Debate Judging Guide

[Mekkah]

Since more people are being granted voting rights, I figured a debating voting guide would not be a bad idea.

First, I'll repost SolidSense's old short debating guide, which has some relevant things in it that saves me time of explaining the basics here.

Last post and first post are given the least weight. The first post is made based off of no counters, and last post is never countered. The middle four posts are the most important. If one person or the other is doing better in those four posts, then it hardly matters that one person is doing better in the final exchange. Sometimes a h4x first post can decide a debate, as can a h4x last post, but generally speaking, the middle four matter the most. All are counters and all are followed by counters.

With that said, here are some other tips as well:

1.) Don’t let your own opinions mix with what you read. Judge what each person has to say on each point, not what you think of what they say. Someone could say “Marcia wins Res by a huge amount, and that matters more than Brom’s Def lead since physical enemies don’t really impact either of them that much” and it could seem totally ridiculous to you, but if the opponent in that debate can’t counter or counters it unsatisfactorily, or counters it without any evidence, the first poster easily wins.

2.) Don’t get caught up in details. The more you nitpick about “lol this guy was off by 6 Avo” or something, the more you’re going to lose focus on the actual logic used in the debate. Obviously getting a big point such as someone having a skill wrong is a bad thing, but if the person covers his or her errors well, and can maintain the case overall, it doesn’t really matter. Computational errors are entirely possible. Rarely so with logical errors—that’s where lack of skill comes into play.

3.) When the issue is conceptual, be sure to think things through. Does the person have a logical procession of thoughts? If so, does the other person counter it, or just brush it off? If one person counters with a statement rather than a logical procession, obviously that's worth a lot less, even if the statement seems more logical to you personally.

Another few things to add:

- Don't judge the characters. Judge the debating. "Paul won availability" isn't a valid point for voting someone. I realize I set this trend when judging the Ranulf vs Mordecai debate, but people simply picked up on it the wrong way. What I meant was _purely_ that when talking about "availability", for example, one debater did a better case of attacking the point than the other did of defending, or vice versa. A better way would be: "Paul's unit had better durability, and he did a great job of capitalizing on it, which Nick couldn't do much about. This durability advantage ended up playing a major role in other arguments, so that's part of the reason why I'm voting Paul."

- Quality > quantity. This is why I wanted to try out short debates. Someone can write a huge essay on how good his character is or how bad the other's character is, but comparisons are the most important.

- Read the last two posts closely to see if the closer (completely) ignored any points made. For the other posts, I consider it fair game to try to ninja-leave off points, and only penalize the side doing it if they are called out on it.

Some discussion can ensue in this thread, I guess.

Edited June 14, 2009 by Mekkah

[-Cynthia-]

Here's a question, how much is expected for the judges to actually post?

There isn't really a guideline for this, theoretically a judge could just say "Mekkah" or whatever or be done with it, or post a one liner like "Mekkah won supports". I personally try to justify my vote somewhat in what I thought were the major points of the debate, but I don't cover every point made or all my rationale.

On another note, I think a debater should be penalized if they made grievous errors in their final post. The other debater didn't actually counter it, because they couldn't, but if I were to say things like "Leonardo has 85 % speed growth" or "Edward should be third tier by the end of Part 1", I should be penalized even though it wasn't countered.

Also, I think judges should not overlook points that were altogether conceded. These often make up a small part of the actual text of the debate but can contain extemely important points like "I concede durability throughout the entire game". The other debater didn't actually have to do anything to win the point, but they should still be given credit for it.

[Mekkah]

There isn't really a guideline for this, theoretically a judge could just say "Mekkah" or whatever or be done with it, or post a one liner like "Mekkah won supports". I personally try to justify my vote somewhat in what I thought were the major points of the debate, but I don't cover every point made or all my rationale.

I think that if you can't justify your vote properly, you probably should not be having a vote. So yes, I advocate justifications.

On another note, I think a debater should be penalized if they made grievous errors in their final post. The other debater didn't actually counter it, because they couldn't, but if I were to say things like "Leonardo has 85 % speed growth" or "Edward should be third tier by the end of Part 1", I should be penalized even though it wasn't countered.

As I said in the other topic and should have said here, this falls under the same category as the last post ignoring several arguments made by the opponent. They cannot be pointed out by the opponent, so it's up to the judge to do it. The last post should have the least weight of them all, though.

Also, I think judges should not overlook points that were altogether conceded. These often make up a small part of the actual text of the debate but can contain extemely important points like "I concede durability throughout the entire game". The other debater didn't actually have to do anything to win the point, but they should still be given credit for it.

Yes, but note that it depends on the actual weight of durability throughout the debate. For example, someone could make a very good argument that a durability win is not very important. Or the person who defends a unit with better durability could be failing at capitalizing on it by raising arguments such as "it allows my unit to use his/her offense more often".

Example

User 1: Oscar > Calill. Better durability. Better movement + Canto which is good because [reason 1 reason 2 reason 3 reason 50]. Higher availability which is good because [reasons]. etc

User 2: Calill > Oscar. I concede durability. [debate about other things, durability is never talked of again]

I would give more weight to the other points since they took up a bigger faction of the debate.

[dondon151]

Does one decide between the debaters or the characters being debated upon (given the information presented)? Because that seems to make a big difference in considering how important obviously conceded points are.

Edited June 15, 2009 by dondon151

[Colonel M]

As I always say: don't be afraid to judge my logic. Not always 100% accurate with everything (but like anyone is), and pointing out flaws is something I'd rather you do, even if it is minor nitpicking. At least with this I can get a grasp of what I did wrong with the judging. There's probably a rough-end of some things (take the current Mekkah vs. Vykan one), but most of the FE6-11 ones I can get a good judgement call on.

[Mekkah]

Does one decide between the debaters or the characters being debated upon (given the information presented)? Because that seems to make a big difference in considering how important obviously conceded points are.

I'm not sure if I understand your question, unless the answer is as obvious as it seems. You judge the three posts each of them made, which of them did a better job making their own character look better. The way your question is formulated, it looks like "Paul is debating Ron, and I know Ron is better, so I vote him" or "Haar is up against Lyre" etc.

[Zkirsche]

"Edward should be third tier by the end of Part 1", I should be penalized even though it wasn't countered.

If they give enougth reasoning behind it, then you can't really say that it is incorrect, this is an example of how personal feelings affects the judging as you and I both know that Edward isn't going to reach third tier by part 3, but if debater B makes a good enougth case for it, all we can do is accept the fact that Edward is tier 3 by part 4.

[Mekkah]

tbh if someone gives a reasonably good justification for it in the last post for whatever reason, I'm willing to let it go off as neutral or a very very minor positive (though the fact that they put it in the closer says enough). If they just say it without justification whatsoever, then it's just an obvious attempt of cramming bull.

I suppose there's something to say for mentally trying to continue the debate, e.g. "what would the opponent have responded? would he have called bullshit with proper explanation?".

[-Cynthia-]

My point was that if it was in the last post (and thus uncounterable) they should be penalized for points that are absolutely ludicrous. Edward at third tier by the end of Part 1 would be an example of complete lunacy. If they somehow managed to convince me that this is plausible, it could count as a minor positive, but rather difficult to do with this example, as I'm sure everyone everywhere agrees.

I said tier 3 by the end of Part 1, not Part 3. Tier 3 by the end of Part 3 is unlikely, but maybe possible if we Crowned a 10/10 Eddie or something. End of part 1 is just insane.

Edited June 15, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[Mekkah]

Yeah, in this particular example, justifying it is simply impossible. But if we take something less enormous, for example Nolan being 20/5 by the end of part 1 so he can survive more hits from tigers/cats or something (hypothetical), someone can get away with that in their closer to a larger extent.

Overall I think this is only a very minor part of any problems with current judging, since I've seen no hyperbullshit like "Trueblade Edward by the end of Part 1" in anyone's closer.

[Jaybee]

Not unless the guy says "Boss/Priest Abuse"

[Reikken]

I'm not sure if I understand your question, unless the answer is as obvious as it seems. You judge the three posts each of them made, which of them did a better job making their own character look better. The way your question is formulated, it looks like "Paul is debating Ron, and I know Ron is better, so I vote him" or "Haar is up against Lyre" etc.

I took the question as meaning that the other way of judging is not "I know Haar is better than Lyre, so Paul wins", but rather... if you knew nothing about how good any of the characters were, which debater would have convinced you of their character being better. As opposed to which debater argued better. It's usually the same, but often not, especially with characters that aren't close.

[-Cynthia-]

I took the question as meaning that the other way of judging is not "I know Haar is better than Lyre, so Paul wins", but rather... if you knew nothing about how good any of the characters were, which debater would have convinced you of their character being better. As opposed to which debater argued better. It's usually the same, but often not, especially with characters that aren't close.

There's also the point that if the character is better in a certain area, a debater will usually win the same area. For example let's say we're debating Franz and Gilliam and I say Franz has higher AS and Mov. The person defending Gilliam can attempt to show that Franz's leads here are meaningless(lol), but even if they succeed the person defending Gilliam doesn't really get credit for this, the best they can hope for is a neutral. They can win the debate by showing that Gilliam wins in other areas and that's more important than Franz's "meaningless" leads, but the AS/Mov points still don't go to them. While it requires great debating skills to show that Franz isn't better at moving or attacking, it still doesn't show that Gilliam's better in that area(unless they somehow show that Gilliam's faster, which would just be absurd).

More simply put, you don't credit just for nullifying an opponent's lead, you actually have to show your character is better somewhere.

Edited June 15, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[Zkirsche]

Yeah, but the fact that the person who's defending Gilliam managed to erase Franz's leads shows how good a debater that person is. Thus, he should win the debate.

[Mekkah]

This is why a final summary + conclusion in most if not all of your debate posts is important. If it isn't "my character > your character" with reasons elaborated earlier, then you are not really showing anything, just arguing back and forth at best. No matter how cool it is to argue Franz's mov/AS lead don't do anything, at worst you're still tying overall unless you bring up something like Gilliam's higher hp/def.

So yeah, I'm more on Cynthia's side here:

More simply put, you don't credit just for nullifying an opponent's lead, you actually have to show your character is better somewhere.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

A debater having the better character just means he has less difficulty for victory. When judging, you shouldn't use your prior knowledge of the character and look only at the points the 2 debaters have brought up and vote on who's the most convincing.

[Reikken]

There's also the point that . . .

. . . you don't credit just for nullifying an opponent's lead, you actually have to show your character is better somewhere.

eh? That doesn't have anything to do with my post.

[dondon151]

I'm not sure if I understand your question, unless the answer is as obvious as it seems. You judge the three posts each of them made, which of them did a better job making their own character look better. The way your question is formulated, it looks like "Paul is debating Ron, and I know Ron is better, so I vote him" or "Haar is up against Lyre" etc.

I'm not sure I understand my own question now that I look back on it.

"Deciding between the debaters" referred to your point about the weight of certain arguments, or rather the weight imparted by the debaters. "Deciding between the characters" refers more to considering all of the arguments promulgated without putting too much focus on how much weight they have. The reason why I asked that question was because in your example, it seemed as if one debater showed that a durability lead was important and the other debater conceded that point. Then, it seemed as if you would not consider the durability lead very important because the second debater does not want to argue about it, even though a durability lead, in that context, is very important.

There's also the issue of tangents that get blown way out of proportion. Say in that Oscar vs. Calill example that Oscar has a durability lead and availability lead that don't get talked about much (essentially conceded), and then 70% of the debate is randomly about comparisons between Oscar and Boyd and about support bonuses. If we were to "decide between the debaters," then we would consider the Oscar-Boyd comparisons and support bonuses over Oscar's other leads, which is counter intuitive.

[Vykan12]

There's also the issue of tangents that get blown way out of proportion.

That would be a debating tactic. If you have a disadvantagous match-up, sidetracking a debate with semantics to draw less attention to another unit's leads is a reasonably intelligent thing to do. It's up to the opponent to notice this and keep the focus where it should be.

[-Cynthia-]

I'm not sure I understand my own question now that I look back on it.

"Deciding between the debaters" referred to your point about the weight of certain arguments, or rather the weight imparted by the debaters. "Deciding between the characters" refers more to considering all of the arguments promulgated without putting too much focus on how much weight they have. The reason why I asked that question was because in your example, it seemed as if one debater showed that a durability lead was important and the other debater conceded that point. Then, it seemed as if you would not consider the durability lead very important because the second debater does not want to argue about it, even though a durability lead, in that context, is very important.

There's also the issue of tangents that get blown way out of proportion. Say in that Oscar vs. Calill example that Oscar has a durability lead and availability lead that don't get talked about much (essentially conceded), and then 70% of the debate is randomly about comparisons between Oscar and Boyd and about support bonuses. If we were to "decide between the debaters," then we would consider the Oscar-Boyd comparisons and support bonuses over Oscar's other leads, which is counter intuitive.

I see your point. Debaters really should not get any credit for conceding arguments of great importance in their opponents' favor, the judges should consider them more important than if some comparatively minor points were won, even if they were the focal point of the debate.

It takes debating skill I suppose, to shift it over to minor arguments, but even if you win the minor points you don't show your character is better because you conceded something more important. There can't be any credit given for points never brought up at all, but points conceded are fair game.

Edited June 16, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[dondon151]

That would be a debating tactic. If you have a disadvantagous match-up, sidetracking a debate with semantics to draw less attention to another unit's leads is a reasonably intelligent thing to do. It's up to the opponent to notice this and keep the focus where it should be.

The opponent might also want to capitalize on this sidetracking to further augment his lead, having already won the obvious and important points.

I mean, it's rather redundant to say:

Debater 1 post 1: Oscar wins durability and availability

Debater 2 post 1: OK conceded let's talk about irrelevant bullshit

Debater 1 post 2: No really Oscar wind durability and availability

[Reikken]

I see your point. Debaters really should not get any credit for conceding arguments of great importance in their opponents' favor, the judges should consider them more important than if some comparatively minor points were won, even if they were the focal point of the debate.

Well that's up for discussion. I would disagree. It's not the judges' job to interpret the data presented. The debaters are supposed to do that. If this "minor" point is just discussed a lot, like bickering over who gets or doesn't get whatever supports, and no one ever says how it is or isn't important, then that's just a bad debate... And yeah, I guess it wouldn't be of too much importance. But a "major" point whose importance also isn't shown is also not of much importance. But if a "minor" point like weapon cost one debater plays up to be actually something significant, then it should have a lot of weight. Unless of course the other debater does a good job of downplaying it/showing how it's not important.

Like you shouldn't have a judge doing something like this: (not that anyone would word it like this when saying it...) While much of the focus of the debate was on weapon cost, and DbtrA won that, I know that durability is much more important, and DbtrB showed that his unit won durability [even though it didn't get much emphasis], so I'm voting for DbtrB.

Rather, I would say something more like "DbtrB didn't do a good job of emphasizing his unit's advantages or of showing the relative insignificance of DbtrA's unit's advantages. DbtrA didn't downplay DbtrB's unit's durability advantage, but she didn't really need to as it wasn't supported much to begin with, and she did do a good job of showing how weapon cost matters, so I'm voting for DbtrA.

Debater 1 post 1: Oscar wins durability and availability

Debater 2 post 1: OK conceded let's talk about irrelevant bullshit

Debater 1 post 2: No really Oscar wind durability and availability

Debater 1 post 2 should be more like.. Ok, you have your irrelevant bullshit, but your irrelevant bullshit doesn't matter. Oscar's wins in durability and availability are much more important than this.

and of course there should be reasons in there.

Edited June 16, 2009 by Reikken

[-Cynthia-]

Well that's up for discussion. I would disagree. It's not the judges' job to interpret the data presented. The debaters are supposed to do that. If this "minor" point is just discussed a lot, like bickering over who gets or doesn't get whatever supports, and no one ever says how it is or isn't important, then that's just a bad debate... And yeah, I guess it wouldn't be of too much importance. But a "major" point whose importance also isn't shown is also not of much importance. But if a "minor" point like weapon cost one debater plays up to be actually something significant, then it should have a lot of weight. Unless of course the other debater does a good job of downplaying it/showing how it's not important.

Like you shouldn't have a judge doing something like this: (not that anyone would word it like this when saying it...) While much of the focus of the debate was on weapon cost, and DbtrA won that, I know that durability is much more important, and DbtrB showed that his unit won durability [even though it didn't get much emphasis], so I'm voting for DbtrB.

Rather, I would say something more like "DbtrB didn't do a good job of emphasizing his unit's advantages or of showing the relative insignificance of DbtrA's unit's advantages. DbtrA didn't downplay DbtrB's unit's durability advantage, but she didn't really need to as it wasn't supported much to begin with, and she did do a good job of showing how weapon cost matters, so I'm voting for DbtrA.

I see a problem with this, in the case of major points can simply be conceded with little ill effects. Unless the debater who the point was conceded to wants to throw in "oh and by the way my unit's 5x more durable" every few sentences, you're saying that the judges shouldn't consider this important because it takes up a small part of the debate. I would consider it just a large point won very quickly. You can't really argue a point if the other person refuses to debate it.

Edited June 16, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[Vykan12]

Debater 1 post 2 should be more like.. Ok, you have your irrelevant bullshit, but your irrelevant bullshit doesn't matter. Oscar's wins in durability and availability are much more important than this.

and of course there should be reasons in there.

Also, when we're talking about offence and durability, those types of leads have all sorts of effects elsewhere that the debater can throw in. For instance, if we're talking Oscar vs a healer, Oscar's reducing the healing need of the team by being super durable as well as giving out a ton of avo through supports.

[Reikken]

I see a problem with this, in the case of major points can simply be conceded with little ill effects. Unless the debater who the point was conceded to wants to throw in "oh and by the way my unit's 5x more durable" every few sentences, you're saying that the judges shouldn't consider this important because it takes up a small part of the debate. I would consider it just a large point won very quickly. You can't really argue a point if the other person refuses to debate it.

You're not paying attention. You don't just say "oh btw Oscar wins durability". You tell why being more durable matters. And more specifically, why it matters more than the points your opponent is bringing up in favor of his/her own character.

Edited June 16, 2009 by Reikken