Fees & Judging

Fees

The registration fee for YODL events is $100 per 2-person team registered.  There is no registration fee for judges.  Schools must register judges sufficient to cover their team entries using the N-1 formula, where N = the number of teams entered.  If a school registers 4 teams, those teams must be covered by 3 full-time judges.  Payment may be made via our payment portal.

Hiring Judges

If you need to hire judges to cover your commitment, Hiredjudge.com is offering a special rate to schools participating in YODL events.  To access a 5% discount on fees, please use the code "YODL" when checking out.  It is each school's responsibility to vet hired judges' qualifications and ensure that they're familiar with YODL policies and use of the Yaatly platform. 

Judge Qualifications

Schools should indicate whether each judge is qualified to Chair a deliberation panel upon registration.  Generally, experienced, mature and confident judges should be designated as a Chair as they will have additional responsibilities in this tournament. 

Importantly, Chairs are expected to manage Points of Privilege offered by the debaters.  Points of Privilege are intended to  allow debaters to address potentially-offensive behavior by others in the round.  If a debater requests a Point of Privilege, the Chair should stop the speaker’s time, allow the debater raising the point to state their concern and then respond either by counseling the speaker on more appropriate behavior, counseling the debater raising the point that their point is not valid or by deferring decision by taking the point “under advisement.”  

Judging Commitment

A major challenge we face in organizing YODL events is having sufficient judges once we enter the elimination phase of the tournament.  To address this concern, we require the following of all programs:

1. All judges must be available for the first (Quarterfinal) elimination round.  If a judge is assigned but does not show up for their Quarterfinal round, the school and teams with which that judge is affiliated will receive no YODL points for the tournament.

2. Each school must identify judges who will be available through the Final round.  We prefer that these judges be Chair-level judges.  The number of judges identified as available through Finals should be ½ of the total judges entered by that school, with a minimum of 1 judge identified for each school.  If a judge identified as available through the Final round is assigned but does not show up for their round, the school and teams with which that judge is affiliated will receive no YODL points for the tournament.

Speaker Points

All judges are expected to be familiar with and utilize the following speaker scale when assigning speaker points: