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Re: MPJ and Accountability
On Fri, 1 Dec 1995, Steve Woods wrote:
> Currently, there is no way to have the judges take responsibility for their
> actions. If a judge makes a "questionable" decision, there is very little
> that can be done except for striking them.
The response that has been given to this is that, if some judges make
"questionable" decisions, then the burden of enduring their judging
should be equally spread out across top rounds as well as bottom
(powermatched) rounds, varsity as well as novice, people who don't know
the judges as well as people who do, etc.
Some judges do make "questionable" (nice choice of words) decisions.
But, if you are to believe the claims of MJP advocates, either this is
not much of a factor in rankings or the identity of these judges is a
close secret. Supposedly, "everyone is preferred by someone."
Let's say judge X votes for team R over team Q. All four debaters agree
in post-round discussion that the vote should have gone the other way.
Team Q might rank the judge lower if they are at some future tournament
together. So what? Judge X shouldn't mind. Even if EVERYONE makes X a
"C" judge, X will just wind up as a mutual C judging the top powermatched
rounds. But why would team R mind either? They might rank X HIGHER next
time.
> Judges who lack the capacity for understanding the
> complexity of the debate they are presented, judges who don't have
> familiarity with the topic, those without familiarity of theory and
> practice in use, all would render what could be termed a questionable
> decision.
Sounds more like a matter of debaters learning not to be one-dimensional,
examining their presuppositions, being able to explain themselves
clearly, and having to deal with (rather than retreating from) a
heterogeneous judging pool.
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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