WODC 2010 Review

Summariser- Leo Capella, Commentary and analysis- Nadia Siddiqi

As the cruel winters enshroud the northern hemisphere, it's time to review the
second edition of the World Online Debating Championships. This year the
tournament kicked off in August with the FIFA World Cup in South Africa,
ending in October with the Commonwealth Games starting in New Delhi.
However none of the motions discussed were sports oriented.

Last year's world champions, Lithuania were watching from the sidelines so a
new champion would be crowned after the final. Most teams from last year did
make a comeback and there were a greater addition of contenders this year.
The total number of different countries who have participated in the W.O.D.C
(both 1 and 2) is Forty One. Fourteen teams from the 2009 pool returned;. In
addition, fifteen new teams joined up in 2010 making the total number of
teams participating this year twenty nine, four greater than the twenty five
incumbent teams; last year.

Before we sweep into the rounds themselves, it's important to note although
a number of teams got byes into the second round this year the competition
was a straight knockout contest right from the start unlike last year. No top
losers going through the second round or any other round, the winners
remained logged on and the losers logged out

First Round

Day one and China typed off against USA 2. The adjudicators were
divided on this debate. One judge figured China should have won, because
unlike U.S.A-2, China debated more and commented on the other side less.
The other judge gave the win to U.S.A-2; which won by the site users vote
(the first time ever that the tie breaker had to be used). Team China had a
lot of very good points but failed mainly because the members refused to
engage, address and critique U.S.A-2 during the debate. Where as, on the
flip-side U.S.A-2 consistently probed and dissected the weak generality of
China's argumentation; perhaps a little more than was warranted. USA 1 won
by default over Israel .whom unfortunately failed to get off the start line for
the second year in succession. So, Team U.S.A remained bifurcated into the
second round.

Also on the same day, Macedonia won their encounter against a
feisty Zimbabwe side; by adjudication (the agreement of both judges).
Following this; Pakistan won against Nepal; because one, the Nepalis never
summarized their debate and two, because of a series of superior rebuttals.


The stage was set for the new nations to show the old ones that just
because they may have gone far in the WODC last year didn't mean they
could go all the way this time around. New Zealand opened their account
against Indonesia, Australia also advanced against Estonia. Both losing
teams had advanced beyond the first round last year but failed to do so this
year.

The biggest scalp though in this year's contest was that England who
were finalists last year; lost to Mongolia in their first match; in the first
round. This was done by both adjudicators noting that the Mongolians were stronger in their analysis and had a wider of amount of examples opposing England.

Another casualty was Venezuela. They lost to the host nation of the 2011
World University Debating Championships: Botswana in a match that split the
adjudicators. Botswana won marginally by popular vote. Uganda faced off against Ghana with the jaunty Ghanaians ambling through by adjudication. Ghana put forth meatier arguments than their Ugandan competitors. This was by no means a perfect victory but even a skim through reveals that Ghana was winning from the start. Ghana's points were fluent and longer; they presented more factual evidence backing up the failure of quotas; while they did not address all of the Ugandan teams concerns; they did make it clear that the quota system is discriminatory and got Uganda to agree that all kinds of discrimination is wrong. All in all an easy win for Ghana.

At the bottom of the bracket there was an air of anticlimax. Aside from the
Israelis, a Malaysian tiger failed to roar against India, Palestine fared slightly
better than Israel, starting off with a strong opening argument but the team
faded away against Latvia. As a result; both countries that define the
crux of the Middle East conflict were booted out of the competition fair and
square, at the very first hurdle.



Second Round

History repeated itself; America and Pakistan lost in the second
round. At the top of the bracket Macedonia defeated USA 1 to set up a
Mediterranean derby between themselves and Greece in the Quarter Finals.
Greece being the first team to be awarded a bye started their campaign
against Pakistan, winning by adjudication and majority vote against Pakistan.
This was a clear victory as Pakistan never bothered to argue against the
success of Public pensions in greater Europe instead constantly diverted/
restricted the motion to only include market based economies such
as Chile, the U.K and U.S.A. Greece penned a fine summary sealing their
admirable victory with flair.

USA 1, a six member team lost to the Czech Republic (engaged in their first active debate) which had four members only. This revealed that smaller teams rise above larger ones when
there's a clear and marked discrepancy of team talent. The Czechs were without doubt the superior contenders. The Czech Republic through-out the contest, presented their points in a very organized format; each sub-point always has a separate paragraph and is therefore easy to distinguish and read. This organization aides in eliminating irrelevance which they were very rarely guilty of. The Czech Republic also substantiated their points with greater vigor,more to the point references and more evidence. U.S.A-1 failed to answer to most of what the Czechs wrote and lacked team coordination(refer to" continue edit here!!!" in the counterargument to the Czech's point titled: Homeschooling Increases Quality of Education). U.S.A-1 seemed upset about the suggestion that small private schools are not too different from home schools but provided no evidence to the contrary(such as additional requirements for registering a private school etc)


New Zealand managed to get through against Mexico by adjudication
opposing the motion of: "The police should use racial profiling to tackle
the problems of illegal immigration”. Mexico seemingly got themselves into a mix up after attempting to support racial profiling and not managing to shift the burden of proof on to New Zealand. That and failing to engage with New Zealand’s counter arguments. The Ghanaians their defeat paralleled the loss of their football team coincidently losing in the second
round to Mongolia who were on a roll; a 'rise of the underdog'
and a big improvement from last year; when they lost in the first round.

Quarter Finals

There's nothing like a “good local derby to spice things up” and that was
something that happened with Greece and Macedonia debating whether
new E.U member countries like Macedonia or as the Greeks see it "The
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" should have been fast tracked
into becoming European Union members. Greece won as a result of a split
decision that went their favour by majority users vote.

The remaining match of the top half was a tough fought debate between
the Kiwis and Botswana on the subject of whether "Prostitution should be
legalised to protect sex workers from HIV/AIDS" with Botswana in opposition.
New Zealand trudged through on the public vote with both adjudicators being
split in what Fred Cowell described as a "messy" debate.
Any thoughts of a rematch between Mongolia and Canada in the semis went
out the window as Mongolia lost to the Czech Republic by adjudication.
Canada would be the sole survivor from last year's contenders; after defeating
India by adjudication to book their place in the semi finals.

Semi Finals

Only the creme de la creme makes it to the semis and all four qualifiers
continued their exemplary performances in this round.
All four teams ardently participated with persevering diligence. The teams
demonstrated work ethic, worthy of a plethora of commendations; by
relating all the debates and writing bona fide rebuttals as well as superlative
summaries. Something that made for very interesting reading.

At this point the Canadians had an opportunity to equal Lithuania's record for
the most WODC matches won (Five) by winning their semi. But it was the
new kids on the block who prevailed in both matches. Firstly, New Zealand
advanced over Greece opposing the motion of whether patents should be
bypassed on life saving drugs, with three out of four adjudicators voting for
them and one for Greece. Greece was shown the proverbial door. Apollo, the
sun God was possibly busy painting his nails and a host of mythical creatures
from the underworld dragged the team back to Mount Olympus.

The Greeks failed to explain the mechanics of the plan outlined by Stiglitz.
Instead depending almost entirely on cited authorities; this is something a
debater should never do. Nothing was explained about the effect of the prize
on the research and development of drugs if patents were removed. While, it
is important to distribute drugs to the masses that need them; if the quality of the drugs is compromised because of reduced funding in the development of drugs; this effort is void. The Greeks never explained from where the money lost from removing patents will be
compensated for. New Zealand was wonderfully entertaining in highlighting this very pronounced weakness in Greek's argumentation; rebutting at a time with: "Where are you going to get the money? Oh you're Greek so you'll just borrow it!"

Adjudicators: Patrick Rooney, Rose Helens-Hart and Josh Martin gave the
win to New Zealand.

On the other hand the Greeks were very lucid in case presentation &
definitions; not beating about the bush or wasting time with vaguely conveyed
half-baked ideas. Adjudicator Tommy Tonner who gave Greece the win;
preferred Greek's use of evidence over N.Z's sharp wit;. Over all the win went
to N.Z by majority adjudication; three to one.

The other semi final debate came down to Canada and the Czech Republic
over the thorniest of controversial motions whether "minors should be
allowed to obtain abortions without parental consent". A tight debate with a
unanimous decision by all four adjudicators(Beth Harvey Smith, Loke Wing Fatt, Manos
Moschopoulos and Fred Cowell), granting the win to one side, the side of
proposition, the victorious and glorious Czech Republic. Mr.Fatt additionally,
went on to say that this was the best debate that he has ever judged and
had to read the entire debate three times just to be content with his decision
of choosing the Czech Republic and not Canada. He came to this decision
mainly because Canada spent some time avoiding confrontation by practicing
an over-reliance on the judicial exception of judicial bypass.

Fred Cowell found Canada very slightly vague at some points and this
obscurity would normally be ignored for it was about negligible but the Czech
Republic's superior case forced a need to nitpick. Manos Moschopoulos
pointed out that the difficulties faced by an unwed teenage mother were made
little or no mention of; oddly given their relevance to the motion. Beth Harvey
Smith pontificated that the opposition did not argue about the moral question of
whether teenagers 'should' decide on getting abortions and instead tackled
whether they 'can', saying rather weakly that they do not have fully developed
brains and are therefore, unable to make the choice. For one thing, teenagers
are perfectly capable of making consensual decisions; the brain development
that is lacking is in areas that are irrelevant to the case of whether they
should get aborted or not. Teenagers can but should not make decisions
under the coercive influence of older persons; because they are very very
impressionable and rebellious at that age(raging hormones maybe?).

Either way, Czech Republic, had the stronger case of the two and won; thus.


Final

The playing field was whittled down to two sets of players, battling it out
in a classic combinatorial game( A two player game that is zero sum; there is a winner and loser and the game cannot be drawn). New Zealand was summoned to propose
and define the motion of "Social Housing should be assigned in a way that
engineers mixed race communities" to the Czech Republic. Debate number
2335 typed off on Monday the 27th of September and finished
on Friday October the 2nd. This time the adjudication was the best of five
judges. And eventually the Czech Republic emerged as this year's World
Online Debating Champions with the result going in their favour, by judges'
decision to 3-2 in a painfully proximal hard-fought final. No side presented
a perfect debate but then debate teams, in the pursuit of impartiality
and objectivity; rarely do. The Proposition presented a rather obscure
Model at the start not giving proper and lucid definitions and using complex
terminology as a crutch. This, a debater should never do; as the object of
a debate is to clarify and comprehend a topic before removing the motion's
dichotomy and coalescing the judges and audience to their side's particular
point of view.

Thankfully, the proposition expertly clarified their views along the way; meanwhile
the opposition was arguing keeping in mind their interpretation of the
proposition's vague case. All the prop was asking for was a race-quota
system assigning tailor-made minority rights taking into consideration
perceived cultural considerations in marginalized ghettos. The opposition
harangued the Kiwis lashing out against fascism, han-isation, Zionism and
whatever else to put the prop in its place for even suggesting different rules
(inferred to mean second citizenship for minority groups).

The proposition then clarified what turned out to be their rather soft and fairly moderate
position; to which we have pre-emptively heaved a grateful sigh. The opposition did not manage to suggest alternative means by which and/or examples of when, minorities could potentially be or have been integrated and treated as equal to every other citizen in a country. A very emaciated start by both teams; lots of confusion and rebuttals lacking.

Then came a turning point in the debate, when both teams finally rolled up their sleeves and got down to nitty gritty exemplar (i.e. model based) debating fun. The opp (opposition for those of you that are new to debating) successfully proved with multifarious examples that the co-existence of starkly opposed communities exacerbate racial tension rather
than putting it out. The proposition had nothing convincing to answer this with; they provided no evidence what so ever that geographical integration would lead to tolerance in the long run. The opp also pointed out correctly; that the model would dupe the poor without really helping them; again the prop (the proposition or side for the motion) provided a very attenuate answer; rather than proving that the poor would not suffer they went on to say that the government can do what ever it wants. On the whole; a clear win for the Opposition: Czech Republic; congratulations.

Conclusion

So the Czech's are champions and a WODC trophy flew from Scrutton Street
to the Baltic States once again. At the risk of shaking the entire team's virtual
hands off, congratulations to them and commiserations to New Zealand for
an intensely fought final. Hopefully, we'll see them next year as well as all of
the teams who gave their all this year and some more new faces too. Registration
should begin sometime in the beginning of May.

Still to come though is the inaugural World Online Debating League. For
which entries are still open through contacting wodl@debatewise.com. A
more pressing concern is the Park 51 online debates with the main one being
on the motion of: "An Islamic Cultural Centre Should Be Built Near Ground
Zero" with the first debates being published tomorrow...

But until next time pravda vitezi


Acknowledgements

The W.O.D.C Evangelists would like to give thanks to the more-than-able
adjudicators in the final, namely Andy Hume, Rose Helens-Hart,Anne
Valkering, Loke Wing Fatt and Fred Cowell.

Posted by: Leo, 15 Nov 10, 10:20pm

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