Interesting, thanks for the input. I’ve no experience whatsoever regarding such debate formats.
So this debate in question seems to completely violate the premise you define. The judge is declaring what arguments are even allowed to be made, which is a complete interference in the intended process.
The guy that was presenting has since posted some additional Youtube video’s due to the responses he’s received.
Yes, in stopping the round, the judge in this debate acted quite differently than any judge I knew of in my years of debating and coaching (1968-1976). The judge’s discussion with the debaters in the video seems to be after he decided to stop the debate, so his comments seem better characterized as explaining his decision rather than substituting his arguments for what was said by the debaters. In the mid-1970s, the National Debate Tournament started requiring judges to write a short description of their judging philosophy. The descriptions were compiled into a printed document and distributed to the participating teams. As best I recall, all or almost all the judges saw their role as being a “blank slate” at the beginning of each debate. “Tabula Rosa” was a phrase judges often used to label this approach. The video doesn’t show what went on in most of the debate.