Points

I noticed a couple of people bemoaning the sad state of speaker points over at WTF. They’re a bad way to adjudicate who breaks and who doesn’t, the sentiment goes. A couple of other ideas are proposed but, admittedly, none are much better. Short of allowing everyone with a certain record to break, a luxury of space and judge pool size and time that many tournaments simply can’t afford, some cutoff is necessary, and speaker points are the default. We’re sort of stuck with that.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with speaker points. They are an effort to quantify the level of the debating in a round. They exist to denote the difference between really hard and complex debates and not quite as hard or complex debates. Two very good debaters going at one another very well will probably earn high points. Two average debaters going at one another in an average fashion will probably earn middling points. Two inexperienced debaters going at one another in an inexperienced fashion will probably earn low points. That, to a degree, is simple enough; we’ll address that degree shortly. It’s a little trickier when debaters are unequal in skills. I’ve often given high points to a strong debater facing an inexperienced debater when the strong debater treats the lesser debater with exceptional respect. The round might have been a gimme from the getgo, but the experienced debater was gentle and responsive and, in a way, acting as an ad hoc educator to the lesser debater. I’ve also gone and congratulated these stronger debaters after the rounds on their gentility, and pointed it out to their coaches. Similarly, rudeness should be, I feel, reflected in lowered points. In a forensic event, rudeness is the equivalent of a foul in an athletic event, officially punished in those cases by free throws and the like. But absent these exceptions, such as they are, I’ve always felt that the points represented the level at which the debater debated; often one debater is debating at a different level than the other. When the top of a bracket hits the bottom of the bracket early on, there might be a very big discrepancy in skills, and the points should reflect this. Overall, I don’t think anyone would seriously disagree with what I’m saying here, at least in principle. And if speaker points quantify the level of the debating over the span of all of the prelims, it makes sense that those who debated at the highest level would advance over those who debated at a less high level. We can’t advance everyone, so we use this measure to advance those who theoretically did the best debating.

But here’s the problem. This is that “degree” business that I mentioned above. Although speaker points make sense, for the reasons I just cited, we don’t have any sensible approach to them. There are some places where I can and do handle this. At MHLs and CFLs, for instance, I open every tournament with an opening statement to all the judges explaining how they should award points at this particular tournament. Granted, the points are still subjective, but at least they will be subjective on the same scale. This scale is reflected in all my judging documentation. But these are small tournaments with student and parent judges who actually listen to you and attempt to do what you ask of them. Unfortunately, there is no such attempt to normalize points at most invitationals. The old Legion of Doom did make this one of their platform planks, that all tournament directors set a scale of points, but in today’s environment, that is a pipe dream. In fact, it’s contrary to the other more common demand of tournament directors, that all judges submit paradigms. And if we have a hundred judges at a tournament, we have a hundred paradigms. And within each of those paradigms is a unique approach to speaker points.

We have dug a hole for ourselves, and no one seems to want to crawl out of it. We allow each individual judge to determine the content, format, and scope of each individual round. Like theory, hate theory, grade on a 20-30, grade on a 25-30, make me laugh for extra points, flex prep okay, flex prep not allowed, V/C mandatory, V/C optional, etc., etc., etc. The rules of the game are set anew every time a debater walks into a round. In elimination rounds with multiple judges, the best one can hope for is a general consensus of paradigms if one is attempting to pick up based on what judges like rather than what LD is supposed to be.

What LD is supposed to be? You’re sneering at that, aren’t you. LD is whatever we want it to be. Same as baseball. No rules. No governing body. Just bats, balls and bases. Oh, wait a minute. Baseball does have rules. Every umpire doesn’t make up his own rules while hanging out at the plate. Ditto those referees at football games. Hockey games. Any games.

But LD is too smart for that. The NFL makes rules, and everyone subsequently argues about how the rules suck, and aside from NatNats and maybe some district tournaments, the rules are not applied in any meaningful fashion. They are a bone of contention, not of concession.

At the point where there is one judge paradigm that all judges must adhere to as best they can, we will have relatively predictable judging. And speaker points, being a part of that universal, non-relativistic paradigm, will be a great way to determine who goes on to elimination rounds. At the point where there are as many judge paradigms as there are judges, speaker points—and breaking—will be, to a great extent, a crap shoot. The difference between the 4-2s who break and the 4-2s who don’t break will be imponderable. And at the point where a debater or coach supports random paradigms, they deserve to be randomly and imponderably excluded from elimination rounds.

All those people who say that the activity ought to be in some hyperkinetic state of flux, rapidly changing because of “progressive” styles of debating and judging, deserve to be in the bottom of those 4-2s. That LD should change over time is probably true. That the time span for this change should be from round to round is probably not true. That change should come from people who happen to want change for whatever reasons, good or ill, rather than the community as a whole with meaningful leadership, is definitely not true. If the people who want change are right, as Mill and any number of others have clearly demonstrated, subjecting their ideas to the tests of truth and the dialectic will eventually get them accepted. But as long as we’re all mavericks (are we still allowed to use that word in polite conversation?), we’re just in a state of random confusion.

Those of the VCA in the community who represent the meaningful leadership: Do some leading! If you run a tournament, publish a standard for speaker points. If you have influence over the NFL, use it. Or, be influenced by it. Adjust your debate to the rules, such as they are, rather than to your personal preferences. Change is fine, and there’s plenty of good, wise ways of achieving it; use the wise ways, and that change will stick. If you adhere to your own cockamamie paradigm because you’re right and the world is wrong and the devil take the hindmost, then I sincerely hope that you reap the just results of such actions.