WSDC 2022: Conferral Judging (Official Guidance Document)

Contents

I. Existing WSDC judging procedure, and how conferral departs 2

II. Time overview for the conferral process 2

III. Purpose of conferral judging and example questions: 2

IV. Guidance to chairs on conducting a conferral discussion 3

V. Guidance for all participants in conferral discussions 4

VI. Differences between independent ballots, conferral judging, and consensus judging 5

VII. FAQs (TBA as the CAP receives community questions) 6

I. Existing WSDC judging procedure, and how conferral departs

Previous system: Independent ballots WSDC 2022 on: Conferral judging

Step 1: Take time, consider the debate carefully and Use your notes to arrive at an early decision
in a great level of detail. Arrive at a decision

Step 2: Fill out your ballot, and submit the ballot Discuss the debate with the room and seek
clarification where necessary for your
verdict to be clearer

Step 3: Briefly discuss your reasons for the decision Consider once again, change your decision if
with the Chair/wings necessary. Inform the Chair of your final
decision, and then fill the ballot and submit

Step 4: Chair (in most cases) delivers the OA Chair (in most cases) delivers the OA

The primary departure from the previous system is the addition of a discussion element before
final decisions are made, allowing judges to change their initial decisions if needed.

II. Time overview for the conferral process

The entire process end-to-end should not take more than 60 minutes (1 hr)

-Debate Ends-

0-5 min: Arrive at preliminary verdicts (5 min)

5-23 min: Engage in the conferral discussion (12-18 min)
23-28 min: Rethink, make final decision, fill ballots (5 min)
28-32 min: Chairs clarify for any OA additions (5 min)
32-40 min: Deliver OA to the room (8 min)
40-60: Team/speaker specific feedback + buffers (20 min)

III. Purpose of conferral judging and example questions:

The primary purpose of the discussion is to help the judges share and clarify their thoughts
about the debate before completing their mark-sheets. The purpose is not to
convince/persuade other judges to make the same decision as you.

In conferral judging, we are agnostic about agreement on the decision itself, but not about
whether you have the information you need to make that decision.

There are two types of additional information we believe judges may be able to seek out:

1. Clarifications around the WSDC rules: Questions pertaining to any WSDC technical rules
including but not limited to:
a. Point X was made for the first time by the third speaker. Are we allowed to
credit it?
b. Is it acceptable that Team Proposition’s set-up/model was only clarified at 2P?
c. Can Team Opposition run a countermodel in a prefers motion?

2. Clarifications about more subjective elements of the debate round: Questions that are
 specific to the substantive contributions and engagement in that particular debate.
These may be of two further types:
a. Questions attempting to ascertain or clarify ‘what happened’. These may
attempt to double check tracking, confirm that a judge understood a point
correctly, etc.
i. Can I confirm that the response to idea X was delivered first in the 2Opp
speech, when they said Y?
ii. Proposition set up 3 levers to the principle - A, B, and C. Is that correct?
b. Questions attempting to ascertain ‘how to evaluate’. In particularly close
debates, these may attempt to understand how to compare contributions, or
weigh up engagement.
i. Team X has won issue Y, but Team A has won issue B. Neither team
explained whether Y or A is more important. How can we ascertain this?
ii. Third opposition has responded in X manner - how can we evaluate if
proposition has built implicit defences in their case to deal with this?

Conferral judging aims to strengthen a judge’s information systems over and above their
existing, clear tracking of the debate. Judges should not to ask for entire speeches/arguments
and rely on other judges.

IV. Guidance to chairs on conducting a conferral discussion

CHAIRS SHOULD ACTIVELY TIME THE ENTIRE CONFERRAL SECTION

1. Give judges a couple of minutes right after the round ends to use their notes and arrive
at a preliminary verdict. At the end of this, request them to share the preliminary
verdict with you privately. This step should not take more than five minutes total.
2. Announce the overall decision as it stands and mention who split in cases of splits
3. Open the floor for a guided discussion after stating the purpose of this discussion - that
it is not to convince or arrive at a consensus, but to offer additional clarification,
information, or perspective as necessary
4. Before entering a more substantive discussion and evaluation of the debate, invite any
questions anyone may have that they are seeking clarity over - this applies in particular
to clarifications about the rules, or judges wanting to confirm or double check their
understanding of the facts in the debate, e.g.: teams’ arguments, when a piece of
rebuttal was delivered first, etc. More evaluation based questions will likely surface
during the discussion
5. Arrive at the crucial issues within the round and an understanding of the quality and
closeness of the round. Some ways to do this:
a. “I thought there were X important questions/issues in the round. Does anyone
have additions to these?”
b. “Can we each list what we found are the important issues deciding the round?”
c. “How close was this round? Did you think it was average, above average, or
below average overall?”
6. Invite the wings to contribute to the discussion by articulating how they
viewed/evaluated each clash:
a. In cases where the decision is unanimous, you may do this by getting the wings
to track and explain a clash each live.
 b. In cases where the decision is split:
i. Wing splits: Invite the panelist in the minority to share briefly what they
thought the deciding factors in the round were. Ideally, have this done
first so they are able to share their perspective before there is some
influence from the majority opinion.
ii. Chair splits: Invite contribution from both wings on clashes similar to
unanimous calls, but then provide perspective for the other side briefly
on points of departure by calling it out clearly and explaining why you
saw the issue differently
This process should ideally not take more than 18 minutes (~4-6 minutes per judge
with some buffer), and the judge giving the OA should be making notes that would help
their OA
7. At the end of 15 minutes, signal to the room that deliberation is coming to an end
within the next 3 minutes and indicate that judges have to wrap up
8. At the end of 18 minutes, ask judges to take a moment to reflect on whether they would
use the information and perspective available to them to decide differently. This should
not take more than 5 minutes.
9. Collect their final decisions after this, and have them fill out ballots. Scores are to be
decided independently and not through conferral. However, judges may use their
understanding of round quality based on the previous discussion to score
10. Take a minute to make any edits to your OA notes to reflect the new decision if needed

V. Guidance for all participants in conferral discussions

1. Enter the discussion with openness: Avoid being obstinate or unwilling to listen to what
other judges are saying. There is no shame in changing your decision if you feel that
additional information or perspective changes the way you view the debate
2. Be specific in your questions: As much as is possible, any clarifications should be
targeted and specific, rather than open ended. Judges are expected to avoid asking
‘What did X say in their second argument?’, and instead play back their understanding
of the second argument and ask for additions if there are any
3. Use language that makes space for, and facilitates discussion: Phrase sentences that
indicate that you are sharing opinions, rather than sharing objective fact. Avoid “I think
there is no way X won”, or “This is such an obvious win to Y”
4. Spend more time on contentious, important areas: Owing to time constraints, all
participants are expected to spend a majority of the discussion on clear and specific
areas that are more difficult to evaluate and matter more to the overall decision of the
debate, rather than areas that the judges broadly agree on, or may have contention, but
do not contribute as much to deciding the round’s winner
5. Avoid arguments/heated back and forths: Be consistently aware that you are in a
‘conferral’ rather than a ‘consensus’ discussion. Receiving information to enhance your
decision making process is more important than the end state of the decision itself.
VI. Differences between independent ballots, conferral judging, and consensus judging

Area Independent (AP) Independent (ex-WSDC, Consensus (BP) Conferral (WSDC 2022)
Australs)

Timing and Low (0-2 min): Medium (5-10 min): High (~15-20 min): Medium-High (12-18 min)
purpose of After ballots are submitted if After ballots are submitted to Before ballots are submitted Before ballots are submitted
discussion at all as a formality improve OAs to reach consensus to expand information
available to judges

Importance of Low: Medium: High: Medium-High:

discussion Does not feature strongly as Only matters to the extent The discussion is the primary The discussion can increase
each judge delivers a that the person delivering the method of evaluating who information, and change the
separate OA to the teams OA collects opinions won the debate minds of judges and the
that is evaluated outcome, as it is done prior to
ballot submission. However, it
is not the method of
evaluating who won

Approach to Only matters to the teams Matters in as much as the Triggers in depth discussion Room acknowledges the
divergence and not to judges themselves person delivering the OA to attempt to resolve this alternative ways to view the
should fold dissenting divergence, where judges try debate, and the explanations
opinions in
and convince the other judge of these by judges may
to move towards a common influence judges to
way of viewing the debate independently change their
decision or not

Likelihood of Relatively high Relatively high Relatively low Unclear - not wedded to the
dissents final decision

No. of OAs Three separate One OA One OA One OA

VII. FAQs (TBD as the CAP receives community questions)