Speech Times

While I disagree that the neg advantage is caused by time skew only, it is still fairly obvious that 1AR is a tougher speech than either of the neg speeches.
From what I have heard, a 5 min AC / 5 min 1AR were tried before (at St. Marks ???) and didn't work, although I would be interested in the specifics of what happened and what went wrong.
More importantly, I am interested why the division of the 13 minutes each debater gets to speak for into the 3 aff or 2 neg speeches is left to the NFL (which has apparently failed to develop a fair system), rather than to the competitors. Debaters are allowed to allocate their prep time however they choose, is there any particular reason for why this principle does not apply to speech times?

Wow. That's radical. I think we are way better off with the current system than one in which kids pick random times to give their speeches. For one, I don't think this solves the neg advantage. Why couldn't neg just spend 10 minutes smoking the AC and use 3 minutes to extend a couple of the arguments? Would the number of speeches be different? Could there be like 40 speeches in a debate round if the kids split up their time into very small quantities?

Maybe some of these aren't real objections, but I think this system is nothing short of chaos. Crazy, dude.

"Would the number of speeches be different? Could there be like 40 speeches in a debate round if the kids split up their time into very small quantities?"

No. I don't see any compelling reason for why we should change the number of speeches.

"For one, I don't think this solves the neg advantage. Why couldn't neg just spend 10 minutes smoking the AC and use 3 minutes to extend a couple of the arguments?"

That would be a fairly risky strategy because 1) the aff can respond in kind 2) it makes it almost impossible to recover from a good 1AR which groups/precludes the NC arguments.

I guess my broader question is have people experimented with speech times before, and if so, how did it go, and what problems were uncovered. Is there any particular reason for why NFL chose the current speech times?
Tinkering with the speech times is not a guaranteed success, but trying out various rules at least in practice rounds/round robins doesn't have any downsides.

Just going back to my objections. I think you are missing the point on the first one. Do we have mandatory speeches in your new system? Could me and my opponent keep making 30 second speeches for our 13 minutes or is there still some sort of structure?

I don't think you are properly dealing with my second argument though. I think the neg still has a huge advantage if neg has two speeches and aff has three. If the 1AR goes al in and uses a ton of time, that still screws them over for the 2AR as the 2N would still have a major time advantage.

I just don't think the answer to neg bias is that simple.

JohnnyFontane wrote:Just going back to my objections. I think you are missing the point on the first one. Do we have mandatory speeches in your new system? Could me and my opponent keep making 30 second speeches for our 13 minutes or is there still some sort of structure?

I don't think you are properly dealing with my second argument though. I think the neg still has a huge advantage if neg has two speeches and aff has three. If the 1AR goes al in and uses a ton of time, that still screws them over for the 2AR as the 2N would still have a major time advantage.

I just don't think the answer to neg bias is that simple.

I think he means that there is still the same number of speeches, just that you get to choose how much of the 13 minutes you allocate to yourself.

As an aside, I think the we should also be able to trade CX time for prep time.

"I think he means that there is still the same number of speeches, just that you get to choose how much of the 13 minutes you allocate to yourself."

Yes, thank you.

"I don't think you are properly dealing with my second argument though. I think the neg still has a huge advantage if neg has two speeches and aff has three. If the 1AR goes all in and uses a ton of time, that still screws them over for the 2AR as the 2N would still have a major time advantage."

A 3 min NR would have to answer a speech that was longer rather than shorter than it though. If the 1AR was offensive enough, 2AR extensions should be a cakewalk. Also, there would be a marginal decrease in the quality of a long NC, as it is hard to develop 10 minutes of quality responses to the AC, making a strategic 1AR more realistic. Finally, it is possible to impose limits on speech times (i.e. NR has to be between 5 and 8 minutes).
The main idea, however, is not that this particular plan would be a solution to all neg bias. Rather, it is that we shouldn't take the NFL rules developed decades ago for granted. I am not sure what was the decision process NFL used when establishing the current speech times (and I am interested in any information about what happened), but it's clear that they are not perfect. Even if the proposed solution doesn't work, there are still plenty of options out there (i.e. 5:30-7-4:30-6-3 or 6-6:30-4-6-3).
Secondly, while discussing these options is definitely a start, we can really only see if they work by trying them in rounds between two good and evenly matched debaters.

"As an aside, I think the we should also be able to trade CX time for prep time."

I believe there was a flex prep thread somewhere, though I can't find it now. Anyway, I think there is a value to a continuous CX period. The main issue I have with NFL in this area is that this time comes directly after after the speech, making it hard to formulate a coherent CX strategy. I think debaters should be allowed to take prep both before and after CX.

Regarding neg advantage, the ballot count at this year's TOC (38%) was was 97-157 (37%) in prelims and 18-31 in elims. I knew it existed, but I never realized it's that bad.