The Rules

What is judged

Two ledgers, never netted against one another. A speaker earns on the one for reasoning soundly and loses on the other for reasoning badly, and both stand on the record side by side. Every entry carries a label from a fixed list, Sophist or Philosopher, and every label on that list is defined here. Every label on it is defined by what must be found in the record for it to stand, and a call stands only when all of it is found: where that is in doubt, the call falls, whichever ledger it was on.

A third tally, Alētheia, records how a speaker’s claims of fact in debates held up when they were checked. It is kept apart from both ledgers and added into neither.

What is not judged

Holding a position that is wrong is not a Sophist call. Neither is being loud, being outnumbered, having an accent, or holding a position the judges find implausible. A weak argument is weak whether or not anyone attacks it, and a strong one is strong whether or not it wins the room. Nothing is scored that cannot be quoted.

A claim of fact is another matter. One checked and found false in a debate, where nobody in the room objected, is recorded on Alētheia, apart from both ledgers, and never as a Sophist call.

Where the standard comes from

It is built on the classical sources of the art, Aristotle’s catalogue of sophistical refutations, Plato’s line between dialectic and eristic, and the fallacy literature that descends from them, together with the rulings this board has had to make and has written down: what separates a jab from an attack on the man, a refusal to argue on the opponent’s terms from a dodge, describing a fallacy from committing one. The judging manuals of the competitive debating world, the World Universities and World Schools championships and the Australia–Asia guide, have been read against it, and what transfers from a timed motion to a two-hour open exchange is part of it.

What is not published

The wording the judges actually work from. It is the whole of the craft here, and publishing it would let it be gamed by the people it is meant to measure. What is published instead is every verdict, the quote it rests on, how each judge voted and why, and the version tag that says which standard was applied. An appeal is made on the callout itself, not on the debate: every one carries a link to appeal it, on its debate’s page. Only the debater a call fell on may make it, and he proves which debater he is once, through his own channel.