Debate: And God said, let there be another God

There comes a time in the life of every programmer when programming one more line of code will put him or her over the edge. Have you ever looked at computer code? Have you ever programmed the stuff? I've done it, years ago, in Basic, and I've watched CP zip away in Perl like a house afire. It's all really intricate stuff that requires you to maintain a line of thought from the beginning to the end of the logic you're trying to effect, and any distraction will send you immediately back to the beginning, and the slightest syntax error could set off bombs everywhere. It takes a certain kind of mind to do this, but even that kind of mind has its limits.

And that's where things go a little nutty.

CP is, of course, the proud parent of tabroom.com. For the longest time he maintained the system alone, which means that not only was he always keeping the pipes fitted and the steam rising, he also had to deal with user issues. Like any systems person, the idea of dealing with users is a virtual nightmare. It's not that they don't like people—CP is rather a friendly fellow, in his overly tall way—but they don't like dealing with the laity about computer issues. It's like the Pope not wanting to explain to a Unitarian where they keep the Vatican's sacred monkeys. They just don't want to get involved in that conversation out of fear of losing their sanity. In CP's case, he enlisted a couple of us to work with the outside world, AKA the users, as his interlocutors. He called this admin status "godlike powers." It means mostly that we can go into the system and help people fix their tournaments or get logged in correctly or whatever. It's logical for me to have those powers because I tab every week, and it makes life easier for not only me but the tournament directors I deal with. And CP doesn't have to get involved in any of it.

Meanwhile, there's O'C. There has never been a person on the face of the earth who is more interested in the minutia of debate than Jon Cruz. He has all his ballots from his novice LD year. Come to think of it, he has all of everyone's ballots from their novice LD year. He tracks every tournament in the country obsessively. He knows who signs up, he knows who drops, he knows how well they do. He knows when they are sleeping, he knows when they're awake, he knows if they've been bad or good, and I wouldn't be surprised if he breaks into their homes on Christmas Eve to check up on them, which is why a lot of debaters leave cookies and milk out at night, just in case.

The fact that I had godlike powers on tabroom and that O'C did not just drove him crazy. If he asked Palmer once, he asked him a million times, to give him these powers too. And every time, Palmer said no.

And then one night, when Palmer hit that time in the life of every programmer when programming one more line of code will put him over the edge, he was reminded of O'C wanting godlike powers. And he decided to do something about it.

One day shortly thereafter, I saw Palmer, for whatever reason, and he took me aside and told me that because I have godlike powers on tabroom, it is within my abilities to give someone else those same godlike powers. I could even give them to Cruz. According to Palmer, he didn't want to do it himself, because if I did it, he could claim plausible deniability. If I did it, sub rosa, everybody would be happy. Just don't do it when Palmer was around: that was the only limitation.

During the MHL Workshop last week, when we had some downtime, I remembered this exchange with Palmer, and when we had a break, I took Cruz aside and told him I had a present for him. We went into a small room with a computer, and I explained that I was going to give him godlike powers on tabroom, but that he had to be very careful with them, and promise not to screw anything up, but that it was all right with Chris as long as O'C used his powers wisely. With great power comes great responsibility, and all that. For Cruz, this was Christmas, Hannukah, the lottery, American Idol and the Lost Ark all wrapped into one. His brain was about to explode at the mere the thought of it.

So I logged into tabroom and turned on my godlike powers. I went over to O'C's account and brought it onto the screen. Right there, as big as day, was the button to grant him godlike powers.

With Cruz sitting right next to me, his eyes aglow knowing that perhaps his greatest dream since becoming a debate coach was about to come true, I clicked the button.

And now you can too:
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