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judge assignments -Reply

Still, I think the tabroom knows that some judges are worse than
others. Judges that have no varsity teams, judges that average below
25 points per round, judges that spend 15 minutes at the top of the
round explaining their perspective on courtroom procedure as applied
to debate, are all good signs of the need to restrain. Hell, we had
one judge tell us that "we ought to do what those fellas in NDT do
and not run plan attacks until 2NC." Right. I started NDt in 1975 and
we were running plan attacks then. To say that you are unaware of who
these individuals are is a cop out. 

It's also the responsibility of the judge to announce their unique
peculiarities. We'll adapt if you tell us beforehand. And I'd
recommend some flowing lessons for some of the NW's unique 1st year
critics. If you can't understand us, just say "clearer!" Telling us
afterwards that you got none of our args and all of the other teams
seems distinctly peculiar. The fact that some of these judges don't
even have args were one debater stopped and told the other to repeat
the argument, sure seems to be an indication that forces beyond
capability limits are at work.

Reading one team's evidence because the person beside you called for
it and then refusing to call for the other side's evidence on moral

grounds seems pretty self-defeating. Even one of the NW's better
judges said one of the Weber teams lost because it "admitted it's
plan was a reform." What else can we be, for Chrissakes?  

And my original point remains unrefuted. The differences between NDT
and CEDA are mainly the differences between NDT and national-level
CEDA versus regional CEDA. Yes, Virginia, some NDT judges suck, 
though that's kind of irrelevant to the points being made.

Oh well, lesson learned.

Bear



>>> Susan Balter <sbalter@u.washington.edu>  10/16/96, 09:21am >>>

As one of the people who ran the computer for CEDA at L&C, I would
like to address Bear's complaints about judge assignments.  I am
sympathetic to the concerns I hear, that good judges should hear good
rounds, but without strike sheets, any manipulation of the random
judge assignment done by the computer (in this case TRM) could be
seen as unfair.  This is especially true since I had competitors in a
break round in Rd.6

Besides the fairness issue, there is also the issue of
responsibility.
Running tab is hectic enough when you are pushed to get the round
out, now it seems that people are asking that I take more time to
know each of the judges in the pool, their philosophy, and which team
wants to have them in the back of the round.  I don't think that is
possible, and if I did do this, could I make everyone happy?

Strike sheets are the answer, but without these, I don't think its
possible to ensure "quality" judging of "important" rounds

Sue Balter
U of Washington
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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