Experience: I debated all four years of high school (1 year LD, 3 years policy) and currently compete with the ISU debate team. I have experience with all debate formats and currently am the assistant debate coach at Century High School.

The bottom line for me is that debate ought to be fair and accessible for everyone. Don't attack your opponent's character/person, be courteous and friendly, and ensure that the round is accessible to everyone involved. Any display of problematic behavior (racism, sexism, etc.) will result in an immediate loss.

Overall I am fine with whatever arguments you want to run. I love theory and K debate especially, as long as the debate is still accessible to everyone. Regardless of the debate event, please terminalize your impacts. If you aren't telling me why your argument matters, I have no reason to weigh it in your favor.

Please signpost! If you don't tell me where you are on the flow, I'm not going to get your argument down.

LD: Do not make the value-criterion debate a voter. VC is a framework, so if you win the VC debate then that means I weigh the round through your lens.

Run whatever arguments you want (counterplans, DAs, K, theory, etc.), as long as they connect back to your framework and you give me clear, terminalized impacts.

PF: Tell me how to weigh the round. If you don't give me a framework then I default to cost-benefit analysis, but providing a weighing mechanism for me is strongly encouraged.

If your response to your opponent is "That type of argument isn't allowed in PF" I'm probably going to disregard it. Especially when it comes to counter-advocacies, the line separating them from a counterplan is extremely fuzzy. For that reason, I don't lend much weight to "the opposing team is reading a counterplan which isn't allowed". Engage with the counter-advocacy.

Policy (WIP):I LOVE policy and you can read whatever you want for the most part, I'm only particular on a few things.

I'm tech over truth to a point, that point being turns to structural violence. Don't try and turn structural violence or you lose my ballot.

Theory: I love theory! Feel free to read silly theories, they make the round fun. Make sure you warrant out your standards and voters (ie. don't just tell me to vote on fairness and education, tell mywhy to vote on fairness and education).

Topicality: I have a high threshold for T. You can read it, but make sure it isn't frivolous and meant to waste your opponent's time. Use T as it is meant to be used, which is as a check on genuinely untopical affs. If you abuse your ability to read T, I will gladly pick up the other team on an RVI.

Speed: I'm fine with speed as long as you slow down on tags, analytics, etc. (anything that isn't a card) and your opponents are fine with it. If they ask you not to spread and you spread, you'll lose the round.

This is your round to have and enjoy, so most importantly, make sure that you are being kind to your opponent and having fun!

I am comfortable with speed, but do not be excessive or spread, and I am comfortable with all forms of arguments. If you run a K, or a CounterPlan, or something progressive in LD - it needs to be done in a way that is accessible to your opponent and judges. It also needs to take the debate in a productive direction

If you need to transfer evidence, I won't count it as prep time, but please don't be excessive or abuse that time. (I.E. have your evidence pulled up and organized)

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me before the round! Have fun!

My email is hampton.allie@gmail.com if you have any further questions.

Hello! My name is Hannah, pronouns: they/she. If you have any questions after the round, feel free to email me at hannah.kampfen@gmail.com. If you make a speech drop, I would like to be added to it.

General Info: I'm a debater of two years with the most experience in policy. I've been to State Debate twice for policy (was State Champion my senior year) and went to Nationals in policy my senior year. I've dabbled as well in PF and Congress. I have very little experience in LD. I'll put a separate paradigm for each type of debate, so jump to your type of debate so you can see what pertains to you. However, this part pertains to everyone: I like clean flows. Solid evidence is always appreciated, no matter the type of debate you do. I want clear links and warrants. Tell me why I should be voting for you at the end; you'll be making my job easier. I will listen to most arguments unless there is absolutely no link between them (ex: getting rid of lead pipes will lead to mass extinction (I hope a few of you know which resolution that argument is from)). Also, be respectful and kind to your opponents; if you aren't, I will not vote for you. Do not run any kind of arguments that are harmful towards anyone (racism, homophobia, sexism, etc.), as this will lose you speaker points and the round.

Policy: This is it right here everyone; the best type of debate. If you disagree, don't tell me; the judge is god (extra points if you know where that is from). First off, to get it out of the way, I am a firm believer that debate should be accessible to EVERYONE. If you have a panel or opponents that ask you before the round starts to not spread, DO NOT spread. This should be a common courtesy and falls into being respectful and kind. Topicality: I am not a typical T voter, but I will listen to your arguments. I would prefer if you didn't use an entire speech on T though, unless you feel it is absolutely necessary and you can justify why you did this. CPs: Go wild. I enjoy hearing a good CP, as long as it is nontopical. DAs: Love em. Run them as much as your debater heart wants. K's: I have very mixed feelings about K's. I never ran them in high school as I was a very traditional debater, but that's not to say I haven't ever encountered them and gone against them. However, if you do run them, I want them explained to me as if I'm a new judge and have no idea what debate even is, let alone what a K is. Basically, hold my hand really tight and don't let go of it the entire round unless you decide to drop the K. Speed: I am not the biggest fan of speed, but I won't vote you down if you do spread and everyone in the round is ok with it. What I will vote you down on is if I can't hear taglines and authors. Yes, I will have the speech drop open, but I will not rely on it through the whole round. Being a good debater also means being a good communicator, and I should clearly be able to hear your taglines and authors without having to rely on the speech drop. I do have a hard time with auditory processing at times, but since that is not something you will know since it varies based on the day and time, I will let you know before the round begins if I'm going to need you to have slower speed or not. Tag teaming: It's ok to tag team, but don't make your partner look stupid. What I mean by that is if your partner doesn't answer a question to its entirety, or they clearly need your help, you may step in to help them out.

PF: Do not run CBA as your framework. I will assume that everything is based off of a CBA framework, but there must be some kind of unique framework that you run. Provide evidence please; I have been in way too many PF rounds where there is only analytics and as a policy debater, I absolutely despise that. If you're making a new claim, there has to be evidence to back it up. Make sure to have clear links and warrants, and extend them all throughout the round. I will base my vote off of impact calc.

LD: I am a traditional LD judge. I do not like the fact that plans, CPs, K's, and all that great policy stuff has made its way into LD. Debate with your value and criterion in mind, weigh your arguments, and be more rhetorical (using your own words more rather than relying on a bunch of cards).

Congress: Yeah, I know. "Why do you have a Congress paradigm?" Because Congress has become quite goofy in the past couple of years. First speech in affirmation should definitely be like a case read, as well as the first negative. Every other speech after that, unless you are introducing a completely new argument, should be rebuttals. You will be ranked lower if you run an argument I have already heard before. Repetition is boring and I don't like boring Congress rounds. This should feel like a really good extemp round.

Alright, that should cover the majority of it. If you have any other questions, go ahead and ask me before round. Good luck to everyone!

Hi lol (TL;DRs are available after each section)

Any competitors in basic events pretty much just need to read my top-level considerations and their debate event tab.

Please actually read the paradigm, I have been disappointed in several rounds where debaters actively go against the specifications I have provided here.

General info

I have a habit of being verbose in my RFDs and comments. I like to think that this is a good habit since I know I'd want substantial amounts of feedback, but really it makes it difficult to keep up with the rest of the tournament. If it seems like my feedback cuts off in some way or it's lacking, I probably intended to write something that I didn't have time for. Please email me if that is the case at rileyrobinson2006@icloud.com.

I did debate for 2 years, my junior and senior year. I qualified to nationals both times, first in LD and second in Policy. The first year I was a finalist in extemp debate, the second year I was a finalist in Policy. I'm still moderately active in the debate community, currently assistant coaching. I've done all the debate events so I'm generally familiar with the structure of each, and what's important.

I don’t like being referred to as “judge,” it makes me feel like you’re asking me to vote for you rather than telling me how I should vote. Please refer to me as “chat,” if you wish to refer to me at all. You will not be marked down either way.

TL;DR: Come on, you do debate. You can read that.

Top-level considerations

***PLEASE READ: I am a tech over truth judge. I can also flow. Please do not dedicate minutes of time to reviewing your case, because I flowed it during the constructive. Please fill that time with substance instead. You will not win my ballot with pretty speaking, you will win my ballot by telling me how to vote based on the flow.

Accessibility is a huge one. Debate is unique in that it teaches you every time you touch it, from research to case generation to the actual debate. That's what makes debate important, and if one of you actively does something to hurt the learning experience for yourself or anyone else in the round, I'll be significantly less inclined to give you the ballot.

I dislike tricky stuff. Debate is super formulaic and it often boils down to literal math equations to see who wins. I like that simplicity. If you make arguments like "they dropped the link of this single contention so I win the round," I probably won't view it with the same significance as you do. Blunders made by your opponent don't make you the winner of the round, you actually still have to capitalize on the blunder.

Collapsing. I barely went for everything that I was winning in the final speeches of my rounds, and I won't expect you to. Pick your winning strategy and just go for that; it makes the round significantly less confusing. Presumption, outweighing, framework+weighing, and theory are simple and easy ways to get my ballot. I don't care if one person has 3 voters while the other has 1, if the single voter outweighs the entire round then they win. It doesn't have to be complicated.

Rhetoric: please do not spam the word "dropped" like you spam your left mouse button in cookie clicker. I find it to be annoying, untrue (more often than not,) and harmful to the debate. Your speaker points will be dropped by 1-2 points if this is present in the round, and if it's a blatant lie it may cost you the round if you put all your eggs in the "dropped" basket rather than showing me what you've actually won. There will be a section in your personal comments if you fail to uphold this where I go into more detail.

Extensions: I know they seem like they take a lot of time, but consistently extending makes it SO much easier to vote. I don't mean you have to read your constructive again, you just need to give me the one-sentence story of your argument and say that I should vote on it every speech. If something isn't in your final speech, I really really don't want my vote to hinge on it since it will feel like I voted on a whim.

Voters: If your voters are "I debated better" or "the framework debate," they will not make it into my reason for decision. That is a waste of time. If you debated better, show me the results. Which specific impact with a clear link story should I be voting on? Which impacts are more important than others? How does it fill the framework I'm using the best? I want you to fill out my RFD in the last minute or two of your speech. Which issues definitively flow your way, and why does that determine the round instead of what your opponent won?

TL;DR: Be nice and fair, and not overly complicated/tricky.

Advanced considerations

I can follow a quick round, but that's not an excuse to spread. I will accept spreading if your opponent agrees to it, I can hear it, and you slow down if anyone in the round says "clear." Otherwise most of your arguments that are spread won't go on my flow.

I like theory in all debate types, but that doesn't outweigh accessibility. If your opponent has literally no idea what a theory shell is, running one as a gimme won't work. Otherwise, go ahead and run it. As long as you tell me I should evaluate it first and give me a good reason, you'll likely win.

Kritiks are fun but also inaccessible for Idaho. I understand the Idaho circuit is very boring and traditional, and prog stuff like Ks make it a lot more interesting. But if you run one in a mean-spirited manner to close your opponent out of the round, I won't evaluate it. If everyone consents, go for it and it will probably be in the RFD.

My email is rileyrobinson2006@icloud.com. I'm a very lonely college student with almost nothing to do other than obsess over my graphical optimization of Baldur's Gate 3. Please reach out to me if you want advice, someone to look over your case, or if you need a card that might be in my 2023-2024 policy backfiles.

I think that after-round disclosure is healthy for the circuit, but I'm not going to do it, at least for a while. Frankly, I don't need your coaches pissed at me in my 1st year of judging. If all parties are okay with it and your coaches won't go berserk, then maybe I will. You're 100% okay to ask for general advice or my opinion of the round/certain arguments after the debate finishes though.

I don't think that anything has brought me greater joy than goofy debate arguments. Stuff like "affirming negates" and "turing test theory" is so hilarious to me, and I won't mark you down for running those arguments. Heck, I'll even vote on them if they're completely mishandled by your opponent. Basically, please run these arguments if you have them, they don't hurt, just actually win the debate round. Please keep in mind that your opponent should consent before you do a joke round.

A note on judge intervention: these arguments won't be common I'm assuming, but if you ever want to make them they'd better be based on accessibility or anti-hate. Hopefully the round shouldn't get to the point where the ballot relies on my personal beliefs, but that's how I'll vote if it does.

I love gutsy moves with big payoffs. Going all in on topicality if the substance debate isn't going your way, conceding case to go all in on straight turns, etc are really interesting and if you do them well I'll shower you with praise in the comments.

TL;DR: I'm okay to be prog, but Idaho is trad and I'm not gonna let people get left in the dust just because they were taught debate in an Idaho context.

LD

This is quite possibly the most misunderstood event in Idaho imo. It just turns into solo PF, which is specifically not what LD is for. The way that you guarantee a ballot from me is by winning framework, 1+ contentions, and then framing your opponent out of the round/using the framework to make your contention more impactful. Anything else will end up being a coin toss. Frameworks like Util are nice if you're very confident in the contention level debate, just remember it means that I can weigh anything your opponent says against you.

Specifically for the 2AR: I understand that this is your winner speech and you're structurally abused throughout the entire round. That being said, please don't make up new stuff in the final speech. Weighing, framework debate, extending defense and offense are all acceptable, and doing a good job with those can probably win you the round if the neg didn't cover literally everything in their previous speech.

I treat framework not unlike a contention: it's got to have justifications that beat your opponents. Running just a value, criterion, and definitions of said values/criterions is basically just reading a uniqueness card in a contention with nothing else. Fortunately, almost nobody has them in Idaho, so if you have one and your opponent has none, your practically auto-win framework and then the round. If your constructive doesn't have a justification written down, literally just make one up even if you don't have a card.

When it comes to the criterion: John Locke's social contract is interesting and all, but how tf am I supposed to vote on that? Do I just vote for the person who reads Locke's works in round? While this is just an example, it applies to almost every framework I've judged thus far. The criterion shouldn't be a moral philosophy, it should be how I'm using that moral philosophy to vote. For example, make your criterion "helping the least well-off under the philosophy of Rawls' maximum principle" instead of "acting in accordance Rawls' maximum principle." The first tells me what impacts I should consider, and the second makes me feel like I have to consider the quality of the maximum principle. If your criterions are exactly the same, just concede so you can spend more time on substance. You can absolutely win under their framework if the impacts are within its scope.

I like framework clash, but in the sense that it is fun rather than in the sense that you will win if you win the framework debate. Framework is not a contention that makes me vote for you over your opponent. Framework is how I evaluate the contentions. Lots of judges will say "I like framework clash" when they really mean "I think LD is a philosophical debate so I want to hear philosophical arguments." Those people might vote on you because you won the framework alone. I will not. Winning framework might make it easier for you to win, but it is not a win condition in and of itself.

TL;DR: Framework is actually important (though you SHOULD NOT neglect substance,) and more likely than not it will shape my RFD.

PF

This goofy little debate event is probably the blankest slate I've ever seen. I did it for a few tournaments and I've already forgotten its structure. That doesn't mean I hate it though, I just think the debaters can do a lot more stuff than they can with other events.

PF has a reputation among policy kids as the "pretty speaking event" and from my experience it's mostly correct. This isn't to say I won't consider your pretty speaking, it's just that it's more likely to influence my speaker point ratings rather than my ballot.

To influence by ballot, it's pretty much a simple weighing story with collapsing being more significant. I don't want a final focus that goes over everything in the round. I want a final focus that explains why you win on the flow. I default to CBA weighing unless anyone says anything different in their speeches.

Like I said before, PF is kind of a blank slate. I'll accept framework, the goofy-ahh "counter-advocacies," theory, K, as long as it doesn't impact accessibility. Responding to any of these with "this isn't allowed in PF" will more than likely be ignored. (If you rely on this response there will be a section in your personal comments explaining this in detail.) Tell me why(procedurally) it shouldn't be allowed and then you've got a chance, that's actually responsive. A note on counter-advocacies though: to be for real these are counterplans, and they should act like it in-round. If the pro hits it with perms, you've got to respond to it. The counter-advocacy also has to actually do stuff better than the pro too, otherwise it's pro on presumption since the counter-advocacy isn't actually offense.

TL;DR: You can put anything you want in front of me, at the end of the day it's your final focuses that are weighed against each other.

Policy

I'll genuinely be surprised if I ever judge this in Idaho in my lifetime. It was so dead while I was in high school, and I think I hopped on the band-less wagon the final year there was competition. But this is probably my favorite event, it's baller asf, and all-in-all peak debate.

Theory: love it. Run it even if you won't go for it, and if you do go for it, I'll evaluate it first as long as you tell me to. Doing theory and topicality in my HS career was super fun, and it was me and my partner's go-to strategy for many of our neg rounds. I'll know what's happening.

Ks: I'm a little unfamiliar with these, I've only ever done the Cap K and I thought it was really fun. If you want to run a Kritik, just walk me through it. I do have a basic understanding of structure, but don't assume I'm some nats-circut judge even though I wish I was.

Framework: I think this is really fun to go for, I did a soft-left aff with my partner at nats and leaning heavily at framework actually got us pretty far.

I prefer advantages over HIPS, it's just easier to flow tbh.

Please don't be evasive about your plan details during CX. Just be clear and honest.

If you want something to go onto my RFD it had better be in your final speech. Otherwise I won't consider it.

TL;DR: Be so for real, if you're a policy kid you read that whole thing.

Congress

I probably have the least amount of experience with this one, but I did it at nat quals twice and went to finals the second time so I like to think I have a basic understanding. But it's just basic, mind, I won't be your perfect judge.

Stuff I like: Responding to the chamber as a whole! There's a lot of people in a round, and it's really cool when so much stuff is taken together into a speech. Whether that be refuting someone on the other side, or quickly supporting someone on your side, I think that it's very interesting and engaging in an otherwise boring event. This will get you more points per speech.

Stuff I don't like: If you have a "new point" that's a point that's been brought up previously but in a different hat, that will actually mark you down. There's a bunch of stuff to talk about and I get that congress kids have a terminal case of lacking prep, but you could at least respond instead of faking a brand new argument.

TL;DR: The more interesting you make stuff, the more I'll notice you and score you highly. The most interesting stuff in congress is making the debate a web of responses and points instead of a drone of the same stuff over and over.

World Schools

Idk if I'll ever judge this, and honestly it might be better to just ask me before the round what I like to see WS. But anyways, I'll judge this similarly to PF. That's to say, it comes down to collapsing and impact weighing. If the topic is more theoretical, like "this house regrets," then I'll accept similarly theoretical arguments. They can be weighed against each other as well.

There's also an emphasis on framework here as well. It's hard to default to cost-benefit analysis like you can in Policy and PF, so I really really need you to tell me how to judge.

TL;DR: Tell me how to vote, and as long as the round supports voting that way I'll do so.

Again: my email is rileyrobinson2006@icloud.com, I'm happy to help you with literally anything, I know how helpful a second opinion can be.