McLean's post assumes that a third of the field goes into each ranking. Not necessarily. The contestants choose, Then you use a formula based on the choice to define the size of each ranking pool. I have no idea how to do this without numbers in hand, but conceptually it's easy enough to imagine (Jon: since this idea is already in play elsewhere, how is it done?). Or there's a very simple way that I would use in the absence of an accepted standard (and some experience). Each judge will have a predominance of either As, Bs, or Cs. You could, most easily, go with the predominance. That is, if someone has more As than Bs or Cs, they're an A, and so forth down the line. That's the easiest way to do it (although not particularly sophisticated). If there's not enough of a given ranking, well, so be it, but you're still getting a B instead of a C when there's no As to cover. (For Bump I would still have a few strikes to cover the basic egregious judges that always drop you.)
As for elims, again, Jon, is there a standard way? I was never thinking all As in breaks; I don't think it's possible (and I *know* it's not possible as the judge pool dwindles through the rounds). The idea of manipulating male/female/young/old etc strikes me as counter to the contestant pool assigning in the first place. That is, putting in women (I hate to say it) sounds wrong (counter-feminist?), as women in the pool will already have been ranked (probably equably, but maybe I'm missing some anti-feminist aspect to LD above and beyond the simple "I wish there were more girls doing it"). I would say, put in a mix based on rank. That is, put in, if you can, all As, randomly. (Why is the tab toom's choice any less biassed than the tournament's?) More likely, put in as best you can 2 As and 1 B, if that works, 1 A and 2 Bs if that works, or one each of A, B and C if that works, evenly across all the rounds. It's fair, and the only maniuplating the tab room would be doing would be blindly working through the rankings (which I don't think TRPC does in elims). Just take the names as they come up to avoid prejudice, and there you are.
Thoughts?
2 comments:
I am posting this from an hour-late Amtrak. Yay for my wireless card.
There have actually been some studies done in college policy regarding how women get disproportionately shut out of judging (and outrounds) when preferences are used. I believe it's considerably worse than the age problem. I'm not denying it runs contrary to the idea of pure community ranks -- but that's because I'm not sure pure community ranks are a perfect system anyway. (I'm also not necessarily saying that coaches and debaters are being actively sexist, but nonetheless, there seems to be some sort of issue here.)
I'll try to find some of the studies and send them your way. It's interesting food for thought and has come up in a lot of discussions regarding ranks. I'm not sure if there have been studies regarding this issue and *community* preferences, though.
I am also not sure what system I prefer (other than to say that I do not prefer MJP at all) nor have any of my own tournament plans been set in stone, but I think the issue about how judges are placed on panels and what overriding concerns (if any) there might be in any system are at the very least interesting food for thought.
By the way, was this the first time I was called Jon on this blog? :o)
(As a side note, I don't disagree that the tournament is any less biased than the tab room staff.)
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