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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
Comments
Interesting questions, a question I have is why are some teams not even making arguments? Assuming that they were required to pay, I am wondering why they wouldn’t participate. Could it be the motions and their position on it? I think the organizers did a good job informing everyone when and where everything would happen but also some countries can have some sketchy internet, which could also be a factor.
We’re looking into that question at this very moment but those teams who didn’t make arguments are (barring some very unforeseen circumstances) out of the competition under rule 5.2.2 which states that :"Teams may receive an automatic second place if they fail to provide any text twenty four hours after the motion has been made public” . We’ve been trying to e-mail those teams involved to see why they’ve not been responding but haven’t received any sufficient responses.
It seems to me that they simply did not know when the debate started, we have recieved some complaints about not having sent out reminders.
Ok we can claim you were sent two emails that told you when your debates would be, so its your fault if you could not remember or be bothered to put it in your calendar. On the other hand it is us at debatewise who loose out, not only do some teams not get their enjoyment and chance to make their arguments (they probably think unfairly), but we loose the chance to have decent debates and for all we know may well loose those potential teams from future WODCs.