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Re: The Judges Will Have a Lot of Explaining to Do! (fwd)


On Wed, 12 Apr 1995, Hopper Gregory G wrote:

> The problem that you had with the round isn't probably a unique one. I 
> have been in lots of rounds this year when debaters used whatever 
> leverage they could muster to influence critics. Though I think that 
> there is a problem in that sometimes this influence borders on the 
> extreme, I think that it is usually warranted. When nationals sets 
> criteria that excludes critics that cannot make coherent decisions maybe 
> debaters won't feel the need to be intimidating. I am not saying 
> you are one of these people. Frankly, I don't know who you are...maybe I 
> just have a bad memory for these things...maybe I just don't know you. 
 
No, no bad memory--I never got to judge you, sorry.  I was completely
aware that was the tactic, and maybe in my heart I was bummed that maybe
someone would think I was so stupid that I needed to be educated.  That's
cool, though.  Critics need to know that debaters are just trying to win. 
I think Heather is a cool debater.  Maybe she'll trust me next time.


> Whatever the case may be, debaters put too much of their lives into the 
> activity to be screwed around with. 
 
You know I can hear the dinosaurs rustling around the bushes when you said
that, but I agree.  Participant consensus, anyone?

Judges aren't the only ones being 
> abused, however, I also heard a story after nationals about a critic that
> fell asleep in a quad-octs round. I think that debaters generally 
> shouldn't make threats to judges...but if this story was true I think 
> that the judge should have been open target to abuse. This "critic" 
> should have been drawn and quartered and left to rot in the Aztec Center.
Naw, the Aztec Center is pretty nice place.  About thirty blocks from SDSU
is a pretty nice place where they could have been left.  At least your
critic didn't flip a coin after 1NC b/c neither of the teams were `going
for her'.  
Hey, when you're an idiot we'll never have any idea what argument will
tickle your fancy. 


I do think that the solution to all of this is a national tournament 
> where you actually have to qualify to compete. Absent that, judges should 
> at least have to be qualified. It is inexcusable for a critic to be at 
> nationals who cannot perform their task. It does a disservice to CEDA, to 
> the students who are competing, and to the school that the "critic" 
> represents.
> 
> Greg
> 
> P.S. Maybe I'm just bitter...yeah...I'm bitter.
>
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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