November 21, 2009
The window to declare has been re-opened. Please see
this post
immediately.
Thank you,
chissler
In the next few weeks, we will be initiating the next ATS Debate Tournament!
If you are interested in participating, announce your intention to participate in this thread. The number of spots will be determined very shortly,
however we should have room to accommodate plenty of members. As we've done in the past, spots will be offered to more seasoned debaters over
newcomers, if we have more members looking to participate than we can accommodate. The reason we do this is because a lot of forfeitures are common
in these tournaments and by reserving seats for the more seasoned debaters, it is a small measure to prevent this. If you are a new debater, you can
participate in "Challenge Matches" to gain some experience and maybe increase your odds at being selected. New debaters are on a first come first
serve basis for spots not claimed by experienced debaters.
If you wish to participate, just say so in this thread, and make sure to check both this thread and the debate forum regularly for updates. I strongly
recommend that participants add the debate forum to their MyATS display so that they will know when the debate threads are created and when their
opponents respond.
Please consider whether or not you have the time to participate before you claim a spot. Debating is stimulating, but also demanding.
Debaters must respond to their opponent's posts within 24 hours. In my experience, a really good debate post takes between 1 and 3 hours to plan,
research, and type up, depending on how tough your opponent is. Each round of the debate will require you to make 5 such posts within the space of
7-10 days. There will be 4 or 5 rounds, depending on how many fighters sign up.
That means that if you expect to win the tournament, you will need to devote at least 1 hour every other day for about 2 months. It is a single
elimination tournament, so realistically, most participants will only have to make that commitment for a couple of weeks.
We are hoping to have the tournament up and running by the end of the month. Any member who is selected to participate in the tournament will be
contacted and notified when your debates are up and running.
Are you not ready to debate (just yet) but still wanting to participate?
You can!
We are looking for
judges! We are looking for
topics!
If you want to judge, you can not participate in the tournament. And if you want to be a judge, we only ask the following:
Have an account that is in good standing
Have been with the board for at least 1 year
If you want to judge, contact myself, semperfortis or TheBorg. Judges will be contacted before the tournament begins. Not everyone who contacts us
will be selected as a judge.
NOTE:
If you wish to judge, contact us privately. Expressing a desire publicly to judge will deem your account ineligible. It
has been a longstanding practice of the ATS debate forum that judges remain anonymous.
And if you're not ready to judge but you have topics that you would love to see debated, let the three of us know. If we select your topic as a
debate topic, I'll give 500 points for your contribution.
Debaters are not eligible to select topics.
Topics chosen will not be known until the debate is authored. Once authored, the member contributing the topic will be awarded their points.
We're looking for conspiratorial topics that may or may not be current, but at least something that our debaters can really dig their teeth into.
So there we have it!
Let's get this tournament rolling!!
[edit on 11-5-2009 by chissler]
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