*The Debatewise Blog
WODC First round preview
Today the first two debates of twenty eight matches in the World Online Debating Championship 2010 begin at 12.00 GMT (13.00BST) and four teams out of the twenty nine nations taking part begin their hopefully two month campaign to become the second WODC champions after last years winners Lithuania ,who are not defending their title in this year’s competition.Last year it was all about the east ,with countries from East Asia and East and Central Europe taking part and performing strongly. This year’s WODC promises to be more of a mixture with five teams from Africa competing (including Botswana and Zimbabwe) and some of the old debating powers emerging in the form of Australia and New Zealand. Some old faces such as Venezuela and the USA who field two teams amongst others make a welcome return to the fray as well as some other new ones such as (but not only) Malaysia and Mongolia make their equally welcome debuts in this second edition of the World Online Debating Championships
Changes in the debates include a limit on characters at least for the first round of 20,000 characters. This means that each team gets a maximum set of six points (not counting the opportunity to rebut) and a summary in which to make their arguments. This means that hopefully things should be easier to read and take part in.
A word about the format of the tournament: particularly in this first round. Last year twelve teams went through along with three top losers in the second round with one team getting a bye. Well this year there are no top losers so right from the start the winners go on and the losers will log off. There are also no more random draws unlike last year. So each winner of a first round debate will debate the winner of the other debate that started on the same day so winner of the first debate on the day faces the winner of debate 2 and so on right up to the final.
Added to that there are three countries have got byes in to the second round as opposed to South Korea being the only one last year. They are newcomers Greece who debate the winners of Pakistan versus Nepal which begins on Tuesday the 3rd , Last years Quarter Finalists Mexico await the Asia Pacific clash of Indonesia v New Zealand which starts a day later. And then on Friday, Team Canada begin the final stage of their wait to find out who they will face in the second round as Pakistan Versus Latvia begins. By August the 15th at the earliest we should know which teams will be competing in the second round
For those of whom who are wondering about the home nations, last year’s runners up and this year’s sole representatives from the Isles England begin their campaign against Mongolia on Sunday. Whoever wins in that match faces African competition in the form the winner of the other debate on the day: Uganda versus Ghana. I wonder who the Scots amongst others will be rooting for? (Anyone but England?!...)
Anyway I’d better cut off my idle speculation to give you a reminder that there are three ways teams can win a debate (apart from forfeiting it of course) something that people will be relieved to know hasn’t changed. Firstly a team of wisers can win by a unanimous decision from two adjudicators (judges) who will be marking the debate based on a number of factors such as a well constructed argument . Secondly if the adjudicators are stuck then it goes down to you and how you the users of the site have voted on the debate (hopefully not just on what you think about the issue being debated). If both the public vote and the adjudicators are tied then the chief adjudicator Neill Harvey Smith makes the final decision on which team wins. So your vote can still count in possibly deciding the fate of the competition.
So with Twenty six teams set to type off over the next eight days we’re in for an interesting contest hopefully blending the clash of politics at Westminster with the length of test cricket and now a bit of rugby league too!
First Round
Monday 2nd August
China v USA 2
Zimbabwe v Macedonia
Tuesday 3rd August
Greece BYE
Pakistan v Nepal
Wednesday 4th August
New Zealand v Indonesia
Mexico BYE
Thursday 5th August
Estonia v Australia
Botswana v Venezuela
Friday 6th August
Canada BYE
Palestine v Latvia
Saturday 7th August
Malaysia v India
Romania v Colombia
Sunday 8th August
England v Mongolia
Uganda v Ghana
Monday 9th August
Rwanda v Czech Republic
Israel v USA 1