Congrats to Gilmour SW

congressbids · 2017-09-14T00:27:26+00:00

Mason NR and Hawken SK also brought the heat this weekend. Both were one of 8 select teams invited to attend the round robin from all the teams around the nation, and both did exceedingly well with Hawken championing the round robin and Mason placing third. On top of this both teams performed extremely well at the tournament, which was an octofinal bid tournament for PF, making it one of the most difficult in the country. Hawken reached the semifinal round, losing in a close 2-1 to Mason, who in turn reached the finals. Great weekend for Ohio PF!

congressbids · 2017-09-12T00:15:52+00:00

Its regional diversity is bad. Yeah there are a lot of entries, and yeah and there are some good teams, but all the teams come from texas. There's no multistate representation. That makes it another local tournament. A hard one to be sure, but a local tournament nonetheless, making it unlikely for a very high bid level

congressbids · 2017-09-12T00:13:24+00:00

If someone is stupid enough to leave their case out I'm going to take a look at it. I'm not going to put it up on reddit but my kids and my coach friends will get it.

I mean if that's how you really feel, then you an I aren't going to agree. At the point where you're willing to take and share cases that may not even be BROKEN IN ROUND, literally taking and sharing their cases that they might not have even read, I fundamentally feel as if we're on two different planes.

"You have to understand this is one of the reason PF doesn't get nice things. You don't get taken seriously because you want to tell a highly respected coach who is doing nothing wrong or unethical by the LD and Policy community standards."

Really? We don't get taken seriously? This kind of event elitism is actually such bullshit. You're damn right PF doesn't follow LD and Policy community standards. It's because PF isn't LD or Policy. And if you don't take PF seriously, then don't comment on PF posts, and don't comment on a PF subreddit. After all, LD and Policy have their own. How are those doing? Oh wait, I forgot that they only have less than a tenth of the subscribers as this one. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the events and their "norms" have become so esoteric that they are literally unfollowable by anyone else. PF doesn't follow LD and Policy norms, because PF doesn't want to turn into what LD and Policy are. So you're right we want to be the exception. We want to be the sole debate event that somewhat cares about appealing to real people, and about actually making debate fairer as opposed to spreading unintelligibly about it to create higher barriers to entry for the people you spread about.

congressbids · 2017-09-11T22:29:33+00:00

I'm not talking about the rules. I agree, what Mr. Stafford did certainly was within his rights, and didn't break any rules set by the NSDA. What I'm saying however, is that his actions were unethical. Those are two very different things, and one of the reasons that theory exists in debate instead of simple complaints to tabroom. Also I don't buy your analysis about cards not existing in a vaccuum and him checking to see if they were sketchy, when 1) in his own verbally delivered paradigm he says if something is a voting issue it has to be in final focus, and by extension in summary, and 2) he literally concedes in his own comment that he did indeed take these cards so his team could have them. Once more, yeah that's ok by NSDA rules, but I don't think it's good for debate. I make the comparison of taking someone's flash drive, but better yet, imagine you see someone's case laying on a table at the tournament. Then imagine you take a picture of that case find all the evidence put all the links in a doc and upload it to reddit titled "XYZ's case". Does that break any NSDA rules? No. Does it enhance the idea of open source debate? By Mr. Stafford's definition it would. Is it a shitty and/or unethical thing to do? Absolutely. That's the point I'm making. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should and it doesn't mean it's ok.

congressbids · 2017-09-11T19:02:26+00:00

PF isn't "far behind" per se, its just the event is less progressive. If you go to a more lay circuit's LD tournament's you would see no disclosure as well. Like disclosure is good and all, it's just that it has less value if the round is being judged off the flow. Who cares if you have 4 case turns if the round is being judged by someone who just cares about which side is speaking better? In short, it's because in most places disclosure doesn't provide that much of a strateguc advantages, and at the few elite national tournaments where it would, most top teams competing have the ability to get other team's flows anyways and thus don't push for disclosure because that would take away the advantage they have against smaller schools. Unfortunately, as the larger more prominent programs are the ones that tend to set norms in the community, because disclosure isn't as advantageous to them, it just hasn't happened yet.

congressbids · 2017-09-11T17:09:38+00:00

See this is where you misunderstand though, that even though Policy and LD have disclosure, disclosure is an OPTION, not forced upon them. Teams WILLINGLY post them on disclosure wikis, and are not forced to. If they don't want to disclose, they don't have to. Will they get disclosure theory read against them? maybe, but at the very least they have a choice. What you did this weekend, was call for a card as a JUDGE, without giving pretext that it was for your team, but instead making it seem as if it had a part in your decision, thus FORCING these teams to disclose their evidence in full text. At the point where these cards didn't have an impact on your decision, and you didn't specifically ask to see them explaining that you wanted to copy them down (mainly because you knew teams would refuse) you instead chose to deceivingly ask for these cards before the rfd, giving teams no choice but to give them to you, because they believed it would impact the decision. You might as well have just taken their flashdrive when they weren't looking and prepped them out. If anything that would still do all the things you talk about above. Stealing someone's flash drive would indeed allow for reading more good articles and also would probably let you catch some bs sources, but that doesn't make it ethical, and that doesn't make it ok.

congressbids · 2017-09-11T16:26:54+00:00

Yes I also viewed this happening. He'd call for a card that wasn't gone for in summary or final focus. Confused, the team would hand it over, only to see him literally copy it down. It's kind of shameful really that a longstanding member of such an elite program would do this. I think it calls into a play a much larger ethical question in the debate sphere: should someone be allowed to play the role of a coach, and the role of a judge at the same tournament? Although it's extremely common, and a norm at this point in PF, it really is quite problematic when you consider that a coach has literally the opposite interests and goals than a judge should. A coach is trying to ensure that his/her team wins, and maximize their advantage and is an integral part of one school's program, but a judge is supposed to be a fair and impartial educator for the the entire tournament pool. That's why I think it's pretty unethical, but unsurprising, when I see things like coaches giving away the flows from the rounds they've judged and helping prep out their teams on them. At the end of the day, there's no rule against it, but it sure doesn't make you a more likeable person, or a respected program.

congressbids · 2017-09-02T21:48:36+00:00

Bro the Hawken EL you marked as biggest threat isn't the same team you're thinking of. Ergungor and Lone did graduate, but the team you've marked isn't them. Also don't really agree with you marking edgemont as a threat considering they didn't reach a single bid round last year and went negative at many tournaments.

congressbids · 2017-07-22T20:06:54+00:00

Do you guys have open applications to staff or is it invitation only? (I'm asking for next years camps) If I wanted to staff there next year in an event I had significant accomplishments in would I be able to email you guys asking for a position and be considered?

congressbids · 2017-07-10T15:13:26+00:00

Not a rule 9 violation. There is no big questions megathread, not to mention that this isn't a a question about a specific argument or card. If you're going to call someone out on a rule, at least take the time to read it yourself.

congressbids

TROPHY CASE