you look at it). Both of these conclusions seem invalid to me.
I think the alternative is to make an argument about why you ought to be able to win on T and then to run a counter-interp (as Michael suggested) for why your opponent’s interp is actually unfair. I don’t know if this even is sufficient to win the round, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than the strategies being used now.
3) Insofar as this discussion is moving towards a discussion of theory (which is probably needed), Michael is also right that theory isn’t intervention. A theory argument says “vote for me b/c of X”. A normal argument says “vote for me b/c of X”. There is no difference. The only difference is the structure, and MAYBE the use of rhetoric such as “vote my opponent down”, but isn’t that really what you’re saying too when you extend a link to the winning standard? Every offensive argument is a proactive reason to vote for you and not your opponent, and theory is not an exception. It is not interventionist, esp. b/c theory arguments can be contested and defended and do not rely on mere intuition (although some say they do).
To return to your question Bietz, I would say that a “hack” is a judge who will give unwarranted leeway to a certain debater or style and end up making objectively (by consensus, I guess) incorrect decisions. A theory hack would vote on really poorly warranted theory arguments just b/c they’re theory. A camp hack would vote for a student who attended their institute even if they were clearly losing the round just b/c they went to that given camp. It’s kind of like result-oriented judging vs. procedure-oriented judging. You want a kid to win, so you find a way to vote for him OR HER, whether or not you think they are actually winning.
I hope that clears some things up, and maybe someone can engage me on the theory points I made above if they think that I am wrong.
Posted from: 76.167.241.95
May 7th, 2008 20:02
ken – so i’m clear, when you wrote:
“Camp hacking definitely is a big problem. No question.”
you believe a lot of people that teach at camps are likely to vote for someone even though they thought they lost?
Posted from: 209.98.146.245
May 7th, 2008 20:07
Michelin–
I think you’re missing my basic point. You write:
“One thing that we have not seen any analysis (or whining) about is how other regions with strong contingents of students did against competitors from outside their region in front of a judge from their home region. If it is not statistically different than the number of Texas judges who vote for Texas students, then it’s probably simply a feature of communication (i.e. it’s subjective) and the nature of preference in a small community.”
That’s exactly what I’m saying. The statistics for regions other than Texas would probably look exactly the same. What that indicates is that “regional bias” (i.e. debaters from a given region doing best in front of judges from that region) is simply a product of (a) regional styles which appeal to judges from that region and (b) debaters knowing how to adapt to judges who judge them a lot.
BUT, that becomes a problem when some regions are more represented than others. Take a debater from Texas versus a debater from Arizona. Arizona may have tons of extremely competent, qualified judges, but only one of them was at the TOC because only one Arizona debater (pretty sure–if not, take another example) ended up qualifying this year. So, the judges the Texas debater has had at every local tournament and knows exactly how to debate for are in the pool, while the judges the Arizona debater has had at every local tournament and knows exactly how to debate for aren’t. That, by itself, doesn’t seem to indicate that the Texas debater is better, or that their style is better. But it does give them an advantage. Since it’s an advantage that’s not reflective of any superior ability on their part, it should be mitigated if possible. I’ve outlined a way to do that. This is why it’s not the case that “a geographical marker would ONLY make sense when judges are thought to be hacks for the people from their area.”
BTW, since the thrust of your (3) seems to imply otherwise, let me be very clear again that NONE of this has to be specific to Texas. The ONLY thing that makes Texas different is that it qualifies more debaters and sends more judges than any other state. The same concern exists with other regions, it’s just quantitatively different.
In terms of your (2a), I think it’s very, very unlikely that we’d ever be in a situation where one region would be so massively represented that it would be impossible to panel a given outround with judges who qualify as members of “the best,” without 2/3 of those judges coming from that region. If a judge is good enough to judge on octos round, they’re good enough to judge another, so what’s the harm of switching a Texas judge into a round with two non-Texans in exchange for a non-Texas judge? It certainly couldn’t make the overall quality of the judging any worse.
I really don’t get your (2b). Yes, disallowing two Texas judges on a panel makes things harder for Texans. Similarly, disallowing two Midwest judges on a panel makes things harder for Midwesterners. So instead of just paneling the round randomly, advantaging one debater, and disadvantaging the other, why not just “disadvantage” them both equally?
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 20:08
Ken: “just argue that your case is fair. Don’t run generics like “fairness isn’t a voter” or “ground is a bad standard”. Nobody buys those arguments anymore because they are not true.”
I agree that a good first option is taking out the violation. But, the reason your example generics are bad isn’t that they “aren’t true”–it is that they are generic. Someone could very effectively argue that the effects on ground in a particular scenario are indeterminate, making it a problematic standard in that instance. They could also problematize fairness situationally–there is no consensus about what it means for a round to be fair. There might be points of agreement that establish community norms, but that doesn’t mean judges can be neutral enforcers of fair debate every time the word is invoked.
People’s problems with “theory causes intervention” should also be reconceived as problems with that argument run generically. In situations where there is lack of community consensus, a debater’s argument that X amount of ground is less than fair ground may require a judge to make a personal judgement about what is and isn’t fair ground, etc. I don’t think someone has to a naive “tabula rasa wannabe” to have concern in some situations about judges deciding these things in rounds. Maybe there’s some middle ground between this “idea that debaters can say and do whatever they want with no repercussions” and the rejection of non-intervention as a worthwile and relevant pursuit.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 20:12
“So instead of just paneling the round randomly, advantaging one debater, and disadvantaging the other, why not just “disadvantage” them both equally?”
It’s not about fairness to Texans… it’s about fairness to good debaters. It would always disproportionately penalize the better debater, because most of the best judges come from Texas.
Joking… maybe half-joking.
Posted from: 76.167.241.95
May 7th, 2008 20:13
I agree with Mangus that there is nothing unique about theory that requires intervention (at least moreso than other arguments).
Posted from: 68.209.198.15
May 7th, 2008 20:14
babb, could you give an example of when ground or fairness would be indeterminate? i’m not really sure what these claims mean absent context.
Posted from: 71.38.164.136
May 7th, 2008 20:15
babb,
ken is right when he says that it is because those arguments are untrue. just because something is generic doesn’t mean it is unstrategic. everyone has “mult. a prioris bad” shells but i will bet you lots of money that those shells still win rounds.
you say, “They could also problematize fairness situationally–there is no consensus about what it means for a round to be fair. There might be points of agreement that establish community norms, but that doesn’t mean judges can be neutral enforcers of fair debate every time the word is invoked.”
you basically just said “fairness has no brightline”, and the point of theory is to establish a conception of fairness. the interpretation of the shell is an application of what the debater believes as fair. even if there is no consensus, it doesn’t mean fairness is not a voter (lots of double negatives, whoops!).
your last sentence is kind of weird; theory doesn’t provoke the judge into actively “policing” unfairness in the round. it is just a structured way of pointing out in round abuse. judges would not vote against a debater if s/he ran multiple a prioris but successfully beat back his/her opponent’s theory shell.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 20:19
Well, I’m not sure a hypothetical context would be that much more helpful… But, sure.
When an argument is made that an AC interpretation/position destroys neg “turn ground”, but the NC read turns against the position anyway. 1AR says: “No abuse. Look at them turns.” NR says: “Yah, but that’s only because I’m amazing. I shouldn’t have had to think that hard. And, if the AC was fair, I’d have been able to make twice as many turns and turns with much better links.” I’m not sure there’s a community norm there. Maybe I missed the memo.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 20:25
MA,
My point is not to rain on the strat value of generics. I just think a lot of what’s being labeled bad args are generic versions of those args.
And I didn’t say “fairness has no brightline”, basically or otherwise. I said that there isn’t a community norm regarding what counts as fair in every circumstance. There may be brightlines sometimes, particularly when the community seems to agree about something.
Posted from: 209.98.146.245
May 7th, 2008 20:25
John (Lewis): Scoggin’s definitely right that you’re being totally unnecessarily hostile and generally non-responsive to the content of his posts. Read what he’s saying more carefully, and don’t assume from the outset that it’s an attack on all things and people Texan.
Michael: Asking “Did the debater win the argument?” requires imposing some sort of threshold, low or high, for what counts as “winning”. How much defense does there have to be, how responsive does it have to be, how well does it have to have been answered back, how bad does the apparent abuse have to be, how convincing do the original links have to be, how detailed to the extensions have to be? Those are all questions that demand quantitative answers, and how a judge answers those questions for a given type of argument determines their “threshold” for arguments of that sort. You can’t just say “have the same threshold for all types of arguments” because there are things involved in threshold-setting that aren’t easily comensurable–e.g., justifying something as coming prior to standards/prior to substance doesn’t enter into standard argument in a V/C structure, so there’s no way to just evaluate it the same way you evaluate those arguments. Point is, different judges with the same degree of commitment to non-intervention can look at the same argument in the same round and disagree about who’s winning it. That’s what thresholds are.
Posted from: 71.38.164.136
May 7th, 2008 20:28
i think the memo said something like “if the aff just said ‘look at the turns the neg made’” and moved on then the aff is not very smart.
Posted from: 68.209.198.15
May 7th, 2008 20:30
babb, that just seems to be an issue of no abuse. if that’s your only gripe with fairness i don’t see where the disagreement is in this discussion. specifically, what do you mean when you say that the voter can be problematized? does this mean you think there are good reasons fairness is not a voter, or something else?
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 20:30
OK I didn’t know I was supposed to script an entire fucking debate. Use your imagination.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 20:33
“No abuse” can mean a lot of different things. In the example I gave, the question in terms of abuse deals with what is and isn’t adequate ground. That requires consensus about adequacy and fairness.
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 7th, 2008 20:34
i appreciate that ken.
i am very disappointed that babb didn’t even have the decency to address wes’ debaters BY NAME. it’s not like i don’t post every third or fourth minute, and if you don’t know a schifberg, you’re missing out.
i agree with babb, that VBI is traditionally less theory focused but is moving there (i said that in my first post too).
i will say that 1. fairness is not a voter isn’t true. and 2. if debate rounds weren’t fair, no one would debate IS true. I was joking with wes before TOC that if anyone ran fairness isn’t a voter against us, we were going to go new in the 2 and do things during their speech time like recite the pledge of allegiance.
unless the fairness isn’t a voter is specific to the theory shell in question, i feel that they basically don’t mean anything. they seem quite frankly to be anti-intellectual and ways of avoiding actual substantive discussion of issues (theory or resolutional) rather than useful for debate.
i would say the middle ground babb seeks is essentially this:
1. does a debater present a complete argument (complete means with warrants, links, and implications) that implicates the ballot in some way?
2. does said debater answer counter-warrants, counter-links, and counter-implications and extend their own warrants, links, and implications?
3. if 1 and 2 occur, then i must vote for said debater.
I would feel like any other interpretation of the judge’s role in the abstract without specific scenarios where more of a role would be needed would be rather interventionist in the wrong way. I would much prefer to compare warrants and make a substance based decision than go with my gut. I don’t plan on purporting to know better than the people i will judge, but I don’t have any problem with tanking the speaks of debaters and chewing them out for arguments I don’t like.
I feel like many debater’s concerns could be allayed if every tournament just adopted MJP. there is literally no reason not to. I’ve said this before, but it seems especially true for the larger and more prestigious national circuit tournaments. That way, judges with high theory thresholds get matched with students who don’t want to debate theory, and vice versa.
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 7th, 2008 20:35
babb, that just sounds like a poor-ass theory debate on both sides:
a) “turn ground” is not a compelling story. the nc should isolate a specific turn or 2 or 3 that you want to make and argue why those are critical negative ground. this would prevent the aff from saying “look at all them turns”
b) the 1ar fails to make a real answer other than “no abuse”. the 1ar should explain why this is not ground the negative is entitled to, or make other arguments why their interpretation is better in terms of dividing ground, predictability, limits, etc.
c) “i shouldn’t have to think so hard” is an awful and unpersuasive argument. the nr should explain why a) theory is an issue of competing interpretations so you don’t need to isolate specific abuse or b) again, why those turns are key negative ground.
regardless, i don’t think that any of this deals with the argument that “ground loss is indeterminate”. as i understand it, that argument means that you can’t verify/falsify what ground has been lost. the best way to disprove this argument is to say “see where they use this dumb definition to say the NC doesn’t matter? that’s how you verify the abuse”.
i seriously do not understand why debaters do not understand these concepts. perhaps if they did, i would not be a “theory hack”, but alas.
Posted from: 71.38.164.136
May 7th, 2008 20:36
“And I didn’t say “fairness has no brightline”, basically or otherwise. I said that there isn’t a community norm regarding what counts as fair in every circumstance. There may be brightlines sometimes, particularly when the community seems to agree about something.”
sure, but a lack of consensus about fairness doesn’t prevent us from conceptualizing what is fair in round. i feel very comfortable in saying that most judges are receptive to “multiple a prioris bad”. the reasoning for their illegitimacy also explains the illegitimacy of “multiple conditional counterplans bad” or anything else.
jamer and co agree with you that there is no consensus, which is why they are saying debaters should argue counter-conceptions of fairness (counter-interp) and reasons to prefer that. an alternate idea for fairness is not the same as fairness not being justified.
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 7th, 2008 20:39
and by the way, new addition to my paradigm: if you don’t read a counterinterpretation you lose. i’m dead fucking serious.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 20:39
I don;t think the question is: “Is fairness a voter or not?” Not every unfair practice is equally unfair. There are some things debaters do that some people think are fair, and some people don’t (esp when it comes to new weighing analysis, etc.). When those situations become theory debates, I don’t see why a debater can’t say, “Sure what I’m doing isn’t 100% fair, but neither is it less fair than the fact my opponent can afford much better coaching than I can.”
SO rebar, your performative AT “fairness isn’t a voter” is cute, but it’s also guilty of assuming every unfair practice is equal.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 20:47
Alex: “the nc should isolate a specific turn or 2 or 3 that you want to make and argue why those are critical negative ground.”–”the 1ar should explain why this is not ground the negative is entitled to, or make other arguments why their interpretation is better in terms of dividing ground, predictability, limits, etc.”–”the nr should explain why a) theory is an issue of competing interpretations so you don’t need to isolate specific abuse or b) again, why those turns are key negative ground.”
All of these steps assume the possibility of agreement about how many arguments, what kinds of arguments, or what kinds of strats a debater is “entitled” to use.
I hear MA saying, “sure, just debate it out”… but I think some of these scenarios become pretty infinitely regressive, dependent on how judge’s interpret burdens, and so on.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 7th, 2008 20:51
see babb, this is why i call you out for shallow reading, uninformed commentary, and selective memory.
babb says “There are a lot of rounds in which the “arguments made by the debaters” aren’t in and of themselves conclusive.”
no kidding. upon reflection, you might notice that *i made the exact same argument.* maybe the second time it will sink in. “i am not a supporter of so-called ‘tabula rasa’ judging because that paradigm does not in itself provide a way to resolve debates; however, it does begin with the correct first principle: decide the round based on the arguments made by the debaters, not your personal beliefs. [...] non-intervention is founded on the idea of judges being neutral, *NOT* the idea that debaters can say and do whatever they want with no repercussions.”
let me be perfectly clear about this: judges are not decision-making machines. they should admit their biases for or against positions. however, a bias against all theory debate is indefensible if we accept the principle that rounds ought to be fair.
without in-round theory, either (a) judges must automatically exclude certain substantive arguments that they deem unfair or (b) judges must be willing to vote for every substantive argument imaginable. explain to me how you deal with strategies like running multiple contradictory conditional advocacies without either (a) arguing that the arguments should not be considered/the debater should lose for doing it or (b) being put at a significant disadvantage.
before anyone makes a mad dash for their “you can just answer the arguments if youre a good debater!” blocks, keep in mind that any rigorous theory of debate cannot expect to provide competitive, equitable, educational rounds unless we evaluate hypothetical scenarios with the assumption that the debaters in question have equal skills. assuming that you can just beat illegitimate args if you “debate better” is precisely the logic of what it means to make the round unfair – procedural equality is the goal, not substantive equality. making someone take a harder path to achieve the same outcome is unfair. beyond that, the intelligent, strategic decision in response to a strategy like the one i alluded to is theory 9 times out of 10 (i dare you to try to answer fabien’s conditional floating PIC from the church/state topic without theory). i am not sure why judges who claim to be ‘open to anything’ can simultaneously not be open to any theory argument.
but even if you only think theory is the correct choice once out of 1000 times you still have to allow theory to be run in a debate *without the qualification that its only ok if you think its ok.* disclosing particular preferences for/against particular positions is 100% A-OK with me (i note in my paradigm, for example, that i default to the view that T is an issue of competing interpretations). however, making sweeping claims about theory writ large which provide the debaters no meaningful standard to explain how you evaluate that class of arg is asinine. “i vote for theory if there is a real problem” amounts to “i vote for theory if i agree with you.” that is some vacuous shit.
next babb says: “Why does this need a “Calling Out”? How is that any more timely than calling out people who run moronic theory?”
first of all, i dont think anyone said every theory argument is great. but in the rounds ive seen this year, ive seen many more awful answer to theory than i have awful theory shells. this is because the set of debaters who run theory is self-selecting and the set of debaters who answer theory is not. i have not seen “people will quit debating” as the sole justification for theory in awhile, but i am not sure why that argument is particularly absurd. i wouldnt play a rigged game, nor should i have to. nice try to swing some perceptual clout your way, but your argument here doesnt have anything to do with anything.
babb’s next post suggests “They could also problematize fairness situationally–there is no consensus about what it means for a round to be fair. There might be points of agreement that establish community norms, but that doesn’t mean judges can be neutral enforcers of fair debate every time the word is invoked.” i hear this argument in its various forms a lot so let me explain how awful it is:
a) so what? the judge doesnt need community norms to decide a particular debate. at most you could claim that debaters cant ‘predict’ how judges will vote but…
b) writing a real paradigm instead of just saying youre down for theory if its reasonable solves back any confusion on the part of debaters.
c) the only way to create anything close to consensus is to have these discussions in round and set precedents through voting. competitive incentives do wonders to change how the activity works.
babb decides to be “that guy” and defend that theory requires judges to inject personal biases. non-unique, inevitable in the sq. my argument is this: deciding who wins an argument is not the same as deciding if they ought to be allowed to win an argument. you can give reasons to believe that certain ground is good ground and any competent theory debater will. saying basically “theory is ok if the other debate is unfair in the judges opinion” is totally different from deciding the round based on the theory args made. if you cant see the difference i have nothing to tell you.
the intelligent NR in babbs case would reply “i had no way to know if you would kick out of those arguments, but in order for me to have any chance at proving abuse i had to read them. it is non-falsifiable to say that there is no abuse because for all i know you didnt kick out of them because i ran theory.” thats a reason theory debate matters.
christian: don’t get on board the babb ship, i hear its unsinkable. i agree with you and ive made that argument before. see my point above about why having biases for/against particular theory arguments doesnt mean its ok to say ‘i vote for it if its justified.’ im making a distinction here that neither you nor babb seem to be taking into consideration.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 7th, 2008 20:56
when i mentioned “the intelligent NR in babb’s case” i meant the scenario presented in post 576
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 7th, 2008 20:58
Oh, PS:
I did not mean to come off aggressive in anyway. I love babb and basically agree with him on this issue, i just find some of his and others articulations mildly problematic personally.
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 7th, 2008 21:04
also, i think your indict of my performative fairness is not a voter is exactly why it’s a funny joke. because fairness doesn’t have a brightline non-situationally, and even situationally its difficult to construct. so even the most blatantly unfair practices would be difficult to explain as unfair if you give ANY credence to fairness isn’t a voter and the like.
Posted from: 76.17.236.195
May 7th, 2008 21:04
I’m sympathetic to the notion that counter-interpretation as a response to theory tends to be a more substantive answer to theory arguments. I’m not sure, though, why “fairness is not a voter” cannot be a perfectly legitimate argument if fleshed out. (of course any argument made badly should not be made at all, so if that is folks’ only problem with this answer then I agree and you needn’t read futher : ).
A number of people contend “fairness isn’t a voter” isn’t “true”. I’m not sure what that means. To articulate a fairness voter is simply to give a particular account of fairness and invoke it as a normative rule for deciding debate rounds. If it is an inadequate rule for deciding debate rounds, then it should be rejected, in the same way that when a standard (also a normative rule for deciding debate rounds)is inadequate arguments which appeal to it should be rejected.
So long as the arguments are substantive, why shouldn’t a debater be allowed to make strategic choices about how best to handle theoretical objections? Isn’t defense on a theory voter the functional equivalent of defense on any other argument construction implicating the who should win the debate round? If the practice to which the debater running theory is in fact unfair, shouldn’t the burden of describing why be a fairly easy one to meet?
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 7th, 2008 21:10
the global problem with babb’s “fairness not a voter” arguments so far (which i did not catch before i posted) is that they are skeptical defense. this is exactly what causes bad theory debate. defend your strategies instead of arguing that maybe theory doesnt matter.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 7th, 2008 21:12
ps: i do not mean to imply that debaters cannot contest the nature of theory debate. performance teams in policy debate manage to do this with substantive, offensive versions of some of the same claims that babb is making (e.g. your framework args are racist, classist, imperialist, evil, etc). id be happy to vote for those args, not their defensive analogs.
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 7th, 2008 21:25
defense, particularly skeptical and non-terminal defense, is virtually meaningless if the other side is winning offense. it’s true on any other issue, why shouldn’t it be true on a theory debate?
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 7th, 2008 21:25
IMPORTANT BULLETIN:
If you are a competitor who just attended the TOC, i strongly suggest you put your email out there to send people your TOC strats. I remember how encouraging and helpful it was to me to be able to see TOC level cases and strategies. I feel like its an easy way to give back to the community, and since topics change pretty divergently, its not like you’re losing any competitive advantages.
Posted from: 76.17.236.195
May 7th, 2008 21:29
There are some interesting parallels here to the paradigm discussions from last month, particularly in regard to the claim that skeptical defense causes bad theory debate.
I’m interested in fleshing this out a little. Michael – what is it about skeptical defense that causes bad theory debate? I guess it depends on the theory being run, but is the principle reason that strategic validity is a necessary framework component underlying a debater’s substantive position, and so when they are allowed to simply play defense on theory they are actually forwarding decisional rules without justifying them?
If that is the case – are we guilty of a sort of presumption on theory? Theory is generally understood to invoke a rule of decision that is different than that invoked in other case constructions (whose decisional rules tend to be in the form of standards and have to do with the truth of the resolution or comparative desirability of a particular worldview), saying that the decisional rule should be based on whether in-round practices conform to particular norms of fair play or education or whatever. If what I’m describing is analygous to presumption in a round not adjudicated on theory, do we need either a) a rigorous theory of what we presume on theory (whose or what kind of decisional rules we default to when theory is run and the results are inconclusive) or b) to reject presumption on theory debate altogether, as some do with normal presumption?
In other words, under non-theory decisional rules we have procedures for making decisions when neither debater wins a particular normative rule or offense to it. What do we do when theory is run and there is successful defense on it? Do we reject it regardless of whether it has a counter-interpretation and fall back to other decisional rules (which is I think what happens now) or do we somehow still decide on theory based on some theory of presumption?
Posted from: 76.17.236.195
May 7th, 2008 21:34
re Smitty: Your post answers to some degree the question I wrote as you were posting this. But does your account work when the defense being won is to the voter particularly? If the voter is a decision rule like any other, as I suggested above (I’m open to that being wrong, btw), then isn’t it the case that winning offense that triggers it doesn’t matter much? In other words, skeptical defense means something even in the face of offense when it is defense on the decisional rule to which that offense appeals, doesn’t it?
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 7th, 2008 21:41
no. if someone has an offensive reason why something should be a d-rule and the other debater has only defense, 99 percent of the time offense wins.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 7th, 2008 21:41
re: adam torson’s comments
smitty’s post alludes to the answer to your question. a defensive argument suggests why a claim may not be true, but when an offensive impact is at risk we err on the side of caution and require debaters to provide reasons the other debater is wrong instead of why they just might not necessarily be right. so in other words, defense means youre contesting the risk of an impact. that doesnt mean much if you dont have turns or impacts of your own.
the reason this leads to bad debate is because it avoids clash. link- or impact- (very rare in LD) turning theory requires a debater to meet their opponent head on and explain why their interpretation is good. this allows the judge to make a meaningful decision about which form of debate is more desirable. for me, thats a much easier question to answer than ‘how much ground must be lost to justify voting on theory.’
i think adam has a point when he suggests that this is, in a way, like presumption for theory. it is my view that offense/defense is a way to evaluate who wins arguments (the questions which christian points out are ultimately paradigmatic – i.e. a necessary and justified personal bias). this means that it applies to all arguments in the debate, regardless of their type.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 21:43
I love how when I make the exact same point that Christian makes (about the inevitability of thresholds), you say, “no kidding. upon reflection, you might notice that *i made the exact same argument.* maybe the second time it will sink in.” and then to Christian you say, “i agree with you and ive made that argument before. see my point above about why having biases for/against particular theory arguments doesnt mean its ok to say ‘i vote for it if its justified.’”
But you are wrong about failing to take your distinction into account. Nobody is advocating “a bias against all theory debate”. You are saying it’s OK to have opinions about what is and isn’t a “won” argument, but that it’s not OK to have opinions about “theory”–the problem is that the burden for having ‘won’ an argument is itself up to contestation and thus theory. Some judges similarly have different feelings about what is and isn’t adequate ground in a given scenario, and when both debaters are offering good reasons, judges often defer to what makes sense to them. That’s a particular threshold.
Then: “i have not seen “people will quit debating” as the sole justification for theory in awhile, but i am not sure why that argument is particularly absurd. i wouldnt play a rigged game, nor should i have to. nice try to swing some perceptual clout your way, but your argument here doesnt have anything to do with anything.”
You’re right, it is often coupled with claims about how debate is like sports and need refs. And it is absurd because debaters lose to particular instances of unfair debate practices all the time (if the frequency of theory args is any indication, then ALL the time). And yet, the people crying abuse the most are not likely to and have not empirically quit debate. That is probably because debaters sometimes running somewhat abusive positions is not equivalent to “rigging a game” under any reasonable conception of analogy.
Then: “a) so what? the judge doesnt need community norms to decide a particular debate. at most you could claim that debaters cant ‘predict’ how judges will vote but…
b) writing a real paradigm instead of just saying youre down for theory if its reasonable solves back any confusion on the part of debaters.
c) the only way to create anything close to consensus is to have these discussions in round and set precedents through voting. competitive incentives do wonders to change how the activity works.”
Your A and B are ridiculous. Debaters should not be expected to predict whether or not every strategic decision they make in a round coheres with every judge’s conception of fairness, how it changes in different circumstances, how it’s applied. I’m not sure writing a “real paradigm” could possibly solve for all that confusion. Your scenario also creates a world where some judges have jurisdiction to vote on theory and some judges do not… which then creates an odd question of, “Was a paradigm specific enough to legitimize their jurisdiction”.. ugh. Also, what if a judge find some situations ambiguous or contingent… should paradigms itemize every possible scenario?
Your C is probably fine in spirit… just overtagged unnecessarily.
Then: “babb decides to be “that guy” and defend that theory requires judges to inject personal biases.”
You can’t say things like that and then tell me I don’t read closely. My point is that there are cirucmstances when it is possible to decide “how much” ground a debater is “entitled to”. Those conclusions sometimes require judgments about how ground is quantified or what debaters are entitled to, and those decisions are not predictable. And, since many theory debates are less competent than some seem to imagine, those decisions are often made without adequate reason-giving by debaters.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 7th, 2008 21:45
more directly re: the presumption on theory issue. a defense-vs-defense theory debate means no one wins the theory debate. theory is a decision rule, but it is still just an impact. if the direction of an impact is inconclusive, you call it a wash and decide the debate based on other arguments. so if theres no offensive reason to vote down a debater before evaluating substance, you evaluate the substance.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 22:01
The offense is that sometimes, a judge rejecting large masses of topic-based and substantive argumentation on the basis of predispositions about what is adequate ground is not good for debate. There are probably a lot of reasons. The one Mangus brings up is predictability.
Posted from: 75.36.165.208
May 7th, 2008 22:01
i think this is an interesting discussion
might be helpful to start a new thread for this discusison
Posted from: 76.17.236.195
May 7th, 2008 22:03
I understand more now what the argument is in relation to the “offense beats defense” argument. I was understanding offense to mean offense triggering the voter – so the interpretation/violation link story which “proves” that a debater is being unfair (under a particular paradigm of fairness) and so the judge should invoke the decisional rule and vote for them.
You were using offense to mean reasons why fairness or whatever is a voter (justifying the decisional rule). In that case I agree, generic answers to fairness should not trump specific justifications for using fairness as a decisional rule (although debaters should probably have to make the argument as to why offense should skeptical defense specifically when defending the voter against such attacks).
What about when no counter interpretation is offered but the specific justifications for fairness as a voter are rebutted? If I understand what you mean to be “offense” correctly, is that the wash Michael is talking about which then requires us to resort to other decisional rules (i.e. the standards on the original positions the debater’s ran)?
Posted from: 76.17.236.195
May 7th, 2008 22:05
* meant to say why offense should trump skeptical defense
Posted from: 205.188.116.76
May 7th, 2008 22:06
Why is fairness a voter vs merely a filter for arguments? For example, if my AC is not topical (which it often isn’t) why can’t I just go for turns on the NC in the 1AR? The non-topical stuff is excluded but I, the debater, maybe shouldn’t be rejected.
I think requiring a counter-interp is as silly as saying “I don’t vote on theory”. Let the debaters do what they do.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 7th, 2008 22:10
re: babb
nice selective quoting of my reply to christian. i poked fun at him too. and to be frank, i like him more.
you are wrong that no one thinks theory debate has no place in the round. regardless, the part that responds to you in particular is just a little later in the post, when i call out judges who say they vote on theory “if its reasonable” or “if there’s abuse” or “if its justified.”
the idea that who ‘wins’ an argument is contestable in the debate is exactly the flaw which makes the tabula rasa paradigm infinitely regressive. you will blow my goddamn mind if you can answer this question: how do you pick who wins an argument about what it means to win an argument? thats the kind of question that will give you an aneurism if you think about it too long. i suggested a couple posts ago that offense/defense helps explain what it means to win/lose and that it is therefore a paradigmatic (uncontestable) issue.
on the issue of ‘fairness not a voter’ – babb’s reply to my ‘so what’ argument is that debaters shouldnt have to predict if their args cohere w/ the judges notion of fairness. but my argument says that they dont – they just have to win that its fair if the other debater runs theory. without a defense of why theory requires intervention, your reply is totally incoherent.
i never argued that only some judges have a justification to vote on theory. remember earlier when you quoted that arg that wasnt responsive to you – “judges have to be willing to vote on theory?” “cross-apply” that here. i say you should disclose biases so the debaters have a sense of what you like to see, not that those biases should predetermine the outcome of the round.
re: “ground args = subjective”
my point is that it is the debaters job to explain what ground they have lost and why that ground is important. this does not require the judge to do anything out of the ordinary – see the non-unique/inevitable in the sq argument. the decisions are only unpredictable in the same way that you dont know w/ 100% certainty what the warrant for the neg criterion will be. is it really too much to ask debaters to be prepared to debate about debate? that seems like it should be pretty simple if you have any training in argument.
re: the “offense” to babbs answer
babb says “The offense is that sometimes, a judge rejecting large masses of topic-based and substantive argumentation on the basis of predispositions about what is adequate ground is not good for debate.” that doesnt explain *why.* what is lost by not evaluating that substance? presumably the debaters still get the benefit of debating it – so what if the decision is not made based on it? theory is a prior issue because it contests the value of making a decision based on that substance – thats why your argument ultimately fails to respond. i have no idea what that arg has to do with predictability; im pretty sure i answer that issue earlier in this post though.
re: the scenario adam asks about. it depends on how the justifications for voting on fairness are answered. ‘fairness isnt a voter because there might be other unfair factors in the round’ is defense; it would lose to a modicum of an offensive arg by the debater running theory. ‘your view of fairness is racist’ is offense – its an impact turn.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 7th, 2008 22:31
k this discussion kind of exploded in like 1 hour and I don’t know if I was particularly addressed anywhere but I’ll reply to two things:
1) Bietz’s question, “you believe a lot of people that teach at camps are likely to vote for someone even though they thought they lost?” The rhetoric “even though they thought they lost” is a little bit strong (i.e. I think that if most judges definitively think a debater loses they vote for the debater who they thought won), but think that in general, yes, this is true. I think that judges from a camp which a debater who attended that camp (esp. judges who are very committed to a certain camp) give a lot more leeway to debaters that go to that camp, often at the expense of their opponents.
Of course, it’s hard to gage how commonly/often this occurs, but I think that it’s reasonable to say that it does occur, and even if it occurs only rarely it should still be regarded as a big problem. I also think that the notion of “camp-hacking” becomes an even bigger problem in important rounds (such as finals at tournaments), so I agree w/ Palmer when he says that camp directors should be strikeable from final panels. After all, saying “the TOC champ of 2008 went to X camp” is much more powerful than “the TOC runner-up of 2008 went to X camp”, although that wasn’t an issue this year, since they both went to VBI and hence there was no potential conflict.
re: Adam Torson and others
Maybe the argument that “fairness isn’t a voter” can be made legitimately. I’ve never seen it though, and I don’t really know what the warrants would look like. Now they look like “NO BRIGHTLINE LOL” and “EX POST FACTO LOL I HAD NO CLUE MY CASE WAS UNFAIR EVEN THOUGH I’M READING THIS OFF AN AT THEORY BLOCK” and “BUT DEBATE IS A GAME WE CAN DO W/E WE WANT LOL”. The reason why I say that it’s “false” that fairness isn’t a voter is not because the warrants for why fairness is a voter are so strong, but really just b/c I feel like debate HAS to presume that people can lose on the basis of committing unfair practices. I.e., if a debater did something extremely unfair such as steal prep or speech time, I think that most of us would agree that the judge would have the right to vote against that person because they garnered an unfair advantage. (Or if you disagree, if they did something worse like steal their opponent’s shit). Similarly, if someone’s in-round strategy is blatantly unfair (and called out as such), it makes sense to me that the judge retains the right (and is obligated) to vote down a debater on the basis of fairness if he buys the theory arguments.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 22:38
“and to be frank, i like him more.”
I can understand saying “fuck politics, I will say what I want”… but I think this kind of shit is just rude. My original point was precisely that you do not separate these discussions from personal grievance either in tone or in content, and as you know, I think that is a bit sad. At least Wade, Rebar, Alex, and Maeshal have been nice despite their disagreement… and quite probably despite also disliking me. SO, thanks to them. I have no idea why this shit has to be so mean spirited.
On my paradigm, I’m not saying I will only vote for theory if I personally deem it reasonable or decide that there’s abuse. Obviously, debaters debate that. I’m just saying that they prolly SHOULD debate that.
You say debaters don’t have to predict their judges’ understanding of fairness… then you say they just have to win that their case is fair if theory is run against them. So… they DO have to predict their judges’ understanding of fairness in those scenarios.. because otherwise they wouldn’t have any barometer for showing their shit is fair. I know you think they just have to start giving reasons, but I think the point is that they have absolutely no idea what kind of reasons they have to give without knowing the judge’s expectations.
You saying a judge can evaluate the importance of particular ground just as the judge can evaluate the importance of any other argument. I disagree. Standards and common sense go a long way in demonstrating which arguments are important and how important they are. It’s easy to compare damage, body counts, economics, etc… but obviously there are a lot of things that are important to a debater’s chances of winning. But absent a totally clear violation, the extent to which a strat impairs another debater’s chances of winning are often very speculative and contingent on a particular conception of a “fair chance of winning.” Either the ground was fair or not. Reasons why a strat was “unfair” are often really reasons why “I now have less options to win.” But the question is: what are ENOUGH options to win. So, “giving reasons ground is important” doesn’t resolve this.
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 7th, 2008 22:40
let me ask a hypothetical: if a debater wins that a) fairness is an axiomatic principle of any competitive activity and b) fairness is a gateway issue to evaluating the truth or falsity of the resolution, what possible impact defense could overwhelm those arguments in a case of manifest in round abuse?
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 7th, 2008 22:40
and i like you babb, even if i think you’re 100 percent wrong.
Posted from: 76.17.236.195
May 7th, 2008 22:51
Ken – I see what you’re saying, but your answer begs the question. You say that you’re not saying the warrants for fairness is a voter are so strong, just that we HAVE to believe its a voter. Those are the same thing – in your case the warrant is an appeal to intuition, which is problematic. It’s an intuition I share, but again my point is just that it can’t be true or false per se without an appeal to the warrants.
But I don’t think we have a real disagreement here, because as I said any objection which says that a badly run argument shouldn’t be run I completely agree with. I’m not sure that “fairness is not a voter” if run in a rigorous way (see all the discussion about the relevance of defense on decisional rules), is not a good and theoretically legitimate argument, which at least seems to be the consensus. I guess instead of saying that people should stop making the argument you should be saying they should be making the argument better, lest we eschew the myriad types of arguments that are run badly as a general rule, which I would say includes theoretical objections in the first place.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 22:53
Smitty–I don’t disagree in principle. But, I suppose one way of stating my point is that I think there are circumstances when whether or not there is “a case of manifest in round abuse” is inextricably linked to what counts as “fair” or adequate ground. So, while there are some scenarios where the hypothetical works without much problem (e.g. a lot of good topicality violations), I think there are others in which the demonstrability of “abuse” is contingent upon largely undecided or open discussions of in-round strategic propriety rather than a more easily resolved debate about whether or not someone’s interpreting words in a reasonable way.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 7th, 2008 22:59
yeah, Adam, I don’t think we disagree. I mean, I DO think there are good warrants for why fairness is a voter, but what I was saying before was just that like, it has to be a voter, whether or not the warrants are amazing.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 7th, 2008 23:00
babb, i gave some reasons that i often find your posts to be aggravating. christian doesnt tend to do those things, so i like him more. hes a more pleasant interlocutor. i am sorry if you find that objectionable. i promise that i wont take your lunch money or break your toys, but youre frustrating to argue with and your posts here reflect that.
as for the actual args babb makes: standards are no more common sense than other impacts. terminal impacts to things like global warming, economic downturn, etc. are also ‘common sense’ (and contestable). debaters can justify them just the same. and just like a lot of things might influence fairness, there are a lot of things that might cause environmental damage, resource wars, and all that. the internal links to those impacts are also often speculative (in part because of alternate causalities, in part because link chains on debatable issues are usually easily contestable). you havent distinguished anything at all.
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 7th, 2008 23:11
babb–sure, but those are interpretation level arguments (ie does x interpretation provide fair/adequate ground), not impact level arguments (ie is that a reason to vote). the entire thesis of my argument is that the former should be emphasized over the latter in answering theory arguments.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 23:18
After the word “speculative,” I said… and contingent on a particular conception of a “fair chance of winning.” Either the ground was fair or not. Reasons why a strat was “unfair” are often really reasons why “I now have less options to win.” But the question is: what are ENOUGH options to win. So, “giving reasons ground is important” doesn’t resolve this.
So, my point is that whereas offense/defense makes sense when we’re talking about somewhat “concrete” impacts, it doesn’t make sense as a measure for fair ground. Even if there is a “preponderence” of args/arg quality going one way on a ground debate, that still doesn’t specify a coherent threshold for adequate ground. A debate about more/less ground has zero to do with fairness without having any clue as to what’s “enough”.
And that links to the predictability issue which you did not answer… no doubt due to my inability to read and write.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 7th, 2008 23:29
no babb, you are right, reasons ground matters are not a reason you have lost good ground. most good arguments require several internal links. good theory arguments give reasons you have lost good ground and reasons ground matters. im not sure why that isnt really obvious. why is ‘you have made the debate unfair’ somehow less concrete than ‘you have decreased individual rights’? when do we have “enough” rights? when do we have “enough” security? you still havent made a meaningful analytic distinction between theory and substance when it comes to offense/defense.
i am rolling with some no link/non-unique action on your predictability args, and the arg that it isnt unreasonable to ask people to debate about debate. ive also got some offense on your interp when i argued for why judges must accept theory above (which you said no one was contesting even though you seem to be contesting it now). if you dont think im responding, you dont understand.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 7th, 2008 23:41
So Smitty… why can’t fairness be a provisional voter? Interpretation level arguments presuppose not merely the importance of fair debate, but that ground can be quantified and judged adequate or not… according to a conception of fairness. While fairness may be important in every round, I don’t think that means it holds the same importance for every circumstance or issue within those rounds… (e.g. our discussion about ‘equitable turn ground’ at voices). And, applying personal conceptions of fairness may be essential in some circumstances (binding a debater to the wording of a topic) but meddlesome and unpredictable in other cases (deciding that an advocacy was “too” narrow and didn’t allow for “enough” turn ground).
While I’m not contesting the general veracity of “fairness is a voter,” I’m just not sure why a debater can’t say: “Fairness is a gradient, not a binary. It is unclear what’s fair in this instance (because both debaters are making strong ground claims, etc), so don’t exclude my args (which have X,Y,Z theoretical advantages)”… such that the argument isn’t pure defense, but encourages the judge to consider other issues in absence of certainty.
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
May 7th, 2008 23:56
ideally that question would be answered by the debaters vis a vis an articulation of why that is critical affirmative or negative ground. absent that, though, i don’t know why i would want to judge in a way that forces me to make determinations of what is “enough” ground when a competing interpretations framework makes my job as a judge much clearer.
i also think that it is fine to make the argument that “my interpretation is reasonable, even if i concede that it’s ideal within a competing interpretations framework.” there is a manifest difference between that argument and “my interpretation is bad, but fairness isn’t a voting issue writ large.” defending a reasonable counterinterpretation still requires you to…defend a counterinterpretation. i’m just trying to explain how this is not as draconian as a lot of people make it out to be.
Posted from: 71.106.24.210
May 8th, 2008 00:10
U aren’t winning no-link, thats the arg you ignored in ur last post.
As for uniqueness, the issue is not simply a question of whether or not “equitable ground” is as reconcilable or debatable as any other kind of standard. I would maintain that hypothetical impacts can more easily be associated with something terminal than the in-round trade-off of ground. But the *larger* issue is that those debates do not mandate a threshold. Debaters can simply compare worlds, compare security, or compare rights protection. When debaters compared ground worlds, they will notice that they have more ground in one world than in the other. That will tell them very little about whether or not both of those worlds, one of those worlds, or neither of those worlds is fair.
Also, why does my DA have to be unique? I’m not saying fairness is always a bad voter. I’m refuting the claim that it is always an irreproachable voter. I’m saying that some circumstances require it to be invoked in ways that are ultimately too unpredictable. This probably isn’t unique to theory. I think args with impacts like “dehumanization” often operate in much the same way. Like fairness, I would generally agree that human dignity is of foundational importance, but it’s also an ambiguous enough concept that I think it would be OK for a debater to say, “Look, in the context of this debate, it doesn’t make sense to evaluate dignity (e.g. because it is unclear whether or X counts as dehumanizing).”
This might run some risk of conflating the violation with the reason that violation would hypothetically matter. But an inverse procedure sometimes makes sense wherein one argues that “while debate should be fair in the abstract, it is unclear what it means to be fair in this circumstance, so we should prioritize others levels of evaluation.”
Got to go to sleep. Interesting thoughts, everyone.
Posted from: 74.67.55.150
May 8th, 2008 07:52
I don’t understand how people can think that discussion of theory/texas/camp ETC hackery perceived or real could be a more rewarding line of discussion than the fact that affirmative won only 30 fucking percent of its rounds after presets.
Call me crazy, but that seems like a way more relevant issue to fairness of the round than whether or not you have mangus in the back of the room as opposed to cruz.
Posted from: 66.240.48.106
May 8th, 2008 07:59
This is why I should stop going to bed so early. I miss all the interesting discussions.
Posted from: 65.125.148.226
May 8th, 2008 08:57
My boss will be pissed if I stay up with this discussion, so I have to bow out.
What I’ll say:
1. I am older than almost every “old” coach mentioned in Wade’s, etc., with a few exceptions. Sheesh. When did that happen? :-(
2. I love theory. I would even call myself a “hack” for arguments about debate theory, especially when there’s no offense from the debater who’s responding to the theory.
3. The regional constraint people and I will simply have to disagree. I think this is why we need an MPJ system at the TOC and every major TOC qualifier. If you rate a judge a 1 (or an A) and they vote against you when you debate someone from their region, tough luck.
Michelin Massey
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
May 8th, 2008 10:56
On a couple of things:
1. I can’t remember who it was, but someone said that 11% is not a conclusive result. It’s a 5-2 or 4-3 difference. It’s huge. I think Scoggin is right that familiarity is the cause of this. There’s little you can do about it. Everyone can whine about their judges no matter what happens, unless they don’t drop a ballot all tournament. Maybe more detailed prefs would help, but it’s just something that you have to live with.
2. Shea/Mangus (on the subject of speech times/aff wins) – I think reforming the speech lengths might be a god idea, i’m just not sure how to do it without flipping the advantage. Under a 6-3-7-3-5-6-3, aff speaks first and last, and speaks longer. Also, using policy as an example is horrible. The 1AR has 5 minutes to answer 13 minutes. It’s a great idea, but the logistics of it are a massive uphill battle. I just don’t know how you can try and do it. Specifically to Mangus, Aff win % in the 30s has to be attributed to a Resolutional issue (aff ground was limited on the topic without getting squirrely/critical). Although I was 2-1 on aff in prelims @ Harker, I hit theory every time, and in my one loss, got bogged down fighting a plethora of theory. However, if you do think this is NOT a resolutional issue, how do you propose we fix it (not being picky, I’m seriously wondering)?
3. Shea again (on importance of issues) I’d tend to agree, but for me at least, I really didn’t have anything to say right away but something like “yeah, that sucks”. It also got burried under the paradigm/judge hack because the latter is more personal. Almost everyone who’s posted is a judge, and with that, people calling them “hacks” is something that’ll catch their eye more. Also, it leads into the debate over paradigms/camp wars/theory, which will never end until debate as an activity dies, or until another argument is developed that makes theory seem moderate.
Sorry if this makes no sense, I’ve been writing it over the course of several hours.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 8th, 2008 12:42
re: babb
im pretty sure im way ahead on the “link” issue. so far youve failed to make an analytic distinction between the impacts of theory and substance and your counter-examples havent made any sense. unless youre asking me to prove a negative existential, youre gonna have to do a lot more work to explain why theory impacts require the judge to inject their opinion more than other impacts. war is only more concrete than fairness in the sense that we can see dead people; what about everyone who impacts to rights?
you suggest that dehumanization is probably fluffy – ok, that seems pretty ad-hoc and probably proves that your distinction is an artificial one since it can only account for your hand-picked utilitarian impacts. i still dont understand what prevents debaters from explaining their links to education/fairness just like they explain their links to dehumanization/rights/war/environmental destruction/etc. all of those things are of contestable importance, all of them have alternate causalities, all of them require us to take some leaps of faith and use ‘common sense.’ you sound like a bad debater going for “NO BRIGHT-LINE” in the NR – i sincerely hope that we as a community are past that evolutionary speed-bump.
more importantly, who cares if substantive impacts are more concrete? there has still been no reply to the ‘no impact’ claim i made above – excluding substantive impacts from the decision doesnt hurt either debater and that doesnt even matter because fairness is a prior question.
your arg has to be unique because otherwise it has no meaningful impact for a rational decision-maker. if something will inevitably happen no matter what choice you make, then it is incoherent to choose based on that inevitable thing. if ‘intervention’ is inevitable, there is no basis for drawing a distinction between theory and substance and therefore no reason for judges to impose artificial “do i think youre right that there was abuse?” thresholds on theory.
re: aff win %
aff winning percentage is not merely the result of the topic. admittedly this topic probably had some neg bias because it was a controversy past its prime. i dont think aff ground was particularly limited, but a lot of affs were very narrow minded. however, LD has had a neg bias for quite some time now. the bigger problems, i think, are structural and paradigmatic issues.
the aff rebuttals are really short and as LD has gotten faster thats become more and more salient. i believe that we could increase all the speech times (aff and neg) by 1 minute and actually increase aff win % simply because some strategies require more than 4/3 minutes to execute. in other words, the shorter the speech, the greater the incremental utility of adding time to the speech. the neg would probably see diminishing returns on the extra time. an extra minute to all the speeches would also make the ratios between speeches more favorable to the aff. this is just my gut feeling and obviously it would need some experimenting. i certainly think that the result would be no worse than the current format. it also takes into account that the 2AR is a very hard speech as well – i think as many rounds are lost in the 2AR as the 1AR.
the LD 1AR is actually one of the longest relative to the “negative block” – 4/7 is way better than 5/13 (NFL policy) or 6/15 (NDT/CEDA), so the time differential alone cannot explain the neg bias. the biggest issue is the way judges evaluate LD debates. to be honest, negs get away with absolute murder – CPs that dont compete or dont solve the aff, ridiculous T interps, counter-warrants galore, solvency “turns” as a reason to negate… seriously folks, affs need to learn to call some of these strategies out. tech out your permutations. weave solvency deficit args to the cp and point out that their solvency “off-case” (ew) is just a ton of generic defense. write real counter-interps on T and dont just appeal to the text of the res. hell, rock an intrinsicness argument or two. its not just debaters – judges have got to step up and stop voting on awful neg arguments.
and one more thing:
what the hell is up with speaker points? i know of someone who gave something like 6 30s and 2 29s at the TOC. stuff like that makes top speaker be decided by judge variance and screws people over in the bubble. ‘being nice’ is not an excuse to make the bracket arbitrary. it wont kill you to give a couple 27s.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 8th, 2008 12:45
ps: my call for judges to change their voting patterns is not supposed to imply that you just vote down the debater automatically, but that you re-evaluate your paradigm and start to give a little less weight to those args. in other words, i think bad neg args are over-valued now and ought to be reconsidered.
Posted from: 67.155.35.66
May 8th, 2008 13:20
+1 to Mangus. Negs seem to be getting lots of ballots on defense and garbage. At least, I can sleep well at night knowing that I’m doing my part :)
Posted from: 76.17.212.97
May 8th, 2008 13:59
Phalen, when you take statistics, you’ll learn that 11% means pretty much nothing.
Posted from: 24.175.192.109
May 8th, 2008 14:14
Random proposal: From my experience, one of the best ways of learning about theory (structure and content) was from reading other people’s shells. Perhaps a policy of open proliferation for theory would help students learn how to run “good theory” as opposed to blippy T shells and answers to the voter. Also, if this proliferation is particularly well-managed, it could effectively deter some of the abusive tactics. If I could go back in time and give myself my current “multiple a prioris bad” shell (woah trippy thought experiment), I would have picked up some key rounds and simultaneously deterred future abuse. I know that “prescriptive interps good” has grown pretty popular this year: not only has it given me a couple ballots, but it’s also encouraged me to operate within the better interpretation.
One potential problem would be that kids who are fans of multiple a prioris, for instance, would just prep out of the shells. Sure, the easy answer is that their responses would suck, but that doesn’t matter in a world where prep-outs can triple your chances of winning, given the crippled 1AR’s ability to beat back all the blips. At TOC, I whipped out a new case almost every round, and I didn’t like that feeling. I felt like I was sacrificing a good argument to run a new, untested one, and I was sacrificing the depth of the better position. I don’t think that prep-outs are inherently damning; in fact, I think most prep-outs are horrible, but it really sucks to give a 1AR against 40 shitty blips when the judge is just sitting there waiting for you to drop one and make their decision easy as pie. This brings me to an issue that I think is even more important than theory… aff win % and time constraints.
Let’s face it: there’s a problem. Rounds should NOT be decided by pairings and coin flips, especially round seven of the TOC. Michael Mangus has proposed a potential solution (increase the speech times by one minute and de-value bad neg arguments). I think that could probably work, but we should stress the need for a public consensus on the issue. Who’s going to implement these changes? Let’s not leave this hanging until next year, when the next batch of seniors sees AFF on the round seven pairings and they know the odds are stacked against them.
As for TOC cases, Rebar, I like your attitude, and my email is attached to the top of my post, but I think an equal access policy would be better, which is why I’ll post the full text of my cases on Michael’s website (debate.michael-mangus.com/wiki) pretty soon.
Posted from: 128.54.165.135
May 8th, 2008 14:27
i really agree with michael on this one. but i just wanted to add that policy 1ARs aren’t nearly as hard as LD 1ARs because they have all the 2AC blocks to go off of. its not just 5 min to answer 13 min, you have all your partner’s args from the 2AR to access. adding a min to speech time doesn’t really solve for that problem because you still don’t have the answers to the NC to use (granted, you only have 1 speech to respond to, but you don’t get a constructive to make args against that position).
also, if you do add a minute to each speech, will the 1AC stay at 6 min bc the aff has an extra speech?
one last thing though… I think affs can win an even amount of the time, it just requires more skill. but for two equally matched debaters, I don’t think that the side makes all that much of a difference. A good 2AR can off-set all the strategic disadvantages of the 1AR. It can be used to really outweigh and focus the debate, collapse issues. If someone tries to incorporate the big picture (i.e. reference neg args and explain why your args outweigh on the strength of the warrant). there are ways to weigh standard args against a priori args, its just that nobody does this.
I do think that this has to do, in part, with the paradigmatic views ppl take of the activity. Like, a view of debate where we actually compare impacts (not necessarily the view that Michael or EPalm or Adam or whoever have, but just a general sense of evaluating the resolution based on impacting back to the value) would probably solve some of these problems. but thats just putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. there are real problems with the way kids actually debate and strategically evaluate debate that cause negs to win more often. Will changing the system account for some of this, yes. but affs are only gonna start winning rounds by realizing that the 2AR can do more than any other speech, even with only 3 min.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 8th, 2008 14:35
+1 to Rebar and Jake. My email = kenhershey@gmail.com
2 things:
1)
I dislike the idea of a universal theory file or a lot of public shells b/c an even more important part of becoming good at theory is actually writing it, rather than just reading it. Maybe someone should post like one really good shell online, but I think in general you want people to write their own shit.
2)
I think that most judges have much higher thresholds for the negs than they do for the affs. For instance, in a typical round, a conceded turn on the AC (or even defensive arg) is usually a game-over issue, but a conceded turn on the NC is not.
Another problem is the use of evidence. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think that evidence has a huge place in LD, but I do think that the increasingly popular “card-spread” also disadvantages affs. Not only b/c it’s hard to answer-back a bunch of cards against the AC, but also b/c judges seem to have gotten to the point where they prefer warrants coming from cards SO MUCH over logical analytical warrants that they are almost always more willing to pull the trigger on carded-turns rather than analytical ones, even if the analytical warrants are better than the ones in the card. As such, the aff has a huge disadvantage b/c he OR SHE doesn’t really have the time to read a bunch of cards in the 1AR.
I know at least twice this year I’ve lost b/c a carded turn on the AC was weighed against analytical turns on the NC and judges gave preference to the card, even though I personally thought my analytics were better.
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 8th, 2008 15:19
the theory discussion between babb and mangus and peeps got really surreal. i like babb, i just disagree. i love everything michelin massey had to say. he’s a badass.
Mad props to jake and ken for continuing the movement towards disclosure. I would love to be able to freesource my cases and prep on mangus’ wiki, but i worry it would be a ton of work considering how many positions and whatnot we had, but i’ll post our main positions on it.
i remember at camp nick bratton and myself toyed with alternate speech times, including one that i thought would be excellent, which was
6-3-7-3-5-6-4-6-4
the one problem i forsee would be the intense difficultly of setting up a successful 2NR. remember last year at the blake rr, they did the modified times? how did that go? i seem to remember no one talking about it.
Posted from: 24.175.192.109
May 8th, 2008 15:35
Ken:
Your number 1 is true. Never mind what I said earlier about open theory proliferation; I like the one-shell idea. Someone should nominate a really good theory shell they’ve seen or written and post it on Michael’s wiki.
Now on to your second argument:
The aff/neg turn threshold is true, and I think that should change with the equalizing reforms that Mangus suggested earlier and I just reiterated. But I dunno about the evidence/analytic imbalance:
If the AC is based on heavy empirical claims, they should be ready to defend their arguments with good evidence. If the NC goes for a card-spread, then they should be rewarded for doing thorough research and having applicable evidence. If the cards aren’t applicable, a good 1AR can leverage the time tradeoff against the neg by pointing out how the cards are non-responsive. When I run critical affs and the neg responds by reading cards against popular K authors (rather than arguments), I can make my 1AR easier by de-linking the card in CX and following up in 5 seconds of the 1AR.
Also, carded spreads increase quality at the expense of quantity. If you read 10 cards against the AC, you’ll probably run out of time, but your arguments will be way better. That’s a good thing, because if quality wins the game, then a poorly-warranted blip spread will die out, and that’s one of the biggest problems in the aff/neg skew.
You say:
“judges seem to have gotten to the point where they prefer warrants coming from cards SO MUCH over logical analytical warrants that they are almost always more willing to pull the trigger on carded-turns rather than analytical ones, even if the analytical warrants are better than the ones in the card.”
I mean, if we’re talking about whether hard power decreases proliferation, that’s probably a good predisposition for judges to have. If I have evidence to support my empirical claim, and you don’t, then my argument should outweigh yours. The situation you describe is only bad “if the analytical warrants are better than the ones in the card.” If that actually occurs, then you can do a couple things:
1. Tell the judge that. If you weigh the warrants for them, then they won’t need to judge analytics that only exist in your head versus evidence on paper.
2. Make analytic responses to the card, not just competing analytics. If you think your argument is more thoughtful than that of an expert in that field, then your analytics should be responsive and take out the expert’s rationale. If they both compete with each other and neither debater answers the other, the evidence should win.
Of course, the importance of evidence should depend on the nature of the claim. If it’s less empirical, then the evidence should play less into consideration. If it’s more philosophical, a debater’s insight is crucial, not only for clarity, but also because these arguments must be applied to the resolution via analytics.
Also, Deepa’s cases are on the wiki already, so noice job Harker. Vineet’s aff is also up there; sweet. Looks like this is working out.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 8th, 2008 15:47
my initial comment may have come off to critically of how judges evaluate evidence. I should publicly declare that I think that the carded-spread is better than the blippy analytical spread, but if you read my post carefully, Jake, I was talking specifically about “analytical” arguments, not empirical ones. I agree that cards always get preference when comparing empirical claims, and they definitely also deserve preference when comparing analytical claims, but just not AS MUCH preference as they get now.
I also think some topics lend themselves to evidence more than others. This last topic was about IR and nuclear proliferation, both of which require a degree of expertise to discuss intelligently. The plea bargaining and death penalty topic (which often had more deontological debates) didn’t require as much expertise, so the use of cards was less necessary.
about the wiki:
can someone just point out to me explicitly where/how you can post cases?
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 8th, 2008 15:50
I personally wouldn’t mind losing 1 minute of the AC to the 1AR. I think that this would also encourage debaters to stop putting 1,000 blippy spikes in the framework of their AC’s to extend so they don’t actually have to debate anything.
Posted from: 68.173.139.74
May 8th, 2008 16:04
http://debate.michael-mangus.com/wiki/
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
May 8th, 2008 16:10
ken or anyone else-
youre gonna wanna go here
http://debate.michael-mangus.com/wiki/index.php?title=Disclosed_Affs_-_J/F_08
or here
http://debate.michael-mangus.com/wiki/index.php?title=Disclosed_Negs_-_J/F_08
and then click on the edit tab at the top. give your case a title (i think the best format is Your Name | A 5-Word Case Name | Tournament/Division it was broken at/in). enclose that title between == and == (since some cases are already up, you can see a few examples already there). then you include whatever you want from the case – full text, summary+cites, whatever.
i suggested the wiki because there are already some cases there. if youre more interested in a message board atmoshpere, you can also use the “topic-specific” arguments forum at http://debate.michael-mangus.com/forum/
those forums will never publicly display your IP and generally offers much better privacy than the existing VBD forums.
Posted from: 76.186.218.222
May 8th, 2008 17:33
I feel as though the issue of proliferating theory is, as jake eruditely pointed out, one that should be adressed post determination or at least post discussion of a reformative take on round timing. That being said, I will deal with the second issue later (or perhaps not at all, depending on how lazy I am later) and first adress the issue of open theory resources.
While I did not attend session one of VBI this year and as such can not adress the quality of their theory files, I think that the complaint raised against group theory is a legitemate one. With the increase in the number of theory shells and responses that would be posted in a group depository, there would be an inevitable increase in the number of blip spread theory responses and shells. That being said, I think the idea of posting the best theory could be very beneficial in allowing students with little knowledge of theory to formulate a general conception.
However, it is my stance that theory itself has become abused to the point of frivolity. As several debators and coaches including Andrew Cockroft, Kris wright, and myself believe, there is a logical way to adress any form of argumentation without resulting to standards of fairness and such subjective things. Thus I enocurage a transition ot a more logic based approach to the attacking of positions, potentially with just as much structure in terms of violations and standards for logical coherency. This is a brain child that I have been nurturing for a time and will be attempting to develop next year, and i think it has the potential to check some of the abuse and digression in engaging argumentation that has been spawned by theory.
If anyone wishes to discuss the concept further, my email is chaosneutral611@gmail.com
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
May 8th, 2008 17:49
I don’t have time to write as long of a post as I’d like, so I’ll make it quick:
Fresca, please think 11% through in terms of debate. That’s either another loss, or an awful win (~27 speaks or less). In most tournaments without partials, that’s the difference between breaking and going home after prelims.
Kamil, thanks for correcting me on the difficulty of the !ARs by the different rules. Knowing you’ve done both LD and College Policy, I’ll take your word for it.
Rebar/mangus/whoever else is proposing adding time to all speeches – I actually like it. A longer 1AC/1AR allows for a more in depth case that has preempts that matter, as well as good offense and defense. 1 minute is huge, especially across the board.
Aff wins/Mangus – It was a neg slanted topic because people (myself included), didn’t do enough research into the deep heg debates. People got tunnel vision, and went into the world of Plan-ACs instead of deeper/more nuanced cases (not across the board, just in general). LD is neg biased, but I think this topic is moreso neg biased than others because it’s a tricky one to research at this point in time for the Aff.
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 8th, 2008 18:04
Pwneill/Fresca matter- I am going to have to agree with Pwneill on this, 11% is a big deal and changes alot. However, I disagree with the data that the 11% came from as for a) bad sampling size (i.e- could do a review of a few bid tournaments and TOC or something) and b) is still an arbitrary factor in that it can’t explicitly exemplify the bias as a number.
Adding 1 minute (from 1AC) to the 1AR- I like this idea, but then again it does make it easier for the NC to completely rip apart the AC and then we are stuck in this position again where the 1AR has to cover a lot of defense and offense the NC puts on the AC. I do the disadvantage to the affirmative is a matter that needs to be addressed, but not in this way. Changing the format of the debate I do not think will do any positive, if not more harm (and I say this with no intentional disrespect to you guys or your ideas). As well, I don’t think this is going to scare debaters away from spiking the AC, I just think they will be forced to make shorter ACs. Rather than change speech times, I think the resolution writers should be more wary of providing a more balanced and competitive resolution.
Posted from: 65.9.101.8
May 8th, 2008 18:09
idea for speech times:
8-3-8-3-8-3-8-3-5-5-5-5
might as well, the way things are going
Posted from: 68.117.69.103
May 8th, 2008 18:19
I have posted 3 of my AC’s to Michaels site and I am about to add my NC’s. The rest of my cases were all modular, so it would be hard to post them in a way that makes sense. I was running the modular cases in out rounds, so if anyone wants to see them, whether it is a specific version they saw or whatever just email me.
ctheis09@gmail.com
Oh and on the speech times thing, if my memory is correct at the Blake RR last year made the AC min and the AR 5 min. I think he kept track of the results so that could be helpful in seeing whether that is a good idea.
Posted from: 216.80.145.126
May 8th, 2008 18:22
7 in 1ac, 7 min nc, 5 min 1ar, 7 min 2nr, 3 min 1ar, 5 min prep would be great
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 8th, 2008 18:46
the debate would be so incredibly long
Posted from: 71.198.1.9
May 8th, 2008 18:50
I just posted 2 of the critical affs and the stock AC that Monta Vista prepared for the ToC.
Posted from: 216.80.145.126
May 8th, 2008 18:51
where is the caselist? link?
Posted from: 71.198.1.9
May 8th, 2008 19:00
Also, if any structural changes are made in LD (ie speech times) I think the most beneficial one would be to add 2 more 3 minute speeches at the end of the round.
One of the major problems with the activity is the lack of argument development due to lack of speeches. I think plenty of judges have seen 15 seconds of 1AR theory become 3 minutes in the 2Ar. The neg only has 1 chance to respond to new 1ar args. This might be a good thing, after all evidence indicates a large skew in which side wins. However, infinite clarification is currently insufficient to alter the skew.
This is mainly a theory – but I think giving a lower argumentative burden to the 2AR (ie making it a tech heavy speech) would allow the affirmatives to set up much more strategic 3ARs . Even if this does not change the side-skew, it would still be a beneficial alteration because it would create much more comparative and responsive debate.
I could be overlooking something, but I really do think it would help the event.
Posted from: 24.186.38.46
May 8th, 2008 19:01
i’d love to see any cases from people willing to share via email.
cactuspun@yahoo.com
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 8th, 2008 19:18
Navot- one thing I fear that is happening to LD is that it is evolving into policy rapidly. Maybe it was just the last topic, but the point (as least from my knowledge) of LD was to have more concise debates without AC severances, advocacy shifts, etc., but with more philosophical stances that are presented in both constructives then just weighed out through the rest. I think adding more time wouldn’t really help either side because they can’t really make new things up and it would probably just get repetitive (and debates would be really long). I don’t think its a problem that the Neg has 1 chance to respond to the 1AR, because that is a big chance.
Posted from: 75.72.40.111
May 8th, 2008 19:43
Pwneil
Please listen to what what most are saying. It is not that 11% is necessarily irrelevant (although I would have to lean towards this side) but that the base from which the stat “11%” was obtained wasn’t large enough to make it substantial. This example was given before but I’ll restate it; if 3 debaters run theory all the time and 1 avoids it like the plague, it does not make since to say that 75% of debaters love theory and run it all the time.
Posted from: 98.197.201.79
May 8th, 2008 20:11
I want to thank all the debaters who are posting their cases.
Posted from: 72.67.237.203
May 8th, 2008 21:20
I second that
–thank you!
Posted from: 74.67.55.150
May 8th, 2008 21:31
To me, the best solution seems to be the 5ac 51ar option. There is a LOT of useless fluff in most ACs anyway. It would be nice to listen to an AC that doesn’t have 15 absolutely useless spikes in it for once.
More to the point, I think that the extra minute in the 1ar would actually let the Aff debater substantively answer the negative. I think the amount of aff case position you lose from the AC is a lot less than the amount of benefit you get from adding the extra minute.
In addition, it is much easier to learn how to “go faster” in a constructive speech than it is to “go faster” during a rebuttal. Reading off a piece of paper that you’ve practiced reading from hundreds of times is just easier than thinking faster on the fly (though generally debaters should do both.)
Whoever was at the blake RR care to chime in on how it worked out?
@ Navot: I think I have the same problems with your plan that have already been articulated; too long. I think that stretching out the speech times like that might seem like a good thing in theory, but in practice it wouldn’t serve a huge purpose for the time that it would extend rounds. Obviously, fixing the neg skew is of more importance than this, so if thats the only solution, then so be it, but I hope it isn’t.
Posted from: 74.67.55.150
May 8th, 2008 21:32
P.S.
Anyone know how this could actually happen?
Posted from: 71.198.1.9
May 8th, 2008 21:45
Re: turning LD into policy
I agree – it would make LD more like policy insofar as the later speeches would focus heavily on argument comparison and issue selection. There would most likely be other shifts in strategies, but I am of the opinion that these would be positive.
These changes do not mandate any substantive alteration to LD rounds. You can still talk about the value if you like. You just have to talk about it in 1 more speech.
Re: 5min AR
If I remember the results of the Blake RR when they allowed for speech time changes, it created a massive aff round skew.
I think that adding 2 speeches would increase substantive engagement for both debaters. By the end of the round, things would reduce down to 2-3 issues, where the arguments on those issues would be heavily compared. That sounds real awesome.
For those who do not see a problem with the 2AR’s infinite ability to clarify + only 1 chance to answer for the Neg are either very silly or have not seen very many rounds. From experience, these situations are never fun to judge. At all. There is no other way that I can think of that would make this issue go away.
Re: making rounds too long
6 minutes, oh noes! I reaallly dont think would be a big issue. Personally, I would be willing to endure 12 more minutes (2 flights) of bad debate for the opportunity to have debates between two good debaters be MUCH more substantive.
I think that this addition would serve a huge purpose: the 2AR would become another straight tech fest. Re-answer everything.
The 2NR would be forced into issue selection. I guarantee that going for everything for 3 minutes would be annihilated by the new 3AR. The 3AR would then focus on issue comparison on the major issues left. Maybe I’m silly, but this seems real good.
As for fixing the neg skew, I think it would probably accomplish this in the long term. Right now 2ARs are doing relatively well having to cover everything, win offense, and crystallize. Take out the need for crystallization and the 2AR becomes very doable. Crystallization would become the primary role of the 3AR – more equally distributing the speech requirements.
Obviously, all of these discussions are meaningless speculation. It would be interesting if a major RR (perhaps Blake, given its historical attempts at innovating debate structures) would adopt this setup. This would be the only real way to see if this model holds up in practice. My intuition says that it would.
Even if it does not significantly alter the time skew, it would still improve the quality of rounds in a massive manner. Debates would have so much more depth. Given this almost certain guarantee of better rounds, and a fairly good chance of fixing the side-skew, I think this approach merits experimentation.
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 8th, 2008 22:34
Navot- I don’t say this in a mean way, but it seems like all these things are just trying to help debaters that can’t handle how things are right now. I don’t mean to insult you or anyone else, but this seems like a way to help people that aren’t good enough to fit in good debate/crystallization, etc. into the alloted time. But hey, that’s just me.
Posted from: 75.25.130.115
May 8th, 2008 23:00
It would be interesting to have a round where speech time is treated like prep time, e.g. a debater has 13 minutes and can chose how to split it up between his 3 aff / 2 neg speeches. I don’t know if these should be the rules, but observing a couple “test” round with these rules and seeing how good debaters decide to split up their time when they have a choice might point to the most “natural” speech times.
Posted from: 146.115.112.73
May 8th, 2008 23:08
A lot of the proposed alterations to speech times seem to inch us closer to policy in one way or another (more speeches/longer speech times). While there’s obviously nothing inherently good/bad about this direction, it does give us a convenient basis for looking at where that direction might lead.
Changes to strats/arguments/tech aspects of the debate aside, does the experience policy has had suggest that these changes would at least help solve the side skew problems (in terms of observed win percentages)?
Posted from: 128.36.157.71
May 9th, 2008 01:31
Arguing on the Internet is like running in the special Olympics….
….even if you win, you’re still retarded!
Congratulations to Chris and Apple Valley! Congratulations as well to all the other competitors who did well, especially seniors who are graduating!
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 9th, 2008 04:11
yeah, policy actually has way less neg bias.
Posted from: 69.148.66.241
May 9th, 2008 05:00
Re: 662 by VACUOUS
As someone who spends much of their time volunteering for the Special Olympics, and as someone who has both family and friends that have limited mental faculties, know that your statement about arguing on the internet is extremely offensive.
If you want to talk more about why I find this extremely offensive, feel free to contact me. My email is paul.gravley@gmail.com.
Grace and Peace,
Paul G.
Posted from: 65.101.210.74
May 9th, 2008 05:04
I posted a K of theory back from the Highland Park dayz that gives some substance to the hypothetical fairness gradient argument Babb brings up.
http://clients.miaskiewicz.com/KofTheory/KofTheory.htm
The obvious problem with this way of responding to theory: it is regressive and ultimately debunks any empirical claims whatsoever. This isn’t really an in-round problem since no debaters ever pointed this out.
Posted from: 65.101.210.74
May 9th, 2008 05:10
BTW, Navot, how’s re-selling cards I cut 3-4 years ago working out as a career plan? If you’re gonna re-tag them, the least you could do is avoid mis-tagging them. MKAY THX BYE
Posted from: 207.47.45.86
May 9th, 2008 07:42
I’m not convinced LD’s side bias is a result of speech times. My sense is that the underlying problem are the issues with the dominant evaluative paradigm that have already been discussed at length. For what little such anecdotal evidence is worth, I know I basically affirm as often as I negate, even at TOC. Thus, it seems to me that changing speech times in order to remedy side bias would, at best, be a band-aid. It would leave the underlying cause unaddressed.
Of course, there could be other reasons for changing speech times, such as the benefits of increased issue selection, comparison, and substantive engagement that Navot describes. I just don’t think remedying side bias should be part of the equation.
Posted from: 207.47.45.86
May 9th, 2008 07:49
*problems, not problem
silly grammar…
Posted from: 71.198.1.9
May 9th, 2008 09:26
Its working real nice Greg. Thanks for asking.
Posted from: 162.89.0.45
May 9th, 2008 12:04
who wants to see the cockroft v. theis quarters round? i do!
Posted from: 72.179.143.223
May 9th, 2008 12:56
i do too.
Posted from: 128.54.52.228
May 9th, 2008 13:44
Greg is the anti-christ (you purposely double-posted though…). anyway, you can’t just throw around terms and analysis that uses formal logic without explaining the rules to other people. honestly, how many kids in HS know anything about demorgans or MT or MP… other than that, the fact that the round is an empirical event is problematic for the K of theory.
on Blake RR: I really hated the change in speech times, but maybe that was because i was having weird trouble spreading my case to make it fit in 5 min… I mean, the 1AC has functions that a 2AC would normally have. The AC has to have spikes to combat all the possible negative strategies. There’s far more of a loss from that 1 min of AC time than is gained by the extra min in the 1AR. The 1AR needs those extensions to really use the time efficiently.
Posted from: 24.175.192.109
May 9th, 2008 13:48
Kamil: “The AC has to have spikes to combat all the possible negative strategies.”
You lose, sir. You lose.
Posted from: 128.54.52.228
May 9th, 2008 13:52
ah, didn’t read footnote in that… i mean, an explanation for why/how the rules work would be useful, but probably not that critical if you already show how it works.
what i don’t understand with the arg is why theory is biconditional with hypotheses and also why it isn’t logical fallacy of denied antecedent? maybe i’m really wrong here, but i didn’t exactly enjoy taking logic…
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
May 9th, 2008 14:32
THIS THREAD ROX SO HARD. I LUV IT.
i wanna see that round too. bietz said it would be up soon.
Posted from: 65.7.170.129
May 9th, 2008 15:10
man up and grab some tubs
I don’t defend my gendered language
Posted from: 71.198.1.9
May 9th, 2008 17:45
A2: It’ll help bad debaters
I don’t know why this is in any way true. My argument is that it will help debate because right now arguments in LD are left completely undeveloped – especially 1ar theory. Adding 2 speeches will not aggravate the side skew – it might help it. Minimally it will lead to better debate.
A2: more like policy
I’ve already answered this: “I agree – it would make LD more like policy insofar as the later speeches would focus heavily on argument comparison and issue selection. There would most likely be other shifts in strategies, but I am of the opinion that these would be positive. These changes do not mandate any substantive alteration to LD rounds. You can still talk about the value if you like. You just have to talk about it in 1 more speech. “
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
May 9th, 2008 18:29
Here’s a question:
Why is more in depth rebuttals, carded extensions, more attention to detail, not having to mess up dumb neg args, ability to run deeper ACs because you can explain them easier in a 5 min 1AR/another constructive so “policy” that we shouldn’t do it? It just bewilders me to think people object to allowing for deeper, more educational, more substinative debate in the rebuttals because it makes LD too “policy”. I am more and willing to listen to people with substinative criticisms about adding speech time/creating a new rebuttal, but “it makes LD too policy” is not one of them.
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 9th, 2008 18:44
Extra Speech times– Navot, I think your missing the point of what I was trying to get at. What I was saying is that being able to articulate a full argument in the alloted times (of the current speech times) with precision takes skill. It is far from impossible to do this, it just takes a lot of work. Trying to add more speech times would probably make it easier to fully explain an argument, yet again I think it opens more ground for a litany of problems. One problem is that the debaters now have en easier ability to shift advocacies. If not, what you will hear in the 3ar and other speeches is just repetitive cards and repetitive analysis. Plus, it makes the debate so unbalanced because if you leave something out in an earlier speech or drop something your just screwed in the later speeches and it is just a longer debate of one person going one way and one person going the other.
Policy-esqueness– Sorry I got a bit tangential on my policy point, it wasn’t directly related to the time speeches I was just ruminating in general. Even though its totally unrelated to the policy thing I was saying, the speech times will make debates too long and less concise and to the point. One thing I like about the current speech times is that you have a certain amount of rapid time to fully develop a strong cogent argument. If you fail to do so or present too many arguments all of the place, then it is your fault for not adapting to the basic debate speech style.
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 9th, 2008 18:46
And also I agree with Adam Nelson in post 667.
Posted from: 98.197.234.195
May 9th, 2008 22:14
I second mjocon and ajay and the posting of cockroft v. theis…need to aggrandize my perception as of what ive been told…
Posted from: 128.54.165.135
May 9th, 2008 22:16
um, i think Navot doesn’t really develop making more speeches very well… Like, a 3AR wouldn’t make any sense. On the other hand, adding a 2AC and 2NC (instead of extra rebuttals) would make a lot of difference in creating arguments that can answer the negative position instead of having to make new args in rebuttals to answer a case. This would also give the affirmative a chance to develop a theory position that the negative will have more than one speech to answer; and, it allows the neg to actually develop a strategic position that has to really make the 2AR make strategic decisions instead of just going for drops.
yes, this will make it easier to shift advocacies, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. like, if it is abusive then ppl can just run theory against it to answer it and if its not abusive then it can be a very smart move. you can actually better develop a position with another speech, so i think this would be more of an aid.
also, having access to another speech would stop the absolutely atrocious level of “you dropped this arg so i win!” so yes, it does allow for some advocacy shift, but that is far less bad than having the NR be “you dropped this shitty a priori” or the 2AR going “you dropped a shitty spike (i mean, there are really well done spikes that are warranted, but not many ppl run those).” i mean, that will still happen, but ppl will have more time to make arguments about why those drops don’t matter and make other args that outweigh drops. so overall, this will lead to better args that are more developed.
Posted from: 71.198.1.9
May 9th, 2008 22:58
Alter my position to Kamil’s. Cross-apply all the warrants.
Posted from: 128.54.165.135
May 9th, 2008 23:33
to add to that… navot and i were talking it over, and i think that speech times of 6 min 1ac, 7 min 1NC, 5 min 2AC, 6 min 2NC 4 min 1AR, 5 min NR and 3 min 2AR.
that way each debater has 18 min of speech time. that doesn’t make the debate too long and solves some of the time skew problems. sure, the neg gets 2 more min of constructive time, but the aff gets 2 more min of rebuttal time that is actually valuable now that there is another constructive to feed off of. and it makes the time trade-off less severe after neg speeches.
i think a problem of adding speeches is that rounds will be too long and debaters will have to speak a lot more, so tournaments get harder (CX debaters still only speak for 13 min and 15 min for college). But with 18 min its pretty reasonable.
anyway, i guess this is co-opting Michael’s idea, but this is how i thought it could be best formulated. im not sure how this would work out exactly, but i like it a lot more than having a 5 min AC and 1AR.
Posted from: 24.5.141.1
May 10th, 2008 01:07
What is everyone talking about in this quarters round? I have no knowledge whatsoever and I am just wondering.
Posted from: 76.187.221.251
May 10th, 2008 03:58
I know the discussion has moved to time skew, but I think there’s something to add to the discussion of thresholds and theory offense. I’m going to consider T a theory argument for our purposes.
The question arose, “Why should there be thresholds on theory?” To me, the reason for a threshold on theory and T is closely related to the issue of turning theory.
I assume that a “no threshold” way of evaluating the argument would look quite a bit like the way we evaluate disads or whatever the LD equivalent of a disad is this week.
[if you know how a disad works, skip this section: Neg claims Aff incurs a risk of X, which is bad (e.g. aff causes global warming causing extinction). Aff can generate offense off this disad by claiming that X is actually good (an impact turn - global warming good) or that Neg incurs a higher risk of X than Aff (a link turn - global warming happening now and Aff reduces it).]
With disads, however, the AFF has multiple ways to cause the judge to vote for them off the disad independent of winning any other argument. The NEG incurs a RISK of getting turned when they run these arguments.
I think this is a good thing for a couple of reasons. First, it encourages debaters not to run arguments that don’t link, meaning we talk about the AFF advocacy more. Additionally, because of the risk, you don’t run positions unless you have good extensions. That encourages debaters to write better arguments.
Imagine a world, however, where the NEG could never lose on a disad. If the AFF link turned them they could just drop it out of the round and the well-developed argument the AFF made just became irrelevant. Ditto for impact turns. I imagine that the practice of running crappy high-impact disads, either for an actual chance of winning or as a time suck, would skyrocket. There would be, in effect, no such thing as offense. The best offense would only get you a “zero” rather than a positive advantage. This encourages AFF debaters to do the bare minimum on a position and move on to something where they can win. It encourages NEG debaters not to run positions the AFF can win on (e.g. a kritik assuming these were evaluated the way they are now).
Theory without thresholds or RVIs is like a disad that can’t be turned. It’s the highest possible impact argument, so it can’t be outweighed except by more theory – maybe. The team running it is encouraged to run it where it does not apply. Since defense is (almost?) never perfect, the team answering it on has to put offense on the flow, but they get nothing from that offense. In other words, theory without RVIs or thresholds uniquely creates a class of arguments where there is no possible disadvantage to running it except the opportunity cost, which is likely to be low given that anything else you run incurs a risk of a disadvantage other than the opportunity cost.
SO the problem with theory without threshold or RVI is that the team running it has the following competitive advantage: they and only they can win the argument with any amount of offense on the flow. Judges, assuming some minimal desire to have competitive equity, now have a couple of options.
1. We can impose a threshold on theory. This, in effect, gives the team running the position the same possibility of gaining nothing despite having offense that the team they run it on has. Thus, both sides risk “winning” the argument on the flow and gaining nothing. I don’t really like this. It tends to be arbitrary and I personally find it difficult to work this into my paradigm.
2. We can assume theory is an RVI. This gives the team running theory the same chance of losing the round on this issue that (a) their opponent has and (b) they would have if they ran any other argument. I prefer this because it is (a) less arbitrary and (b) works into my paradigm very well. I am hesitant to make this assumption, however, because the community standard (and thus what debaters tend to expect from judges) is opposed to the RVI.
This puts a conscientious judge who wants to make fair decisions based on the flow in a bad position. A high threshold imposes fairness in a way that is more commonly accepted by tradition within the community. It is, however, a pretty questionable judging practice for the most experienced judges and an open invitation to disaster when employed by younger judges lacking the maturity and experience to apply a threshold reasonably. Assuming an RVI against a long tradition opposed to it, however, radically skews the optimal strategy in front of the judge with this assumption, and I would not be real thrilled to debate in front of someone who dispensed with our community norms so easily. While this creates an issue for all of us, I think it is particularly problematic for younger judges.
Now, the objection to RVI has been voiced that this is like assuming the resolution is true/advantageous to accept just because the affirmative advocacy is topical or theoretically viable. I think this is incorrect. The judge is not saying the resolution is true, but that the AFF wins. Those are two different things – just like nobody voting against the AFF for theoretical reasons is saying the AFF did not prove the resolution true. I suppose we could adopt Paul Dorasil’s paradigm and argue that all arguments extrinsic to the truth or falsity of the resolution are irrelevant, but I don’t think many of us take that position. If fairness is a voter and it’s most fair that we adopt the RVI, whether an issue of topicality or other theory, then it seems that the voter contains the seeds for its use as an RVI. Similarly, if an accusation of cheating arises in the round this is something that is usually settled by most judges as an up or down issue, and often resolved independent of input by the debaters.
As far as my judging, I sometimes feel I’ve embraced the worst of both worlds. I can’t impose a high threshold for theory because it’s inconsistent with my paradigm and I can’t just assume RVI because I justify most of the things I assume (e.g. the order of evaluating arguments) by prevalent standards in either the LD or college policy debate community. Nevertheless, I’m very sympathetic to RVIs and find that I end up looking for excuses to accept the argument and stick the person running theory with a risk of a loss, which is simultaneously somewhat dishonest and the best I know to do in this situation. I would honestly like some help resolving this problem another way, and will take suggestions by e-mail: L D G e n i u s at y a h o o dot c o m.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 10th, 2008 06:46
Chad, you make a good point. A few issues though:
1) When people like Michael, Smitty, etc. say that they don’t have a high threshold for theory, they don’t mean that they have NO threshold. All they mean is that they don’t hold theory to a higher standard than they do other arguments. To me, this makes sense. I don’t know why one type of argument needs to be extremely well warranted to be a round-winner but others do not.
2) In terms of no-risk, there are a few things.
First of all, if your arguments/case actually IS fair, it’s much easier to make a “no link” answer to a theory argument than it is to make a “no link” answer to a DA, esp. because DA’s can be generic and theory really can’t. (i.e. you can have a DA like “intervention bad” which links into every AC, but it’s not like you can run “condo” every neg ground. This means that even if theory is a no-risk issue, it’s not really a big deal b/c if you’re not being unfair, you can still link out.
Second, most judges (I think) don’t actually think theory is a no-risk issue, they just think that the WAY people are running RVI’s now is bad. As I said in an earlier post, some people run RVI’s saying, “NEG RAN T THIS IS AN ABUSIVE TIME SUCK SO ACTUALLY THEY LOSE.” That clearly makes no sense, b/c then the neg can never run T, even against an extremely untopical aff. They sometimes run an RVI saying, “Theory has to be a two way street not to be unfair blah blah blah so if I meet the interp I win.” This is also nonsensical – the fact that the AC is topical doesn’t mean the resolution is true or desirable.
So, these are the bad ways in which people are running RVI’s now. However, what people don’t do against theory (which they should) is run a counter-interpretation. I’ll give you an example.
One of my ACs was a plan which attempted to link out of “coercion bad” or like “hege bad” DA’s by defining military force as “any action meant to address an imminent military threat.” We were expecting, of course, that people would run T saying that military force had to be violent. We were ready to explain, however, why the AC interp was key to aff ground and even neg ground, and we were prepared to explicitly compare the standards of our counter-interp with the standards of the violation.
If you take the time to explicitly compare a counter-interp to a violation, you can win on theory, no matter who is the judge.
Posted from: 67.159.44.138
May 10th, 2008 11:34
I’m just wondering about the RFD of the Theis-Cockroft round in quarters. Probably one of the more interesting rounds I’ve seen.
Posted from: 70.158.103.10
May 10th, 2008 12:54
(im writing this on a plane so forgive me if i missed an important reply)
chad
debaters dont run arguments with no links because its a waste of time, not because theres a risk of turns. even if youre just rolling w/ an arg to keep the 1AR busy, it makes sense to make an arg which could potentially be a winner in the NR if its mishandled. args w/o links are extremely easy to dismiss and thus the worst kind of time-suck.
also, link turns on disads count not because of any fairness considerations but because they give the judge a reason to believe the aff advocacy is more desirable than the negs. link turns still just get you access to some particular impact which has its own implications for the round. not all link turns are created equal. the impact on theory is a negative test, not a positive duty – you should punish unfair practices but you dont have to reward people simply for being fair/educational (thats what they should be doing). theory sets a limit you cant go beneath, not a goal – whoever is more fair/educational does not automatically win since fairness/education are voting issues *only insofar as they are necessary to facilitate substantive debate.*
the idea that its unfair to have to beat back theory because its no risk doesnt make a lot of sense. i can imagine a world where i’d be persuaded by an RVI – if, for example, there were 5 T arguments with no violation – but when a debater has chosen to employ a particular strategy they should be ready to defend it (note that this is distinct from being forced to defend the resolution against skeptical attack). the kind of “RVI” i’m comfortable with is not actually a link or an impact turn to the other side’s theory position but rather an aff theory “add-on” – it has the same terminal impact as the neg, but a totally different link story. the only other way i can imagine theory being a voter for the ‘accused’ team is if there’s a K, but most Ks of theory operate in the same way – they are impact turns in a sense, but typically they have a link to the other sides framing of the theory debate instead of just conceding that they are unfair and saying unfairness is good. in other words, Ks of theory create some new external impact which is argued as a voting issue prior to theory.
the notion that theory cannot be outweighed is also nonsense. its called a counter-interpretation. write a counter-interp that solves their offense, generate offense to your interpretation. that does not make it a voter for you (this is, again, an issue of the nature of the impact). however, you can have a bigger internal link to the terminal impact of fairness, education, etc – that’s outweighing. you might have heard of exotic arguments like ‘education outweighs fairness’ or ‘breadth outweighs depth’…
i think ken is right when he points out that you might not be talking about the same thing im talking about when it comes to thresholds. my comment grew, in part, out of reading paradigm after paradigm before the TOC which indicated that the judge would vote on theory ‘if its reasonable’ or ‘if theres abuse’ – totally arbitrary standards which dont help at all when youre trying to plan a strategy. im just saying that judges should ask themselves ‘did the debater win this theory argument?’ rather than ‘do i believe there was abuse in this debate?’ what it means to win theory is a whole other question which i believe was answered in the discussion regarding adam torson’s comments. i certainly dont think this has anything to do with how experienced you are as a judge; i know a lot of people whose experience has only ossified their bad habits, particularly when it comes to theory.
i think my explanation above about what the impact to theory is answers the next part (“The judge is not saying the resolution is true, but that the AFF wins.”) the objection to an RVI you describe would also exclude the possibility of voting on theory. my answer to the idea of an RVI is not some archaic view of jurisdiction; its that theory is a negative test of fairness, not a positive goal that judges have to enforce. if you are within the rules, you get access to substance. if you are not within the rules, you lose. this has nothing to do with ‘RVIs dont affirm the res’ – thats the weakest possible objection.
if you think your paradigm is the worst of both worlds, it is time for a new paradigm.
Posted from: 12.215.129.141
May 10th, 2008 14:01
One more potentially controversial issue that should be brought up:
This weekend, more than ever, there was a vast amount of behind-closed-doors flow sharing. I know there were email accounts set up between schools and so on where flows were shared. I’m not against prep outs, as we do the exact same stuff. My concern is that it seems particularly unfair to kids who don’t have the political connections to know who is in with who and where their flows will end up. Hell, I didn’t know that Sacred Heart would have a flow from Mike Spirtos of a random prelim of ours, and I have a pretty good idea of who is friends with who.
I’m not saying this type of behavior is unethical or wrong (perhaps thats another discussion) I just want to make a proposal. Why not make it more like policy where all scouting becomes open information sent to a central email account? If its happening anyways, it doesn’t seem like the schools with lots of money to bring extra coaches–I’m not excluding my team from this group of schools–should be advantaged because of back door flow dealing. I was originally hesitant about this sort of open information sharing when it was brought up before, but after what I saw this weekend I think it might be a necessity.
Ernie
Posted from: 12.189.80.2
May 10th, 2008 14:15
For the first time ever for me: +1 to Ernie. (using +1, not agreeing with Ernie).
Posted from: 146.115.112.73
May 10th, 2008 14:17
+1 to Ernie.
Posted from: 70.158.103.10
May 10th, 2008 14:33
re: ernie’s point – that’s exactly the idea behind the wiki that’s now being used to post cases after toc. the hope was that people would do it *before.*
700 posts is just about my limit for a thread, so im done for now.
Posted from: 71.82.123.246
May 10th, 2008 15:06
I agree with Ernie 100%. That is why anyone that asked me for a flow all weekend was able to get it regardless of how good of friends we were. If there had been a community accepted and established forum for sharing I would have willingly done that. I think it is about time we have one.
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
May 10th, 2008 20:10
on the subject of RVIs. I agree with Cherian to a certain extent. The risk of a turn should be a voter turn. A lot of RVIs on things like Time sucks are poorly done, and are just dumb. “Vote for me b/c I meet this theory arg and they kicked it after realizing it was a poor strategy choice” is almost as poor of an argument as the original bad theory
Posted from: 72.229.4.198
May 14th, 2008 09:03
I have had the pleasure of seeing all sixteen of the debaters in the elimination rounds compete — actually, all nineteen of the debaters who debated in the run-offs or the elimination rounds — and all of them are incredibly talented competitors who are most deserving of the honors they received at the TOC.
Particular congratulations to Chris for breaking the Apple Valley curse and bringing home the tallest horse of all to the most intense trophy case in the country. (Though I’ve been saddened to learn it’s not actually in the case.) Chris is an exceptionally hard worker and a very modest competitor. This was very well deserved.
Congratulations as well to Becca on representing the hardcore nerd population and making it to finals, to Daniel on placing as top speaker, and to Joan on being top seed.
Becca is going to be my co-host when I screen nerdy movies this summer at VBI.
Congratulations to Team Hockaday for clearing three for the second year in a row, and to Team Strake and Team MVLA for clearing two. That translates to: congratulations Joan, Lindsay, Shivani, Stacy, Tom, David, Todd, Gary, Jerry, Daniel, Daniel, Eric, and Stephen.
This was my first chance to see Chris Catterton in action and I was very impressed. I was even more impressed by his incredible humility.
Finally, special congratulations to Jake Nebel on an absolutely monster season. When you stack up the career wins and the honors, he is on track to giving Jason Baldwin a serious run for his money next season in terms of the all-timer record.
Posted from: 72.229.4.198
May 14th, 2008 09:05
Actually, addendum: special Vassar Round Robin shout-out to Daniel, Jake, Ross, and Shivani, all of whom competed in this year’s event. (And shout-outs to past competitors Lindsay, Joan, and Corey!)
Posted from: 71.86.223.172
May 14th, 2008 18:31
As the team with the email account, I wholeheartedly agree with Ernie…in principal. To be honest, the rationale was simply that it was an easy way to ensure that the flows were in a central digital place that we could all access. I have always been a huge proponent of disclosure and open information. I also agree that teams that don’t have the access that we did or have the ability to obtain information in the same way are absolutely disadvantaged. I think that’s very difficult to overcome in any case but open information is a big step.
However, as long as the community doesn’t create a norm and there’s no way to compel participation in the flow sharing, it’s hard to make it work in a public format.
In the end, contributions to such a project need to be reciprocal. In this case, I was certain that I could compel sibling participation to the project. Fantasies about how widespread this was should be rejected out of hand. If more than thee schools participated, I didn’t know about it. Expanding a flow-sharing network is akin to posting caselists anonymously so I’m not sure that this is particularly necessary but at it’s core, whatever we as a community choose to embrace requires that we overcome an inherent collective action problem.
Posted from: 72.229.4.198
May 14th, 2008 19:04
Okay, I can’t stand the wait. So let me just say…
Posted from: 72.229.4.198
May 14th, 2008 19:04
700th post.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 15th, 2008 15:33
I think a better alternative to sharing flows with everyone would just be if nobody shared flows altogether. Scarsdale has never been a big prep-out team, and of the few times on which I have been prepped out, I’ve felt like my wins were less genuine. I think the single most valuable element of debate is how it teaches you to think on your feet – it is supposed to train you to be able to realize potential flaws with an argument extremely quickly, even without having heard it before.
If judges and debaters just stopped sharing flows altogether, debaters would be less reliant on their coaches and prep-outs and would be able to develop these kinds of skills much better.
Do people disagree that these skill are important and that prep-outs severely undermine their development?
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
May 15th, 2008 15:48
I agree 100% with you Ken.
Posted from: 72.68.76.55
May 15th, 2008 16:50
in an ideal world, ken, we’d all follow your advice. i, too, wish for the death of the prep-out. but too many people view debate as a game to be won, not an educational learning activity, and i doubt very many debaters will sacrifice an advantage to winning in favor of increasing the educational value of the activity.
Posted from: 69.253.230.13
May 15th, 2008 17:28
“If judges and debaters just stopped sharing flows altogether, debaters would be less reliant on their coaches and prep-outs and would be able to develop these kinds of skills much better.”
…and debaters without coaches around to get flows would be less disadvantaged.
Posted from: 24.164.191.184
May 15th, 2008 19:03
+1 to karlyn
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 15th, 2008 19:13
Hassin, I actually kind of endorse the view that debate is a game and that debaters shouldn’t be forced to lose for education’s sake (of course there are limits on this).
However, I still think that not doing prep-outs can function under the view of debate as a game since:
1) The reason why debaters rely on prep-outs is because they do them so often. If debaters didn’t use prep-outs they would not need them to win, and if nobody were ever prepped out the playing field would be level.
2) As I said, of the few times on which I’ve been intensely prepped out (I can recall 1 this year), my wins have felt less genuine. True, I won, but the win didn’t feel totally “mine” in a somewhat intangible sense.
Karlyn makes a good point too, although Michael’s system of having everyone share flows would solve the problem she’s referring to.
I understand that my hope that prep-outs will eventually be phased out is unrealistic, but nevertheless I think it would have educational benefits.
Posted from: 64.12.116.76
May 15th, 2008 21:37
What about having close to full disclosure akin to the way it is done in policy debate? We have these flow sharing/prep out discussions every year (at least the last 2 or 3). Cherian, Michelin and I win the line by line, yet people still seem reluctant to embrace the same ethic policy does.
I honestly find it laughable that people want to speak as quickly as policy debaters do, run plans, topicality arguments, counterplans and other conventions of policy debate, yet most are unwilling to be more open with arguments once they are run (no one says disclose new arguments).
Prep outs cant (and shouldnt) be phased out. Neither will people giving info about others cases once they are run. A Wiki that can include outlines and descriptions of arguments HELPS those that are disadvantaged by a lack of resources. The so called borgs will get your info regardless. More discussions of arguments being run during and after tournaments are educational to both students and coaches.
People always have the OPTION not to prep out or look at a wiki with a caselist. That doesnt deny that those practices are inevitable and perhaps even desirable.
Posted from: 74.227.231.210
May 15th, 2008 23:08
AT is right-on with the inevitability argument. i was not flanked by a powerhouse coaching staff when i debated and i worked for a small team this year, but i still find myself on what a lot of people claim is the “big school” side of this argument. for example, try showing up to st marks without having seen a round on the sep/oct topic and let me know how that goes for you. knowing what people are running helps kids who cant travel. the marginal benefit to the prep machines is minimal.
seen that commercial with MJ? maybe prep outs ruined the game – or maybe youre just making excuses.
Posted from: 64.12.116.76
May 15th, 2008 23:20
+1 to Mangus
Posted from: 168.221.143.68
May 16th, 2008 04:44
I agree with Ken… judges aren’t going to pick up the kid that looks for educational value as much as they’ll pick up the kid that scouts flows & wins rounds through prep-outs… I mean, of course it’s inevitable, but allowing prep-outs to be online? Doesn’t that just exacerbate this problem of kids knowing exactly what to expect when they go to tournaments? That just sucks the fun out of debating in general, and although winning seems to become before entertainment to the vast majority, it just seems that prep-outs aren’t necessary to anyone…
However, it’s inevitable, and people are just going to have to adapt.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 16th, 2008 07:21
To Mr. Timmons and Michael:
You’re both right that prep-outs will never be phased out. My initial post was not as much as a suggestion of a realistic alternative (even though I used the world “alternative”) to Michael’s site, it was more of just an expression of a wish.
I also agree that Michale’s site will end up helping out debaters who lack political connections or experience debating a topic.
Nevertheless (and maybe this will be continued on the thread which Jon just posted), I do feel that prep-outs undermine some of the most important skills that debate should emphasize.
Posted from: 65.125.82.250
May 16th, 2008 07:24
I am with Mangus and AT on this one. First off, the idea that pre-outs are detremental to education is clearly flawed. Being forced to defend your position fully and to engage others positions in pre round thought increases the available depth. There is no reason that you should have to disclose your positions, but there is no problem with others preparing for rounds, after all isn’t debate all about preperation? Furthermore, this encourages people to write mulitple positions and engage the topic from new directions. If you have not written multiple cases, or do not know your cases well enough to deal with someone who has prepped an outline of the cases, then perhaps it is time to focus more on casewriting.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
May 16th, 2008 07:33
@ Rayn:
I agree that prep-outs have educational benefits, but as I said on the other thread, I don’t think those benefits outweigh the harms of losing the ability to think on one’s feet and of not-relying on pre-round prep.
In terms of case writing – I’ve packed as many as 6 ACs at tournaments this year, but that isn’t because of prep-outs. I usually write different cases for opponent-judge match-ups (i.e. a critical case for an opponent who I think will be bad at handling critical arguments in front of a judge who is receptive towards those arguments). In terms of being able to defend your case, prep-outs can help with that, but also doing “hell-1ARs” would solve the problem.
Let’s move the discussion to the other thread.
Posted from: 75.25.130.115
May 18th, 2008 13:20
Catterton should be 10th seed, not 12th, seeing how he hit seed 7, and how seed 12 is already taken by Cockroft.
Posted from: 98.197.201.79
May 25th, 2008 07:57
Anyone know when the final round will be posted?
Posted from: 38.118.23.80
June 4th, 2008 08:06
kamiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil merchaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant
Posted from: 72.213.162.95
August 22nd, 2008 16:05
WOW. Who else thought that debate absolutely SUCKED BALLS? I thought that debate was about debating values and philosophy in an “audience friendly” fashion, not throwing as much evidence around as possible while spreading all the arguments… it really sucked. I’m glad NFL nationals isn’t like that.
Posted from: 75.25.130.115
May 2nd, 2009 15:30
http://www.ldresults.com/cgi-bin/test/tourld.cgi
Select “Tournament of Champions” from the dropdown list.
Never knew TOC releases the packet.
Posted from: 199.76.175.113
May 2nd, 2009 15:34
I don’t believe “The TOC” digitized the packet, I think someone else did. (Though I could be wrong.)
Posted from: 67.205.59.174
July 3rd, 2009 00:04
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