* The Debatewise Blog
Global Youth Panel - weekly update No. 2
This week we have mostly...Panellists
We’ve hit our target of 1,000 panellists. More than 500 have signed up on our list and our 97 country coordinators have recruited an average of five people each. In fact, some of them have got significantly more; our Ecuadorian CC has found a grand total of 30
different debaters. The total number of countries represented has now reached 120, about two-thirds of all countries in the world. We think we’ve got just about all the major ones covered now.
We’ve allowed the CCs to go over ten because we know some people will drop out when it comes to debating time and some will only want to participate in certain debates. Therefore, the excess gives us a useful buffer which we hope will ultimately allow us to say 1,000
people voted on x. Or as close as possible anyway.
The CCs seem to have their Wave invites now. We’re introducing them to the environment and asking them to perform small tasks so they get used to the way Wave works. We’re also using it for some of the important collaboration jobs prior to debating kick-off.
Next stage is to get the panellists using and becoming familiar with Wave and we’re trying to think up the best games for them to play that would allow them to have a Wave moment or two. Sudoku anyone?
Development
As a non-techie I’m delighted and reassured by the great minds we have working on the project. Peter Chamberlin is the lead developer, ably assisted by Daniel Bartlett, Aleski Gorny and Greg Plumbly in London. The North American side of things is headed by James Wilson.
Daniel has put together the database schema and data store model, Aleski is building the core robots, Peter and Greg the gadgets. Once these fundamental bits are done we’ll farm out work to the other developers who’ve expressed an interest in the project. All our
gadgets and robots will be open sourced in the hope other Wavers might benefit from and improve them.
We’re also creating an API for the data itself so that publications, sites and/or individuals will be able to take the voting totals, points or debates and mash them up as they see fit. The debates will be published on Debatewise and on The Independent and we hope a number of other places too.
PR
In order to ensure people know about the project and the API we’ve spent this week researching and reaching out to climate change experts, politicians and celebrities. We are seeking messages of support and/or help mentoring the debaters.
We’ve got three new interns on this task, making five in total. One with contacts in Africa, a Brazilian who’ll obviously look after Portugal as well and someone with conversational Chinese. On top of this we’ve started asking our CCs for help and have created a few
different templated emails for them to send out directly.
This task was always going to be more involved and the results were always going to come in more slowly. We will continue to focus it from now until the conference ends on the 18th. We will also pick it up again when the second part of the project starts in mid Jan. We've got a couple of responses in so far and I think this will pick up speed the closer we get to the 7th and as the conference is going on.
Click here to add your comment
Progress report
We’ve probably got 1,000 people signed-up now. There are over 500 people on our list and we reckon the 92 Country Coordinators we’ve got will have an average of at least five people themselves. So target hit with three weeks to go. I’m pretty chuffed.A map of where these people come from and where the CCs are is below. They’re just jpgs and not snazzy interactive maps, unfortunately. Google have restricted the ability to export such things from their wondrous Wave so we’re forced to use old technology. Still the map of participants is pretty comprehensive I think.
Country Coordinators
Panellists
The development team are moving forward fast. We’ve got a confirmed database schema, which is essential if we want to allow other developers to build the various bits we need. And we do. We’ve also decided that we’ll create an API for the info, which means we’ll allow more or less anyone to take the points, debates and votes and display them or mash them up as they see fit. This is at the very heart of open information and I’m delighted we’ll have these facilities.
I can’t tell you how delighted I am we’ve got Peter, Alex, Daniel, Greg and Stephen helping out. Peter is a fantastic lead developer and has really demystified this entire process for me. Daniel is a database genius and I’m confident our information will be in very good hands. Alex will be building some of the robots we need to improve the user experience and Greg is one of my oldest friends and someone I lean on heavily in all matters technological.
On top of that we’ve got plenty of other people waiting in the wings ready and willing to help out. Their support is absolutely invaluable, I can’t imagine how we’d do what we’re planning to do without them. And they are all doing it for free.
Click here to add your comment
Global Youth Panel - weekly update No. 1
PanellistsRecruitment for the panel is going really well. We’ve now got over 600 people from 96 different countries. We’ve also got 84 confirmed country coordinators and another 5 almost definite. Our target was 100 for today so we're just short, but still 90 people recruited to do this work in two weeks of effort is pretty good I reckon.
Development
We have a team of 6 volunteers in London who are putting together the development plan for our debating gadgets and robots. We also have a team of around 14 developers in other parts of the world who’ll start the actual building work once they’ve been fully spec’d – hopefully Tuesday.
The plan is to have these complete by the end of November, which will give us a week for testing. This week will also be used to create the screencasts and other guides to help people get used to the environment. We’ll ask panellists to familiarise themselves with Wave
in general prior to that.
PR
The biggest next job is trying to get as much PR as possible for the panel. We know the people on it will be greatly motivated by seeing their efforts in print and by messages of encouragement from climate change leaders. We've already got a provisional promise of support from Prime Minister Gordon Brown and hope to get many more.
We’ve just recruited another two interns to help us with our marketing efforts. Their job will be to reach out to other web sites and publications around the world and encourage them to write about the panel or put our voting results widget on their site. With the sheer
range of panellists, with the subject they’ll be debating and with the thing they’ll be debating in we feel confident we’ve got a story to tell.
Click here to add your comment
The Global Youth Panel
For anyone not on the mailing list there may be some confusion about what exactly we’re doing for Copenhagen. Let’s clear that up.We wanted to capitalise on the success of the WODC but couldn’t run another event until 2010. I’d always thought we should do something for the COP-15 conference but nothing seemed quite right. Then a couple of interventions from people we share an office with made everything fall into place.
Our office in East London is a little hub of social entrepreneurs, many of whom work on environmental projects. The first hint of the idea came when Jane Burston from Carbon Retirement told us about her work with a group of people put together by the British Council. They’d developed a set of principles they believed Copenhagen should focus on, we thought we’d take these principles and get a wider group of people to debate them. Then Dan Lewer, also from Carbon Retirement, came up with the idea of using this group to vote on wider issues related to the conference and bang, we’ve got something exciting
From then on it’s all gone pretty quickly. I got in touch with the British Council who really liked the proposal and agreed to help fund it. We started contacting our list of people from the WODC and got a good early response, so were confident we could get our target of 1,000 panel members. And then the really good thing, the really, really, good thing, happened.
I first saw the Google Wave video the day after the I/O conference. I didn’t watch the entire thing (sorry Steph) but the first hour excited me so much I’d grab people passing my desk and babble somewhat incoherently about how amazing the whole thing was.
I knew Wave would be ideal for debate. The collaboration aspects are top-notch, the playback feature helps people learn how the arguments were formed, the contextual spellchecker and translation tools help people argue with other people who speak a different language and the extensibility means you can add whatever you want that isn't already there.
Clearly Wave was the tool for this project, but you could only use it if you were invited and getting one invite was hard enough. So how on earth was I going to get 1,000? A happy moment of serendipity let me know the Wave team were going to present in London. Even better, Steph and Lars – the two people in the huge long video – were doing the presentation. This was my chance.
I really prepared for it too. I wrote down everything I wanted to say and rehearsed it so it didn’t sound rehearsed. Before the meeting I went home, shaved, put on a suit, got there nice and early, made sure to drink just the right amount of beer (to strike that balance between confident and cocky), spent ages wondering when to speak up (during the Q&A or after) and was fairly quivery when I did.
Not that I needed to be. Steph got the concept straightaway and agreed so easily to my request I almost didn’t believe it had happened. In fact, it was only when she emailed confirmation a week later that I truly got excited.
It’s a such a big deal for us for a number of different reasons. It will help us get panel members, it’s a better way for them to collaborate, the fact we’re running one of the largest real-world demos of Wave means we can get some publicity for what we’re doing and we might be able to provide Google with a use case for Wave which would be great marketing for us. All of which means this could be the thing that puts us on the map.
Since then there have been lots of other developments which have been hugely exciting, not least the volunteering by some really skilled people to help us build the extensions we need. But this is already a long post and those guys deserve a bit more bigging up, so I’ll save that for another day.
Click here to add your comment
Week
Ricky- After a discussion with Alex and Dave, I was given the task of researching and contacting people from Africa to be a part of the GYP and country coordinators.
- Contacted as many Africans as possible, including people from the likes of Swaziland and Lesotho!
- Managed to get responses from a few people wishing to become CC's
- With the help of Alex, created materials (emails, PDF files) that can be sent to CC's
- Received some emails from Lincoln Douglas debate teams in America that I contacted a while back, and pointed them in the direction of our first debate that was released by the National Forensic league for them to add to.
Alex
Hmm so what did I do this week... good question, most likely only one main thing, its all about COP15
- Sent out a fair few emails to NGOs/Student groups etc to groups across Asia
- Helped in drafting the materials for us to send out (pdf, initial email, email to be sent on)
- Vompiling another list to send information to next week.
- Got my first country coordinator from Iceland \o/ somewhat odd given that my assigned area is Asia!
- Actually edited some debates this week! need something to act as a break from searching for emails of ppl who may be interested in our GYP
Dave
With five weeks to go to the start of a conference that could put Debatewise on the map there’s nothing more important than Copenhagen right now.
- Went to the Google Wave meeting and possibly, could, may have executed part B. The hesitation comes from a fear of jinxing things. So I’ll say no more but keep my fingers firmly crossed
- Developed send-out materials for the GYP
- Found my persuasive voice for those people who we haven’t yet convinced
- Worked on the software we’ll need to make the project a success
- Made the Jewish Chronicle’s site a bit more pretty – well there had to be something non COP15 related.
3 comments. Click here to read them and add yours
a week mostly outside the office
Due to the weather turning colder and Bash being environmentalist we briefly decamped and worked from home. The office is in the process of getting some new environmental heaters installed, I assume they work more efficiantly than normal heaters although they somehow look rather retro!Alex
1. guess emailing has to come first as it has been the majority of my week, emailing to get people to sign up to our Global Youth Panel for the Copenhagen Conference and hopefully a good long time afterwards as well. Getting a similar level of results I got from emailing for the Census about eight months ago: 350-400 emails sent, 1 response \o/. This comes in several parts 1st finding organisations/email addresses then emailing them, and also emailing people who were already on our lists like the English Speaking Unions.
2. finally got my debate on negotiations at the end of the English Civil War up.
3. found some forums/groups for Ricky to post on
4. responded to an urgent call for debates for the JC!
5. Some people seem to have gotten it into their heads that it is acceptable to leave the Rapid Response Team, it is not, DESIST AT ONCE!
p.s. I am sure I must have done something on Monday, somehow with the last 3 days being different due to being out of the office I don’t have a clue what I did before!
Ricky
1. Emailed environmental forums and blogs in an attempt to allow us to post information about the GYP.
2. Trawled through facebook groups that concentrate on climate change issues and posted information on the GYP
3. Researched African climate change groups, but only found about three!
4. Responded to comments made in some forums in regards to the GYP, including trying to explain to someone why we are not similar to the Hitler Youth!
5. Retreated to the comfort of my own home to work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday due to sub zero temperatures in the office.
Dave
It’s all about Copenhagen…
1) Blagged an invite to a talk about Google Wave by the very inventors of this wondrous product. Now if I can only execute the second part of my masterplan…
2) Tempted the Independent into a meeting about our GYP – or Global Youth Thermometer (geddit) as I’ve recently taken to calling it.
3) Found our ideal sponsor for the GYP – HSBC. Yes them, their focus on local knowledge and desire to understand different points of view = perfect match for us.
4) Developed a belief that this event could be the one that puts us on the map.
5) Loving the fact we’re now getting 1,000 visitors a day. And more importantly that a massive 170 different debates have been improved since the start of the month. Thank you Rapid Response Team. Thank you everyone who’s edited.
Click here to add your comment
Our Debatewise Week
Alex1, So the Copenhagen conference on climate change is comming up, and not wanting to be left out we have to get involved in some way. Had a good ideas session about what we might do.
2, wrote up a plan from the ideas session, and a list of tasks that need doing that we will split between us interns
3, nothing much happened this week on revisewise. my brother and I have decided to put up the page on The Wars of the Three Kingdoms as an example - we intend to do four or five debates on the subject and already have one on Gaelic Warfare up, I have been working on a debate on negotiations at the end of the 1st civil war
4, We have been writing for the LDdebate topic. We now have several points on each side. Need to email all the people who might help us to expand the page.
5, Had an unusually large number of questions about the RRT. We are also now asking them to edit others debates more. This week all out debates sent out on tuesday were taken within a day.
Dave
1. Working on the plan for the Copenhagen debates, have a good feeling about this
2. Finally got people to Wave with, now we can really see what it can do
3. Developing a sales strategy that might secure our future
4. Did some good networking at a Microsoft event
5. Early development for the IDEA Debate in the Neighbourhood programme
Click here to add your comment
Five things for the week
1)That I’m doing this list for the first time in months. I have meant to, several times, just not hard enough to actually get on the keyboard.2) That we managed to get 1,000 people to the site in one day. Can’t tell you how proud I am of that
3) Got the final of the WODC going without a hitch despite some severe scheduling problems
4) Managed to turn around a meeting that was heading south, due I’m sure to my charm, wit and intelligence.
5) In fact I’m going to put the entire WODC down. Okay, it’s gone on longer than a week but I am especially proud because it’s been a big success and could lead to lots of other goodness.
Dave
1) Wrote a press release for the WODC final and one announcing the Judges for the final
2) Wrote a brief introduction on three debates to go in the newsletter
3) Sent some emails out to Lincoln Douglas debate big cheeses in the USA.
4) Researched the new NFL topic on compulsory vaccinations.
5) Waned myself off tea, and now for some reason I am on black coffee.
Ricky
1) I actually managed to find time to edit a fair number of debates this week, first time in ages!
2) revisewise, another change in how we are planning to do things, so more writing of ideas and discussions
3) more revisewise, finished putting up a debate on the 1907 Anglo-Russian Treaty. It is pretty comprehensive. Given how little other secondary literature there is directly on the subject it is possible that only a 1936 book on it is more comprehensive on the topic!
4) LDdebate. A new topic is up on immunisation so ricky and I have been working on that.
5) RRT is going well, they took 9/10 topics sent on Tuesday and have already taken one sent out today. We keep getting more volunteers too.
Alex
Click here to add your comment
so what have we been up to this week?
Alexhmmm difficult to find 5 things this week, spent too much time worrying about my dropbox not working!
1, seem to have spent alot of time on revisewise to little effect. Start of the evaluating groups discussions have been put back abit while we consider things.
2, collated/wrote background to questions that David put to Lib Dem peer Lord Carlile for yoosk
3, wrote another comparison on pluck for Dom.
4, put up a debate on the 1907 agreement for revisewise - more to do on this, only done one level of analysis out of three!
5, delegated LD debate to Ricky, did a possible pitch for him that he and David then altered... (I assume its being used!)
I forgot that Ricky does not yet have an account on this so it my (alex's) fault that this is late:
Ricky
1, Emailed the majority of the debate teams from the debatecoaches wiki page
2, Researched the contact information of every debate chairman of every district in America - over 100! All I've got to do now is email them all!
3, Had an ideas discussion with David and Alex about Revisewise
4, Sent out a second press release on the WODC
5, Drank ALOT of tea.
Click here to add your comment
Weekly five
We have not done this much recently, and the few times it has been done it has been only me doing it! Anyhow David wants us to get back into the habit so here goes.Alex,
1, Organising materials for the evaluating board for revisewise
2, Working out how the revisewise pilot project will work
3, First time I have emailed the RRT some questions on a Friday! (don’t think they needed them this week though – certainly no replies yet :p)
4, A comparison on Pluck for Dom – have another one that I have not yet managed to get around to doing
5, Added a couple more people to the RRT, and on that topic Leo (who did the advertising for the position) visited \o/
Greg,
1, travelling from norwich
2, starting a new job
3, finding a part time job to help support my internship
4, meeting up with old friends
Ricky
1, Worked out how to walk from Fenchurch Street station to Scrutton Street. It took me 25 mins on Monday, now it takes me 8 mins. It helps not walking around in circles.
2, Researched how to write a press release
3, Wrote a press release
4, Added my first point on a debate on the website, during which I got quite heated.
5, Figured out how to work the kettle, after looking blankly at it for around 10 mins
Click here to add your comment
WODC- Slamming the alarm clock
ZZZZZZZZZZ sleeping sound of alarm clock ringing slaps ZZZZZZZ"WAKE UP ALL OF YOU!"
Over the past ten days we've had eight fully active interesting debates which have decided who are the eight Quarter Finalists. Thing is some of our adjudicators and our resident reporter have been slow on the mark for various reasons this was due to a mixture of technical problems and people being particularly busy. So apologies from all the team including myself on that but can't be helped. Anyway here’s a report on what’s been happening in the Second Round and a sight of what’s to come all the way to the final
Mexico are the only representative from North America after their northern rivals and preliminary round winners, the United States of America were knocked out by South Africa in a closely fought debate which was ultimately decided by adjudication. Something that Eusebius Mckaiser to use British understatement was more than happy about: "We are delighted to be in the quarters after sleepless nights about how we would defy our liberal souls by arguing against same sex marriage in the debate against the USA! In the end, we were rather chuffed to use LIBERAL arguments in support of an illiberal conclusion." Mexico in turn won their match by adjudication against Indonesia despite a protest by indonesia about one of the adjudications being not up to standard. However the protest was denied partly as there had been repeated complaints by other judges including Ian Lising about the word length of debates for example in the preliminary rounds. Also the USA's Northern neighbour Canada was knocked out by Lithuania fresh from defeating Latvia in the first round.
Estonia won the battle of the forfeits against Pakistan by adjudication with Pakistan's strategy of comprehensive demolition failing to . Latvia also won through in the second regional derby of the competition defeating Bulgaria and showing more than why the Latvians got through as a top 3 loser in to the Second round in the first place. Speaking for the Latvian Team Robert Bernans said that they were glad to have made the Quarter Finals and winning their first full debate (they got through the first round as a result of Dubai withdrawing).
After getting a bye against Singapore, England won their match V India. India protested the definition of the debate but the protest was disallowed as the adjudicators did not find anything specific in the definition that could be challenged. The other home nation Scotland didn’t fare so well being drawn against Venezuela and lost in a close debate, which was one of the most popular on the facebook group. Jamil Navarro captain of the Venezuelan team commented that” There’s also a certain satisfaction in going toe to toe against native english speakers and in reading compliments from the judges regarding the sophistication of our arguments or the boldness of our case.
So far excluding the teams that went through by forfeit all teams have won by adjudication so no one has gone to the people’s vote or the Chief adjudicator… yet although that may change. Also out of the eight debates in the second round only two were won by the side in the proposition as opposed to six matches being won by teams in opposing teams. Those results are strikingly similar to the matches that weren’t forfeited where a majority of the teams that won were teams in the opposition
South Korea beat Bangladesh in the trans continental battle and proved that their bye into the second round was not misplaced and are the only Asian representative in the WODC. Something that Josh Siwook Kim was happy about: “The inability to convey certain vocal tones or rhetorical remarks was a bit perplexing at times, but all the more we were able to concentrate on the logic and content itself. We had to slim down our "speeches" by discarding a lot of - what turned out to be - flowery verbal waste. (But even after all that cutting down, we realized we were walking on the subtle line between "persuasive rhetorics" and "unnecessary fluff".) So yeah, we learned a lot in terms of effective delivery and substantial research.”
Here are the results for the second round in full
SECOND ROUND RESULTS:
Started on Wednesday the 26th:
(Proposing)USA v South Africa; (Opposing)
South Africa win by Adjudication
(P) England v India (O)
England win by Adjudication
Thu 27th:
(P) Bulgaria v Latvia; (O)
Latvia win by Adjudication
(P) S Korea v Bangladesh (O)
South Korea win by Adjudication
Fri 28th:
(P)Pakistan v Estonia; (O)
Estonia win by Adjudication
(P)Lithuania v Canada (O)
Lithuania win by Adjudication
Sat 29th:
(P) Indonesia v Mexico; (O)
Mexico win by adjudication
(P)Scotland v Venezuela (O)
Venezuela win by adjudication
Moving away from the past, it’s time to look at the draw for the Quarter Finals which was done yesterday at 9.23 by Neill Harvey Smith and is also the draw that sets up the final bracket for these final three rounds with one debate starting off each day rather than the two debates in previous rounds.
Some interesting matches are in store as all three of the Eastern European countries battle various opponents from different parts of the globe and England face Venezuela raising the question of whether England can stop Venezuela’s Bolivarian march towards the WODC Crown or will Venezuela gain the honour of getting both home nations scalps in this tournament if they go into the final four?. Will we see another Battle of the two L’s in the semi finals as well or will South Africa have something to say about that after accurately predicting their victory over the USA after all South Africa: “…fear motions only, not Lithuanians!” . Oh and not to forget South Korea who are looking forward to debating against Latvia and :“ are expecting a great debate with the best European team so far.” The feeling is mutual from Latvia who having gone through two rounds of European competition are looking for a nice twist and “for exciting, fun and, of course, tough debate”
LINE UP FOR QUARTER FINALS
Starting on Thursday 10th September
1. (Proposition)Mexico v Estonia (Opposition)
Friday 11th September
2.(P) Latvia v South Korea (O)
Saturday 12th September
3.(P) England v Venezuela (O)
Sunday 13th September
4. (P) South Africa v Lithuania (O)
After the Quarter Finals we have the semi finals, The winners of Quarter Final 1 will battle the winners of Quarter Final 3 and the Winner of Quarter Final 2 will face the winner of Quarter Final 4. This goes without saying but both winners of both semi finals will go on to be the finalists of the WODC. Added to that unlike the previous rounds where teams were drawn into positions for the semi finals, a coin toss will be used to decide who will be the proposition and who will be the opposition for each debate. No such luck in the Quarter Finals though!. So the curtain will rise on a group of finalists on the 10th of September, eight out of twenty five teams remain but which one will go all the way?
N.B: Edited with thanks to those who pointed out mistakes in the earlier draft. If there are any more unresolved errors in further posts please let me know either through the blog or through e-mailing me on leo@debatewise.com.
3 comments. Click here to read them and add yours
So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye!
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.Well the time has come to say goodbye from me as well, having been here only a few weeks longer, I can only commend Leo for putting down in words what is hard to capture.
Onwards to pastures new. Without this internship I would not have been able to move into the role that I have done in Charity Fundraising and so I thank all the wonderful people,
the crazy adventures, the networking, events, seminars and all the wonderful (and patient) direction given by David.
Joining Debatewise straight off the plane from Hong Kong, I wondered where I was going, what I was doing and was like most graduates, lost, not knowing where to go next.
Taken on with Debatewise as a Fundraiser, my role dramatically changed as the company direction twisted, turned and evolved and now is on route to sustainability.
I have learnt and developed through this, becoming more adaptable myself and more willing to broaden my own horizons, seeing opportunities where I hadn’t before.
‘He who would learn to fly in one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying’- Friedrich Nietzsche
So Shalom party people...i’m off to spread my wings
Stephanie
x
Click here to add your comment
WODC: 75% of debates fully active
With the second round underway it looks like we are not in for a repeat of the first round in terms of in activity as barring the debates on Saturday we've got 75% of matches fully active and with two more. All eight of these debates are well fought out contests in terms of points made refutations and general wit and humour sparking off the web pages. Time for me to post links up to all of the competitions going on in this second round. Apologies for the delay in doing so but anyway hope you enjoy reading them and voting for the side who you think has the best argument:
SECOND ROUND MATCHES IN FULL
Started Wednesday the 26th
(Proposing)USA v South Africa; (Opposing) "Same sex marriage should be legal
http://www.debatewise.com/debates/1047-same-sex-marriage-should-be-legal
(P) England v India (O) "Western powers should leave Afghanistan
http://www.debatewise.com/debates/1048-western-powers-should-leave-afghanistan
Thu 27th:
(P) Bulgaria v Latvia; (O) "All drugs should be decriminalised
http://www.debatewise.com/debates/1049-all-drugs-should-be-decriminalised
(P) S Korea v Bangladesh (O)" The UN should impose sanctions on countries who destroy their rainforest "
http://www.debatewise.com/debates/1050-the-un-should-impose-sanctions-on-countries-that-destroy-their-rainforests
Fri 28th:
(P)Pakistan v Estonia; (O) "Leaders of countries that use extra territorial rendition should be tried for War Crimes"
http://www.debatewise.com/debates/1051
(P)Lithuania v Canada (O) "All taxes on inherited wealth should be abolished"
http://www.debatewise.com/debates/1052
Sat 29th:
(P) Indonesia v Mexico; (O) "Poorer Countries should abandon Free Trade Agreements"
http://www.debatewise.com/debates/1053
(P)Scotland v Venezuela (O) "All forms of gambling should be banned
http://www.debatewise.com/debates/1054
Click here to add your comment
Moving on through the misty maze
Well this is the end of my penultimate day as an intern working out on one of the four desks on the first floor of Scrutton Street that make up Debatewise's HQ . Sometime the week after next I'm going to be making my last walk from Liverpool Street Station north up Bishopsgate to Scrutton Street (one of the best walks to work in the world because of the contrast between the skyscrapers of the city and the low rise buildings of Shoreditch ) in order to hand over to whoever is replacing me at HQ and leave a card for a certain group of people . After that my four month and a bit stint as an intern here will be completed and It'll be down to preparing to go and study for a Masters at the University of Warwick .
I'm not leaving Debatewise entirely, I'll still be helping with the Rapid Response Team and the WODC as well chipping in where and when I can so this isn't farewell!. But I'm sorry to be leaving a office that has taught me a lot about stepping up to the plate, (the crease for you cricket lovers !) and not just when the pressure is down, being prepared to take on a large amount of different roles and tasks both inside the office and outside (whether it's been writing press releases, administrating the WODC and the site, tweeting as the spokesbird on Twitter, or recruiting people. Oh and to forget getting the chance to get involved in writing and editing some really interesting debates as well as generating . It's been one of the most challenging things I've ever done but it's been really rewarding. So in case I forget a few au revoirs.
I've also met a great people here both past and present at Debatewise, one sentence doesn't do these people justice. Steph calm but really friendly, vibrant and a real driving force in the group, someone who I've really enjoyed being around both inside and outside the office . Dave one of the best people that I've served under whether as a union member or intern etc who's patience and calm instruction as well as edits has been useful. Alex a quiet but intelligent, interesting and funny person who's constant trips around the workspace have been helpful and well received (oh and once again many thanks for the book about Japan's history) . I'm also really grateful to everyone at Bash Studio's (especially those on the first floor) for being nice interesting tolerant people to work around and for clubbing in together to give me some really decent birthday presents such as a red shirt and a 3 dimensional skyline of London that can be set up and taken around with me (Oh and not to forget some taSTY CHOCOLATE CAKE!!!!). I've never received birthday presents from my work or volunteering colleagues before so Domoo Arigatoo guys I really appreciate them. Also just to say I've enjoyed sitting around in the centre of the action whether listening to interesting discussions about aviation the environment or film festivals or care related issues. Thanks also for inviting me to various events too such as a book launch in the House of Commons.
I wish all of you the best in the future whatever you decide to do and wherever you decide to go.
Some final thoughts on my role here and the work that Debatewise does which I've been thinking about for some time. All of this might sound like sentimental neo spirtual trash or disjointed musings but I hope it makes sense and is of value. Yesterday I hosted a panel discussion titled "Navigating through Debating" at an event called Skills Junction which was held in the Pirates Castle at North London. This was an event that was run by Skill the National bureau for Students With Disabilities in order to get people aged between 16-25 interested in volunteering and something that's part of volunteering is thinking about and navigating our way through the various issues whether they're disability related or related to something else like Far East politics. The problem with any set of issues can be obscured in darkness or shrouded in metaphorical mist because they aren't discussed or thought about in depth. So we're shining a bit of light onto a dark or mist by illuminating the different paths and possibly dead ends that make up make up the maze of navigating the various issues. Some parts of the maze are easy to navigate through others aren't. Sometimes we believe we have best compasses that work well whether they're moral, political or ideological . Yet at other times those same compasses lead us, the people around us into possibly the worst pitfalls or dead ends particuarly if we charge headlong into it thinking we're either heading along great straights only to slap hard into a wall because of something that we hadn't considered or that . In a way by providing information about the various issues what we're doing at Debatewise is illuminating parts of the maze by shining light on to the different issues surrounding subjects for example with the possibly the greatest labyrinth or journey of the lot the journey of life. So maybe less people will fall in to those pit falls or miss those turns although maybe some will as people will draw different conclusions on what those pitfalls and dead ends are. Eitherway there's more than one way to travel through life or think about life and maybe we're showing part of the paths that can be taken through it. Any way just my attempt to shed some light on the workings and goals of the "Wikipedia of online debate".
Last but not least not to forget a certain animal and mascot: I don't know what the canine equivalent of sayon nara is Marley but... iie I won't be patronising, somewhere in that brain of yours you know when you're being teased !. However it's been nice knowing you and watching you chase around toys across the room or on the rooftop at breath taking speed avoiding colliding into people and just being a generally friendly dog and I hope you can translate that into dog language!.
Sayonara HQ and Bash Studios. It's been a great few months but it'll be time for me to roll on through the ever changing maze of life once more.
Click here to add your comment
WODC: It gets rather cutting from here on in
This is it. No more second chances. The winners stay logged on the losers log out all the way to the final of the World Online Debating Championships.The Draw for the Second Round of the WODC took place on Sunday and it produced some interesting possibilities for example an Eastern European final possibly a revenge match between Lithuania and Latvia, a transatlantic scrap in the semi’s soon after the recent controversy over a certain… enough said about that! . The draw produced some interesting match ups too: Leading off on Wednesday the 26th of August will be the United States of America who got through the first round as a result of Bosnia forfeiting their first round match. They’ll be proposing a motion against South Africa who scraped through their match against Japan with one of the adjudicators saying that he’d give it as a neutral but couldn’t do that. However both Eusebius Mckaiser and Daniel De Kadt are “delighted” to have got through and are “excited” about facing the USA. Also while England’s cricketers will be trying to get over the post Ashes euphoria after winning against Australia, England’s online debating team will be up against more Commonwealth opposition in the form of India fresh from winning against Bangladesh starting on the same day . Bangladesh qualify as one of the top losers and go up against South Korea who sat out the opening round after being the odd one out in the draw starting on Thursday. That happens with Bulgaria (who won a first round match forfeited by a "snoozing" Israeli team) typing off against Latvia in the other match of the day. Interestingly Bulgaria are in the proposition seat where as Latvia have been drawn as the opposition this time giving the opportunity for Bulgaria to prove a point so to speak as the proposition , as will other teams that were in inactive matches.
A match of teams that won by forfeits starts the second half of the draw on Friday with Pakistan (who arguably gave one of the best arguments by a side in the forfeited matches) going up against Estonia who fought a forfeited (but still interesting) debate by Nigeria. Next up it’s our winner in the battle of the two L’s Lithuania going up against Canada who won by forfeit against Macedonia despite Macedonia trying to clamber back. Lithuania won an interesting match over whether "Nazi and Communist symbols should be banned". Last but not least on Saturday Indonesia propose against Mexico ,while Scotland face an impressive Venezuela who won a tough fought and interesting match against Indonesia persuading the adjudicators (if not the audience) that they were the team that should get through with their arguments over whether Dictatorship was the best path to development" . Indonesia did enough to secure a second round spot and will like all of the other teams have a chance to improve on their first round performance. But for which teams will improve enough to get through to the Quarter Finals of this inaugural tournament? Stay observing to find out and stay voting to potentially decide the outcomes of these matches
SECOND ROUND LINE UP:
Starting on Wednesday the 26th:
(Proposing)USA v South Africa; (Opposing)
(P) England v India (O)
Thu 27th:
(P) Bulgaria v Latvia; (O)
(P) S Korea v Bangladesh (O)
Fri 28th:
(P)Pakistan v Estonia; (O)
(P)Lithuania v Canada (O)
Sat 29th:
(P) Indonesia v Mexico; (O)
(P)Scotland v Venezuela (O)
All debates type off at 12.00 UCT/GMT (that's 13.00 BST) each day starting on Wednesday.
1 comment. Click here to read it and add yours
WODC First round results
More comment and reaction to follow later but here are the first round results of what was an interesting two weeks, albeit ones of mixed activity.First Round Results
Monday the 10th of August
(Proposing) Nigeria V Estonia (Opposing)
Estonia win through inactivity (missing a round by Nigeria). However Nigeria did respond in later rounds so may be in with a glance as a top three loser
(P) Bulgaria V Israel (O)
Bulgaria win through inactivity by Israel again- A good trio of points though by the Bulgarians
Tuesday 11th of August
(P) Venezuela V Indonesia (O)
Venezuela win by Adjudication (unanimous decision by both adjudicators on the winner). Out of all the adjudicated debates Venezuela are the only team in the round to win as the proposition.
(P) Dubai (V) Mexico (O)
Mexico win through inactivity by Dubai
Wednesday the 12th of August
(P) Bangladesh V India (O)
India won by adjudication in this sub continental battle
(P) Pakistan V Chile (O)
Pakistan win through inactivity by Chile.
Thursday the 13th
(P)Japan V South Africa (O)
South Africa win by Adjudication.
(P) China V Scotland (O)
Scotland win by inactivity by China
Friday the 14th
(P)USA V Bosnia (O)
USA win through Inactivity by Bosnia
(P)Latvia V Lithuania(O)
Saturday the 15th
(P)Canada V Macedonia (O)-
Canada win through Inactivity by Macedonia. Although Macedonia responded after 48 hours they are still in the bottom of the pack
(P) Singapore V England (O)
England qualify as a result of Singapore withdrawing from the competition. As a result both of the home nations qualify through to the second round
If you're interested ,all of the debates for the first round and for all of the other rounds of this competition can be found at: http://www.debatewise.com/wodc-debates
TEAMS QUALIFYING FOR ROUND TWO
1. South Korea- (bye to 2nd round)
2.Bulgaria
3.Estonia
4.England
5.Venezuela
6.Scotland
7.United States of America
8.Pakistan
9.India
10.Canada
11. South Africa
12.Mexico
13. Lithuania
14. Latvia -Top 3 losers -UPDATE
15 Bangladesh
16. Indonesia
The next round has been postponed to Wednesday the 26th possibly at 12.00 GMT. Before that there will be a draw to decide which team squares off against each other for the honour of getting through to the Quarter Finals.
1 comment. Click here to read it and add yours
Expenses scandal at Debatewise!!
It is HOT in London, almost for the first time this summer, unfortunately it sounds like it will not last. However in the mean time we have managed to have our very own expenses scandal (we cant be outdone by the MPs or BBC) as we have claimed (Ok David bought for us... I doubt he will take the money off Debatewise as a company) for ice creams each, the luxury! Nothing is too small for us to claim for. Indeed I claim for newspapers I buy once a week! And then there is the big one, I get my expenses for travelling in from Reading each day (although not in rush hour). So has this revelation of scandal ruined us? will it make the front page of all the newspapers? I somehow doubt it! So moral of the story: expenses can be a good thing.Click here to add your comment
little but useful fixes
Well done to Greg and David for getting lots of fixes for Debatewise up over the last few days. We now have lines between paragraphs. This obviously makes Debatewise much easier to read, many points are rather long and it was always very difficult to see where the author of the point meant there to be a paragraph change. This should make reading the WODC debates in particular much easier.Also it looks like the ‘remember me’ when logging in might be fixed. It is certainly working for me. Until Friday I had to log into Debatewise at least twice a day, which was always rather irritating. Hopefully if this really is working for everyone then this will hopefully mean more people stay longer on the site and will be more willing to make edits, debates, comments and vote.
Great that these niggling problems have finally been sorted out!
1 comment. Click here to read it and add yours
5 things in the week
Not done this in a while, so I thought we should break the monopoly of the WODC commentary on the blog
Alex:
1, ... ok so not quite! I have been helping Leo out with some WODC stuff this week; particularly emails and writing a bit for the facebook page. As a side point to this I put up the debate we at HQ had during our testing the software http://debatewise.com/debates/1013-we-should-dramatically-increase-the-rate-of-income-tax-paid-by-the-rich
2, Lost my precious 1k karma and in return gained the ability to add pictures to debates! Therefore spent quite a while (probably more than I should have done) looking for pictures for various debates.
3, Looks like I am finally pretty much finished writing some things for a possible evaluating board for revisewise... not getting very far on a cover letter though, I am useless at important letters.
4, Started doing a bit of research on what we would be liable for if the moderators miss something on our white label partners sites.
5, Thought I would mention the newspapers as it was the only bit of my work I was doing while on holiday – lack of internet access prevented any more (a good excuse at least!). I am told that this week’s 6 questions were oversubscribed so I think I will need to give over an extra hour on Tuesday afternoons in order to have more questions on the list, no squabbling about which ones U get to do RRT!
Steph: Five things I have done
1. Fussed Marely and gave him my lunch (Hey...its in my job description and I know my priorities)
2. Emailed ALL of the pressure groups, political parties, student unions and like-minded organisation- when I say ALL I mean thousands!
3. Secured a meeting and connected with different companies that are 'discussing' our proposal
4. Networked up a storm, well maybe a raincloud at an event on Wednesday. Booked the next events to come in Aug/Sept
5. Interviewed lovely, possible candidates for our internship position. What an experience being on the other side.
Might I add a tremendous thank you to David for giving me a free Big Chill ticket, I had an utterly, fantabulous time!
Click here to add your comment
Nine and a bit questions to think about or add to for the World Online Debating Championship
Nine and a bit questions to think about or add to for the World Online Debating ChampionshipI’ve written a number of questions with Alex about different aspects of the World Online Debating Championship . I can’t exactly speculate on who’s going to walk away as champions but I can ask some questions about it and see whether they will be answered at least provisionally as the tournament progresses, after the tournament or maybe I’ll have to wait until next year before giving a precise answer. Please note although I’m a old hand sort of when it comes to debating on council chambers or in student union committee this is my first “debating competition” so if you think some of the questions aren’t the right ones or could be improved please feel free to do make some more informed observations or more informed questions.
1. Will this championship be all about “The Rise of the East”?
A large amount of countries from soviet bloc Eastern Europe (like Estonia) , East Asia (such as Indonesia) and a few from the Middle East (Dubai) have entered but will this championship be about the rise of the east or will countries from the “West” prevail and that’s not a joke question. Tieing in with this is question 1b and that is
1b.How well will the Asian countries do as opposed to the rest of the world and again what if anything does it mean?
2. A majority of teams competing in the WODC come from different parts of Asia including the Indian Subcontinent. There are eight countries in from all parts of the continent which is around a third of the teams competing in this inaugural championship*. And what does it mean in terms of debating and the political discourse. I’m not an expert when it comes to debating or the impact of the internet but it could show a strong discourse developing in the Asian area which will potentially develop.
3. 2.Does the draw make the debates or the debate make the draw ?
Ok this is a strange question to ask but it’s an interesting one given that having done a draw to decide the grid for the first round of the championships we may have a draw to decide the nature of the second round, but this is something that is NOT set in stone . Will the nature of the debates on offer bring out the best in each team or will it be the competition and the chance of being the first to get the prize as well as the strength of the opposition. Or will it be a combination of all of those different factors.
4. What is the most effective size for a team and will it be a bigger team that ultimately prevails or a smaller one ?
The twenty five countries in the WODC have teams coming in quite a few different sizes. Take for example the ongoing match between Bulgaria and Israel. Israel has one member Bulgaria have four members on their team. On the surface this seems like a simple case of being outnumbered four to one and raises the question of will one person (or two in a team) survive all the rounds without missing one and forfeiting the competition. But will the bigger teams have more problems communicating then those in the smaller teams. At the start of the competition the mean average (and also the modal one) of all the teams currently competing was roughly three people per team (2.76 to be precise) rather than the five or six we predicted and recommended would be the ideal team after running the test debates*.
5.
5. Will those teams who have gone through the preliminaries or got through automatically to the second round fare better than those who have got directly drawn for the first round
This is going to be an interesting one to see. This year teams from three countries had to go through preliminary rounds and a single country (South Korea) is getting a bye into the second round. On the one hand teams who did not go through the preliminaries can see the first debate done by their opposition and get an idea of their style, on the other those teams who have already been through the preliminaries have more experience in the style of the competition.
6. Will the World Cup format work out and can teams from individual nations perform as well as teams from multiple countries? This is one we can’t exactly test that in the competition itself. But in future editions it may be interesting to see how this bears out whether teams from one national are stronger then teams from multiple ones (for example maybe a team made up of players from the Pacific Islands) as well as gauge the initial impact. Alex however sees this question in a wider context than I initially did which I should actually use his own words to describe: “I was really thinking in much broader terms. When we first came up with the competition I wondered if it would be an idea to allow people from different countries in the same team, thus taking away the problems for some teams of ESL. There is no reason why in the future we would have to stick to our countries format rather than anyone entering to take part in a team drawn from all over the world.”
7. What impact will this tournament ultimately have? Will it bring people together in the spirit and open a new door to people who wouldn’t normally debate or not This one will only play out in the long term and possibly if we have more editions although it will be possible to see initial impact. Also I wonder what range of ages as well as races are competing in this. We didn’t ask for this information but maybe it would be good to look at the demographics in the future
8. Why are we doing this in this format and will it be effective in not just getting an entertaining competition but one at a high standard too? Alex’s one here but he raises a good point. The World Online Debating Format is a simple and effective one: The winners go on, the losers go home but will this format actually bring the best out of the competition. Alex again observes “This competition has a relatively small number of teams competing but the format would become cumbersome with more. Moreover there may be questions about what we have chosen to allow in each phase of the debates; why should the opposition both have to make their points and their counter arguments in the same 24 hours (Opposition Case), at the moment if a team misses 24 hours there is little way of going back and stating their points, should this be the case?” That will be something the adjudicators may have more of a precise view than I do but it’s worth considering.
9. Will having English as a second language make a difference to which competitors perform best? Most of the countries in this competition don’t use English as a first language for example Macedonia, Japan and Bosnia are good examples of countries that don’t have English as their first language. However some of the countries competing aside from the usual suspects like England and Scotland also have English as their official language for example Nigeria but the types of language vary in words used as well as spelling. etc. This is going to be interesting to observe and something I think we’ll see that’ll play out throughout the competition and possibly in future competitions.
10. Will the “seasoned veterans” dominate or will there be an opportunity for a spot of giant killing by some amateur or rookie upstarts?! Possibly one for future editions of the tournament as we do not currently ask for that information from applicants, but it would be interesting to know the make up of the team that does ultimately prevail in this contest. Will it be a group of experienced debaters or will it be a group of relative outsiders who triumph? This may be a world championship but it’s nice to have an element of the FA cup in it
If you’ve got any questions that you think should be on this list then post a comment . I won’t pass my final judgement until the last adjudication has been placed on the final debate of this inaugural championship but they seem interesting enough. And it never hurt to do a bit of active speculation given that we are pretty much in semi uncharted territory. As for the rest all should become clear if not now but in the future.
In time honoured tradition we’ll just have to wait and see
* Note this was mostly written on Day 1 Monday before Singapore withdrew from the competition so the number of countries have been affected as the average. I’ll have the latest calculations up for you tomorrow
3 comments. Click here to read them and add yours