2011 Debaters League Discussion - NEW FORMAT NEEDS YOUR FEEDBACK!

[TSG]

Why don't you just run it like a tournament. Even if you had 64 (and I know that's a very large number, it's just an example) sign up, you run it like the NCAA Tourney: Round 1 one week, Round 2 the next week, etc. At the most it takes a month I'd say, everyone gets a fair shot to debate someone, and if you lose you are done. It will go quickly and it doesn't require an entire large amount of dedication.And if there are few people and it doesn't take long, you could run two tournaments. The winner of the two tournaments have a champions of champions thing. Or if the same guy wins both tournaments then the best truly has been proven. Just an idea.

Oh,, and count me in.

 

[Larry]

If I may interject,

I think it would be wise to first cap the number of participants to something manageable like 32.

Break that down into 4 groups of eight.

Decide the matches by pairing people at random within the 4 groups.

After the first round of debates are over, recreate each group based on wins and losses. The winners of the first rounds get put into the first two groups, those who lost in the other 2.

After the second round those who are undefeated make up the first group of the next round, and the other groups are put together accordingly to win/loss record as well. This way group 1 had 8 undefeated participants, then the next 2 groups are people 1-1, and the final group are 0-2's.

If more people are 1-1 than 0-2 simply recycle based on who has faced who to give everyone new opponents.

Repeat this model for 1 more round and those with the best records could then move on to a single elimination tournament.

If there are too many people tied, have one more tie breaker round to give the people already moving on a rest, and make those that are in jeopardy of being eliminated compete to stay in. If you use a point based judging system you could use the point system to decide entrants that do and do not make it as well at this stage based on their performance as reflected in their point totals in the differing categories of judging criteria.

After those are decided coming to an even number of participants(16), seed them according to wins and losses as well, and then work your way down to the final 2. This could have you done in just over 2 months if I've calculated it correctly, 3 tops.

 

[D-Man]

I was also pondering Sign Guy's idea of just a straight-up tournament. It's the most straight-forward way to do things. But something made me want to have last year's champion defend his crown in a different and more exciting way.

Ba-Bomb, I appreciate your feedback but I'd be lying if I said your method didn't confuse the hell out of me

 

[SD619]

A group stage would be better than a straight-up elimination. Also on what basis will the topics be decided?

 

[D-Man]

A group stage would be better than a straight-up elimination. Also on what basis will the topics be decided?

Group stage? What do you mean?

Topics are decided just before debates begin. They are chosen at random and given to random pairings of debaters.

 

[SD619]

Group stage? What do you mean?

Divide the participants into groups. Have them debate each member of their group. Award them points based on their performances. The top one or two will progress to the further rounds. This way each participant will have more than one chance to prove their talents and also gives them another chance if they are stuck with a topic about which they have no idea.

 

[D-Man]

Divide the participants into groups. Have them debate each member of their group. Award them points based on their performances. The top one or two will progress to the further rounds. This way each participant will have more than one chance to prove their talents and also gives them another chance if they are stuck with a topic about which they have no idea.

This is similar to the old method and is takes FOREVER. I can't run it this way again.

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

I think the "Grand Slam Tennis" format that Sign Guy suggested would be the best. 32 guys, knockout rules. If there are more than 32 guys signing up, have the ones whom you percieve are weaker posters debate it out in a preliminary round to get to the round of 32.

The format that you are suggesting puts too much stress on one guy. Let's face it, no matter how good you are relentless debating against guys who are starting afresh will get to you after some point which would result in some good debator losing a debate he should have won or forfeiting altogether due to real life issues which are bound to come up. There is less pressure in the knockout format.

 

[Gelgarin]

This is similar to the old method and is takes FOREVER. I can't run it this way again.

Not necessarily.

Thirty-two entrants split into eight groups, with the top two progressing from each group into a traditional knock-out tournament, would take six or seven weeks to complete if you assume seven days per debate.

 

[The Dragon Saga]

The irony of the Debaters League Discussion turning into a debate about how the Debaters League ought to be ran.

Also, I'll probably sign up.

 

[D-Man]

Not necessarily.

Thirty-two entrants split into eight groups, with the top two progressing from each group into a traditional knock-out tournament, would take six or seven weeks to complete if you assume seven days per debate.

That's a lot of topics to think up, each week.

 

[DirtyJosé]

Not necessarily.

Thirty-two entrants split into eight groups, with the top two progressing from each group into a traditional knock-out tournament, would take six or seven weeks to complete if you assume seven days per debate.

D-Man does have a point about this. This is practically what we did last year. What throws the wrench into your math is any of the two following:

1: Debater's disappear. This eats up time in finding replacements. And if we opt just to drop them and award byes/wins to their future opponents, it's eating into the spirit of the debates as it fucks with the standings. I don't want to see people moving ahead just because most of their opponents no-showed.

2: Judges don't often have the time to judge on time. At one point last year we were held up for weeks while the judges worked through all the debates prior to the finals. At first this wasn't a big deal as it was early on and it didn't matter, but by the end new judges had to be added in to cover the ground left by those who either disappeared entirely or just worked too slowly.

So, really, what it boils down to either way is the "human" factor. Life happens. People suck sometimes and just bail. Technology sucks sometimes and prevents people from being able to debate. We can't really control these things, but I think D-Man's right in trying to figure out a system which will best minimize the damage done by these kind of things.

 

[Mr. Artistic guy]

My only concern is the idea that some people will only have one attempt to prove themselves as debaters. I think the concept of the 'league' should be employed so that each person gets as standard 2 attempts to debate on separate issues and their overall performance is taken into account. I understand some people won't turn up and people will drop out in later stages perhaps also but there is a scenario that means a very good debater could go out at the beginning of the tournament against stiffer competition whilst less competent ones progress further.

I think the concept of this being a league is what is interesting and separates it from other posting competitions on WZ, and so it should be used to some extent.

Also, I don't know if it's possible to sign up here but I'd like to put my name forward for it anyway.

 

[Gelgarin]

D-Man does have a point about this. This is practically what we did last year. What throws the wrench into your math is any of the two following:

1: Debater's disappear. This eats up time in finding replacements. And if we opt just to drop them and award byes/wins to their future opponents, it's eating into the spirit of the debates as it fucks with the standings. I don't want to see people moving ahead just because most of their opponents no-showed.

2: Judges don't often have the time to judge on time. At one point last year we were held up for weeks while the judges worked through all the debates prior to the finals. At first this wasn't a big deal as it was early on and it didn't matter, but by the end new judges had to be added in to cover the ground left by those who either disappeared entirely or just worked too slowly.

So, really, what it boils down to either way is the "human" factor. Life happens. People suck sometimes and just bail. Technology sucks sometimes and prevents people from being able to debate. We can't really control these things, but I think D-Man's right in trying to figure out a system which will best minimize the damage done by these kind of things.

1) Disappearing debaters is going to happen with a similar effect immaterial of what structure you use. This method all but guarantees that all no-shows will be eliminated prior to the knockout stages, whilst also making it highly probably that everyone will get at least three opportunities to debate.

2) The nice thing about opening with a league structure is that it actually offers the judges 'more' flexibility with regards to doing their thing. With a tournament structure or Dman's original idea there would be a delay after every round whilst we waited for the judges to assess every debate. My way allows the judges to assess round one whilst round two is already underway. You'd have, say, sixteen debates a week, with seven days to judge them all. Add a one week gap between the group stages and the knockout rounds and there'd be no requirement to judge more than a couple of debates a day, not that hard.

3) With regards to the number of topics, thirty-two competitors would demand a maximum of sixty-three topics of discussion for the entire tournament. TM's debate league managed to come up with several hundred topics, and it, along with several other debate leagues, is still stored neatly in a archives. You could legitimately furnish every debate with a topic without the need to engage your brain at any point.

 

[D-Man]

1) Disappearing debaters is going to happen with a similar effect immaterial of what structure you use. This method all but guarantees that all no-shows will be eliminated prior to the knockout stages, whilst also making it highly probably that everyone will get at least three opportunities to debate.

The problem here is this...

The old way the league worked was that everyone was given a schedule as to when they would debate, prior to the entire thing starting. The only way we'd find out if people dropped out was if they decided not to debate that week and they no-showed. Then I'd have to play babysitter, track them down, hear their excuses, and try to replace them in time to still get a debate in that week. If I was unsuccessful, the challenger would get a cheap win. This is unfair to the dedicated debaters and causes 10 times more work for me. I'm not doing this to babysit people.

My method allows me to show everyone the order in which debates would take place. If a debater no-shows, the next debater in line against the champion would automatically step into that debate and debate the topic with little to no time lag. Then, things would move on from there.

Now, the only setback is that strategic planning for length of debates must be made and time zones must be taken into consideration, as Gelgarin already pointed out in a previous post.

2) The nice thing about opening with a league structure is that it actually offers the judges 'more' flexibility with regards to doing their thing. With a tournament structure or Dman's original idea there would be a delay after every round whilst we waited for the judges to assess every debate. My way allows the judges to assess round one whilst round two is already underway. You'd have, say, sixteen debates a week, with seven days to judge them all. Add a one week gap between the group stages and the knockout rounds and there'd be no requirement to judge more than a couple of debates a day, not that hard.

Most of the time, during the league, judges would get lazy with judging because they knew they had to go through 12-15 debates per week. That's pages and pages of debating which needs to be read and judged in different categories. It's VERY time consuming for them. My method allows them to only judge one debate per week until the Tournament of Champions.

Keep in mind, only the first half of the season would use my linear method. The winners are put into tournament brackets, seeded, and competitors will debate the way that most of you are suggesting. So, it's the best of both worlds. All you guys have to do is think of the first half of the league as a qualifying round. If you're good enough to go into the tournament of champions, all you have to do is beat someone formidable of being a champion. I feel it's quite fair.

3) With regards to the number of topics, thirty-two competitors would demand a maximum of sixty-three topics of discussion for the entire tournament. TM's debate league managed to come up with several hundred topics, and it, along with several other debate leagues, is still stored neatly in a archives. You could legitimately furnish every debate with a topic without the need to engage your brain at any point.

I don't know how else to say it so here goes: TM is not running this thing... I am. Two years ago, it ran relatively smooth. He had many topics of discussion. And two years after, just as many topics were thought up. I don't want to reuse these topics so debaters can gain an edge by looking at past debates. And quite frankly, there's only so many topics that can be discussed which make for good debates. My method minimizes the amount of topics, thus making things easier.

Also remember that when TM ran this, there were only about four or five dropouts all season long. 2 years ago when I first ran it, there were 9 dropouts. Last year, 13 dropouts. The seasons only started with 24 participants so over HALF of them dropped out last year. It's out of control and I won't risk going through all of that again.

Lastly, and not to be rude... but Gelgain, if you're not participating then why do you continue to argue for your method? I think it should be up to participants as to what they would like to do. The purpose of this thread was to take this NEW structure and make sure that it had no MAJOR flaws. In my opinion, lack of your personal fun-factor is not a concern here. If I have to sacrifice a little bit of fun for others in order to make this league run smoothly and efficiently, I will.

The new structure works like this: A good debater can take any topic and win with it against any opponent. If you are a good enough debater, you will move on. Then the rest of the league will happen the way most of you suggested; tournament-style. I've created a hybrid structure that should make debaters, judges, and me a lot happier.

 

[Coco]

LOL Debate league AGAIN. You will just never learn, will you

Old dogs and new tricks, eh? Probably why Justin will never master home security.

I think you mean "their" own level. And don't equate 'me thinking I'm a better poster than most people' to me thinking that I'm more deserving of fun than others.

The reason I spoke up is because I think people are losing sight of what this event is actually for. It's not actually for crowning the best debater on the forum; more often than not most of the best posters don't even enter. As I see it the whole point of an event like this is for simple fun, and adopting a formula designed to exclude everybody who isn't in with a shot of winning the final o soon as possible isn't fun... at least, it isn't for all the people who get excluded in the first round, which is almost everyone who enters.

My point was that the ideal structure should be whatever is judged to provide the most fun to the most people. That's why a league was ideal, but if a league is unmanageable then a tournament would be preferable. People have a much higher chance of meeting an opponent of a similar level to themselves, they have a much higher chance of making it through to a second or third debate, the tournament will take much less time to run, be considerably fairer, but a little less ambiguous in terms of final standings and most importantly will encourage far more actual debating, which is sort of what we're going for here.

Ding ding ding. Although in the most sincere interest of fun, I'm willing to let a good debate come about organically or just go look for it on my own time. I'm probably something of a cypher to most, but oh well. We all have a cross to bare.

As one of the master debaters who dropped out after a couple debates last year and has even less time for such organized tomfoolery this year, I think there're a lot of good things to be said about my course of action.

I won last year, but that doesn't mean I'm the best "debater" on this site. I was the best in that league. I think several guys (Coco, Sam, Sly, Xfear, Gelgarin... that's it) are, at the very least, as good, if not better than myself.

Shouln't have taken 47 posts for someone to use my name in this context. I blame Gelgarin's arrogance monopolizing the spotlight.

 

[D-Man]

Coco, when you talk wrestling, you are a terrific debater. I was genuinely disappointed when you dropped out last year.

 

[Coco]

Yeah, that's me: collecting my jar of hearts.

 

[Pepe Silvia]

>Debating about the debater's league

 

[Larry]

This is kind of funny, I'm going to have to quote myself so as to explain my concept for the structure of the debate. I think this would work rather well in all aspects and keep things in a timely order as well.

If I may interject,

I think it would be wise to first cap the number of participants to something manageable like 32.

Break that down into 4 groups of eight.

Decide the matches by pairing people at random within the 4 groups.

I think this is pretty self explanatory, 32 people, 4 groups of 8, random pairing for the first round.

After the first round of debates are over, recreate each group based on wins and losses. The winners of the first rounds get put into the first two groups, those who lost in the other 2.

This is a basic Round Robin style format. You have your first round of debates(16 per week, if you have 4 judges that's 4 debates to judge a week, not bad.) After that round you look at who won and lost and set up the groups of 8 for week 2 according to the win/loss records.

You put the week 1 winners against each other in week 2, thus creating your first 2 groups of 8(all the winners), and all the week 1 losers against each other in week 2, thus creating your last 2 groups of 8(all those who lost in week 1). This makes the level of competition even for everyone.

(edited to make better sense)

After the second round those who are still undefeated automatically make up the first contestants in the first group going into the next round, and the other groups are put together accordingly to win/loss record as well.

This follows the same round robin pattern of keeping competition fair for everyone based on performance, giving everyone the opportunity to face people of their own skill level and gain wins to move on since an individuals performance may improve over the course of the tournament. The same way you created the week 2 groups, you create the week 3 groups.

If more people are 1-1 than 0-2 simply recycle based on who has faced who to give everyone new opponents.

Basically, if competition is tighter and you can't separate by record alone, you can go based on who has already faced who with a similar record.

Repeat this model for 1 more round and those with the best records could then move on to a single elimination tournament.

This is where we split off from the round robin format, and switch to a straight bracket style, single elimination, tournament format, as the best have already proven themselves.

If there are too many people tied, have one more tie breaker round to give the people already moving on a rest, and make those that are in jeopardy of being eliminated compete to stay in.

It is possible using a 4 round system that a lot of people end up with similar records making it difficult to determine who moves on. At this point you take the people who are moving on regardless and set them aside. You then have 1 more round consisting of those in danger of elimination. It's kind of like having Wild Card matches to determine who makes the playoffs, and the whole thing is very similar to the way the National Football League sets up and determines the regular and post season.

If you use a point based judging system you could use the points to decide entrants that do and do not make it as well at this stage based on their performance as reflected in their point totals in the differing categories of judging criteria.

This is just another way to determine who moves on. You could hold a Wild Card round like I mentioned above to make people work their way in. Or in the interests of time, you could use peoples point totals from the scoring system and put through those with the highest totals from the 4 rounds.

After those are decided coming to an even number of participants(16), seed them according to wins and losses as well, and then work your way down to the final 2. This could have you done in just over 2 months if I've calculated it correctly, 3 tops.

Basically, when we've moved from the round robin stage, you could seed the contestants accordingly much in the same style the National Football League does to make for really competitive matches, and then simply go through the single elimination style tournament.

As for topics. I have provided D-Man with links to several sites that deal with debate tournaments who provide an endless number of topics ranging in all different areas of interest. Coming up with the topics will be easy. This format gives you 5 weeks of the round robin debates if you have a wild card round or 4 without it, then 1 month for the actual single elimination bracket style tournament at the end. The work load gets easier for the judges as it moves on as well, and keeps competition fair and competitive for everyone the whole way through.

 

[D-Man]

The link Ba-Bomb was kind enough to provide, unfortunately, are generic debate topics. This league will be geared towards pro-wrestling topics, only.

 

[Larry]

Boy do I feel stupid I thought it was a general debate league. I like the idea of it being debate solely on wrestling, and now also see the dilemma in coming up with topics. This things is going to kick ass.

 

[red ass skull muhfukkah]

About when is this going to go down?

I realize that it's still in the planning stages but I was just wondering when you plan to start it, ball park.

 

[D-Man]

Within the month.

 

[D-Man]

Bump.

It looks like discussion for this needs to open up again.