Case disclosure Part 4

I feel a little bit like a circus ringmaster, trying to keep track of all the issues that disclosure has brought us. And meanwhile, there’s some other issues that are not related, that I will just have to put off for a while (TOC bids, net neutrality, etc.). But I do want to stick to the subject at hand while it is still fresh in the mind. We’ll return to yesterday’s post on the hive.

First, I would advise that folks look directly to PJ’s responses to what I said yesterday. In the main, he disagrees that good debaters will continue to rise to the top as lesser debaters gain more access to tools that might eliminate their need to be good debaters as much as requiring their skill at cutting and pasting. I hope he’s wrong, but if he’s right, he has come up with a summary reason to negate beyond which we need not travel. Unfortunately, we can’t tell until it’s happened, and maybe not even then. Still, it’s something to keep in mind. (The erased comments were dupes, btw, not horrible PJian comments that had to be eliminated.)

In yesterday’s post, I had envisioned the hive of data as a long-term source of debate thought, CP had this to say: “What are the privacy implications of requiring students to put their work — which in some cases is graded schoolwork — into the public view under their own names? Is it really a good idea for the caselist wiki to be built upon and maintained over the years? The educational value as a reference source would be considerable, but on the other hand, a permanent caselist compels students to be forever identified on the Internet with work they did as high schoolers, in a specialized context as debaters. Do we really want that Marxism aff to show up when these kids are running for office or facing a Senate confirmation hearing?”

Let’s compare this to where Bietz talks about the wiki as a tool of peer review: “The idea of peer review is something that is not only accepted but is also expected in academia. Debate is a high-stakes activity. For many of our students, it is perhaps the primary extra-curricular activity they will do in high school. For some of our students, the monetary and time costs associated are burdensome. Regardless of each individual’s commitment to the activity, academic integrity is not something we should take lightly. If a student were to come to you with a case that uses evidence entirely from an unnamed personal blog that cites no sources or provides no qualification, would you accept it as a ‘good case?’ Probably not. However, we do not treat what is said or presented in rounds with the same rigor that we would expect from the evidence we want our students to use in their cases. The ability for everyone to see what everyone else is quoting or using as evidence is important not only because it allows us to check to make sure that everything is done in an ethical and fair way, but also because it is academically proper to do so. We send the wrong message when we take this academic portion out of the competitive activity. The reason why the high-stakes element of my argument is important is because we need to have a side constraint placed on the competitiveness of debate. We need to encourage integrity. Peer review is important to maintaining this integrity.” He adds additionally in a FB comment, “If someone says they aren't going to go to tournaments that require disclosure are they also saying they aren't going to go to a college or submit to a journal that doesn't require peer review? If the stakes at a debate tournament are really that high (which seems to be the case), then shouldn't peer review be a part of the discussion?"

It is hard for me to address this issue in some ways because I have no idea what the legal ramifications might be of publicly storing the work of minors for all to access. Is it right, much less legal, to expose the ideas of a 17-year-old in this way, for all time? I am dubious about the claim that debating a case somehow enters it into open public discourse. Debating a case might enter it into the very limited “public” discourse of a debate tournament, but that is actually a closed, high school activity. I might encourage members of a community to drop by and see how smart all the high school kids are thanks to the exorbitant school taxes that community is paying, but they are invited guests. If the case that lost in the final round was published the next day in the local newspaper, with a picture of the two finalists in their Cruzian hug, I would wonder… Sure, that’s not going to happen, but it highlights the nature of the problem. These people remain high school students. You could claim that the wiki is, somehow, as non-public as the debate tournament, limited to those with the proper reasons for being there, but it’s not. Will the Panivore’s case demonstrating how eating vegetables is immoral keep her from beating Bristol Palin in the 2044 Republican Primary? Probably not. But does a tournament have the authority to take the Panivore’s work and mandate that she publicize it in order to participate at that tournament? It would seem that the tournament would first have to demonstrate a lack of personal and legal harms. The tournament could respond, no, you have to demonstrate the existence of those harms, but I would disagree. Again, we are dealing with minors, and need to give the benefit of the doubt in the proper direction.

As for what Bietz is saying, the issue is about the same. He is absolutely right about the integrity of the information. The question is, are the requirements for that integrity—not the literal integrity of the content but the open review display to measure that integrity—relevant to the high school community. I absolutely expect my students to do honest research. But as high school students should I be holding them to open, public review by what could literally be hundreds if not thousands of people on the internet? I mean, good grief, the old juvie justice topic is on the agenda again this year, in which we will learn beyond refutation that the adolescent brain is a jumble of unformed cookie dough bits. They may be morally culpable for the chocolate chips that emerge from it, but they are, simply put, not adults. No, they should not be let off the hook when it comes to doing proper research, but how much of a hook are we talking about here?

As I say, I’m not sure. Honestly, I don’t think this really is a strictly legal question, although I may have suggested otherwise above. But it is an important question. I’d like to hear Jon (and any other tournament director who asks for disclosure) explain it. The fact that it already exists in policy, by the way, implies that the answers are there, and acceptable. But they should be articulated for a community new to it. As for the Bietzian side of it, he is asking a lot of high school academics. Nice to aspire to, though.

Meanwhile, CP also brings up a different question: “Isn't there a danger inherent in this experiment being conducted exclusively at octafinals bid tournaments? Those tournaments cast a long shadow, and set a standard for other tournaments aspiring to the same level. The folks who know what's up behind the scenes understand that it's an experiment, but it's rather simple for a very small group of people who run the nine octos tournament to effectively force this question, simply by being the standard bearers of what a ‘good tournament’ is in the eyes of the community…and other tournament directors. I think that points more to the fact that our community lacks meaningful national governance, and is run more or less like an aristocracy, which isn't anyone here's fault.”

Damn it, he’s right at the end there. This is a bloody aristocracy. But that’s a different (albeit important) issue.

As for the experiment itself, I would hope that this discussion, aristocratic though it might be, will help hold the line on things. Certainly Cruz’s intention of evaluating the experiment demonstrates his aim of doing precisely that, and I trust him on it, and applaud him for it. But should we (i.e., the aristocracy) have chosen something as big as an octos tournament for the experiment? Over the last year or two we regionally worked ourselves through the various levels of experiment with judge ranking, starting MJP with a small local tournament rather than a big gun. We ended up believing, as it turned out, that MJP is only for big guns. Should we have experimented similarly with disclosure, in light of the possible harms CP suggests?

Again, I don’t know. I was surprised that it’s part of the Bronx, but then again, my approval of the idea seemed implicit apparently from my comments on TVFT. I think that if Cruz were just doing it, sort of following in Greenhill’s footsteps so to speak because that’s what he thinks an octos tournament ought to be, then we’d definitely be in the world CP is describing. But that whole experimentation angle mitigates against this harm. Will the other octonians act similarly? I think not. Or more to the point, they won’t be doing it because the others are doing it because, insofar as they are plugged into the LD community, it’s an absolute landmine for them if they do. And if they’re not plugged in, it won’t occur to them. If I were running an octos bid tournament, I know that I’d wait and see this year how beaten and battered Timmons and Cruz end up before doing anything precipitous. But if they do survive? Then I think CP is right, it will become de rigeur. The horse is threatening to leave the barn, in other words. Which puts a lot of pressure on Cruz when it comes to the experimentation side of things. A pressure I think he is expecting and will handle well. But a pressure nonetheless.

Finally, I agree with PJ’s comment to the LA Coach, who is running a small southern school out of the octos line of fire, and who wonders how the hive will impact his folk. They’ll have access, and be able to draw whatever they want from it. If they do so wisely (which could even include ignoring it completely, depending on the nature of LD in their region), they’ll be fine.