|
Post by Tom on Jun 11, 2008 13:11:00 GMT 10
G’day all. Some of you will have seen Sydney’s proposed changes to the Australs constitution. For those that haven’t, here’s a link. groups.yahoo.com/group/australs/message/1573And here’s a link to Nicole from MUDS response. groups.yahoo.com/group/australs/message/1575Apparently, Sydney raised these same issues at Easters and got no support. It seems a little odd that they’d try their luck again now. It seems particularly odd that they’d say that if no one supported them they wouldn’t push for a long discussion at council. I’d have thought if you felt it was worth changing the tournament it would be worth talking about it at council. Basically, they want two amendments. Firstly, to introduce points of information to Australs, and secondly to abolish the contingent cap and increase the institution break cap. I had my say on the POIs issue when Sydney last raised it three years ago. You can find a link to that discussion here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the responses. groups.yahoo.com/group/australs/message/877I haven’t changed any of my opinions, except that I’m leaning the other way now on the issue of replies. The changes to the Australs cap are new to me though, and I wanted to say something about them. I think the six team cap is a little restrictive and I wonder if there’s a way to introduce some flexibility. I’m generally of the opinion that anyone who wants to debate should be able to, provided there’s enough adjudicators and spots at the tournament to go around. I don’t know of any other tournament that has a constitutional cap on the number of teams that can attend from any one tournament. That said, there’s a danger of big institutions close to the host university flooding the tournament. Sydney’s e-mail says that the current practice ensures diversity, but practices change with each host and there needs to be some consistency. Perhaps clubs could be restricted from registering more than six teams until the last month? I’m not really too concerned about this issue because I think it’s unlikely to be a problem anytime soon. Demand for spots at Australs is growing all the time and I think contingent caps are more likely to shrink than grow. You have to have some sympathy for Sydney on the ‘three team break’ rule. It would have to suck to see teams from your contingent get excluded from the finals for any reason. This rule seems to affect Sydney more than any other institution at AIDA tournaments, so I suppose its natural they’d want to change it. I can see three good reasons for limiting institutions to three teams in the break. The first is that having four or more teams in a 16 team finals series would make the break less representative of the tournament as a whole. The second is that some institutions find it easier to send contingents with lots of depth than others, depending on their location relative to the hosts and the amount they can afford to subsidise their teams. There needs to be some way to prevent distant, less wealthy societies being crowded out without compromising the tournament too much. The third is the spread of success. As Nicole says, making the break at Australs can be a big fillip for smaller clubs, who get squeezed out when big societies dominate the break. For example, Monash 4 were capped out in 2003, which meant Universiti Putra Malaysia made the break for the first time ever. In 2001 a Melbourne team were capped out, and (if memory serves) that allowed in Chulalongkorn. I totally disagree with their halfway proposal to change the break cap to 2/3rds of the number of teams in the biggest contingent. Most years, that’s going to mean a cap of four. If we didn’t have the team cap and, for example, International Islamic University had been able to send a dozen or so teams across Kuala Lumpur to UT Mara Australs, then we wind up with a break cap of seven or eight per institution. I don’t see the logic in this at all. Nor do I understand why any number would be better than three. Three is built into the affirmative action rules and has been accepted as the cut off point for a long time. I don’t see why we would increase it while the break stays the same size and the tournament itself gets bigger. So I hope MAD continues to oppose these constitutional changes. I’d be interested to hear what everyone else thinks.
|
|
|
Post by smartarse on Jun 11, 2008 14:28:57 GMT 10
Hi folks,
Sorry I've been absent from this newly-revived board in recent weeks. However its good to see this forum being used a platform for discussion of important issues.
I'll resist the urge to comment in detail on the POIs issue. My opposition to this proposal is long-standing and i think well known. If you are a newbie and are especially interested in my reasoning, you can read an article i wrote on the subject in a previous edition of the Monash Debating Review and/or my comments on the Australs egroup (Tom has kindly attached a link to the archive).
As for the issue of changing the cap, in particular the cap on breaking (because i can't see much likelihood of a change in the contingent cap given the explosive growth in interest in Australs) i think would add only one thing to the comments from Tom.
It is very clear that the 3 team break cap has operated to the advantage of smaller/less experienced institutions (see Tom's examples). Clearly the whole purpose of the cap is to ensure that a range of institutions gain the honour and the experience of having teams in the finals. This can have a pervasive influence on the culture, skills and financial support of the club in future years.
So therefore in order to argue that this benefit should be denied (or at least greatly reduced), Sydney need to demonstrate that they (and others) suffer a substantially greater harm as a result of the restriction.
Unfortunately for them i can see little evidence of such a harm. Obviously it is disappointing and even upsetting for the individuals who are capped out of the finals. I don't for a moment discount that. However i think it is a very small price to pay to increase the opportunity to those debating societies that may never have broken a team, and suffer that frustration and disappointment every year.
So perhaps Sydney feel that the cap damages their capacity to train and develop junior debaters, and this is a harm to their society. Obviously there is some truth to this. Missing out on an Australs final series is a loss of experience and that has an impact. But this needs be weighed against the wider capacity for those teams and individuals to gain those skills. Given that Sydney routinely break 3 teams, their club obviously retains the critical mass of experienced speakers to train their juniors. So the impact is small and short term.
But compare that to debating societies that have no finals-experienced speakers, and you can see how the impact on Sydney is much less than the impact on those societies the rule is designed to help.
So since it has great potential to help less experienced societies, and has only a very minimal and short term impact on Sydney (and other large societies) we should retain the cap.
Its crucial that Monash continue its tradition of advocating and voting for the greater good of the australs community and not be tempted to support this change - even though we are one of the societies who sometimes is affected by this rule.
|
|
|
Post by tinfoilhat on Jun 11, 2008 16:30:53 GMT 10
Without getting to the substantive merits, I think it should be said that Nicole doesn't represent MUDS official response, she says as much, and I think some of what was written, especially the reference to "revered debating personalities" is a bit offputting. Can someone tell me where I can find a list of "revered debating personalities"? I find the idea of worship in general troubling, and of no value in a discussion like this, as it seems to suggest the people on the other side are not credible. Arguments which need to attack peoples credibility to survive are inherently bad ones. I think many people might have different views as to whether people are "revered" anyway, I think the whole of the AUDC might have issue with at least 2/3s of the names given by Nicole, if their mailing list is any judge.
Nor do I agree that we should be constructing a tournament of the scope and significance as Australs on the basis of how it will effect less experienced debaters (or whatever PC name some people will soon give them). That should be the secondary issue, behind the question of what is the best style. This isn't Easters or some pokey little IV from Japan, it's one of the biggest and most serious IVs in the world.
I think the proposed changes were always good ones, I agree with close to everything Andrew says, but there isn't alot of point discussing it if the entire way the discussion is considered is from a perspective of "what is best for the least experienced teams", since that's not how I'm looking at it, nor how I imagine Andrew is. I didn't realise Australs was a novice tournament and needed to factor in these considerations, and it is frankly a bit patronising to the smaller institutions to do so. It's also telling that the Australs style is not used in (I think) any school comps across Australia, nor at University internal comps, where the predominant styles in 3 on 3 comps feature POIs. I think that alone is basically a concession as to what the "best" style is, which is why I'm not going to get bogged down in an argument over the merits, because the key difference seems to be how it will supposedly hurt small institutions, or so I read between the lines.
|
|
|
Post by Julian on Jun 12, 2008 8:26:35 GMT 10
Tinfoilhat,
I think you might have missed this line. It was blatantly obvious at the start of Nicole's letter to the Australs list.
"The below is my personal opinion and does not necessarily represent any of the debating institutions I am a part of..."
I think an apology is required for your first scurrilous attack.
Secondly, who the hell is this Andrew you keep referring to? Did I miss an email over the Australs list? Andrew Fitch? Andrew Chapman? Andrew Black? Andrew "John" Thornton? Can you give a link mate?
Thirdly, it's fine for you to dislike revered debating personalities or hero worship in debating, not that I think it lends anything to anybody's argument on this issue. To imply though that most of AUDC is of the same opinion as yourself is firstly wrong, and secondly is exactly the sort of thing you accuse Nicole of, using the support of others to lend weight to your own arguments.
The issue is clearly not about turning Australs into a novice tournament, or being PC, or anything like that. It's what's best for the quality of the tournament and the entirity of Australasian debating that is the issue. Under the status quo, the absolute minimum number of institutions which can make the finals is six. If the team cap rises to four, then you can have just four institutions competing in the finals.
Less diversity in the finals makes the tournament itself less marketable to sponsors. Less appearances in finals makes it more difficult for the lesser societies to get funding to go to Australs. Sydney and Monash hardly struggle to get funding to go Australs, and while I've never been involved in the conversation, I doubt the donors would suddenly splash a shitload more cash on hearing that a fourth team might have made the octo-finals.
This isn't in the interests of the most-experienced teams in the long-run either. While I'll be shitty on the night sometime in the future when a MAD team gets capped out of an Australs finals berth, in the long run I know that the competition within MAD following that will be fierce and the MADdies who missed out will be more motivated to not just make a team, but leapfrog each other and make a high team with greater chances of passing that higher bar that is set for the most successful societies.
It's extraordinarily unlikely that the fourth best team from an institution will somehow win the tournament, certainly more unlikely than at Worlds where a Sydney G situation is remotely possible. I don't think any team that hasn't been a 1,2 or 3 has won Australs but the old guard on this board might have an example from the memory vaults.
So if these teams are extraordinarily unlikely to win the tournament, more motivated to get to the point where they could win the tournament, and create holes for other institutions to get their only team in so that they can stand a greater chance of accessing funding to regularly attend the tournament, it's hard to see why we should change from the status quo.
If the proposal was, however, that the entire team cap should be abolished then there would be a different argument. But as long as Sydney/tinfoilhat are proposing a 4 team cap, or 2/3 cap, they assumedly still believe some sort of tampering with the draw at Australs is ok. So why is 4 better tampering than 3, or why is 3 so fundamentally unfair but 4 better? Or is this actually a long term push to abolish the cap entirely?
One good issue which has been raised is the overall cap. The cap on 6 teams seems ridiculous in this age of two stage registration processes. The only basis on which you can argue this is good is that the likely members of teams 7 and 8 would be robbing the adjudication draw of good judges.
Certainly at Worlds you can make this argument - when Sydney was allowed to send G and H to UBC, potentially great judges were lost from the pool, which would be much more devastating to the tournament standard of adjudication at a smaller tournament like Australs. The alternate argument though is that the guys likely to fill the spots in virtually every other institution would likely be quite young and inexperienced, and most likely would be trainees or panellists throughout the tournament.
I lean towards allowing more than six teams in, but I certainly think that's worth an in depth discussion rather than the tired old debate about the cap. Keep that break cap discussion to drunken arguments on break night where it belongs, rather than stretching out the agony of AIDA council while us and Japan worry about whether we've won the bid.
|
|
|
Post by Julian on Jun 12, 2008 8:43:44 GMT 10
And finally, "without getting bogged down in an argument over the merits" of the proposal (Lord knows what else you should assess it on...), yes, Australs style, like Worlds style, is not used in our school competitions (although 3 on 3 with no POI or replies is extremely close to Australs style). What on earth does this prove?
It's not about a superior or inferior style, because no style of debating is inherantly better than another, they simply emphasise different aspects. Worlds is about a more rounded approach of analysis and tactics, whereas Australs emphasises depth of analysis. Perhaps arguing for 10 minute speeches with POI's then this could more greatly enhance Australs style debating, however I would be skeptical. Instead, the proposal seems like a general push to move Australs closer to Worlds style of debating, whereas I believe the distinct nature of Australs has led to a strength Australasian teams now have over other teams at Worlds. But I'd read all the articles on this from three years ago.
As for reply speeches, I'd be interested to see some statistical analysis on the Aff/Neg bias at Australs (excluding tab errors such as Round 2 from UT Mara where all the Aff teams won). From what I understand from stats from a few years ago, in our own DAV schools comp which conducts 1000's of debates the Neg wins close to 70% of the time. I suspect replies tip the balance back to the Aff, but more than anything I'd just be interested to know, and particularly get some samples of 3 on 3 without replies amongst university debaters.
But nothing new has been brought up since three years ago, so in the meantime, I'd just read the posts from 2005 on the issue.
|
|
|
Post by tinfoilhat on Jun 12, 2008 11:03:59 GMT 10
If you read what I wrote, down to the level of the actual words, you will see me say "I think it should be said that Nicole doesn't represent MUDS official response, she says as much". In English, when looking at the words around it, this translates as "Nicole herself tells us she isn't representative of MUDS, and is saying this in her own capacity, so I want to make sure nobody attributes her views to MUDS". I must have missed the scurrilous attack, because I actually read the posts people here make quite carefully.
Again, if you read the posts properly, you will see that Tom's first link takes us to the previous debate, which opens with a call for change by Andrew Chapman. I think this is fairly obvious to others here, ones who are actually interested in an in depth discussion, and not just trying to clamp down on dissent.
Thirdly, I never express my own views one way or the other as to who is a debating personality, or who shouldn't be, I simply note what is true- 2 of the names she gives are certainly not regarded as revered personalities within a large % of the communities they once pupported to represent. I hate to say it, but your belief that I have misrepresented the feelings of the majority of the AUDC is also likely attributable to your failure to actually read the posts of the AUDC. This seems another good reason to leave such "personalities" out of it altogether. I think other good reasons also exist for not mentioning their views, but I won't get into them, and didn't in the first place. Because I actually don't make personal attacks here.
Worlds doesn't have caps of this nature, and they get alot of funding. I don't see it being a problem that alot of teams don't make the break. Teams still go to Worlds, even if they don't break. It's never been a problem before, and I don't see the casual link between universities who don't have a track record of success being able to attend or get funding. How did the Asian Universities get funding initially? Or the Japanese Unis now? I think this sort of "sharing" is patronising to the less experienced universities. I doubt respected debaters like Rajesh and Amit from the WUDC final a few years back would have cared to be patronised in this way. They'd rather feel they made it on their own merit.
I think the observation I made about our domestic comps is self-explanatory. Australians can easily change styles for school or internal comps. Almost every schools or internal comp at Uni closely resembles the Sydney proposal, not the actual format of Australs. I think this makes it very clear what the prefered style is, or "the best one" as it were. The basis for sticking with the Australs format seems to be, in part, predicated on the basis that other institutions would struggle if we imposed such difficult things as POIs on them. Again, pretty patronising.
|
|
|
Post by smartarse on Jun 12, 2008 11:13:36 GMT 10
haha. i love Julian. I agree with everything he said, and i won't repeat any of it. Just quickly though i would point out that i think Nicole's comment about revered old hacks was ever so slightly tongue-in-cheek. I could be wrong. It could be that our friend mr hat knows Nicole better than me, but i thought it was worth encouraging people to have a sense of humour. The only serious thing i'll pick up on is the snidely referred to false dichotomy of "best style vs best for less experienced institutions". It has been recognised by institutions across the region - the vast majority of Australian institutions included - that an inclusive tournament is best for everyone. If we just want to have a Sydney/Melbourne/Monash IV then we're free to do so. But the point of Australasians is that its diverse. Diverse in styles, diverse in experience. And for Australs to have any real meaning and value, it comes from that diversity. So yes, we have a rule which in the short term (a single championship) means that a team can be excluded from the break despite enjoying more success than another team which is included in the break, but in the medium-to-long term we have a more competitive and representative tournament - which is the point of holding an Australasian IV. It is the same logic as AA. The reason why AA was overwhelming adopted and remains unchallengable is that there is clear recognition that the tournament is better if we seek ways to level the playing field. Without AA Australs would have far fewer female speakers and judges, and that would create a poorer tournament, even if in the short term it might mean that a few guys are pushed down the pecking order, or even pushed out of a contingent entirely. This is not an argument against having the best, more competitive tournament we can, its an argument about how to achieve that. That tinfoilhat doesn't recognise that is a little sad, and i'm hoping that he/she can be persuaded otherwise. But even if that is not possible, there is a reason why the majority of Australian universities have voted against changing the cap, even though they are more likely to be a victim of the rule than instutions from other countries. And finally, yes i'll take the bait and respond to the implied criticism of pokey little IV from Japan - its curious to me that you single out tournaments in Japan to make the point that Australs is a big and important comp. Why are IVs in Japan "pokey" but presumably IVs in Sydney, Melbourne or anywhere else are not? I suspect you were seeking to be inflamatory, and if so then thats further indication of your immaturity, but if you were not then i'd encourage you to think carefully about the way you talk about debating cultures and societies from other countries you obviously have no experience of. At worst it marks you out as racist. At best it simply weakens your argument. IVs in Japan occur much more frequently and mostly on a much greater scale than 'minis' in Australia due to the larger number of university debating societies and their relatively close proximity compared to Australia. So if Japanese IVs are 'pokey' then Sydney and Melbourne minis are pitiful. I do so enjoy these forum discussions
|
|
|
Post by Phil Barker on Jun 12, 2008 11:40:27 GMT 10
Hi all
I only care to comment on the cap proposals. These are my views, not MUDS’, Amnesty International’s, Melb Uni LSS’ or any other institution of which I am a member.
1. institution team cap I really don’t understand why this cannot be at the discretion of the host university. Why can the host after accepting up to 6 teams from every possible uni, who has the capacity to then accept a 7th and 8th from monash and Sydney not accept those teams? The only real concern seems to be flooding, but by proportion to the huge size of australs nowadays, this is really a negligible concern. This proposal awards the discretion to allow the maximum possible number of people debate, I think this should be promoted.
2. Finals team cap I don’t think that the finals of Australs should be the arena for promoting equity and development in debating. I think they should be a dog-eat-dog, best of the best fight based entirely on merit. I think that any step away from this is of substantial harm to the tournament. I agree with Tom that the half-way option from Sydney is puzzling.
The debating community at present has many, many more debating opportunities than in the past, including Easters, NZ nationals, Minis x 4, ADAM, AUDC, All Asians, and nationals throughout Asia. I think that these can be used to promote equity and development in debating. They all act as a build up to the best, hardest, highest prestige tournaments – Australs and Worlds. I think that the top 16 teams after the rounds at Australs should compete in its finals because I think that is the role that Australs plays in the increasingly diverse debating circuit. I don’t accept that knocking out a deserving team because they’re from a successful institution in favour of a team from a less successful institution enables Australs to fulfil its role in the debating circuit.
I think this is in no way analogous to a salary cap, it is comparable to finals. Where the top, who have earnt it compete for the prize. Maybe if we had a cap and trade system for quality debaters, that would be like a salary cap, but this is not.
All of that said, I think that the proposal at the moment is only halfway there and so the conversation is more marginal than if they just abolished the cap.
Peace out
Phil
|
|
|
Post by tinfoilhat on Jun 12, 2008 11:43:49 GMT 10
I can't wait for the retraction Julian is no doubt going to give me. Perhaps he can ask for one from smartarse from me, for the incredible suggestion that my post is racist. Surprisingly enough I won't be crying to the board moderators for an apology though.
The claim that it makes Australs more inclusive is obviously true. The claim it makes it more competetive is clearly false. Removing teams who would otherwise break clearly makes it less competetive, not more. If one were to use sophistry, we can use the word competetively to describe the claim, eg "it makes it much more competetive for Sydney teams to break", but to suggest this somehow makes the tournament in general more competetive is clearly false.
I don't see the casual link between institutions not coming, and institutions not breaking. And in my humble experience sponsorship is a result of factors other than whether your individual institution breaks. If I recall correctly alot of large Asian institutions were accused of effectively cheating the ESL system in order to get more sponsorship. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea of compromising any results in order to try and achieve dubious claims of this sort.
Maybe AA should exist, and maybe it shouldn't, but to the extent that there is a powerful argument for AA, it occurs at the institutional, grassroots level, where it acts as a method of ensuring discriminatory practices don't go on behind the scenes. I don't really see what discrimination is being prevented by cap rules, other than on the basis of talent. I think that's a pretty good form of discrimination.
|
|
|
Post by Tom on Jun 12, 2008 12:03:09 GMT 10
I agree with Tim. Its good to actually have a real discussion on this issue.
It'd be great if someone from Sydney could contribute and further explain their thinking behind these changes.
To address Phil's points about the team cap, I think its way too simplistic to say that the size of tournaments makes flooding negligible. If you had an open slather system and hosts ran first come first serve registration, then tournaments in KL could get ten teams each from IIU, MMU and Mara, or tournaments in Melbourne could get the same from Monash, Melbourne and Sydney. Representation from big institutions close to the host would blow out and distort the tournament.
But I do agree that once everyone's had a crack at registering teams across the region, if there's still capacity to take on extra teams, that should be opened up to unis that have already reached their limit of six. Which is why I think we should be looking for a better solution than what we have at the moment.
I actually have a lot of respect for Phil's view that the finals of Australs should be as cutthroat as possible and entirely based on merit. I wouldn't support the current rules if I thought they were allowing in teams that didn't deserve to be there and just couldn't be competitive.
But Australs is different from the other tournaments Phil mentioned. Australs is far more ambitious than any regional competition in that it tries to represent the debating styles and ideas of two totally different continents, within which there's already a big diversity in approaches. The finals should be high quality (and they are, and no one's ever suggested they're not) but they should also represent what is best about Australs. The more teams get sourced from the same university the less representative it becomes.
By the way, I think a few people might take issue with you suggesting AUDC and Asians should be about building up to Australs. They're very serious tournaments in their own right.
|
|
|
Post by tinfoilhat on Jun 12, 2008 12:14:08 GMT 10
I wouldn't support the current rules if I thought they were allowing in teams that didn't deserve to be there and just couldn't be competitive.... ...The finals should be high quality (and they are, and no one's ever suggested they're not) but they should also represent what is best about Australs. The more teams get sourced from the same university the less representative it becomes. Talk about double speak, next we'll hear that the winner is "first among equals". They don't "deserve it", because they weren't in the top 16. This isn't complex. If the 19th ranked team doesn't make it, you'll still be winning a tournament that is just as "representative", just the 19th team won't have broken on the way. The last time a team didn't break due to the rule was 2006, when Sydney 3 got bumped. That was a team containing Anna Garcia, Bek Mann and Brigit Morris. Given the team broke 10th, and Anna won WUDC later that year, I think it is inarguable that their exclusion watered down the finals that year. Conversely, that's the only time it has happened since I think 2003, meaning the number of teams it is supposedly benefiting from diverse institutions (such as Melbourne in 2006) is small, but the cost to the unlucky individuals is high. Perhaps I have some sort of racism against Melbournites, I'll leave that to Tim to comment on, but I don't see why Liz Aimes, Thea and Chris H were more deserving that year than Anna, Brigit and Bek.
|
|
|
Post by smartarse on Jun 12, 2008 12:42:58 GMT 10
Now we're cooking!
I didn't call you racist. I listed a range of different ways in which your flippant and ignorant reference to Japanese debating could be interpreted - which at worst would be as racist. You don't get an apology for that. Your failure to respond to my analysis of why the comment was ignorant might be construed as acceptance by you of that analysis. Therefore i won't apologise for being right either.
moving on.
I never engaged in sophistry, i made an argument for why leveling the playing field - which has some harms in the short term - will create a much more competitive competition in the long term.
both tinfoilhat and Mr. Barker ignored that when they said that obviously a tournament is less competitive if a less successful team participates in the finals at the expense of more successful team. short term versus long term folks. engage in the debate or don't, but denying the existance of an argument is churlish.
Thats why the analogy to AA is apt - because in the short term it may well lead to a female speaker being elavated at the expense of a more experienced or skilled male speaker, but in the long term we develop more inclusive and competitive debating societies and tournaments.
That said Phil makes a valid attempt to differentiate the need for a level playing field during the rounds as opposed to the finals. Fair cop and i'm happy to respond.
the reason why the finals can't be a strict (short term defined) meritocracy is that by reducing the opportunity for newer societies to make the finals, we reduce the incentive for them to compete, which diminishes the diversity of the tournament to the detriment of all (see my earlier post). Its the same reason why we have AA for finals judges break and the GF - to create opportunities for the current generation - otherwise women/deb soc's won't stick around long enough to achieve the level playing field in the long term.
It is also recognition of the barriers that exist for newer and largely non-australian insititutions during the rounds. Much has been written and said about this (including by Monash during its bid for Australs at last year's AIDA Council) but in summary they are:
*the way judges are allocated - there is often an implicit or explicit value judgement made by the adj core about how to allocate judges, with established unis getting the better ones, which makes the tournament less accurate the further down the tab you go. Given that the break cap affects teams who will have spent most of the tournament outside the top bracket where the best judges spend most of their time, the results have a greater margin of error. Not only because weaker judges are more likely to make mistakes, they are also more likely to let prejudices sway them - affecting some teams more than others. So the break cap means we err on the side of caution and diversity.
*the way topics are set - there is a western media/liberal democratic bias, which impacts on the fairness of the competition. Again, the break cap means we recognise that the rounds are not a level playing field (despite the best efforts of the adj core) and so instituionally we should err on the side of caution and diversity.
Thats why we can't treat the finals as an exception, even if superficially it might seem like a place where strict meritocracy should reign. Its also why we can't (at the moment) accept that other tournaments can act as the training grounds (as Phil suggests) and let Australs be the pro league.
Maybe, hopefully, one day we won't need AA, or a break cap. But at the moment we do.
|
|
|
Post by tinfoilhat on Jun 12, 2008 13:12:18 GMT 10
Now we're cooking! I didn't call you racist. I listed a range of different ways in which your flippant and ignorant reference to Japanese debating could be interpreted - which at worst would be as racist. You don't get an apology for that. Your failure to respond to my analysis of why the comment was ignorant might be construed as acceptance by you of that analysis. Therefore i won't apologise for being right either. moving on. I never engaged in sophistry, i made an argument for why leveling the playing field - which has some harms in the short term - will create a much more competitive competition in the long term. both tinfoilhat and Mr. Barker ignored that when they said that obviously a tournament is less competitive if a less successful team participates in the finals at the expense of more successful team. short term versus long term folks. engage in the debate or don't, but denying the existance of an argument is churlish. Thats why the analogy to AA is apt - because in the short term it may well lead to a female speaker being elavated at the expense of a more experienced or skilled male speaker, but in the long term we develop more inclusive and competitive debating societies and tournaments. That said Phil makes a valid attempt to differentiate the need for a level playing field during the rounds as opposed to the finals. Fair cop and i'm happy to respond. the reason why the finals can't be a strict (short term defined) meritocracy is that by reducing the opportunity for newer societies to make the finals, we reduce the incentive for them to compete, which diminishes the diversity of the tournament to the detriment of all (see my earlier post). Its the same reason why we have AA for finals judges break and the GF - to create opportunities for the current generation - otherwise women/deb soc's won't stick around long enough to achieve the level playing field in the long term. It is also recognition of the barriers that exist for newer and largely non-australian insititutions during the rounds. Much has been written and said about this (including by Monash during its bid for Australs at last year's AIDA Council) but in summary they are: *the way judges are allocated - there is often an implicit or explicit value judgement made by the adj core about how to allocate judges, with established unis getting the better ones, which makes the tournament less accurate the further down the tab you go. Given that the break cap affects teams who will have spent most of the tournament outside the top bracket where the best judges spend most of their time, the results have a greater margin of error. Not only because weaker judges are more likely to make mistakes, they are also more likely to let prejudices sway them - affecting some teams more than others. So the break cap means we err on the side of caution and diversity. *the way topics are set - there is a western media/liberal democratic bias, which impacts on the fairness of the competition. Again, the break cap means we recognise that the rounds are not a level playing field (despite the best efforts of the adj core) and so instituionally we should err on the side of caution and diversity. Thats why we can't treat the finals as an exception, even if superficially it might seem like a place where strict meritocracy should reign. Its also why we can't (at the moment) accept that other tournaments can act as the training grounds (as Phil suggests) and let Australs be the pro league. Maybe, hopefully, one day we won't need AA, or a break cap. But at the moment we do. Your prose is truly masterful. You should consider a career in linguistics perhaps. You open by saying you didn't call me a racist, merely hinted that I could be (which apparently makes all the difference in apologising) if I thought certain things which I never articulated. You follow up this staggering claim by suggesting that by not lowering myself to respond to your baseless accusation, which you've just claimed that firstly you didn't actually make, and secondly which you conceded I never actually provided any evidence for in my statements, that I've somehow proven I am one, and you won't apologise for being "right" about your earlier (non)claim. Assumedly since you now have called me a racist, while earlier conceding you have no basis for it, I can expect your apology immediately. I think this "I know racism when I see it, and imagine it even when I don't" approach to argumentation can be seen in your substantive comments also. Unfortunately you are on no firmer ground with your "butterfly wings" style of analysis about helping less experienced institutions do well. Firstly, when you are the one who is in favour of defeating basic principles of justice or merit, my experience is the burden is on you to provide the casual link between the benefit and the measure. You don't, but let's explore why there isn't one. Over the last 5 australs the situation in question has happened twice. Once in 2006, when Sydney was knocked out for Melbourne. Once in 2003 when Monash 4 was knocked out for IIUM 1. So the suggestion this is some sort of huge carrot for new institutions is clearly false. All the cap rules in the world won't affect the majority of inexperienced institutions, and despite never having broken at australs, it hasn't seemed to have curbed the enthusiasm of Japanese or Korean debating, or prevented them from bidding to host all manner of IVs. To take the 1 non-established example of this happening, I don't see the casual link. IIUM sent 5 teams in 2003. The sent only 2 teams in 2004, 2005 and 2006, and 6 teams in 2007. Their results in almost all of those appear no better, in fact their results are probably worse in all the subsequent IVs in terms of overall success, representation, participation, etc. It doesn't seem to have made any impact on growing IIUM debating, and anyway, that sort of thing is what local tournaments are for, not to mention big ones like AUDC and All-Asians. AA exists to try and stop discrimination at the grassroots on the basis of gender. Team caps exist to stop discrimination on the basis of talent. I don't have a problem with the latter discrimination, I do with the former. That's the argument for AA, and I'm not sure it's a valid one. But to the extent that it is, there's a pretty clear distinction for it. There is no evidence that grassroots discrimination prevents IIUM breaking in 2003, they were just less successful at the tournament. As Phil notes, this is the final series. There simply isn't a barrier for their participation, you've basically just said that some institutions aren't as good as us, so let's patronise them by lowering the bar. This doesn't appear to be how institutions like Ateneo got good, and I don't think it does unestablished institutions any favours. At a pretty basic level it is obvious that in any given year at Australs it is unlikely this rule ever effects more than maybe 1 team. For Tim to draw the wide benefits he does from Timbucktoo 6 getting 1 extra debate, in which they will probably get creamed in the Octo against Sydney/Monash 1, can only be charitably called a "long bow".
|
|
|
Post by smartarse on Jun 12, 2008 13:57:49 GMT 10
In what i'm sure will be fascinating reading for the rest of this forum, i'll reiterate the reasons why you are not owed an apology - hopefully for the last time.
I did not call you a racist. I pointed out that your comment could be construed in various ways depending on your motivation - intending to be provocative or not - and since i can't be sure of your motivation, i didn't make a final judgement as to what the appropirate interpretation is - merely the options. One of which is that you could be a racist. Are you?
Why not end the mystery now and tell me how such a blatantly ignorant comment should be understood: generously: meaning simply that your argument was weak because your assertion about the 'pokey-ness' of Japanese tournaments was factually inaccurate, or ungenerously: meaning simply that you think there is something inherently inferior about the quality of Japanese IVs in comparison to IVs held in other countries - which would make you a racist. Your call.
So since i still find myself on solid ground, i see no need to apologise. Since in your two previous posts you have failed to justify or clarify your comments about Japan, the validity of my analysis is unchallenged. So no apology for you.
That said, i sincerely appreciate the compliment about the quality of my prose.
So onto the substantive issues.
Do i have to justify abrogating natural justice? well firstly you are the one arguing for a change to a well established rule (one that has been ratified multiple times in the face of attempts to change it) so i would think that surely the primary burden is on you to show a need to make a change that has been repeatedly rejected.
Bare in mind that not only has this change been rejected before, but we have tweaked the break cap in the past (previously the cap was interpreted to mean that the top 3 teams for an institution would automatically edge out other teams from their own contingent - a somewhat bizzare rule that cost my good friend Luke an opportunity to participate in the finals on one occasion).
The point i make is that the AIDA Council has considered this issue in great detail, and has consistently reaffirmed the logic of the cap, whilst rejecting elements of it that consistently lead to perverse outcomes.
All that being said, did i claim that the break cap was a huge carrot for newer/less successful institutions? and did i claim that the incentive was felt only by the institution benefiting from the application of the rule? No on both counts.
The cap leads to a greater chance of a more diverse finals series, which gives hope to all those institutions that struggle to break, not just those that do in a given year.
I have had the pleasure of competing against teams from Asia in the finals of Australs, and without meaning to over-generalise, there is genuine support for the Asian team amongst other Asian debaters, and i don't think its got anything to do with a dislike of Australian teams, but there is an underdog status that is associated with Asians teams in the finals.
The more Asian teams that make the finals, even in relatively small numbers, the greater the feeling amongst the other contingents that they too may get a similar chance.
Part of the reason for that level of solidarity is the problems with Australs that i discussed in my previous post. I have coached Australs teams in the vast majority of countries that send teams to Australs and they all complain about the selection of topics and the allocation of judges. Having been on the inside of the tab room more than once, i can tell you all that there is a good deal of merit to their claims (although usually as a result of unintended actions).
Similarly i have heard kids from my own contingent make comments when they are allocated to judge asian teams against australians teams that "the decision will be pretty easy". Much like our friend mr hat, its not always clear whether such comments are intended to be discriminatory, but they are a reflection of stereotypes and problems that exist in international debating.
For those who remember the Australs GF in 2004 which featured an excellent team from MMU, you will remember their first speaker welcoming the audience to the first "truly australasian australs" and the thunderous applause that followed.
In short, the effect of a few teams, from outside the scope of the universities that traditionally break, making the finals has a knock on effect that encourages participation. Derride it as the 'butterfly effect' if you must, but i've seen it. I've seen the way other contingents rally around and support the breaking team, even if one of their own traditional rivals.
The break cap is not patronising (which is why virtually no asian unis ever back a push for its change) but its also not a panacea. Other measures and other tournaments all have a role to play in building the skills and changing the culture, but in the short term we should keep open this small window, which while imperfect, does at least demonstrate our commitment to a more diverse and equal tournament.
|
|
|
Post by Phil Barker on Jun 12, 2008 14:20:48 GMT 10
I love exam time.
So: I think on a principled level that the team cap is an impediment to the virtue of the finals in both, because it necessarily devalues the break of the team who made it by virtue of the cap, and denies the opportunity to a team who had earnt it. But I’ve made those args.
I think that the argument that the cap leads to long term development is largely overstated. I think this especially by comparison to AA because the finals cap is not about participation (as AA is) but is about the highest success. I am absolutely in favour of AA, but because I think it utilises the correct mechanism, only enabling participation when a contingent is AA compliant. Similarly with the broader team cap, as I outlined, if with a team cap of 6 after all unis send as many as they can, then the big unis should be able to send more. I say this because it maximises participation and diversity (yes, I think Sydney 1 and Sydney 10 have vast differences – ask any Adj at Easters this year) The finals cap is different because it’s not about participation in the tournament. The link then needs to be explored between participating in the finals and development of a struggling society. First, I think that tinfoilhat (who are you? I’m interested.) makes a valid point in outlining that the teams ranking 17th are not Keio, Uni of Phillipines or UTas. This is important because I struggle to justify to Anna, Bec and Brigit that they should have missed out for the sake of Thea, Chris and Liz. I know that it’s narrow to only focus on examples, but I think that this is a salient point. In terms of incentive to compete, in a tournament with 100 teams with 16 making the finals I don’t think it’s a fair characterisation to say that a cap reduces ‘the incentive for them to compete, which diminishes the diversity of the tournament’. I think many compete wanting to break but with that not their threshold incentive. I don’t believe at all that unis on the brink of existence would not attend Australs if we abolished a policy that only comes into effect once every 4 or so years. I think the comparison to AA in finals is a strong one and I guess on that point I am a little inconsistent. I think distinctions could be drawn but they don’t substantially further the discussion.
I think that the barriers that Tim outlined are really interesting and valuable, but I don’t think that they create an impetus to chip away at the meritocratic basis of the finals. I think they create an impetus to consciously work to eradicate those factors. I think that the idea of where unsure, side with diversity is unfair after 8 rounds of a tournament. I think it is much more consistent to side with merit.
In terms of flooding, I hope I was clear that it’s only after all uni’s have registered up to 6 that I think the gates should be opened. I think that Sydney’s proposal of giving discretion to the hosts allows for that. Then, even if Monash win the bid and there might be 10 from Melbourne, 8 from monash, 10 from UsYd and 10 from UQ after all unis have had their chance, then I see that as creating the opportunity for people to debate, and so a positive thing.
In terms of the role of regional tournaments, I think that it’s important to keep in mind that the opportunity to engage in quality, competitive debate is much greater now than it was a decade ago. I didn’t mean to imply that AUDC, All-Asians, or MelbMini (which has been ridiculously high quality in the past) aren’t highly valuable in their own right, just that Australs is the pinnacle of competition in Australasia, above all else (bar worlds) and so fulfils a different role.
MMU were brilliant in 2004, Ateneo were brilliant in 2005 and dominant in 2006. I think that Asian unis are being provided with excellent teams to support through finals regardless of the cap, I don’t think that the cap is necessary to maintain this.
Like I said, I think this would be a much simpler discussion if the proposal was to kill the cap.
|
|