World Online Debate Cup 2015

I know this one hasn't finished yet, but while the thoughts are fresh in my head, I thought I'd start a new thread to record them.

Possible improvements
1. First two rounds should be for seeding. After that it should be knockout. You could even seed it within the sites so that the knockout stages were always site vs site.

2. Topics should be assigned. It just makes it easier and faster. Give contestants 24hrs to come up with an alternative if you must, but I think the fairest system is just to sign a random topic.

3. Two weeks per debate is good. At first I thought it was too short but it really isn't.

4. We need to do something to get a judging panel. Maybe select four judges and have their votes count for double. That way anyone can still vote but on DDO you know you're going to get some quality judging and on edeb8 you know you're actually going to get judged by more than one person. DDO seem to have a few people who love judging stuff, that Ragnor guy and Blade-something 060 person? They seem to always vote on everything, they'd probably be good.

5. Forfeits should include some penalty. Nobody wants to see a forfeit. It's frustrating. If we went to a knockout stage, that would be fine, that'd take care of it.

6. Points should be awarded based on win (3), loss (0) and draw (2). If we could guarantee the judging panel, you could also award a bonus point for either a narrow loss or a dominant win- depending on which you wanted to award more. I'm not convinced the scaling works, although admin is right when he says that it probably won't become a factor.

7. Assuming we don't get any other sites to join in next year, just promote it as a site vs site thing, kind of like the debate version of the Ryder Cup or the Oxford-Cambridge rowing comp.


So far I've really enjoyed this tournament. The DDO vs Edeb8 thing has been fun too. The odds things are a crack up and should definitely return. I like the blow by blow News commentary as well, except that it seems to be dying a little... All in all, good job so far admin!

nzlockie: How did I miss this thread?

I was hoping to do more with the news but it's been difficult with people sending me debate challenges as well. Oh well. If I organize it earlier then next time we might have more organizers.

About 2 - some topics assigned so far have attracted a good deal of controversy and attacks on my competence as a tournament organizer. What are some ways to mitigate that issue?
About 6 - points ARE awarded for losses, wins and draws as opposed to speaker points first. The scaling is only done on the first tie break.

admin: Re: your topics - I read that and I agree with you and your reasoning 100%. The topics are absolutely fine. There are some tricky ones, but I've yet to see one that couldn't be argued competently by either side.
Tell them to put their big boy pants on and suck it up.

Re: points - I'm not sure I'm following you here. It looks like a win on edeb8 is worth more points than a win on DDO... But you're saying that's not the case?

nzlockie: Re points - no it's not. Tie break points are scaled so that the person who does best on edeb8 gets the same number of points as the person who does best on ddo. It was merely that in the first round the "best on edeb8" happened to be a forfeited debate that really stuffed things up with the draw.

Reviving this thread in the hopes of getting more feedback...

I really hope something can be done about the knockout aspect. In 5 rounds, I've only faced three opponents. And I've had one actual serious debate. I believe this would be improved by having a knock out style comp.

nzlockie: I don't. You did face Krit and ArcTlmes twice but that's because you were really evenly matched on the draw. That's the system trying to work out who's marginally better. I think this is better than a knock-out where you are likely to face opponents who are either way better or way worse, and never face those who would be a good match-up. Of course you could introduce a rule that makes sure you don't face the same opponent twice but that defeats the purpose IMO.

In addition, we only have 9 competitors. At that level, the number of people who are roughly evenly matched is likely to be smaller. With more numbers the system can do much better.

It is a problem that the draw is delayed by 2 rounds because of how fast I'm running this. I'll definitely look into changing that next time.

admin: One of the problems that I've seen may be related to that. I've noticed a distinct sense of apathy, with people forfeiting, conceding or taking way too long to decide on a topic and then to post their rounds so that the debate gets concluded within the timeframe. Several people have also dropped out along the way.

My assessment was that this may have been due to people not feeling too enthusiastic about the whole thing - especially when they start to feel like they're slipping down the ladder. Making it knock out eliminates them and keeps the momentum up.
I like the idea of seeding the tournament which is why I'd like a couple of seeding rounds first.
I do agree though, that the tight timing might have been an issue that would cause the same symptoms. Maybe an extra week between rounds would have helped?

What about this for an alternate idea?

EDEB8 vs DDO Smackdown 2014
Rebekah, Krit, nzlockie & Ba'al Hammon vs CJKAllstar, Ajabi, Fanath & JHL2341 (Basically this require the numbers to be identical, so it'd probably have to be first come first served for DDO, unless multi-accounters wanted to switch allegiances.)

As the 'away' team, DDO chooses the matchups. Topics are randomly assigned.
Scores are tabulated.
Next round takes place on DDO. Topics randomly assigned and Edeb8 chooses the matchups.
Scores are tabulated and Edeb8 takes the win!

You could probably add an extra round in there if you wanted to as well.

This is obviously not finding the BEST debater so it's a different end goal to the WODC - still think it'd be a cool comp though!

nzlockie: interesting...but I really want to participate. Besides, Jh1234l is like a noob sniper...

9spaceking: No duh... I just chose the top four signups from each site for this year's one. Obviously the real event would be made up of whoever wanted to participate.