Author: Christopher Sanchez

Motions Committee 2018, Power-pairing method voting results

The online ballot of the WSDC Tournament Committee has now concluded.

38 nations (out of 52 eligible to vote) cast their ballots. Those nations
were: Australia, Barbados, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic,
Denmark, England, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia,
Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru,
Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Scotland, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South
Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, Uganda, United
States and Wales.

For some of the items on the ballot, the final results were extremely close
(in 2 cases being decided by a margin of just 1 vote). We have recounted
the votes very carefully to be certain of the results.

The final results of the various items on the ballot are as follows:

Motions Committee for WSDC 2018

Sharmila Parmanand (Philippines) – 31 votes (*ELECTED*)

Kevin Moar (New Zealand) – 25 votes (*ELECTED*)

Scott Ralston (Scotland) – 20 votes (*ELECTED*)

Luke Churchyard (South Africa) – 19 votes (*ELECTED*)

Alex de Jager (Qatar) – 14 votes (*ELECTED*)

Jumin Lee (South Korea) – 13 votes

Isabel Mateos Méndez (Mexico) – 13 votes

David Moscovici (Romania) – 13 votes

Janet Stevens (Scotland) – 10 votes

Sebastian Vera (Argentina) – 9 votes

The 5 individuals elected will be serving on the Motions Committee together
with 2 further members who will be appointed by the host organising
committee in Zagreb. The Hosts will be announcing the 2 appointed members
soon.

Power-Pairing Issue A
*Should the Rules specify whether the ‘seeded rounds’ (preliminary rounds 1
and 2) must be prepared or impromptu debates?*

Option 1: Rounds 1 and 2 should both prepared – 20 votes (*CHOSEN OPTION*)

Option 2: 1 prepared debate and 1 impromptu debate – 8 votes

Option 3: Allow the Hosts to decide – 7 votes

Abstentions: 3

Power-Pairing Issue B
*If a team needs to be ‘pulled-up’ to a higher bracket, how shall that team
be determined?*

Option 1: As far as possible, the team from the bracket below which has had
the ‘easiest’ opponents up to that point shall be ‘pulled-up’ – 26
votes (*CHOSEN
OPTION*)

Option 2: Randomly selected team from the bracket below shall be
‘pulled-up’ – 11 votes

Abstentions: 1

Power-Pairing Issue C
*Within each bracket, how should the computer tabulation programme aim to
pair teams up for each debate round?*

Option 1: As far as possible, the draw within each bracket should be a
folding table – 17 votes

Option 2: As far as possible, the draw within each bracket should be a
sliding table – 13 votes

Option 3: Teams should be randomly drawn against other teams in the bracket
– 8 votes

Abstentions: 0

*As no option received an overall majority, Option 3 was eliminated
(because it had the least votes) and the votes of the 8 delegates who voted
for Option 3 were transferred to their 2nd choice option. The final result
was: *

Option 1: As far as possible, the draw within each bracket should be a
folding table – 17 + 2 = 19 votes (*CHOSEN OPTION*)

Option 2: As far as possible, the draw within each bracket should be a
sliding table – 13 + 5 = 18 votes

Abstentions: 0 + 1 = 1

Power-Pairing Issue D
*Should teams be allowed to face debate against each other more than once
during the preliminary rounds?*

Option 1: No – 23 votes (*CHOSEN OPTION*)

Option 2: Yes – 15 votes

Abstentions: 0

Power-Pairing Issue E
*Should every team be given exactly 4 debates in proposition and exactly 4
debates in opposition over the 8 preliminary rounds?*

Option 1: Yes – 11

Option 2: No – 26 (*CHOSEN OPTION*)

Abstentions: 1

Power-Pairing Issue F
*What should happen in the event that there is an odd number of competing
nations?*

Option 1: The Host and the Chief Adjudicators shall decide – 10 votes

Option 2: A swing team will be added to the draw – 21 votes (*CHOSEN
OPTION*)

Option 3: A team will be given a walkover victory in each round – 7 votes

Abstentions: 1

Based on the above results, a fully updated version of the power-pairing
rules for WSDC 2018 will be compiled and released to the WSDC community.

Power-pairing is being implemented as a 1-year trail at WSDC 2018, so the
power-pairing rules will be a temporary amendment to the WSDC Rules for
2018 only. At the end of the 2018 championship, the Tournament Committee
will be able to decided whether it wishes to implement power-pairing again
at future WSDCs.

Regards,

Mark Gabriel & Christopher Sanchez
Returning Officers

Power-Pairing Proposal Documents

Mark Gabriel, member of the Board of Directors, has sent out an e-mail on 14th JAN 2018, informing the community about the voting issues on the final shape of the power-pairing proposal taking effect in Zagreb 2018. This is its original text:

When the World Schools Debating Championships Tournament Committee met in August last year in Bali, it was decided that ‘power-pairing’ will be implemented for a 1-year trial period for the preliminary rounds of WSDC 2018 in Zagreb.

 

A set of temporary amendments to the WSDC Rules outlining the procedures for power-pairing was presented in Bali by the outgoing Tournament Committee Executive. However there were a few specific issues regarding certain aspects of the procedures raised during the discussions at the meeting in Bali. The Tournament Committee therefore decided that, while power-pairing will definitely go ahead in Zagreb, an online ballot of the Tournament Committee would be held in order to make some decisions about a few aspects of the procedures, and the incoming WSDC Ltd Board of Directors was tasked to organise the ballot.

 

Over the past couple of months, the Draw Working Group (which was created by last year’s Executive and was asked to continue its work by the Board) has, based on the discussions in Bali, created a list of issues which need to be put to a vote and has drafted possible amendments to the original proposals presented in Bali. These have been shared with and approved by the WSDC Ltd Board of Directors.

 

The WSDC Ltd Board of Directors plans to hold an online ballot of the Tournament Committee from 9th – 11th FEB 2018.

 

There are 6 issues regarding the power-pairing procedures which we plan to put to a vote:

 

     Issue A:  Should the Rules specify whether the ‘seeded rounds’ (preliminary rounds 1 and 2) must be prepared or impromptu debates?
 
     Issue B:  If a team needs to be ‘pulled-up’ to a higher bracket, how shall that team be determined?
 
     Issue C:  Within each bracket, how should the computer tabulation programme aim to pair teams up for each debate round?
 
     Issue D:  Should teams be allowed to face debate against each other more than once during the preliminary rounds?
 
     Issue E:  Should every team be given exactly 4 debates in proposition and exactly 4 debates in opposition over the 8 preliminary rounds?
 
     Issue F:  What should happen in the event that there is an odd number of competing nations?

 

There are 3 documents attached to this e-mail. They are:

 

     (i)  The full text of the original power-pairing proposal presented in Bali.

WSDC Power-Pairing Proposal Issues (Edited)

 
     (ii)  A list the various options related to the 6 issues noted above and information on the potential implications of each option. (For some issues there are 2 options, and for some issues there are 3.)

WSDC Power-Pairing Proposal Original Text (Edited)

 
     (iii)  Amendments to the text of the original proposal presented in Bali in the event that alternative options are chosen.

WSDC Power-Pairing Proposal Text Amendments (Edited)

The representatives of each WSDC nation are encouraged to read through these documents and start thinking about how they would like their official voting representative to vote in the upcoming online ballot.

 

Anyone who has any thoughts regarding any of the issues which they would like to share with the rest of the WSDC community can do so through the WSDC Netpals mailing list.

 

Each nation which has entered a team in at least 2 of the last 3 WSDC championships (Singapore 2015, Stuttgart 2016 and Bali 2017) will be eligible to have 1 official voting delegate cast votes in the ballot. Details of the dates and voting procedures will be released shortly.

In addition to voting on the power-pairing procedures, the online ballot will also include the election for 5 members of the Motions Committee for WSDC 2018. (Candidates who wish to nominate themselves for the Motions Committee need to submit the nomination forms by by Thursday 18th January at 12:00 PM GMT.)

 

Voting will take place on the weekend of 9th-11th FEB 2018. Every nation’s voting delegate must login at schoolsdebate.com to cast votes. You can register for a new account here.

Further information regarding the online ballot will follow in a few days’ time.

 

Regards,
Mark Gabriel
Member, WSDC Ltd Board of Directors

 

Conferral Judging defeated, Break expanded

An Online Ballot concerning two motions on the introduction of Conferral Judging for a one-year trial period at WSDC 2017 in Bali, Indonesia, as well as expanding the break to 32 teams, has taken place between 16th and 19th April 2017.

Proposal A (Conferral Judging) can be viewed here.
Proposal B (Break Expansion) can be viewed here.

Mark Gabriel (Singapore), Chair of the WSDC Tournament Executive Committee, has released the results on 19th APR to the WSDC community.

It reads as follows:

“The online ballot of the World Schools Debating Championships Tournament Committee has now closed.

53 nations were eligible to vote in the ballot.

39 nations cast their votes. The 39 nations which voted were:  Argentina, Barbados, Bermuda, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Korea, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Scotland, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United States and Wales.

The results of the ballot were as follows –

Proposal A:  Conferral Judging for WSDC 2017  –  DEFEATED

     Votes in favour  –  16
     Votes against  –  21
     Abstentions  –  2

Therefore there will NOT be conferral judging at WSDC 2017. (Debates will be judged in the same way as they have a previous WSDCs.)

 

Proposal B:  Expansion of the break for WSDC 2017  –  PASSED
     Votes in favour  –  29
     Votes against  –  10

     Abstentions  –  0

Therefore the break at WSDC 2017 will be further expanded for a 1-year trial period.

The key things to note are:
     –  There will be a Partial Double Octo-Final round.
     –  The overall number of teams which break will be a minimum of 24 and a maximum of 32. All teams which win at least 5 preliminary round debates should break (unless more than 32 teams win at least 5 debates – which is unlikely).
     –  The number of teams participating in the Partial Double Octo-Final round will depend on the number of teams which break, but at least 16 teams will participate in the Partial Double Octo-Final round (and it’s at least theoretically possible that all 32 breaking teams could be involved in the Partial Double Octo-Final round if a very large number of teams win at least 5 debates).

     –  All of this is dependent on there being at least 48 teams competing in the championship. (If less than 48 teams participate, then there will be a 16-team break with no Partial Double Oct-Final round.)

Question 3

There was a 3rd question in the online ballot asking what delegates would like to do if Proposal B was not passed – but since Proposal B was passed, the responses to this 3rd question are now irrelevant. (Nevertheless if anyone is curious, there were 36 votes for the 24-team break option, 2 votes for the 16-team break option and 1 abstention.)

Mark Gabriel
Chair, WSDC Tournament Committee Executive”

 

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