Case disclosure Part 9 - Conclusion?

An interesting link from Christian Chessman (who, VCA members might remember, was so helpful in figuring out the Modest Novice topic) on open review: http://www.cross-x.com/vb/showthread.php?t=997072

For those who missed it, CP continues his discussion of privacy here: http://www.azuen.net/2010/08/09/caselists-and-privacy/ Of course, what he’s saying does limit much (most?) of the appeal of disclosure to me. Since I seem to be arriving at a position that, truth to tell, disclosure at tournaments is more apparent than real, the idea of a knowledge database is all that is left. The points CP makes (supported by Deal) can, I guess, be fixed by a closed management of the list, but that does sound pretty unlikely.

Someone answered my query, and pointed out that in policy negs are also posted. Whatever. I would have imagined that neg strategy would have depended on the aff rather that standing alone, unless it’s some cockamamie K or something. Which reminds me, I do agree with I-forget-who who ranted a tad on the idea that someone would run an anti-disclosure theory argument. Jeesh. If you want to argue against disclosure, do it here. At the point where you’ve agreed to enter the tournament requiring disclosure, you have forfeited the right to win a case by arguing against it, rather than arguing the resolution. Not that I judge much, but if I get dragged in, and that’s what you’re running, well, at least if you talk pretty you might get decent speaks…

I think I’m sort of coming to the end of my string on this whole discussion. At this point I think we can mostly only rake over the coals without getting any further. But there are some big unanswered questions.
* Is the public wiki inherently problematic? I’m thinking here about what CP discusses, plus the issue that was raised the wiki might create a style of debate that is undesirable, which we haven’t gone into much because it’s hard to say, but it is a possibility.
* Does disclosure solve the problem it claims to solve? Since the rules of engagement are elastic enough that for all practical purposes a team can break a couple of new cases over the length of a tournament and avoid the wiki almost altogether, meaning that the big teams with their networks at that tournament maintain their advantage, have we really gotten anything out of this?
We can answer the second question by monitoring the practice. And we’ll be doing that at Bronx. We can only answer the first question by further serious discussion, perhaps face-to-face. I wonder if a forum can be established for this at one of the popular events over the season? We'll certainly be discussing it on TVFT when we start up again this year. And if folks do post more here, I'll make sure to feature it and, if it makes sense, comment on it.

There are smaller questions as well that are food for thought. Given the nature of wikis and wifi, have we created a big tournament phenomenon for no better reason than that only big tournaments can do it (if they even can)? And should big tournaments be making trend-setting decisions with no accountability (aside from the theoretical lack of entries at future tournaments, and something tells me that Greenhill and Bronx are not exactly empty this year)? Should we be making decisions about LD based on decisions about Policy (hearkening back to some points Sophie made that I never elaborated upon but are worth noting, that the two are not the same and disclosure does not have the same effect, not to mention the other aspects of LD as pseudo-Policy)?

At the bottom, I like the idea of disclosure if disclosure is real. I don’t like sneak attacks, especially since they’re usually linked with sneaky cases. I like the publicizing of the body of the content of a resolution for the entire community, and see this as a valuable resource, but acknowledging the reservations noted by CP. But I wonder if we’re really doing anything more than adding a new level of tournament maintenance to our lives without a lot of real benefit.

We’ll begin to see soon enough.