YODL #3
January 26 & 27, 2024
Your squad is cordially invited to the third Yaatly Online Debating League tournament of the 2023-2024 academic year. At this event, we’ll continue our experiments to explore best practice in BP debating. You may read more about the YODL in our bylaws.
Highlights
YODL tournaments incorporate a number of approaches that are significantly different from traditional BP practice. In brief, the major differences are:
Each debate decides topic via a topic striking process
Points of privilege allowed during the round to address equity concerns in-round
Escalated equity issues handled by the tournament host or designee with the option of involving the host institution’s equity and compliance office
Open deliberation following the debate, to be observed by the debaters (contingent upon community preference)
We expect that every participant--debaters, judges and observers--will read, understand and abide by the policies governing participation in YODL events.
Schedule (times in Pacific Time)
Friday, 1/26
3:00 - Participant check-in begins
3:15 - Welcome & announcements in Yaatly auditorium
3:20 - Participant drop deadline
3:30 - Rd 1
5:30 - Rd 2
Saturday, 1/27
9:30 - Participant check-in begins
9:50 - Participant drop deadline
10:00 - Rd 3
12:00 - Lunch
1:00 - Rd 4
3:00 - Quarterfinals
5:00 - Semifinals
7:00 - Finals
Platform
We’ll use Yaatly for our debating platform. Each squad’s director/coach/leader will need to create an account for their squad. Only once your squad has an account can you add your debaters and judges. You may read about creating a squad account and adding your debaters & judges to that account here.
After your account is active, you should use the link below to RSVP and, by so doing, gain access to the event for all those affiliated with your organization.
Use this link to RSVP on Yaatly for your squad
NB: Please confirm your participants’ access to the event on Yaatly WELL BEFORE FRIDAY to avoid delays the day of the tournament. Though the event will be in demo mode, you can access it prior to the start of the tournament to confirm that all your debaters and judges will be able to participate.
Registration
Entries are due by midnight, Tuesday, January 23.
Please register your teams & judges on this spreadsheet
Each school is entitled to register as many teams as you’d like, provided you cover your entry with a sufficient number of full-time judges. Judge requirements are determined using the N-1 formula, where N = the number of teams you're entering. In other words, if you intend to enter 3 teams, they’ll need to be covered by 2 full-time judges.
NB: We do NOT allow uncovered teams to participate in YODL tournaments You MUST cover your entry or be willing to drop uncovered teams.
We will need active email addresses for all judges you enter in the event. The FTN system uses those addresses for its online balloting system.
Fees
We run YODL as a service to our community. However, we do incur charges for our use of the digital resources required to run the Yaatly platform. We are, therefore, providing you the opportunity to donate in support of this event. We suggest a donation of $30 for each team you register, but will never exclude students from debating should you choose not to make a donation. You may donate via this link.
Motions
Motions for each debate will be selected by the competing teams using a topic striking system. Please read through this document and share it with your teams & judges so that they understand how the process will work.
Critical to this approach is the suggestion of topics by those schools attending. Consequently, I’m asking that each registered school submit a single topic in each of the following categories by midnight on Wednesday, January 24.
Programs are encouraged to involve debaters in generating suggested topics.
Judges
As noted under Registration, you must register judges sufficient to cover your team entries using the N-1 formula. You should indicate whether each judge is qualified to Chair a deliberation panel upon registration. Generally, experienced, mature and confident judges should be designated as a Chair as they will have additional responsibilities in this tournament.
A major challenge we face in organizing YODLs is having sufficient judges once we enter the elimination phase of the tournament. To address this concern, we will require the following of all programs:
All judges must be available for the first (Quarterfinal) elimination round. If a judge is assigned but does not show up for their Quarterfinal round, the school and teams with which that judge is affiliated will receive no YODL points for the tournament.
Each school must identify judges who will be available through the Final round. We prefer that these judges be Chair-level judges. The number of judges identified as available through Finals should be ½ of the total judges entered by that school, with a minimum of 1 judge identified for each school. If a judge identified as available through the Final round is assigned but does not show up for their round, the school and teams with which that judge is affiliated will receive no YODL points for the tournament.
Chairs will serve two very important roles in this tournament that differ substantially from judges’ typical responsibilities.
Chairs are expected to manage Points of Privilege offered by the debaters. Points of Privilege are intended to allow debaters to address potentially-offensive behavior by others in the round. If a debater requests a Point of Privilege, the Chair should stop the speaker’s time, allow the debater raising the point to state their concern and then respond either by counseling the speaker on more appropriate behavior, counseling the debater raising the point that their point is not valid or by deferring decision by taking the point “under advisement.”
Chairs are expected to lead deliberation about the ranking of teams that will be observed by the teams competing. As such, Chairs should feel confident managing the deliberation so that all teams are given due consideration in the decision and that all members of the panel are given ample opportunity to weigh in on their decision. Debaters must listen silently to the deliberation and may be excused at the discretion of the Chair if they refuse to do so. Following the deliberation and ranking, the Chair may offer a brief summary adjudication to the debaters but is not required to do so.