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Re: Flowing evidence....

	The tag has to mean something.  You can draw on your 
understanding of the community's language to assess the meaning of the 
tag, or you can include the evidence in figuring out what the tag means. 
Remember "evidence" comes from the Greek word for silver, indicating 
that evidence shines, like silver, upon the claim -- making clear what 
had been murky.  In the case of "Impact: Nuc war kills all of humanity," 
the communal understanding of the meaning is probably fine.  But many 
claims are such that the evidence tells you quite a lot about what the 
claim must mean.  "Proving" and "clarifying what is meant" are ultimately 
inseparable.  (I am reiterating a point I've made before to you.  Hope 
you don't mind.)

> When I don't flow evidence I don't risk making an argument for one side 
> by saying  'Your evidence doesn't meet the tag.'

	If I believed in the notion of "more" or "less" intervention, I'd 
say this: You are intervening MORE by ignoring evidence (except when it 
is disputed).  You are IMPOSING an interpretation on the tag, without 
taking into account everything that has been said in the debate to 
clarify the meaning of that tag.  The debaters own words include 
clarification of the tag, and you are willfully ignoring that 
clarification in favor of whatever meaning YOU happen to think the tag, 
by itself, should be given.

	But since I don't believe in "more" or "less" intervention, but 
only in better or worse interpretations of what the debaters say, I'll 
put it this way: interpretations of a tag that take into account the 
evidence are better than interpretations that don't.

	When you make the better interpretation that results from taking 
the evidence into account, you don't then say to the debaters: "Your 
evidence doesn't meet the tag." (That would, as you suggest, violate 
community norms by making you seem to be doing something called, "making 
an argument for them.")  Instead you say, "This is what I have to 
understand your tag to mean, given the evidence you read to support it.  
Thus interpreted, it fails to defeat your opponent."

	I am not saying, however, that tags must always be interpreted as 
meaning exactly what the evidence means.  I'm only saying evidence is 
often helpful in clarifying what a tag means.  Sometimes my understanding 
of the meaning of the language of the tag must override the meaning that 
the evidence points toward -- that is, sometimes the card just flat 
doesn't say what the tag does.  In those cases, I'm with you: it's up to 
the other side to say so.  I regard such situations the same way I regard 
completely unevidenced assertions.

	So I'm with Tuna in that the evidence matters even when it isn't 
directly disputed.  But I differ from Tuna in that I look at a lot of 
evidence after the round -- evidence I didn't or couldn't get while the 
round was going on.  In that respect, I'm with Tim: you can get it after 
the round. (Although it is not my usual habit, on at least one occasion 
after a round, after reading a number of cards, I asked the debaters, 
"Any other cards you'd like to be sure I've read?"  Some might object 
that this puts the debaters in a position of having to make a strategic 
choice in answering that question, and that the time for *their* 
strategic choices ought to be over. . . . As I say, I haven't done it 
very often.)

> The more people know, the more likely it is that they will vote for Pick at
> least 20.

	Unless ABCX is an option.

	- Meredith Garmon, Fisk U.
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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