Accusations of "canning"

[tutakai]

Many people have complained about the existence and application of unwritten rules against debaters. But a recent situation raised the salience of this concern in my mind and I'm wondering what can possibly be done.

Specifically, there seems to be an increasing tendency among some Opp teams and some judges to PRESUME that any policy-type case is a "canned" case. Further, they assume that even the mere suspicion of "canning" is sufficient reason to vote Opp.

How can a Gov debater respond when Opp accuses them of running a "canned" case? And how can they have any hope of arguing their innocence when the mere accusation is sufficient to invoke the judges' (and the audience's) hostility? (i.e. the debaters are being loudly booed and heckled by audience members who have assumed that the accusation is true)

For that matter, why is "canning" perceived to be wrong in the first place? Why are we prone to punish and abuse debaters who go through the trouble of actually LEARNING things?

[zacariasla]

As one of the people who used to boo and hiss when a canned case I think that its simply a plague of parli. Ive since reformed and realized better researched cases make for better debate.

The answer i have always given and not sure if it works is a sarcastic educational response. Something like I apologize for being well read. Or indicting the assumption that the only way I could have a case this well constructed is to have written it before hand.

I think the problem lies in situations where cases are written for you. Its not as much canning cases as people running cases they dont know that is an annoyance. The lack of familiarity with case and the horrid debate it brings is what we need to check. Ive seen far too many rounds where the Gov team presents a case where they mis pronounce key terms or get there ideas backwards.

I guess thats all i have to say before i nap

zack

[tutakai]

The worst part is that it wasn't even a canned case. Indeed, the debaters in question were at their FIRST parli tournament ever and the tournament had earlier prohibited us from coaching during prep or team prepping (another rant entirely there). Thus, the team was NOT canning and did not even know what canning WAS until they asked us to explain it to them after the round.

The unfortunate situation was that they were PRESUMED to be canning simply because they were running a case structure different from what the Opp expected.

If debaters are to be presumed guilty (and denied an realistic opportunity to defend themselves) and heckled and/or punished for a "crime" (that isn't even a crime) then we have DEEP problems in this community.

[NoGraveButTheSea]

I WILL NOT
Apologize for taking the time to prepare myself to argue winning cases. It is not my fault that we are not running what you want. If my case is flawed or not topical than argue it that way and see what happens. Is it the fault of the harder working better prepared debater for having gov. advocacy that THEY THEMSELVES worked hard to build? FUCK NO IT'S NOT.
Any judge that votes opp. based solely on the fact that the cased was prepared by the debaters needs to get off our lawn.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRR this is one issue that really pisses me off guys.
Will C

[Gavin499]

Yea so I'm still not entirely sure what my position in on this issue. I'm not thrilled by the ultra-specific cases that have virtually no significance, especially since nobody is willing to listen to, let alone buy, a significance press/take-out. I think it boils down to this, if you're going to be able to pick an ultra-specific case, if "I" make that concession to the debate world (as if I had that kind of power) then I would expect people to be willing to listen to MY arguments. People spend lots of time claiming that the specific cases should be allowed because it's good debate (whatever that means), the shouldn't I be allowed to argue counter-warrants? That seems justified, but typically the people arguing for "canned cases" are arguing against counter-warrants... It's almost like building in an artificial favoring of gov teams in the rounds (don't give me the 60% statistic here, I've heard it, and it's flawed). This seems to be exemplified by the fact that a large number of the top teams choose government when given the choice, not opposition...

Although I'm willing to hear and debate your canned cases, would y'all please come up with a better reason than, "it's educational"? It's not, and I'm shocked people still claim that's the reason they're running the cases. If it were, why not just tell the opposition what you're running before prep time? Then the debate will be more educational and we'll be more conclusive won't we? Oh you don't want to? How come? Right, because it makes it harder for you to win... if you just want to teach me something, let's talk after the round and I'll let you tell me about the bad people in some part of the world... no real action is taken in a debate round anyway...

Gavin

[joecool12321]

Would you who are in favor of "cans" (whatever that means) be interested in being educated by a 45-minute debate where I argue that right-to-left operator precedence in compilers creates more readable code than left-to-right precedence, unless we're talking about unary operators, in which case right-to-left precedence creates more readable code?

After all, it's not my fault I'm better read than you are.

--Joey

[joecool12321]

To answer your original question, I suppose the only defense it to list sources. "I read about this in the New York Times last week" seems like a good defense, and perhaps the best defense you could really muster.

It's tough, though, because I don't even know what the word "can" means, nor do I know where the brightline is between can and not-canned. Furthermore, I wasn't aware of a "no canning" rule within the NPDA rule set.

--Joey

[tutakai]

Accusations of canning are not limited to cases where "ultra-specific" cases are being run. My point was to point out that apparently some teams/judges assume that ALL policy cases are "canned".

The problem is much more severe than just a few interventions against no-significance cases....

[joecool12321]

"Accusations of canning are not limited to cases where "ultra-specific" cases are being run."

So you mean arguments like, "They have such good arguments for why we should abolish the death penalty, it must be canned!" or, "They have such a good plan for solving the Israel/Palestine problem, they must be canned!"? Those seem like really dumb arguments, and I have a hard time believing any opp team is winning on such an issue.

--Joey

[Eagle of Meaux]

Joey, I don’t entirely agree with Jason that lots of teams are pointing out that good plans are ‘canned” and then winning (or at least if they are I haven’t seen it), but I do think that there are judges who make that decision on their own and voting on it. The problem with discussing this here is that, as Brandon nicely pointed out on the res o’ Fact thread, judge intervention is hardly unique to this instance. I think (or at least hope) that we all can agree judge intervention on any level is undesirable.
On the compilers case: feel free to run it on a resolution that fits it (that last part is key, unless you want 6 minutes of T from Paul and I : ) ) and I’ll be more than happy to debate, though I admit I will most likely lose. I think there will always be rounds where there is knowledge skew and I admit that it’s going to happen against me as well as for me. One other thing that’s important to note here is that most “canned” cases are run as plans, not descriptively based resolutions, meaning that I’d still have potential implementation issues to deal with the plan giving me some semblance of ground.
I think the Plan framework does much to check against really small pre-prepped cases being abusive, because the less significant the plan is the easier is it to outweigh with even the most tenuous link to a big disad. (no “case outweighs” arguments for you : ) )

Gavin, I’ll be happy to get into the counter warrants discussion with you sometimes, because I agree, their desirability ought be debated not just asserted – I’m just short on time right now. I also know that there are varying reasons for the preference for Gov in flips. I think it makes it makes it easier to isolate a rhetorically powerful, but inefficient speaker on the opp, as both the LO and MO need to do a significant amount of line by line, and I believe that putting other people onto ground that we do well on is usually beneficial to us. It’s also just plain more predictable, which relates to, but isn’t intrinsic to pre-prepped cases as metaphorical resolutions still greatly skew prep time to the gov.

Just my thoughts,

Keith

[Westghost]

The exact use of the term (as far as I am capable of understanding it) is this:

It's not merely a case prepared ahead of time. This is confusing and contradictory because then there's that pesky 15+ minutes to write it and if you don't count that, then nobody could ever argue about the same topic more than once. So someone would have to tell the NPDA "oops, looks like we ran a Healthy Forests Initiative topic, you'll have to cancel the ones at the rest of the tournaments."

A "canned" case is prepared ahead of time with sources and statistics and all kinds of ill behavior not in the EVENT that a resolution is called about it, but specifically to counter the whole resolutional process.

For example. Say you know a lot about Exxon-Mobil in Indonesia. (which you should) If you have your harms and your plan and your benefitz all ready to go with all kinds of sources and cross-references and the rez comes up and it's something like "THW impeach the president" and you argue that it's the president of Exxon-Mobil that we're impeaching, please excuse me if I mention something about the expired open-by date on your case.

It's like, we all know what people are thinking about during prep time, and I'm not going to whine about "education" or "fairness" (neither of which are in the rules) like a novice, but I will make a clever ad hominem before moving on to destroy your feeble human analysis.

So the rule of thumb is: Stop whining about canned cases. If you must argue, argue that they are not upholding the resolution, because they're probably not. And if it is a good case and you think it's canned then either outassert their 'evidence' or just play the game like it's supposed to be played.

And don't can your cases either. The whining is terrible and probably causes cancer, I know, but you folks with your boxes of evidence really aren't giving the activity a real boost either.

[UCSDanny]

Hey Jason,

I think the only way to counter judge intervention on "canned cases = bad" is the way to counter all judge intervention on supposed rules / norms... argue in the round that what you are doing is good/ok. For example, the OPP argues "this case is canned, vote OPP!" what can the Gov do except argue that canned cases are 1) not a reason to vote against them or 2) argue for the benefits people have already mentioned.

I mean, it's easy to get upset about judges intervening on their beliefs, and realistically, what can we as competitors do to fight it? Nothing except argue in rounds about the legitimacy of what we're doing. I mean, if the Gov doesn't respond to the above type of argumentation, would you as a judge dismiss it? I doubt it. Just as you probably wouldn't dismiss a shaky T violation if it wasn't answered to. However, if the Gov team defends themselves and their "canned" case (whether it be canned or not - as you've shown it can't be determined) then at least they know they've argued what they can and if nothing else can now rant and rave about the bad decision ;-) Maybe chalk one up to experience and next time your team is in front of the judge they can try and avoid doing the judge's pet peeve or at least be ready to layout some theoretical stuff justifying what they're doing during the round.

I think this topic is just another instance where we as competitors need to do a better job explaining positions in rounds and how often we assume judge's believe the same way we do. And it's another instance in how lots of rounds are decided before the first speech. That's why, I guess, we usually have six preliminary rounds, so it's not all resting on that one judge in that one round. My old high school coach told me this, "you have six rounds, you can count on 1 loss because you sucked or the other team was really good, 1 loss because a judge makes a crazy decision, and you have 4 rounds to prove yourself worthy of breaking." With that in mind I've always taken crazy judges/judge intervention in stride and moved onto the next round. When it happens in outrounds, however, there's more ground to rant and rave on the car ride home =)

good luck, and here's to hoping judges base decisions on what happens in rounds and not personal opinions about what "debate" is.

-danny

[kircher25]

as a member of a team that travels with a "parli box", i just wanted to make a few comments about what sort of effort we put into preparation and why we do so.

first, we think informed debate is better debate. our box has a lot of argumentative briefs, but it also has a lot of important documents and informative articles that give helpful background information. we prepare and carry our files so that we are not caught unprepared to debate a tight resolution or topic.

second, we run cases we've run before and are comfortable with: i guess that makes us "canners". we do not, however, run insignificant cases, nor do we run cases that are unfair in any way. generally, we tend to fall on the conservative side of things, which puts us on the wrong side of a lot of dispositions; at any rate, our goal in running prepared cases is to provide good, clear debate, not to give us an advantage.

finally, we've never approached what we feel to be unfair cases from the perspective that "they are canned, therefore we want the ballot". our problem isn't with preparation, it's with delineation of ground. unfair or microscopic government cases bother us far more than well-researched ones. if a team runs some shady case, we're upset because it's shady, not because it's prepped out and shady. in that vein, we're comfortable making general abuse arguments and asking for some sort of presumptive shift in our favor: if a government team is running "slavery bad" or "amend section 701.C of the nye county commision by-laws to read 'prospective' instead of 'potential' because it saves ink and money" then i think it is reasonable for opposition teams to call them out and initiate the meta-debate about ground.

that's it, i guess. i think i write too much.

jeff

[Westghost]

I don't think having a box means your cases are canned. That's just another crutch for people who are into "facts" and the "truth." You shouldn't let trivial nonsense like that get in the way of a debate, anyway.

No, a canned case is sort of like an evil superpower, something individual to a debater or team, where they go into one debate inside and out. And it's got to be squirrely enough that it's your own can. So knowing the ANWR debate doesn't mean "we should start/stop drilling" is a canned case.

Hey, and the whole 4/6 round thing pretty much matches up with the findings on our team, as well.

[pattybar]

The really sad thing is that the instance Jason is talking about acutally introduced that team to the term 'can'... and the funny thing about it was their reaction.. which was to say , "gee, if we'd done what you imply we've done, wouldn't it be a better case... how stupid do they think we are?"

The problem with the definition of 'can' is the same as with the defintion of 'coaching in prep' --and then even if you could define it, it is hard to say what is wrong with it.

If a case is non-topical, then run good T... don't whine about the cans... as that is simply an appeal to judge prejudice and made-up rules. If the case is specific knowledge or so tiny as to be insignificant, then argue the specific knowledge, ground or DAs.... use the opp tools well and it will be clear that little cases don't win rounds.

If you see your opponents prepping with their coach, don't whine that they didn't prep alone, simply try to beat their case and show where they don't know what they are talking about. If they didn't write their case themselves, then they will not be able to argue it. If they did write the case themselves, then there is no harm to coaching in prep.

I'm noticing that the concept that 'can = bad' follows the same path as 'coach in prep = bad'.

Patty

[tutakai]

>I think the only way to counter judge intervention
>on "canned cases = bad" is the way to counter all
>judge intervention on supposed rules / norms... argue
>in the round that what you are doing is good/ok.

Unfortunately, they tried that and found at least one judge getting offended/angry that they were "telling me the rules". On top of that negative ballot comment, the judge rejected the justifications out-of-hand and reapplied the same intervention that s/he had previously...

What do you do when the judge KNOWS that they are intervening and doesn't care?

[joecool12321]

"What do you do when the judge KNOWS that they are intervening and doesn't care?"

Add them to your strike sheet. Or find out to which side they intervene, and use that knowledge.

--Joey

[UCSDanny]

<img src=http://www.net-benefits.net/emoticons/hearhear.gif ALT=":hear">

there's really nothing you can do jason, except complain, chalk up a loss to the forces in the world against you, and hope the judge learns something by the next round? Or adjust the next time you're in front of that judge. You could also try approaching the judge and explaining your position but most likely that wouldn't work either. basically, it sucks, but there doesn't seem much you can do except continue to plug away, make the justifications, and hope ppl change their mind. if not, either try changing what you're doing, and if you dont want to do that (we dont) you might get a few more L's then you hope, but hopefully teams wont be knocked out for that.

ya, it sucks, as do lots of things in parli we can't really change...

-danny
ucsd