Mekkah (Shinon) vs Kirsche (Janaff)

[-Cynthia-]

It was about justifying Shinon getting the Brave Bow. kirsche insisted he couldn't because Astrid wanted it for Shitheadriram.

This was never ever ever brought up in the whole debate, so you have no reason at all to say it.

Like I said before, all the points regarding how Astrid does against enemies are minor overall in Shinon vs. Janaff, since all they affect is Shinon's bow monopoly, which I already credited you with. Neither Vykan nor Norton made any mention of the Shiharam Full Guard issue, so they obviously didn't feel it was an incredibly important part either. However, I don't see you saying that they were skimming the last post and somehow missed it, just because a judge doesn't mention something does not mean they didn't see it, they usually just didn't consider it critical. How Astrid does against a single enemy and Shinon's earlygame Shoving really matter very little at all in the grand scheme of things.

There were some errors I could have pointed out that you made as well, such as you decreasing Janaff's Spd with the Demi Band, which kirsche pointed out. However, I saw this only a minor statistical error in one post, hardly worth mentioning, though it's certainly more relevant than Astrid's performance against a single boss enemy.

To evaluate how useful Janaff's enemy phase is, I have to look at how my team would fare if Janaff was not running enemy phase. The results are better. This is a perfectly viable point that I feel kirsche never addressed properly.

OK, I feel he did address it properly. I'm the judge here, you're obviously rather biased in this scenario being the other debater, odds are you will find yourself rather convincing, I did not. I've explained why comparing Janaff to the team isn't as important as comparing him to Shinon, the point still stands that Janaff's enemy phase is much better than Shinon's and kirsche showed this.

These are your arguments. Not kirsche's. You're not supposed to judge on what you think, but what kirsche wrote.

That's my explanation of why Shoving is a minor point, and thus you can't receive much credit for it because it doesn't matter that much, no matter how well you argued it. kirsche brought up shoving not being unique several times, such as Janaff being able to shove as well.

In addition, it may have been a minor point, but he handled it terribly. And in addition, it was in his closer, meaning as a judge you should see that for yourself, as I have no way to point it out in the debate itself. Judges are supposed to check the last post for bullshit, but I'm getting the idea you only skimmed it at most.

I'm not sure why you accuse me of only skimming the last post while Vykan and Norton didn't include most of these things either, the only difference being that they didn't vote for you. No judge includes every point they didn't find to their liking, not you, me or anybody, mostly because we probably don't want critiques being as long as the debates themselves. I personally find it terribly pretentious that you assume I "skimmed" the debate, mentioning every minor point would be somewhat ridiculous. There's a multitude of things that Norton left out of his post for example (mainly because it was a sentence long), but I don't see you accusing him of "skimming", even though his critique leaves out like 85% of points made in the debate. I'm sure you're convinced that your points were persuasive enough that no one could possibly think differently, but I read the entire debate and I felt kirsche showed Janaff> Shinon better than you showed Shinon> Janaff and I've explained why.

Edited August 7, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[Tino]

Bawbawbaw debate about debate bawbawbaw

Note to self (and perhaps others): Not taking any sides here.

That's my explanation of why Shoving is a minor point, and thus you can't receive much credit for it because it doesn't matter that much, no matter how well you argued it.

That's not quite how it works. If shoving is discussed very briefly, then you can consider it a minor point in the debate. If shoving takes up quite a considerable part of the debate, you consider it as a more major point.

In the medical world, there are often discussions about what the person in question could have. Obviously those discussions are never judged, but that aside, I don't see it happening that one symptom of the patient gets ignored while the medical staff only looks at several of the symptoms. Sound irrelevant to this? Untrue. For if a patient's foot hurts, and the staff is as good as sure that's not a symptom of the disease the patient has, they don't ignore it, but look at it if they couldn't find the problem after having researched all other symptoms very thoroughly. In other words, the less significant "symptoms" are considered, but only as a last resort and are thus less significant parts. This concept is also applicable in this case.

A strange metaphor, perhaps, but it does illustrate the concept very well.

kirsche brought up shoving not being unique several times, such as Janaff being able to shove as well.

Someone didn't read what Mekkah said.

Only the final sentence has anything closely resembling "shoving is not unique". You are reading things that aren't there. You're a judge. You can't do that.

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And to prevent this from getting even more out of hand, I'll simply cast a one-word vote: Mekkah.

[-Cynthia-]

See, I see debates differently. It's not the amount of space an argument takes up, but the importance an srgument holds, some points are more important than others in determining which character is better.

For example, we're having a debate and I concede durability forever (and all the implications that go with it) and we spend the rest of the debate arguing about Shoving or something. Even if I win the Shoving point, it doesn't matter too much because being able to Shove better or whatnot does not make up for a durability lead (unless very cleverly argued otherwise).

Edited August 7, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[Tino]

It's not the amount of space an argument takes up, but the importance an srgument holds, some points are more important than others in determining which character is better.

Did I ever say otherwise? As far as I'm concerned, I did not.

For example, we're having a debate and I concede durability forever (and all the implications that go with it) and we spend the rest of the debate arguing about Shoving or something. Even if I win the Shoving point, it doesn't matter too much because being able to Shove better or whatnot does not make up for a durability lead (unless very cleverly argued otherwise).

True. So? That doesn't make what I said less correct. If a point is conceded immediately, of course it can't take up a large part of a debate.

Anyway.

You win debates by arguing points in such a manner that your opponent can't retaliate properly. If your opponent's unit has a large, significant durability lead, while your unit has an advantage of its own that's generally considered less significant than a sizable durability lead, you try to talk as few as possible about durability, and try to make it so your opponent doesn't call you out on it. It's what debating is all about.

[-Cynthia-]

Did I ever say otherwise? As far as I'm concerned, I did not.

You said: "If shoving takes up quite a considerable part of the debate, you consider it as a more major point."

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting that, but you seem to be assigning importance to argument length rather than relevance.

True. So? That doesn't make what I said less correct. If a point is conceded immediately, of course it can't take up a large part of a debate.

Concessions should still hold a pretty significant amount of weight though, depending on their relevance. It just seems silly to be able to win debates by refusing to actually discuss major points, if we're judging just on how much it was actually discussed.

You win debates by arguing points in such a manner that your opponent can't retaliate properly. If your opponent's unit has a large, significant durability lead, while your unit has an advantage of its own that's generally considered less significant than a sizable durability lead, you try to talk as few as possible about durability, and try to make it so your opponent doesn't call you out on it. It's what debating is all about.

I think I see your point, but I'm not sure why I should be criticized for not pointing out things like Shiharam having Full Guard, which had very little relevance in the context of the debate. You can't really be credited for something that doesn't actually matter,

[Tino]

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting that, but you seem to be assigning importance to argument length rather than relevance.

You're not entirely misinterpreting what I said, but you don't seem to get what I mean exactly. The relevance of points actually gets decided by the debaters in question. If they let a, say, Sothe vs. Largo debate revolve mainly (say for 75%) around thieving, the Sothe debater obviously gets the win if he argues thieving utility well enough. Even if the other 25% of the debate revolved around Largo's massive offensive leads, and the Largo debater wins that point, thieving was still the most significant part of the debate, even though offense might be a hell of a lot more important than thieving (I'm not suggesting offense is better than thieving or the other way around, it's just an example).

It just seems silly to be able to win debates by refusing to actually discuss major points, if we're judging just on how much it was actually discussed.

Hold on! You never heard me say that when someone concedes an argument, it should not be taken into account anymore. If a point is conceded right at the beginning of a debate, it likely is for good reason. But within that good reason, the debate probably also has something to counter the conceded point. In Gatrie vs. Reyson, for example, Gatrie has a lot more durability than Reyson does. Not conceding the durability point will only get the Reyson debater in deeper shit, so he'll focus on other things and make them seem a hell of a lot more significant than the conceded durability. Conceding a certain point does not automatically mean losing a debate, no matter how significant the point may be in the opinion of the judge. In Gatrie vs. Reyson, there's just no way you can argue Reyson's durability even near Gatrie's level, but you can argue Reyson's flight, ability to refresh people, and not having to take up a slot on the frontlines to be more significant than Gatrie's durability win, no matter how massive that durability win is. So even when conceding such a massive point (durability is, after all, incredibly important, and Reyson is quite the glass cannon), it's still easily possible to win, which means the concession didn't hurt the debater arguing in favor of Reyson at all.

I'm not sure why I should be criticized for not pointing out things like Shiharam having Full Guard, which had very little relevance in the context of the debate.

I also don't suggest people should be criticized on arguments they didn't provide. If someone fails to bring up a certain point, it doesn't matter. It's the arguments that are actually present in the debate that are being judged. In Makalov vs. Brom, if the Makalov debater doesn't bring up Makalov's movement advantage but still provides better arguments than the Brom debater, the Makalov debater still gets the win even though he neglected such an important factor.

[-Cynthia-]

Oh OK, I pretty much agree with everything you just said, makes more sense now.