On the roundess of the robin

The Sorta On The Largish Size El Grando Bronxo kicks off with a Round Robin. This year it was Gaulish, divided into three parts, one each for LD, PF and Policy. Now the first thing you have to understand is that, per the traditions of SOTLSEGB, these are referred to as Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, and Policy-I-Mean-Team Debate, or LDD, PFD and PIMTD. Let’s get that straight right away, because the last thing you want to do at SOTLSEGB is flout tradition (unless you’re me, where it’s the first thing, but that’s another story altogether).

The RR took place in downtown Manhattan, a couple of blocks from the Stock Exchange. Fancy digs all around, a very nice venue. CP was there, and not only did we tab the thing on tabroom.com, which for me was the first live one, and also my first time using the built-in RR program. On top of that, we used electronic balloting, except for one person who claimed to be a Luddite (although she texted us this information, so go figure). Our Luddite had one round, so at the end of the day there was a lot of time spent sorting the ballot, but so it goes.

Electronic ballots, on the tab side, means that, first, everyone gets an electronic notice to move their butts in the direction of their rooms. Then you can see whether the rounds have started, because there’s a check-in function. This means, of course, that you can go directly to the right places to hit the people over the head with a frying pan who haven’t started their rounds in a timely manner. And, of course, the results come in when the rounds are done, and there you are. In a Round Robin, this means that, for the most part, tab’s job is setting things up and keeping an eye on the judges. That last was the real work, especially in PF, because you can’t just put in a judge to hear the same team on the other side. But you knew that already.

To see how the other half lives, I picked up a ballot myself and went and heard a little PF. The round itself was fine, and I flowed it on paper. At the end, since all I had in the room was my phone, that’s how I sent in my results. Simple enough, but it was unlikely that anyone wishing to maintain their sanity would do any kind of RFD (there’s a box for one) plunking on a virtual iPhone keyboard. Not a problem at a Round Robin, where we gave critiques, but not good at, say, an MHL slash learning league tournament, where we want all the depth we can get, passed back to the coaches. CP is working on this, maybe allowing people to enter their comments after they’ve posted their ballots.

All in all, we were impressed, and worked out a possible scenario for implementation. (This sort of reminded me of our implementation of MJP a few years ago, which only now is really, in fact, implemented. Introductions of seriously new things, even seriously new beneficial things, take time and planning.) We’re sort of looking at Little Lex (very controlled environment), Ridge (very controlled environment), Newark (very controlled environment with mostly people who were at Ridge), Bigle X (not so controlled because of numbers) and maybe even The Gem of Harlem (about whom the word control has never actually been uttered in the same sentence). Only time will tell if this plays out along those lines. As I said, e-ballots are easy, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that they’re new, and they may be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I remember back to when we were first trying to implement sliced bread, and everyone was very confused about it. I expect similar starting friction , but it will be worth it in the long run.