Wednesday, November 18, 2015

In which we discuss the preffing of unknowns

I saw a Facebook discussion today, heartily joined by many, over the fact that there seem to be so many judges on the pref sheets these days that no one has ever heard of, and who have no published paradigms.

I think there’s some attempts in tabroom to solve this problem, but I don’t think they really do the job. For instance, there’s a button to ask for judge qualifications and history at sign-up, but there’s a similar button to ask for phone numbers, and plenty of judges get through unnumbered—I know, because I’ve tried to call them up. There’s a different button later asking for judge paradigms. Hmmm. I thought I’d give them both a shot. I tested them out (which required creating the bogus school Menick’s Academy for the Criminally Insane, which was way easy and explains a lot vis-à-vis bogosity in the registration business). For the former, a little box appears asking for qualifications, but it’s not accessible to the world at large (and, honestly, I couldn’t easily find it on the back end). For the latter, nuttin’. Of course, I didn’t expect much from either, because, let’s face it, this is not a tabroom-tech question. It’s a community state-of-the-art question.

One thing I’ve been doing at tournament setups is tossing in that everyone rank judges as either circuit, traditional or trained newcomer when they register them. It ain’t much, but it helps. When the coach enters a name and clicks trained newcomer for someone whose face has never been seen by said coach, much less seen in a training session, at least I’m hoping to instill a modicum of shame, although I doubt if I’m succeeding. Shamelessness seems to be one of the top requirements of coaches these days, often in direct proportion to the size of their squad. Maybe I should modify those categories, since they were originally intended to introduce MJP to the teeming masses. By now we’ve gone past the introduction stage. Maybe the categories should be experienced, partially clueless, and totally clueless. Experienced people will, by default, have published paradigms. The question remains, how clueless are the rest? Totally, or just partially? The point is to provide information to attendees that they can use for doing prefs. But of course, if you’ve never heard of someone, they’re going to be a 4 or a 5, on the assumption that strikes are for people you know hate you, and you’re unlikely to actually get 4s and 5s, so you’ll go with it. (Needless to say, if you want 1s for all your prelim rounds, be on the bubble. You’ll always get your best matches.)

Anyone whose first name is, for example, Mr., is dead certain proof that the coach of the team is not doing the job. Shameless, in other words. You don’t even know the names of the people you’re putting into a semi-chaperone position over your students? Seriously? You don’t conduct meetings for the parents of your students whom you take away from home weekend after weekend? You can’t ask your students what their parents' names are? Granted, the first name of Mr. or Mrs. is funny. But it’s also a serious indicator of a bad coach. I think I’ve said this before: when I was a kid, I had a cocker spaniel named Mister. The only reason you can put down Mister as your judge’s first name, in my opinion, is if he’s a cocker spaniel (who would probably do a better job than the person you’ve judge-bombed us with.)

Anyhow, I think most people know exactly how to do prefs in a world of anonymity. The bigger question is, why don’t people do their jobs and eliminate that anonymity? Go back to the inept/bad shameless coaches. Shouldn’t you take responsibility for the judges you’re bringing? I know damned well that you will take the first opportunity to complain about anything and everything you don’t like about the tournament, often before we’ve even begun registration. But are you a good debate citizen yourself?

It does all boil down to good debate citizenship. Are you doing your job? Are you bringing great judges? Are you making sure they’re there on time for all their rounds? Are you making sure they know what they’re doing to the best of their ability, and informing the tournament about the level of that ability? (I’ve made the point before that while coaches may whine about not getting all 1s, most good debaters are wise enough and capable enough to pick up any ballot, provided they know the provenance of that ballot. Run 27 theory shells in front of a first timer? You deserve what you get. The point at which we forget the nature of good old-fashioned judge adaptation is the point at which we have taken the teaching of public speaking out of the activity.)

My favorite recent story is the school that complained to us at an MJP tournament that we were discriminating against their judge who had never adjudicated any rounds. I don’t know what the objective source of our discrimination was supposed to be, but I do recall that the judge was a total unknown with no paradigm. With MJP, the tab room doesn’t pick the judges, the students do, in aid of best matches as they perceive them. Regardless of whatever you’ve done to perceive of yourself as being discriminated against, being a total unknown trumps that coming and going. You’re the devil they don’t know. Students weren’t blowing you off because they knew you and your discrimination-worthy nature. They were blowing you off because you were unknown to them. Of course, that’s a one-off situation. But it is a good demonstration of how ignorance is a great determinant of action. I know nothing about X, but I’ll be damned if I won’t complain about it. [Sigh.]


The good news is, with a nice sized pool at a big tournament, tabroom does a spectacular job of assigning highly preferred judges. (That was one of the biggest original reasons for moving away from TRPC, which made you do most of it by hand.) Most of the time, you are getting 1s and 2s, unless you’re one of those schools that have, shall we say, a unique vision of the judging pool. I know there are people out there who claim to be able to game the system, and for all I know, maybe they can. But the system, such as it is, doesn’t require gaming. Put the judges you most want to be judged by in the highest rankings, and you’ll probably get them. Trying to read the mind of your competitors’ coaches, or whatever? Good luck with that. And meanwhile, look to your own judges. Make sure they have up-to-date paradigms, and that they perform their job professionally at the tournament. See to your own debate citizenship, and the world will be a better place.

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