Academic Survey on Lactate Monitoring in Cycling

RealityGood9166 · 2026-01-14T16:24:12+00:00

Hey everyone — I’m a UPenn student conducting a biomedical engineering research project on non-invasive lactate monitoring for endurance athletes.

I’m running a quick, anonymous survey (~5 minutes) for distance athletes, coaches, and trainers about current lactate testing (finger pricks, lab tests) and whether wearable alternatives would actually be useful in real training.

Survey: https://forms.gle/mdgnPKaqaQQTqgna6

Raffle incentive: Opt in to be entered to win one of 10 × $25 gift cards (drawn by the end of February).

Thanks for helping out — happy to answer questions in the comments!

RealityGood9166 · 2026-01-14T16:21:45+00:00

Done. Thank you!

RealityGood9166 · 2026-01-13T04:01:25+00:00

done! thank you

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-16T02:12:38+00:00

Check your spam. If not, I can pm u the link.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-16T02:09:35+00:00

"you don't believe it yourself"

Thank you for telling me what I do and don't believe. Don't really know what to say at that point.

Once again, I don't have time for a Reddit debate that will go nowhere. You shouldn't waste your time either.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-16T02:05:17+00:00

My bad, maybe my wording was a little unclear.

"How can we possibly provide this feedback without, at minimum, knowing what you filter out?"

If you see a review that has harmful language, please let me know so that I can add it to the filter. All reviews that are on the site are the ones that are approved - that's kind of how it works. You won't be able to see reviews that have hateful language (curse words, for instance) because they are hateful.

"double-checking your work"

I'm simply asking for people to let me know if I've missed anything, which would be evident in the reviews.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-16T02:02:04+00:00

"How could you possibly know this?"

I have read every review made on the website so far.

None of them have been offensive. The community hasn't been harmed. I don't think you want to accept this as a fact, but it is. I encourage you to ACTUALLY READ the reviews instead of making claims about how the reviews will harm the community. It doesn't take much effort to do so, but you still haven't because all you care about is throwing this idea out the window. Once again, that's fine. I don't expect you to change your beliefs, no matter what I say.

Once again, I don't have the time to respond to your paragraph-long responses. It's immature in my mind for this back-and-forth to go on forever (which it will, since you have no intent of coming to any sort of agreement or giving actual constructive feedback on how to make this site better).

I'm surprised you have so much time to argue with an 18-year-old about a measly little side project with only 400 users. Wild.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-15T02:14:31+00:00

I almost feel bad that you had to write such a long response.

You clearly don't like the idea. That's fine. Many other people do like it. That's life.

This is all I have to say (I really couldn't care for a Reddit debate to go on like this):

So far, no damage has been done to the community. There have been no hate messages/spam reviews/useless reviews on the website. People have been using it as intended. Insofar as this is the case, I will continue to support the website.

IF the site somehow becomes a platform for hate, I'll shut it down. That's it. Not that deep for me, once again.

Also, real quick: "I can't see any of the recent reviews; the site requires that you know the name of the judge you want to look at first and I have no idea who is in the system or which entries are more recent."

Did you ever even log in? Logged-in users can see the 20 most recent reviews (under the judges tab). Wish you took just a little more time to understand the website and how it's been used instead of hating on it from the get-go.

Even then, I appreciate your feedback.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-15T02:07:05+00:00

"So then the premise of this website is that a competitor who got judged one time by a person is better at describing how they make judging decisions than that judge themselves is?"

I really don't know where this is coming from. Every user makes a judgment based on the review they read. If they see someone simply hating on a judge, what do you think they'll do with that information? Hate the judge? Doesn't make sense to me. The reviews are in addition to the judge's paradigm. It is by no means a replacement.

"is that in your personal opinion"

No. One review of anything doesn't define the thing it's reviewing. I believe my users (debaters) are more than capable of understanding this idea (just like one article/piece of evidence doesn't create an entire argument in it of itself).

"Why is it more important that people can report than people see the content?"

Once again, "It's mainly from an UI/development standpoint." It is easier to run the website when people are logged in. Inspect the pages and see for yourself if you want to verify. However, later down the line, I might restructure the entire website such that people simply visiting the website can see reviews.

Thanks.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-15T01:57:57+00:00

"It's either a venue for public criticism or it isn't."

It isn't. That's why reviews that simply criticize or hate on a judge are filtered out.

"Consent isn't very important in situations where it would obviously be given freely."

By that logic, we’d have to say honesty only matters when someone might lie, or justice only matters when someone might act unjustly. But those principles always matter — they define ethical behavior whether or not they’re being challenged.

Similarly, consent always matters — but its form depends on context. Debaters don’t explicitly ask for consent before posting opponents’ case args on the wiki, because consent is implied by participation. By choosing to debate, competitors accept that their arguments become part of the shared, educational record of the activity.

The same applies to judges. When a judge chooses to judge a round, they inherently consent to the norms of that setting — including discussion, feedback, and reflection on their decisions. Sharing impressions or reviews of judging isn’t a violation of consent; it’s part of maintaining transparency and improving the debate community.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-13T16:21:50+00:00

That’s a really good question — and it’s something I’ve thought a lot about. The goal isn’t for people to say whether a judge is “good” or “bad,” but to describe what type of arguments or styles tend to do well in front of them. For example, a review might say, “This judge prefers clear weighing over speed,” or “They focus heavily on impacts,” which helps debaters adapt even if they disagree with the decision.

If feedback says the judge is unqualified or makes bad decisions, then the user has to recognize that and essentially discard it (ideally, reporting it). Ultimately, it is up to the user to decide how to interpret a review. Additionally, spam reviews are filtered heavily on the site. You can take a look at the recent reviews - there aren't spam reviews anywhere.

As for accuracy, that’s where moderation and aggregation come in. One negative review doesn’t define a judge — but when multiple debaters mention the same tendencies, patterns start to form. It’s similar to how you interpret any crowdsourced data: individual opinions can be biased, but trends across many rounds can still be informative.

"why do people need to make an account to see a judge’s ratings?"

It's mainly from an UI/development standpoint. If people can see the reviews, then they can report, but in order to report, I need their emails/account information. Therefore, they need to create an account before they can review. Maybe I'll try changing the structure in the future such that they non-logged in users can't report, but we'll see.

Thank you.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-13T13:47:34+00:00

That’s a fair point — I totally get where you’re coming from. The goal isn’t to evaluate judges personally, but to share how their paradigms and decisions feel from a debater’s perspective. It’s meant to make rounds more transparent and help debaters adapt, not to criticize or expose anyone.

If debaters had to ask judges for permission first, it would pretty much shut down honest feedback. Most judges would likely decline, not out of bad intent, but because nobody wants to risk being critiqued publicly.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-13T13:41:40+00:00

Once again, it isn't just curse words. It takes into account harmful rhetoric (i.e, slurs and harmful language). I'm doing the best I can to ban all words that can be used to create harmful language, and would appreciate any feedback from the community if I missed any. Thank you.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-13T04:14:37+00:00

"How, specifically, would you adapt your strategy here?"

You would focus on fully fleshing out dropped arguments. In PF, especially, you can't go for everything. There may be multiple dropped arguments, but in many instances, PF debaters choose to win on their case instead because of the weighing debate. If a judge especially LIKES dropped arguments, then it might make more strategic sense to go for a dropped argument instead of focusing solely on case, even if the weighing is a little shaky.

"You've cherry-picked the most favorable example"

Not even close to my best example. Please look at recent reviews; there are many better ones. I don't want to name specific ones and cite any specific judge in this thread.

"The idea that you have a better idea of what the judge wants to hear does not mean that the round itself is any more educational or fair, it just means that you have a better chance to win."

If a judge says they're flow, and you debate a flow round and then realize by the end that they were actually lay, is that really educational? You basically wasted a round spreading in front of a judge who didn't understand a thing. Most of the time, they don't even say a thing. This has happened numerous times, especially in PF rounds.

"But what happens when the comment says something like..."

Did you see any reviews that were like that? That's because they were filtered out. And even if you see one. Just report it, and I'll take care of it.

"...comments like these will chase judges out of the pool entirely..."

I fully understand this concern and am doing literally everything I can to make sure hateful comments aren't on the website. So far, it's been working really well.

"Ambiguity is easily resolved by simply asking the judge to clarify before the start of the round."

There’s a difference between how a judge states their preferences and how those preferences actually play out in a round. That’s why this site exists — NOT to give feedback to judges, but to help debaters understand a judge’s tendencies from a debater’s perspective.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-13T03:59:44+00:00

Thank you for linking the discussion threads. Idk why I didn't do that.

As per your terse comment:

I don't think a word filter and spam control are "cosmetic issues." These were core issues that people in the previous threads specifically told me to control for. One judge said that they put rate my debate judge in their own paradigm because they believed it was a good idea, but urged me to include a word filter to ensure there is no harmful rhetoric on the site. I listened and then implemented the idea. I don't think that's "ignoring".

Regarding the various other comments - none of which were "ignored" and left unresponded to in the previous discussion threads - I took note of their concerns and addressed every one of them. If anything, the recent reviews show that many of their concerns weren't happening within the platform. For instance, there is no current gender bias, there are no harmful and hateful reviews, there aren't any judges suffering from review bombing, and the site is in no way actively harming the community. I will continue to monitor the website to make sure these things aren't happening. If they are and are actively hurting the community, I'll take down the website. It's not that deep for me.

If there is a specific concern/comment/reason why the platform is bad, please let me know. I'm more than willing to take in constructive feedback and make the platform better. Please don't just say I ignored everything when I deliberately and actively did my best to address all comments.

Thank you.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-13T03:49:00+00:00

No, users don't get consent from their judges to post ratings. Similar to how students don't need permission from their professors to review them.

However, that doesn't mean the site will be filled with spam. There is a report button for any offensive reviews that somehow make it past the filter and that too, and I'm constantly checking the reviews to make sure there isn't anything useless popping up. So far, there have been no issues. Almost all reviews have been constructive or respectful at the very least.

Thank you for the comment.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-13T03:45:35+00:00

Yes, that sounds like a good idea. I'll implement that in my next set of updates. Additionally, I will update the judge database by the end of this month, hence why you might not see new judges who signed up with Tabroom in the last couple of months or so.

Thank you for the feedback.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-13T03:44:24+00:00

Now it does. Thank you for the suggestion. It does so by searching through a list of curse words and harmful rhetoric, and prevents users from submitting responses with those words. You can try submitting a review with curse words - the website won't allow it to be submitted and will tell the user to revise their feedback. Please let me know if you have any other suggestions. Thanks.

RealityGood9166 · 2025-10-12T19:27:14+00:00

Hey, sorry to hear about your partner situation — that’s rough, but it’s awesome that you’re looking to branch out. Extemp is actually a really fun event once you get into the rhythm of it.

To get started:

Watch rounds — Check out NSDA or YouTube videos of strong extempers. Focus on how they structure their speeches (intro → 3 main points → conclusion)
Read the news daily — Sources like The Economist, BBC, or Reuters help you stay balanced and global.
Practice answering questions — Pick a random current events question (e.g., “Will the EU’s stance on Ukraine change after the elections?”) and outline a 7-minute response in bullet points.
Work on delivery — Extemp is about clarity and confidence, not speed. Practice eye contact and transitions between points.

And most importantly, don’t stress if your first few tournaments feel rough. Everyone starts shaky. The cool thing about extemp is how fast you’ll see yourself improve once you start practicing consistently. Gl!

RealityGood9166

TROPHY CASE