John Meany of Claremont has raised some interesting issues, and as convener of a potential USU 2011 at the University of Vermont I wanted to reply.

1. Titles:

   * Convener - run the logistics of the tournament. If it is on his or

     her campus they are ultimately responsible for the tournament.

   * CA - coordinate motion writing, plan and implement judge and

     debater training, tabulate judge feedback. Guidelines for motion

     writing will be made available.

   * DCA - assist in these efforts of the CA

   * Tab - record ballots, input judge rankings from CA/DCA based on

     training test and feedback form, allow computer to pair the round.

   * Equity officer - hear complaints from any participant. Need not be

     a woman. Convene informal investigation and offer informal suggestion of a

     resolution of a problem to the convener, who should then be

     involved because it is probably his or her institution that is

     hosting. Such decisions will be made in concert with host

     institution. We will gain guidance from our university legal

     offices before the tournament and have a representative of that

     office on call. Standards for conduct need to be stated publicly

     in advance.

2. Manual changes to the pairings: will not be done except in extreme circumstances. The judge ratings are put into the machine, and the machine assigns judges. Changes may be made when:

   * Judge needs to be replaced for reason of illness, etc.

   * Judge informs tab of a serious conflict that should have been

     reported earlier.

   * Extreme situation, judge and one of the debaters in a situation

      and would rather not now judge.

   * Bizarre and highly unusual situation I cannot imagine at this time

   * NEVER in an effort to make a "better" or "more balanced" panel.

     There is too much potential for abuse. Always keep a record of such changes.

3. Transparency: have the tab area in an open and available space depending on room availability. For example, we would not have USU tab in the room where everyone is hanging out because of noise, but it should be in an open identified space so people can drop in for the purposes of transparency and helping people understand how the tournament is tabulated. Frankly, if we have 120+ teams at USU 2011 there is no room that can house both debaters and judges in the same spot.

4. I believe in open adjudication for all rounds. As convener I will try and persuade others helping me run the event that this should be so. In all of our regional events we have had open adjudication and none of us have been able to see any negative effects.

5. Judge training. We think that documents about judging should be made available before the tournament, we believe there should be an online judge test before the tournament (to allow timely examination of the results). We would look at the way the decision is explained as much if not more than the decision that is reached. There should also be format information made available to participants beforehand. We do believe in using feedback forms, because we think debaters deserve to have a say. Someone may make a good decision but give lousy feedback, and we want debaters to be able to comment on this because their learning is at stake.

Thanks to John Meany of Claremont for raising these issues, and I think all of them are good ones. I know that John believes we should not form an organization (USUDA) but then that would be one way to put standards to work. On the other hand, those bidding can be public about things so voters can know what they are choosing. This is why we are doing this now.

Thanks, and we hope you will support our bid.

Alfred C. “Tuna” Snider, Convener