Kimi is a superior cat to Louis

Judge: Blackflag
Win awarded to: sea_shell
Reasoning:
I didn't know how to vote on this, so I'll just do it point by point.

Looks: Hardly Argued by CON, so I have to give this point to PRO. I felt like CON could of pushed this point harder.
+1 PRO
Personality: PRO seemed to drop this point to change course. I have to give it to CON.
+1 CON
Parenting: I don't believe a contention about Louis being a parent was brought up. I suppose that means Kimi went uncontested.
+1 PRO
Intelligence: I was convinced with many of CON's arguments, that Louis was the smarter cat. Getting up on the counter, the door picture, so this is a pretty clear point for CON.
+1 CON
Strength/Courage: Saying Louis means "fierce warrior" doesn't imply Louis himself is strong.
+1 PRO
Agility: Concession???
+1 CON
Public Opinion: PRO got grilled here, but we were warned that Kimi is hated in New Zealand....
+1 CON
Nicest: PRO pushed this point very hard, and it was a pretty solid case. Spending an entire round on the matter. Insta-point for the sake of having a better argument, but CON's argument hit hard a little.
+1 PRO
+1 CON
Survival Instinct: I think this was a good rebuttal, which is why I'm negating CON's rebuttal.
+1 PRO (negation)
Loyalty: PRO didn't defend this point :/

*Final Tally*
NZlockie: 5 points
Sea_Shell: 5 points
http://cdn1.bloguin.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/tied.gif
Note: I tallied this after giving the points.
Since we are at a tie, I need to give the debate to the better speaking, and I think that was Sea_Shell. Especially in the final two rounds. So I am forced to do this.
+1 CON. Sorry, but this debate literally came down to the grain



Feedback:
- NZlockie, you dropped a lot of points you could of argued. You pursued the friendliness case to much, leaving you less time to hit other rebuttals. You let Sea_Shell tag on arguments you made, giving no accountability. If you had spent half the time you did arguing friendliness, to refute cases, I believe you could of won by a large margin.

- Sea_Shell, same complaint with you. Leaving nothing to be un-refuted. I was disappointed that you kept inferring things as true, using unconventional means. I didn't accept arguments that were of opinion, rather than what actually seems realistic.

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1 user rated this judgement as exceptional
3 users rated this judgement as constructive

Judge: admin    TOP JUDGE
Win awarded to: sea_shell
Reasoning:
I'll do it round by round. tl;dr pro started strong and slowly let victory creep away from him.

ROUND ONE
Pro showed Kimi's looks make her rare, blessings make her agile, intellect makes her good at... umm, eating, strength makes her formidable, personality makes her approachable, and fertility ensures much kittening.

Con's response to the looks point was a bit inadequite. The impact through rarity was the crux of this argument and it had to be addressed. Con did show coordinated fur, though I have no idea what this actually means.

Her response to the personality point was slightly better, trying to show rarity of affection is instead a strength. However, she then shoots herself in the foot by saying Kimi isn't really showing affection, thus Kimi's affection is more rare than Louis. No matter which way I score that then, Kimi comes out on top on personality. The "nice but dim" saying referenced later re-affirms this.

The parenting point, con makes a great argument that it's contradictory with pro's intellect point, which was a weird argument all along anyway. I was pretty prepared to accept that Kimi likes her food over and above her kittens or vocal chords. Con also showed a range of ways in which Louis has great intellect.

I didn't get the strength response from con at all. She asserted the opposite was true but didn't really explain the why of "just because he doesn't want to be in the same room with you and would rather be behind our bed doesn't mean he's scared". Con did, however, establish herself on the agility point nicely, with a depth of analysis pro did not meet.

ROUND TWO
Pro opened with a syllogism. It probably wasn't strictly logically correct but I was prepared to accept it. It demonstrated a move in con's case towards friendliness being key. Pro used a variety of quotes to establish that Kimi was friendly. I felt like what con had to do here was tear down that syllogism to show there's more to being a cat than making friends. Con kinda did this in her opening with a party metaphor, but it probably could have been presented a lot less poetically. I also felt that con was right to point out pro's non-responsiveness to her counter-argument to friendship being key. Even though I felt like this was a self-defeating argument that worked in pro's favor no matter which way you see it, pro did not have that response.

ROUND THREE
Pro opened poorly by telling us nerds were not hot and not cool. Probably a bad move. That lost him the debate right then and there.

I felt that in general, con's summary was super easy to follow here. Pro needed to answer con's arguments on the friendliness front. After round one, I had pro winning half the arguments, but as the debate wore on it became increasingly clear that the lack of answers to con's quite reasonable rebuttals, coupled with somewhat questionable strategy, lost them the debate.

Feedback:
Both sides - learn how to structure your cases. Generally better organized cases are not only easier to follow, but stronger as well. This was the biggest issue for me in this debate. One particular problem was that the structure changed a lot from round to round, with round 1 probably having too many relevant headings and round 2 too few. Feel free to make subheadings and such for that kind of thing. In general you should aim for having 3 arguments to your case. 2 is better than 4 but much worse than 3. One can work in some rare circumstances, but it can backfire easily so few top debaters I've seen do it. Zero works if you are doing a straight negative, which is where you are con and do nothing but rebut everything pro says in a lot of detail (this tactic is rare among top debaters too because its banned in many big tournaments). Five plus never works. But three works in every debate, every time. Pretty much the magic number of debating.

I enjoyed the trash talk in this debate, but try to keep it at no more than this level. For such short rounds I felt like a lot of characters were used on that and not enough on the substantive arguments.

There's an important lesson in strategy in this debate, particularly for pro:
1) If switching strategy, be sure to keep defending your old case or to concede it. If you can't afford to do either, don't switch your strategy.
2) When you narrow your case, extending the point is not enough. You still need to defend the point. This is particularly relevant in 4-ways where extensions may take the form of additional analysis pertaining to an argument in the debate.

And just a particular point for con as well, try to tighten up your case. You can use analogies and such, but only if you've also explained the logic of why they work somewhere. Examples, anecdotes etc should be used to bolster arguments, not make arguments.

Something both of you did well in this debate was using formatting and images in a way that supported your cases and kept up the entertainment as the debate wore on.

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1 user rated this judgement as exceptional
3 users rated this judgement as constructive

Judge: 9spaceking
Win awarded to: sea_shell
Reasoning:
pro dropped a lot of important points that led to him losing

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2 users rated this judgement as good