News

13 Apr 2009

Open Thread

306 Comments to Open Thread

  • Robert Ying says:

    First off, make a search box. Second. Add a background image and/or header image. Third. Add a sidebar. Fourth. Add a link to LynbrookSDForums. Fifth. Add a password system for the official “Parli File”

  • Point of Information says:

    This site is not affiliated with LSD and will not contain any materials that are not open to public. Working on the rest of the suggestions.

  • Alice Lin says:

    Is it possible to specify a min height for #main-content and #nav so that the feet aren’t cut off on some of the shorter pages? (and yes, I will get around to making the legs shorter and making a footer after APs)

  • Artem says:

    Dear tech support

    I’ll just list everything here and keep updating as I have new problems. So far:

    Comments have dates when they were posted, but posts don’t.

    Make .txt attachments searchable.

    Get rid of the arbitrary double-spacing and alternating fonts in posts (!).

    Make the text column wider or make the font more condensed.

    Number the comments explicitly.

  • Gracias a Roberto para adding a “featured” tab to the front page, adding “posted on” information to posts and adding dates to the news section. Hopefully that will make the website easier to navigate.

  • Erik Camacho says:

    I think POI needs a facebook fan page.

  • POI says:

    Interesting. What function exactly would it serve? How many people do you expect to join?

  • Erik Camacho says:

    I’m not sure how many people we would expect to join but I’m guessing it would help expand POI.

  • POI says:

    I’m not very familiar with how fan pages work, but it seems like it’s a sort of a mini-blog for popular people. Having a min-blog about another blog is weird because if people check the fan page for news about POI, they might as well just check POI. Or am I missing something?

  • Erik Camacho says:

    I see what you mean. I just thought it would be an easier way to expand POI for those that don’t know about it.

  • Benjamin Morris says:

    Victory Briefs has a Fan Page on FB.

    I’d think that the real benefit would be being able to invite people to the page…but then again, if we just post links to FB, the same effect is achieved.

  • Benjamin Morris says:

    Speaking of website discussion, when did the little avatars become so monstrous?

  • Artem says:

    My guess would be that they spontaneously changed to reflect how beast POI is.

  • Jason says:

    Does anyone want to start a petition to get Parli to the NFL tourney?

  • Artem says:

    I don’t think petitioning would be very effective. While individual NFL coaches might be supportive, NFL as an organization is incredibly backwards and all past attempts to get it to add parli have failed.

    I see 6 avenues to make parli a national event
    1) Build it on the local level first (a la John Meany). This means getting states other then Oregon and California to adopt it as a state tournament event. Lobbying an individual state organization is still difficult, but easier than lobbying NFL.
    2) Get national tournaments such as VBT and Berkeley to adopt it (a la Matt Fraser at Stanford).
    3) Become stinking rich, donate to NFL, get the event named after you (a la Ted Turner).
    4) Work to create a parallel national league which offers parli (a la Matt Vassar’s NPDL). This is what I want to do.
    5) Become a lifetime coach and rise through the ranks of NFL hierarchy until you’re influential enough to initiate reform.
    6) Try your luck with other organizations such as TOC or NDCA. I suspect they would be more receptive.

  • POI says:

    This is now an open thread. On-topic comments are strictly prohibited.

  • Aditya says:

    So how do you guys determine teams from your school which get to attend State Quals?

    Right now we have 4 very deserving teams for 3 spots.

  • Jason says:

    4 prelims, double octas, elimination rounds til top 4

  • Erik Camacho says:

    @ Jason, state quals breaks to dub octos? last year with 60 entries at GGSA we had ~20 teams get a 3-1 record or better. Does that mean that 2-2s will break?

  • Sam Gardner says:

    I think state quals is stressful as hell in my league where there’s only like 8 legit teams. I can’t even begin to imagine what GGSA is like..

  • Aditya says:

    @Erik, I think Jason was responding to my query about how different schools select the teams which will represent them at State quals.

    But on that note, how does GGSA’s squals tourney function? Do all 3-1s break?? In CFL we just break to a runoff round with only the highest seeded 4-1s…

  • Erik Camacho says:

    LOL, on another note. Are the monsters randomized, or do they have something to do with the person who they represent.

  • POI says:

    Our site designer makes an avatar for each user based on their personality traits.

  • Erik Camacho says:

    That would make sense, because my personality is definitely a stop sign shaped purple monster. LOL

  • Benjamin Morris says:

    Do we have CFL qualifiers yet?

  • Artem says:

    CFL squals are tomorrow
    Lynbrook will be sending:
    Malhotra/Navaratna (wildcard) – MLK finalists, 1st alternates last year
    Yu/Jain – Stanford champions, MLK finalists last year
    Kanth/Unni – Stanford champions, 5th at States last year
    Majumdar/Bora – second alternates last year
    Singh/Nathan had a wildcard but won’t be attending, because Singh/Shan are going to squals in pofo to follow up on their Berkeley success.

  • Artem says:

    In other news, Pennsylvania became the third state in the nation to offer parliamentary debate.
    http://www.phssl.org/pdf/Parliamentary%20Debate%20Guide.pdf

    The bad news is that they’re using worlds format…

  • Alice says:

    @Artem “Our site designer makes an avatar for each user based on their personality traits.”:
    As designer, I absolve myself from responsibility. Robert/Patrick deal with default gravatars. :)

    Hey Jason, you and Brian going to any more tourneys this year? (besides squals / hopefully states…which I won’t see you at because we’re the team out of the 4 that can’t go :( ) We need another round to make up for that fail round at Stanford.

  • Benjamin Morris says:

    CFL Quallers?

  • Artem says:

    Paranzino/? and Ott/Song byed through the go-round and are qualed, Malhotra/Navaratna are in the go round

  • Artem says:

    CFL finals
    Bellarmine PH (Anthony Paranzino & Ali Hazrati)BYE
    Leland OS (Robert Ott & Michael Song) BYE
    Lynbrook MN (Ritik Malhotra & Tejas Navaratna) def. Gunn K? (Pamudh Kariyahasam & ?)[3-2]
    Los Gatos VE (Robert Van Unen & Kate Epstein) def. Bellarmine KB (Tanay Kothari & Jacob Baker) [4-1] or [3-2]

    Tejas and Ritik dropped in finals of SCU in ’06, finals of MLK in ’10, and also finals of CFL state quals in ’07, and then again in ’09. So congrats to them for not only qualifying to both States and the Cup, but also for breaking the finals curse.
    Congrats to Robert/Kate, probably the most underrated team in CFL, for a long overdue breakout.

  • Aditya says:

    I believe Pamudh’s partner was Jim Li, the policy guy. Those two are both pretty beastly…

    Artem uses hyperboles too much.

  • Robert Van Unen says:

    @Artem: Stoked for state! Thanks for the excellent compliment. The decision was very close (3-2) and LSW on at least one of our ballots.

    Our loss of the day was Parazino and Ali. Those two are studs

  • Iain Lampert says:

    TCFL Squals tomorrow.

  • Artem says:

    Good luck

    If anyone could submit results packets from their respective qualifiers, that would be great. I need to update POI Rankings.

  • Iain Lampert says:

    TCFL:

    Cleveland LM (Iain Lampert/Molly Moran) advances to state [6-0]
    Chaminade RC (Priya Rajan/Neeraj Chandra) def. Valencia WN (Jacob Waschak/Josh Nemiroff) [2-1 decision]
    Campbell Hall SW (Ryan Sammi/Matt Walla) def. Valencia MF (Samuel Munster/Derek Feraldo) [2-1 decision]

    Brodey/Gary lost in round 5 on what I think was an iffy decision to Valencia MF.

  • Benjamin Morris says:

    This may SEEM somewhat random, but does anyone going to the State Tournament have a foosball table (and/or a desire to participate in a Foosball Tournament?)?

  • Daniel Musa says:

    I’m from Claremont and cbsr just had their state qualifying tournament yesterday. I’ll try to provide a link to the results when it’s posted.

  • WindwardDebate says:

    Does anybody know how many spots WBFL got for parli on state

  • POI says:

    @ Daniel: awesome, thanks. Do you remember who qualified?

    @ WindwardDebate: last year WBFL qualified two teams ( pointofinformation.org/news/chssa%E2%80%9909-coverage/ )

  • Daniel Musa says:

    Yeah. Here are the qualifiers.
    1. Claremont High School: Patrick Wilkie and Daniel Musa
    2. La Quinta High School: Armando Robles and Brittany Boiko
    3. Carter High School: Matthew Jobe and Matthew Delgado

  • Wondering says:

    How does one qualify for the World Schools Debating Championships or the World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championships or the International Independent Schools Public Speaking Championships? Artem, we’re relying on your excellent investigative skills!

  • Artem says:

    @ Daniel: congrats. I sent you an email, répondez s’il vous plaît.

    @ Wondering: I have no idea. One thing I remember is that there was a VBD post about this back in the day ( http://victorybriefsdaily.com/2007/09/18/team-usa-wants-you/ )

  • Sam Gardner says:

    They’re officially announcing qualifiers at the awards ceremony next weekend, but I’m 90% sure it’s as follows.

    Carlsbad GM (Sam Gardner and Natasha Maldi)
    La Costa KD (Damon Karson and Katherine Dwyer)
    La Costa ZC (Reza Zamarrodian and Brian Castelloe)

    Alternate
    Carlsbad LF (Jerry Lou and Stefan Fan)

  • Sam Gardner says:

    SDIVSL is actually making a strong showing this year. All 4 teams are composed of flow proficient and extremely strong speakers. The only reason I’m not 100% sure on the above is that we didn’t get a disclosure from our final round, and supposedly there’s some mathematical craziness that could make La Costa ZC the alternate or something.

  • Cooper Krings says:

    @Wondering

    WSDC (World Schools Debate Championships) is an international competition with one school from the USA. Team USA is run by Kate Shuster and John Meany of the Claremont McKenna College Debate outreach program. To qualify is incredibly competitive and they do not accept teams. It is a single person type thing.

    Do note: the program and style is VERY different from Parli. Not so much in the rules, but in what exactly needs to be done to do well.

    Auditions happen during different days in the summer. California auditions are held at CMC in Claremont, CA.

    Source: I studied and was trained in the WSDC format last summer in anticipation of competition.

  • Daniel Musa says:

    Here’s a link to the CBSR Debate Quals Results. They open as a microsoft excel file.

    http://www.forensicstournament.net/tnmt_results.php

  • Robert Van Unen says:

    Can any one tell if there are any other invitationals in california (other than scu2) before state?

  • Robert Van Unen says:

    cali cup is at lynbrooke?

  • POI says:

    As the front page of POI indicates, “the first annual California Cup will be held at Lynbrook HS on Saturday, April 3.”

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