The following are comments made on the original paper draft of the Chief Adjudicator's Handbook. Please feel free to add to them where appropriate. martpol 16:11, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Running the tab: The technical bit[]
Trevor Sather
“It would be nice to invest a bit of time (and money if necessary) in producing a definitive tab system which could be used year after year. I have a suggestion: Marjan Stojnev, in Macedonia, who hasn’t been to WSDC but who created IDEA’s excellent “EasyTournament” software.”
Claire Ryan
“Jordan Ward from New Zealand has also created an excellent tab system which has been tried and tested throughout the country and in some international competitions. He might also be willing to assist in the development of a WSDC tab.”
Individual rankings[]
Trevor Sather:
“While I very much sympathise with the arguments against making awards at a tournament, I would argue against WSDC trying to suppress information in the long term. For example, post-2004 several people have asked if the individual tab will ever be released. If the speaker marks from the ballots are ever entered as an exercise (as I did from 1998, when trying to work out the method of individual tabulation), it would seem unfair not to release it to those who requested it. It might even be published online subsequently. If marks in general are published, as they effectively are whenballots are distributed to coaches, it becomes purely a practical argument rather than a moral one against tabulating them.
"The argument in favour of an individual tab is similar to the one in favour of octo-finals, or the argument that sees American debate competitions give awards to a high percentage of participants – if competitors are able to return home and say “I made the top 50”, this may have serious and beneficial consequences for funding or future college or job applications.”