Geldof,+Jonathan

Debated four years for Capitol Debate/River Hill High School, now debating at the University of Kentucky.

I don't judge much and I don't know a lot about the topic.

Short version: Policy leaning. I care a lot about evidence quality in general and qualifications in particular. i take questions of qualifications as more than 'just' defense, hacks are not necessarily better than analytics. if i'm reading cards after the debate i may make determinations based on author qualifications. to me, it's no different than making any other judgement of the quality of your evidence. zero risk is absolutely a thing and i think easier for me relative to a lot of judges, especially if your cards suck.

Topicality – I enjoy good T debate. To me that means doing impact calculus beyond reading the Rowland 84 card and a depth outweighs breadth impact. I don’t necessarily think that the smallest version of the topic is the best, I think the aff can win a T debate with just defense.

Counterplans – I'm better for the neg on theory issues. I just don't know where the line is between 'this counterplan made it hard to be aff' and 'this counterplan is a reason to vote aff'. On some level, it's their job to make debate hard for you. Arguments about legitimacy are almost always better couched in terms of competition. It would be very, very difficult to persuade me to vote aff on conditionality.

Non-traditional debate – I think the affirmative should affirm the resolution. That said, I'm comfortable voting against my predispositions. Good debate is important to me, your interpretation of the topic should invite it. I'm not sure how I could be convinced that permutations are de facto illegitimate; the job of the negative is to prove the aff is wrong, not to propose a marginally better idea.

Critiques – Alternatives typically lack explanation and affs typically do a bad job of exploiting that fact. Fixing either of those problems will help you in front of me. I'm not particularly sympathetic to broad assertions of the way the world works without specific contextualization to the 1ac; i'm not likely to grant much weight to some card you tagged 'serial policy failure' or 'self-fulfilling prophecy' unless it's explained vis a vis the affirmative. i'm probably good with your thing, high theory, security, whatever. I will say that I dislike the aesthetics of the k more than the mechanics. Pathos is great, but self-righteousness can be obnoxious. Know the line between the two.

Disjointed thoughts which do not deserve their own section -
 * Link controls direction of uniqueness
 * Smart analytics > bad cards
 * I won't kick a counterplan 'for you' unless directed to by the 2NR. You should make that decision not me.
 * I've been debating for seven years, and I've been a 2N for the last six. I have nightmares about new 2AR arguments.
 * Politics theory is pretty silly
 * I like brashness. Blow off bad arguments.

ethics stuff – If you say “mark the card” and do not actually mark it you do not get to go back and do it after the fact. this trend of removing tags/headers or moving shit around in the speech doc needs to end. Obviously you can take out analytics but trying to confuse your opponents by changing what you give them is cheap, if not cheating. If you do this and get called on it you're going to take prep to give them a real speech doc.. I'm pretty sure that people complaining about clipping has now outpaced actual instances of clipping. that said, don't do it. There are no backsies with accusations, you don't get to dip your toe in the water before you accuse someone. Ask which cards they read, where they marked them, etc.

Cross-x: is not speech time. Reading cards in cross-x invariably seems forced and silly. It also doesn't count. Phrases I hope to never hear again: It's somewhat inevitable that debaters speak over one another in cross-x, but at least make an effort.
 * Make that argument and we'll answer it
 * It doesn't matter that X author is a total hack, because warrants
 * Read me a line in the card that says...

should go without saying: hateful language is totally unacceptable.