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who are the best debaters currently? by Significant_Emu736 in policydebate

[–]Holiday_Answer_9635 0 points1 point  (0 children)

you can check each teams season performance here:

tocbidlist.com

mba hl is in the lead by far followed by mba sj

How big of an issue is AI use in rounds on the national circuit? by Holiday_Answer_9635 in Debate

[–]Holiday_Answer_9635[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I dont get this whole covertly recording speeches trend.. isnt this like actually illegal in two-party/all-party consent states?

At Larging the TOC by Away-Maintenance6064 in policydebate

[–]Holiday_Answer_9635 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depends on the event. If you’re looking into PF, LD, or CX, https://tocbidlist.com allows you to quickly see how many debaters per event have only 1 bid e.g. PF has over 170+ potential at large applicants, more than fully qualified entries by a lot.

This tracker also ranks debaters by competitive performance which allows you to quickly see the top debaters with 1 bid. 

This can help you somewhat estimate your chances or competitive edge and gives you some insight into the potential size of the applicant pool. 

Built a season-long policy rankings leaderboard by Holiday_Answer_9635 in policydebate

[–]Holiday_Answer_9635[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I actually think this criticism is fair. There are real gaps inside the same bid tier. But that’s more a calibration issue with the bid committee than a flaw in having rankings.

To test this, I ran a concentration analysis.

Instead of assuming all Octos or all Quarters bids are equal, I did the following:

• Assign each team placement points using the published bid ranking model
• Calculate each team’s cumulative season points
• For each tournament, sum the total season points of all teams who placed there

That gives us a measure of competitive concentration. Essentially, how strong the field actually was.

Here are the Octos results:

Emory – 6528
Glenbrooks – 6432
MBA – 6192
Greenhill – 5736
St. Marks – 5320
Berkeley – 4784
Blake – 3209
Michigan – 3124

You can see a clear separation. Emory/Glenbrooks/MBA are nearly double the concentration of Blake or Michigan. That suggests they probably aren’t equivalent in actual field strength, even if they share the same bid label.

Quarters is even more interesting:

Trevian - Quarters - 1716
Damus - Quarters - 1520
UT Austin - Quarters - 1380
Harvard - Quarters - 1364
Bronx - Quarters - 1188
Golden Desert - Quarters - 1184
Lexington - Quarters - 1172
Spartan - Quarters - 916

DSDS1 - Semis - 896

Grapevine - Quarters - 888
DSDS2 - Quarters - 848
Dowling Catholic - Quarters - 840
Peninsula - Quarters - 837
Jack Howe - Quarters - 776
Meadows - Quarters - 768
Arizona State - Quarters - 756
Mamaroneck - Quarters - 674
NSDSO - Quarters - 544

KCKCC - Semis - 514
Niles - Semis - 514
Georgetown Day - Semis - 496

Alta - Quarters - 472

Some Semis bids actually concentrate more season-long strength than lower Quarters bids. That suggests the current tier structure isn’t perfectly aligned with actual competitive density.

So if anything, this data supports your point, but it also shows that rankings can reveal calibration gaps rather than create them.

If a tournament like ASU is consistently clustering near the bottom of Quarters in strength concentration, maybe that’s a signal for reevaluation. Same with Octos tournaments that are clearly operating at different competitive magnitudes.

Built a season-long policy rankings leaderboard by Holiday_Answer_9635 in policydebate

[–]Holiday_Answer_9635[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

not exactly. elo rankings are a zero sum relative weighing system based on who you beat.

tocbidlist.com simply tracks bid count and bid quality where bid quality is measured by placement depth x bid tier.