[eDebate] Counterplan Competition

[Jean-Paul Lacy]

In his "Wake Series of Poker" results, Will Repko mentioned (tangentially) 
that the quid pro quo thing introduces a whole new set of counterplan 
competition questions.

In that vein, here are some questions to help explore that:

1. Does this counterplan functionally exclude something from the plan?

	Plan: Offer Iran X if they do Y
	Counterplan: Offer Iran X if they do Y and Z

2. Does this counterplan functionally exclude something from the plan?

	Plan: Offer Iran X if they do Y
	Counterplan: Offer Iran X

3. What about this counterplan?

	Plan: Offer Iran X
	Counterplan: Offer Iran X if they do Y

I'm interested to hear what people think.

Yes, there are more nuanced questions than whether the CP excludes 
something from the plan that also determine if a counterplan is 
competitive, but I think a broader discussion of "what actually excludes 
stuff from the plan" is useful.

So far this year, I've tried to remain as agnostic about these questions as 
possible. I've tried to let the debaters arguments rule my decision-making 
as much as possible. This is getting harder as my own thoughts calcify. My 
hope is that y'all can help us judges approach things with a fresh mind.

--JP
lacyjp at wfu.edu