This is mainly here for the benefit of our debate judges, but it can also provide a useful reference for debaters who'd like to know more about what the judges look for in a debate when they're assigning marks.

Once a debate is finished, a debate organiser will make a concluding post to say that that debate is ready for the judges.

The judges will need to assign each participant of the debate an overall mark out of 40. This will consist of 4 seperate marks out of 10 in 4 different areas:

Relevancy
How relevant to the topic of the debate was the debater ? Did they stick to the subject being debated, or did they wander into other subjects ? Were their points relevant to their side of the arguement ?

Countering
How well did the debater counter the points put forward by the other participant(s) ? Did they try and address as many points as possible, or ignore them ? Did they spend any time trying to put forward an arguement to counteract something that their oponent has said ? How effective were those counters ?

Style
This one is perhaps more down to personal opinion that any of the others. Did the debater come across as knowing exactly what they were talking about, or did they sound somewhat unsure of themselves ? Did their points fit into the discussion, and did they keep the reader interested ? Was the person able to use humour to effectively put their points across ?

Persuasiveness
In the end, was the debater convincing ? Were you persuaded with their side of the arguement ? Perhaps they managed to completely convince you that what they're saying is correct, or perhaps they failed to do that. Either way, this final score represents how persuasive they were throughout the debate.

Once three judges have posted their marks in a debate, the thread will be closed and the marks averaged up. The final result will then be posted.

Judges will not be allowed to judge debates in which they have been a participant.

Woohoo!
First off, thank you for picking me as a debate judge.

Now, a question on the judging:

When the debate is over and the judging begins, should we post the marks like this:

Debater 1: BurnSide
Relevancy: 8
Countering: 6
Style: 9
Persuasiveness: 7
TOTAL: 30

Debater 2: Falco Rex
Relevancy: 9
Countering: 8
Style: 4
Persuasiveness: 5
TOTAL: 26


OR should we just post:

BurnSide: 30
Falco Rex: 26

??

Dear mightiest Saruman,

If you should ever need a judge to break any possible ties, then feel free to change Moe's name to the color green.

love,
Moe

I think like this would be the best way, then they can see which areas they did or did not do well in,

Yay. I'm a judge.

Can I request that someone tells me when I'm judging, as I come and go willy nilly and miss stuff sometimes? Cheers.

Just check the debates LB, and if you see any finished Debates, go and judge em.

Someone go and judge my debate damnit, lol.


Saruman, thanks for the clear up. That's oh i'll judge.

Are we supposed to judge last seaons debates? I'm still waiting on mine too..

Hey, the old debates are gone.

NOOOOOOOO!!! my debate was just finished and it took so long!!

Oh, I thought we'd be kind of nominated to judge a debate, rather than going cherry picking....

There are actually still two debates from last season that haven't been judged, which actually provides an excellent oppertunity for the judges to try this out.

The two debate threads are :

Life After Death?

and

Pyramids, Alien Help ?

Falco and Burnside will of course not be able to judge the debate in which they participated, and in case anyone was wondering where all the debates from last season have gone to, they've all been moved to the Debates Archive board.

Thanks Saruman! I just read the whole debate on life after death, making notes and drawing conclusions, then you close it down. What a swizz. Pish.

Sorry Loonboy, unfortunately it wouldn't have counted even if you had managed to post before I closed it, since Burnside had been disqualified and Galor would have won no matter what the scores were.

I had no idea you were in the middle of judging the debate at the time either.

Sorry about that.

I could always re-open the thread and get your score anyway, we could see who would have won if Burnside hadn't been disqualified.

I'm on vacation starting tomorrow for about a week. Just tellin' you guys so you didn't think I ran away.

Nah, don't be daft.

Question to all debate judges:

When a debate has finished and needs judging, should us organizers PM you to let you know, or do you prefer just checking every once in a while?

I know that we can go for long periods of time without finishing a debate, so I'm just wondering.

I read most of the debates as they go and make sure I check daily for ones I don't that are ready to be judged.

So no thanks, Walkens okay

I wouldn't mind a PM..We can go a month before any debates finish up and then my attention wanes as far as checking in goes. All of a sudden I find myself missing 3 or 4 at once because they've all concluded on the same day..
Also I think there need to be couple more judges, with only five it can take forever to get a debate judged; especially if one or two judges are actually participants..

Thanks Falco. I was considering sending PMs to the judges, but wasn't sure if it was necessary.

Well, maybe it isn't necessary for Walken, but he's the exception.

I'll see what Saru says about getting another judge or two. That's a great suggestion, thanks.

If you ever ever need a judge I promise I will be very fair, respectful, and do my job to the best of my ability, to weigh out the debates and give a legitimate judging.

Sincerely,
JohnnyBoyC

I'm curious. Do I - as a judge debater - post that I'm judging a certain argument before volunteers join the debate, or do I wait until the argument is over and then join in? Are the judges chosen at random or do we race to the finish, so to speak?

I usually send out a PM to all the judges when a debate needs to be judged. If you go to the topic and it still needs to be judged, then you can go ahead and score it.

I wouldn't want to pre-determine who will be judging, since there are chances that they won't be available once the debate finishes.

Does that make sense?

Perfectly. So first come first serve.

Precisely.

For reference, the current debate judges are:

UniversalParadox
Irish
gollum
Replacement100
stillcrazy
Kryso
Jeremy_Rumbolt

I guess here's the place to register my interest in being a debate judge. I saw the thread asking for volunteers and was like "NOOOOOO - why didn't I check this page out yesterday"

Regards, PA

Thank-you PA, but as you have seen three new debates judges have just been appointed and it will be awhile before anymore are required. But saying that there will be a time when we require more judges so look out for it.

A brief note:

It has come to my attention that some may be disapproving of our Judges judging a debate due to outside threads where opinions are different and don't want our judges involved in awarding points.
Please note the only people who have any say as to who judges these debates are the Debate Organisers who are myself and AztecInca and of course Saruman.

Our Judges are selected due to their blanced and un-biased approaches. Everyone has different views but on the debates board our judges are always balanced when awarding points.

Please do not even try to sway the judging this is cheating and can and will lead to points being deducted from your debate.

Thanks.

Is it possible to get a list of the current debate judges, please? THe most recent above is far from accurate. Thank you.

Regards, PA

Here are the current debate judges;

UniversalParadox
Irish
gollum
Replacement100
Seraphina
Kryso
TooFarGone

When scores are given at the end of debates, participants like to know the justification behind the score and we would ask all judges to just add some comments explaining the reasons behind their scores.

It does not have to be lengthy or in-depth, just a brief summary of what they did do well and what they did not do well and how that translates into their score after the application of the debating criteria.

If you have any questions about this please pm either myself or tiddlyjen.