Disclosure Please!

I think the debate over disclosing previously run positions illustrates one of the largest problems our community is facing. Time and time again, discussions (and a few significant flamewars) have produced plans, supporters, alternatives, etc., but these conversations rarely translate to change in the debate world.

Last season, coaches and debaters argued about online disclosure. It seemed like the consensus was in support of disclosing cases following tournaments to improve transparency and empower smaller schools. After Greenhill almost no debaters had signed on. Judges didn't update a wiki created by the NDCA, and no one seemed to care that this development never got off the ground.

We are about to start a new season. Well, we are a few months away, but you get the point. I think we need to reopen the discussion about disclosure because I think it is something that our community needs. Given the fact that this Circuit Debater/LD Debater network of websites has hosted a number of resources already, it doesn't seem like there are that many logistical hurdles to leap over. Making a wiki is pretty easy.

Why won't debaters subscribe to this idea? Should judges post what they have seen after a tournament? What should be included when someone posts a case position?

I will begin by offering my opinion. I guess I already have, in a way. I think that disclosure needs to happen, and I see no good reason why it shouldn't. Debaters who don't want to disclose have no legitimate, educational reason for that view. If you want to hide bullshit in your cases to win rounds with cheap shot tactics, be my guest. Maybe you win with that type of argument sometimes, but I don't think silly, blippy arguments are valuable enough to outweigh the benefits of a system of disclosure.

Alright. So if we accept that there isn't a good reason why "case privacy" is educational, why would we not choose to disclose? The advantages are obvious. For one, the network of well connected coaches begins to become less important. It is a small step, but it would be a valuable one. I think the more even the playing field, the more educational and competitive debate rounds will be.

Plus, with disclosure, students are better prepared to debate at tournaments. This is another source of competitive inequity since many schools with extensive travel schedules have an enormous advantage because they have seen the topic develop much more than the small school debater. With disclosure, the only limitation is hard work and talent, rather than arbitrarily being placed in a great debate school.

I'm not sure how I feel about this issue yet, but one concern I can see with disclosure is the even more widespread proliferation of prepouts. At TOC this year I'm pretty sure aff won only 38% of the time, or some insanely small number like that. If prepouts become even more common, I wouldn't be surprised to see that number decline further.

On the other hand, it would level the playing field for relatively small schools (which would include my school). In addition, it could contribute to an increase in the quality of cases by forcing affirmatives to write logical, consistent, true cases, instead of relying on some strat that doesn't make sense but will win because nobody's thought of it. This may check back some of the side bias created by prepouts and transparency.

I'd like to see more people's thoughts on this.

W. Marble wrote:I'm not sure how I feel about this issue yet, but one concern I can see with disclosure is the even more widespread proliferation of prepouts. At TOC this year I'm pretty sure aff won only 38% of the time, or some insanely small number like that. If prepouts become even more common, I wouldn't be surprised to see that number decline further.

On the other hand, it would level the playing field for relatively small schools (which would include my school). In addition, it could contribute to an increase in the quality of cases by forcing affirmatives to write logical, consistent, true cases, instead of relying on some strat that doesn't make sense but will win because nobody's thought of it. This may check back some of the side bias created by prepouts and transparency.

I'd like to see more people's thoughts on this.

I will address your first concern. I think this argument comes up a lot with the possibility of disclosure, so it is worth discussing. Affirmatives lose a lot of rounds, but I think few of these debates are lost solely because of prepouts. At TOC, everyone breaks new cases, and neg still wins most of the time. From the time advantage to the persistent truth testing paradigm, I think there is a ton of neg bias in the activity. I think preventing disclosure for the sake of preventing prepouts is basically like saying "let's water down the game to make it more difficult to get ahead." I think that debate is an educational activity. Even if there is a minimal advantage given to the negative, I think more responsive debates with better argumentation would be preferable.

That said, I don't think that the neg gets another unfair advantage. On the contrary, I think the aff could even benefit from disclosure. Whoa! You see, kids lose a lot to negs because the 1N can put out a ton of arguments and tough case positions. With limited time in the 1AR, dealing with these strategies is pretty tough. In a world of disclosure, affs could actually have answers to someone's hyper-specific disadvantage or random kritik. If that is the case, we could have a real debate between competing sides.

At the very least, I don't think the neg bias argument is enough to throw out disclosure. I hope this movement catches on.

JohnnyFontane wrote:

I will address your first concern. I think this argument comes up a lot with the possibility of disclosure, so it is worth discussing. Affirmatives lose a lot of rounds, but I think few of these debates are lost solely because of prepouts. At TOC, everyone breaks new cases, and neg still wins most of the time. From the time advantage to the persistent truth testing paradigm, I think there is a ton of neg bias in the activity. I think preventing disclosure for the sake of preventing prepouts is basically like saying "let's water down the game to make it more difficult to get ahead." I think that debate is an educational activity. Even if there is a minimal advantage given to the negative, I think more responsive debates with better argumentation would be preferable.

That said, I don't think that the neg gets another unfair advantage. On the contrary, I think the aff could even benefit from disclosure. Whoa! You see, kids lose a lot to negs because the 1N can put out a ton of arguments and tough case positions. With limited time in the 1AR, dealing with these strategies is pretty tough. In a world of disclosure, affs could actually have answers to someone's hyper-specific disadvantage or random kritik. If that is the case, we could have a real debate between competing sides.

At the very least, I don't think the neg bias argument is enough to throw out disclosure. I hope this movement catches on.

First, I'm going to talk with my coach and see if i can convince him to get on board with the idea of disclosure and see if i can set something up for the blake tournament.

Second, there's another reason affs should (or at least smart aff debaters will) benefit from disclosure - it focuses more positional, focused, in depth debate. I won more aff rounds (and harder ones) on Jan/Feb reading Heg than I had all year because it was basically one arg with a ton of different caveats and i could beat most people on it because i had done my research and reading. Affs win rounds when they pick a position that is embedded to the topic literature and that they can find a lot of nuance in. IF you want proof that affs can win with disclosure, look at policy - the team that went aff in the final round read the same aff they had run since camp (which starts in june/july). If policy teams can win aff rounds for almost an entire year with disclosure, LDers can win aff rounds for 6 months (December thru May). Read the topic literature, find an arg you like, and learn everything you possibly can about it. Know their authors better than they do.

Keep us updated on what the Blake tournament might do. Not to say that isn't important (it is), but I think the biggest step should be on the part of coaches and debaters. After tournaments, we should voluntarily hit the wiki, post case outlines, and update old posts. If we see that someone we hit or judged failed to do it, we should post that intelligence for them and record that it was provided by someone other than the debater. In this way, we can create a culture of disclosure where it is cool to post information.

I know some policy tournaments are really good about this, which I think Blake could possibly do for the LD community. Some go so far as to have round by round updates where judges fill in a sheet and students from the host school update the wiki continuously.

JohnnyFontane wrote:Keep us updated on what the Blake tournament might do. Not to say that isn't important (it is), but I think the biggest step should be on the part of coaches and debaters. After tournaments, we should voluntarily hit the wiki, post case outlines, and update old posts. If we see that someone we hit or judged failed to do it, we should post that intelligence for them and record that it was provided by someone other than the debater. In this way, we can create a culture of disclosure where it is cool to post information.

I know some policy tournaments are really good about this, which I think Blake could possibly do for the LD community. Some go so far as to have round by round updates where judges fill in a sheet and students from the host school update the wiki continuously.

I can't make any guarantees but i can at least see what i can do. It'd probably have to be pre-tournament disclosure and/or people voluntarily updating during the tournament (observers, judges, debaters, whomever). We're always understaffed because it's over winter break so a significant number of kids gone, and it's just a bitch of a hotel to get around in (it's a really nice hotel, but when you have to run a debate tournament, it's pretty hard)

Yeah. Since it is in a hotel (which presumably has Wi Fi), maybe ballot runners could encourage judges to post on a Blake case wiki or something of the sort. Then again, that could end up being a disaster from a logistical standpoint if the average 45 minute round with a 10 minute decision/RFD period also had a 10 minute delay for case posting!

CP: If you had enough students, maybe you could put case scouts in the rooms of down 0, down 1, and down 2 debaters during late outrounds. That way, people would get a much better feel of the topic going into elimination rounds. I think all debaters should still post during the tournament, but this might be the best compromise to have the wiki reflect the real-time intelligence gathering.

Any news on this? I think we need to get a discussion surrounding disclosure going again. Do we have a wiki yet? Do we have judges and debaters who will post case information?

I really would like to see disclosure become a norm in LD, but we definitely need to take action early on this time around.

Db8rBoi wrote:Any news on this? I think we need to get a discussion surrounding disclosure going again. Do we have a wiki yet? Do we have judges and debaters who will post case information?

I really would like to see disclosure become a norm in LD, but we definitely need to take action early on this time around.

I've heard rumors that some of the larger tournaments are going to be unveiling some system of voluntary disclosure but its not confirmed.

First, just to state my position, I'm against disclosure. I think it's actually antithetical to the type of education that debate entails. I'll state my arguments while addressing yours.

JohnnyFontane wrote: Debaters who don't want to disclose have no legitimate, educational reason for that view. If you want to hide bullshit in your cases to win rounds with cheap shot tactics, be my guest. Maybe you win with that type of argument sometimes, but I don't think silly, blippy arguments are valuable enough to outweigh the benefits of a system of disclosure.

There's a very educational reason why one shouldn't disclose; it promotes in-round thinking. If you know all of your opponent's arguments, you could easily just amp up the spikes in your case and pull out your blocks on whatever your opponent in running. There's no education in that. You already know everything. I find it a bit ludicrous to believe that without disclosure, that all debaters will go into a tournament blind. Most good debaters know the arguments that will be run for either side; in LD, the topics are generally narrow and we aren't dealing with policy topics that have hundreds upon hundreds of opportunites. Not telling stuff in your case isn't a "cheap shot" tactic at all; that's a baseless argument. Part of debate is learning to think quickly and on one's feet.

JohnnyFontane wrote:For one, the network of well connected coaches begins to become less important. It is a small step, but it would be a valuable one. I think the more even the playing field, the more educational and competitive debate rounds will be.

My main problem with this argument is that it is non-unique. No matter what happens, there will always be rich schools and poor schools; the rich schools get to go to camp and amass loads of evidence, whereas the poor schools aren't so fortunate. We live in a capitalist society; rich and poor is inevitable. I don't even think disclosure would be a "small step," if a step at all. Also, there will always be coaches who are more "well connected" than others. That will always matter. I've done fairly well on my own; I'm the only LDer at my small school and my coach is more Policy-oriented. I know I have less of an advantage as someone like say, Chris Theis who went to one of the top LD schools in the nation (if not the top school) that can go to a great deal of circuit tournaments and has one of the NFL's most prominent coaches. I'm ok with that. I don't feel the need to be equal with someone like him. This whole idea of making the playing field, to me, ignores the fact that one can make it well on their own. There are vast topic resources. Some of the stuff that top-tier debaters ran at tournaments like Berkeley and the TOC weren't so ridiculously far out there that no one could have anticipated them. Theis ran a Sudan DA in the semis of the TOC; that argument isn't something so unheard of that no one could have heard of it.

JohnnyFontane wrote:Plus, with disclosure, students are better prepared to debate at tournaments. This is another source of competitive inequity since many schools with extensive travel schedules have an enormous advantage because they have seen the topic develop much more than the small school debater. With disclosure, the only limitation is hard work and talent, rather than arbitrarily being placed in a great debate school.

If one wants to improve education, students should be "well prepared" by their own means; they should do the research, they should anticipate paths others might take. And, once again, same point as above....some schools will travel more, some less. That's life. It is very educational for a student who travels less to compete against upper-level debaters; I know it was that way for me. When I was first exposed to things I had never argued against before (say, a CP for example), I was able to argue strongly against it. My school goes to maybe four invitationals a year; however, I can still hold my own against upper-tier debaters who go to ten or twelve a year. I'm not saying every debater will have the same experience as me, but this idea that "if you're at a small/poorer school, you're screwed" is not correct at all. And I find it almost impossible to believe that "hard work and talent" are excluded out of who does well in LD. After watching people like Theis, Nebel, Tyger, and other of this year's best debaters, I think it is insulting to them to say that they didn't work hard.

Debate should make one think in a round of how to respond to an argument. With disclosure, we get rid of most of the thinking. We know what our opponent is going to run, so we're prepared. Education involves learning new things; even if you go into a round and you know most of your opponent's arguments, one is still forced to think and plan in that environment, which is a highly valuable tool.

There's a very educational reason why one shouldn't disclose; it promotes in-round thinking. If you know all of your opponent's arguments, you could easily just amp up the spikes in your case and pull out your blocks on whatever your opponent in running. There's no education in that. You already know everything. I find it a bit ludicrous to believe that without disclosure, that all debaters will go into a tournament blind. Most good debaters know the arguments that will be run for either side; in LD, the topics are generally narrow and we aren't dealing with policy topics that have hundreds upon hundreds of opportunites. Not telling stuff in your case isn't a "cheap shot" tactic at all; that's a baseless argument. Part of debate is learning to think quickly and on one's feet.

You still have to think in round. It just means that both debaters are going to have a solid, well structured strategy up until 1-2 mins in the 1AR (once they have to deal with on case refutation or new/case specific off case that wouldnt be disclosed). Dealing with spikes/new additions that arise in a world of disclosure are another source of in round education. In fact, I'd say that rebuttals will require more critical thinking because the odds of both sides having specific and fairly well warranted responses to their positions so they have to figure out how arguments interact, how to get some marginal risk of a net benefit.

2. I'd say that a marginal loss in in-round education is vastly outweighed by the fact that debaters will have to write cases that don't suck/aren't based on trying to be shady/know what their authors would say against common responses.

My main problem with this argument is that it is non-unique. No matter what happens, there will always be rich schools and poor schools; the rich schools get to go to camp and amass loads of evidence, whereas the poor schools aren't so fortunate. We live in a capitalist society; rich and poor is inevitable. I don't even think disclosure would be a "small step," if a step at all. Also, there will always be coaches who are more "well connected" than others. That will always matter. I've done fairly well on my own; I'm the only LDer at my small school and my coach is more Policy-oriented. I know I have less of an advantage as someone like say, Chris Theis who went to one of the top LD schools in the nation (if not the top school) that can go to a great deal of circuit tournaments and has one of the NFL's most prominent coaches. I'm ok with that. I don't feel the need to be equal with someone like him. This whole idea of making the playing field, to me, ignores the fact that one can make it well on their own. There are vast topic resources. Some of the stuff that top-tier debaters ran at tournaments like Berkeley and the TOC weren't so ridiculously far out there that no one could have anticipated them. Theis ran a Sudan DA in the semis of the TOC; that argument isn't something so unheard of that no one could have heard of it.

1. I don't really see why this is an indict of disclosure. Disclosure checks back those elitist circles where schools share intel with each other and exclude people who aren't quite as well connected.

2. It's not just about rich/poor, it's also about big/small - Disclosure helps schools that don't have an army of debaters to go get flows of cases from other rounds, and allows them to focus their prep on the arguments they know they'll face.

If one wants to improve education, students should be "well prepared" by their own means; they should do the research, they should anticipate paths others might take. And, once again, same point as above....some schools will travel more, some less. That's life. It is very educational for a student who travels less to compete against upper-level debaters; I know it was that way for me. When I was first exposed to things I had never argued against before (say, a CP for example), I was able to argue strongly against it. My school goes to maybe four invitationals a year; however, I can still hold my own against upper-tier debaters who go to ten or twelve a year. I'm not saying every debater will have the same experience as me, but this idea that "if you're at a small/poorer school, you're screwed" is not correct at all. And I find it almost impossible to believe that "hard work and talent" are excluded out of who does well in LD. After watching people like Theis, Nebel, Tyger, and other of this year's best debaters, I think it is insulting to them to say that they didn't work hard.

Debate should make one think in a round of how to respond to an argument. With disclosure, we get rid of most of the thinking. We know what our opponent is going to run, so we're prepared. Education involves learning new things; even if you go into a round and you know most of your opponent's arguments, one is still forced to think and plan in that environment, which is a highly valuable tool.

1. this is, at best, defense. Just because some people are able to succeed doesn't mean that disclosure is a bad idea. In fact, I know 2 of the 3 people you listed would support disclosure because it really rewards hard work. If you write specific responses to different cases you will be in good shape come the start of the round, and you will reap the benefits.