(Cross-posting on FB)
My brief on judges has ultimately boiled down to this.
Someone has to pick them. Either the software can do it randomly, the tab room
can do it based on their own opinions of the merits of the judges, or the field
can do it based on their opinions of the merits of the judges. I do believe in
the value of random assignments, and PF is always handled that way, with maybe
a few strikes for relief from your most dedicated enemies. But LD and Policy,
having ventured into the realm of allowing the field to determine judging, is
probably never going to come back. Keep in mind that this is mostly only true
at invitationals. Plenty of tournaments for these divisions, especially for
younger students, have random judge placement. The idea that coaches want their
students to learn to win over multiple judge points of view hasn’t gone away.
But at the most competitive levels, where the stakes are the highest, it’s a
different story. (By the way, while it may seem that the stakes are the highest
for the debaters, one needs to keep in mind that the stakes are perhaps even
higher for some of the coaches, who use competitive success as the warrant for their
employment.)
I actually think it’s better that the field determines judge
merits rather than the tab room. At best, I would know the judges from my own
experience, and rank accordingly. But my experience is simply that, while
others have different experiences of those same judges. I have no objective
authority of judgment. Since it’s a given that both sides are ranking identically in order for a judge to be placed,
there’s no particular advantage to either side if they get a judge they both
prefer. (For that matter, they might get a judge they both don’t prefer, at a
mutual level, although tab ought to be doing its best to maximize prefs
vis-à-vis the bubbles.) Early on I think there was a sense that MJP was bad
because it meant a judge was favorable to you, somehow missing the point that
the judge was favorable to both of you. I’m not saying that MJP doesn’t have
its problems, but in the end, it’s the best possible way to sort and assign.
The alternative, tab rankings, is not as good. Random is, arguably, a good
thing, but for all practical purposes, that horse has left the barn.
Which brings me to my point. Next week, at Byram, we’re
going to have a small field of LDers. The tournament is touted as a prep for
Yale the following week, and as such I want to emulate a highly competitive
environment as much as possible. So I would want to use prefs. The problem is,
with 15-20 judges at most, my usual 5 tiers plus strikes isn’t feasible. What
I’m floating is the idea of 4 tiers, 3 of 30% each and 1, the 4th tier, of 10%.
Working around the bubble, priority would be 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, 2-3, 1-2, and 4-4,
only using 4s when people are out of competition for breaking. I think it
maximizes the use of judges in a small field/pool, but it still maintains the
sense that the field has some control over judge placement.
I’m going to be curious to see how it works out.
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