Search found 1787 matches

by cvdwightw
Mon Jun 22, 2015 6:06 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Resetting [pt. 2 of 6]: How Much Quizbowl Does a Man Need?
Replies: 24
Views: 14322

Re: Resetting [pt. 2 of 6]: How Much Quizbowl Does a Man Nee

So I've thought about this a little bit, and I have brainstormed some potential solutions, some or none of which may be useful: To the issue of "too many announced housewrites, too few played housewrites": having PACE set up a national "Independent Series" distribution network by...
by cvdwightw
Tue May 19, 2015 5:32 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: San Diego Academic League
Replies: 19
Views: 12438

Re: San Diego Academic League

This is a fine time to bump this thread and remind the younger posters of the first time we had fun at Academic League's expense.
by cvdwightw
Tue May 19, 2015 4:47 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: Wacky Practice Formats
Replies: 21
Views: 24753

Wacky Practice Formats

I am assuming that most practices consist of either splitting into teams and playing a "fake game" or playing a packet of tossups singles-style (one buzz per person) and doing something with bonuses. This thread is for non-standard practice formats - gimmicks that one would never include i...
by cvdwightw
Tue May 19, 2015 4:47 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Wacky Practice Formats
Replies: 21
Views: 15404

Wacky Practice Formats

I am assuming that most practices consist of either splitting into teams and playing a "fake game" or playing a packet of tossups singles-style (one buzz per person) and doing something with bonuses. This thread is for non-standard practice formats - gimmicks that one would never include i...
by cvdwightw
Mon Apr 13, 2015 4:51 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Your Lowest Point
Replies: 64
Views: 54121

Re: Your Lowest Point

Yeah not to get too moderaty here, but this isn't just a thread to list goofy negs; it's about the dark knight of the soul we face when exposed to things like ACF Nationals 2011. To my knowledge, I am the only person who has had a complete set of questions in front of me, hours before the deadline ...
by cvdwightw
Tue Feb 10, 2015 1:11 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: the future of regular difficulty
Replies: 14
Views: 8392

Re: the future of regular difficulty

Designated old person butting into the threads to ask to what extent current tournaments match Ryan Westbrook's critique that regular difficulty tournaments don't meaningfully distinguish between top teams and Matt Weiner's critique that regular difficulty tournaments need easier clues earlier to me...
by cvdwightw
Tue Feb 03, 2015 6:54 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF eligibility rule changes for 2015-2016
Replies: 74
Views: 36982

Re: ACF eligibility rule changes for 2015-2016

High school players: You don't have an issue with NAQT preventing you from playing D2 SCT against college teams and are perfectly fine using the D2 SCT set for a high school tournament, but when ACF wants to implement a similar policy with ACF Fall, it's a huge issue. You don't have a problem that t...
by cvdwightw
Sat Jan 31, 2015 10:19 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF eligibility rule changes for 2015-2016
Replies: 74
Views: 36982

Re: ACF eligibility rule changes for 2015-2016

vinteuil wrote:Just making sure: you took into account possible changes in "strength of site"?
If by this you mean things like "Georgia A's SOS factor went from 1.06 to above the maximum cutoff of 1.25 because all of a sudden half of their games are against Vanderbilt," then yes.
by cvdwightw
Sat Jan 31, 2015 7:21 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF eligibility rule changes for 2015-2016
Replies: 74
Views: 36982

Re: ACF eligibility rule changes for 2015-2016

This post will hopefully provide some data to answer Casey's question about how A-values would have been affected by banning the HS teams from this year's Regionals. Obviously the sites with high school teams would have changed their schedules, but we can approximate the A-values by removing the res...
by cvdwightw
Fri Oct 10, 2014 9:24 pm
Forum: Databases and Quizbowl Software
Topic: Round-robins the easy way
Replies: 15
Views: 11263

Re: Round-robins the easy way

Secondarily, they don't cover nearly the formats that need to be covered. Compare the available schedules to this list I just generated. (there may be some mistakes as this was a quick effort). It's far easier to generate a schedule yourself and paste the table into Word (or convert to LaTeX using ...
by cvdwightw
Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:35 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: The Big Vision: [1] Index, Introduction, and Basics
Replies: 3
Views: 12430

Re: The Big Vision: [1] Index, Introduction, and Basics

I had this in a different thread, but I think it belongs here better. To some extent, we need to figure out what the "people who have gone before us" (back when there was no such thing as "good quizbowl") did to provide quality multi-subject academic competitions. I use that term...
by cvdwightw
Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:35 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: The Big Vision: [1] Index, Introduction, and Basics
Replies: 3
Views: 6311

Re: The Big Vision: [1] Index, Introduction, and Basics

I had this in a different thread, but I think it belongs here better. To some extent, we need to figure out what the "people who have gone before us" (back when there was no such thing as "good quizbowl") did to provide quality multi-subject academic competitions. I use that term...
by cvdwightw
Tue Sep 23, 2014 9:19 pm
Forum: Community Discussion
Topic: Stats on women's participation at ICTs (open for discussion)
Replies: 14
Views: 16844

Re: Stats on women's participation at ICTs (open for discuss

I have an Excel sheet with every HSNCT player from 1999 to now and their prelim PPG/PP20H (This space reserved for when I eventually put it online and link it), which I was using for some other analysis that I might post at some time later. I filtered out every player with fewer than 5 games played ...
by cvdwightw
Thu Sep 18, 2014 10:15 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Computational Mathematics
Replies: 56
Views: 28450

Re: Computational Mathematics

Okay, look, I ought to be tired of wading into these messes but I guess I'm a sucker. The following people who use math all the time generally agree that conceptual math is more important than computational math: People with (or working on) college and graduate degrees in math, who agree that comput...
by cvdwightw
Thu Sep 18, 2014 6:52 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Computational Mathematics
Replies: 56
Views: 28450

Re: Computational Mathematics

I am speaking here as a person who has written an absurd amount of math calculation bonus questions for HSAPQ, and a not-insignificant number of math calculation questions for NAQT, and thus am probably somewhere in the top 5 writers of math calculation by volume in "good quizbowl" over th...
by cvdwightw
Fri Sep 05, 2014 4:22 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: The Big Vision: [3] Rooting out the "Eh, who cares" attitude
Replies: 16
Views: 19757

Re: The Big Vision: [3] Rooting out the "Eh, who cares" atti

-Should tournaments be directed by students? In my opinion, this is never going to change, unless every team in the country unilaterally decides not to attend any tournament directed by a student. 1) High school students who run a competent tournament with enough staff, good questions, etc. get to ...
by cvdwightw
Fri Sep 05, 2014 4:22 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: The Big Vision: [3] Rooting out the "Eh, who cares" attitude
Replies: 16
Views: 9640

Re: The Big Vision: [3] Rooting out the "Eh, who cares" atti

-Should tournaments be directed by students? In my opinion, this is never going to change, unless every team in the country unilaterally decides not to attend any tournament directed by a student. 1) High school students who run a competent tournament with enough staff, good questions, etc. get to ...
by cvdwightw
Fri Sep 05, 2014 4:03 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: The Big Vision: [5]Resources, Results, Recordings, Reporters
Replies: 9
Views: 15173

Re: The Big Vision: [5]Resources, Results, Recordings, Repor

For example, it would be good to maintain a set of printable templates for well-tested, good schedules given varying numbers of available packets and competing teams, which any coach or player can use with minimum hassle (i.e. NOT LaTeX -- no matter how much LaTeX users love LaTeX, that program is ...
by cvdwightw
Fri Sep 05, 2014 4:03 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: The Big Vision: [5]Resources, Results, Recordings, Reporters
Replies: 9
Views: 7344

Re: The Big Vision: [5]Resources, Results, Recordings, Repor

For example, it would be good to maintain a set of printable templates for well-tested, good schedules given varying numbers of available packets and competing teams, which any coach or player can use with minimum hassle (i.e. NOT LaTeX -- no matter how much LaTeX users love LaTeX, that program is ...
by cvdwightw
Fri Sep 05, 2014 5:36 am
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: The Big Vision: [8] National Contenders and Local/State Wins
Replies: 3
Views: 11820

Re: The Big Vision: [8] National Contenders and Local/State

Could any meaningful inferences or extrapolations be made from past HSNCT data regarding when a difficulty creep would plateau? There isn't enough historical data to make any sort of inference. In 2003 Dunbar led the field with 35 powers in the prelims (out of 226 TUH for a 15.5% power rate). In 20...
by cvdwightw
Fri Sep 05, 2014 5:36 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: The Big Vision: [8] National Contenders and Local/State Wins
Replies: 3
Views: 4096

Re: The Big Vision: [8] National Contenders and Local/State

Could any meaningful inferences or extrapolations be made from past HSNCT data regarding when a difficulty creep would plateau? There isn't enough historical data to make any sort of inference. In 2003 Dunbar led the field with 35 powers in the prelims (out of 226 TUH for a 15.5% power rate). In 20...
by cvdwightw
Fri Sep 05, 2014 3:45 am
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: The Big Vision: [7] MS, College, & International Opportunity
Replies: 5
Views: 12952

Re: The Big Vision: [7] MS, College, & International Opportu

I want to say something about how the relationship between college and high school quizbowl has changed in the past ten years or so. Maybe someone like Eric or Jerry who's become an all-time great despite playing a steady diet of terrible formats in high school, or someone like Seth who to my knowle...
by cvdwightw
Fri Sep 05, 2014 3:45 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: The Big Vision: [7] MS, College, & International Opportunity
Replies: 5
Views: 5220

Re: The Big Vision: [7] MS, College, & International Opportu

I want to say something about how the relationship between college and high school quizbowl has changed in the past ten years or so. Maybe someone like Eric or Jerry who's become an all-time great despite playing a steady diet of terrible formats in high school, or someone like Seth who to my knowle...
by cvdwightw
Fri Sep 05, 2014 2:35 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: The Big Vision: [2] The "Sales Pitch": Talking Up Quizbowl
Replies: 45
Views: 34114

Re: The Big Vision: [2] The "Sales Pitch": Talking Up Quizbo

Now that I've read the whole series, I'm going to start writing some things about my experience that may or may not be generalizable to other places. 1. In some areas, it is easier to expand a small circuit than to convert "bad quizbowl" teams . Imagine that you're trying to convince your ...
by cvdwightw
Fri Sep 05, 2014 2:35 am
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: The Big Vision: [2] The "Sales Pitch": Talking Up Quizbowl
Replies: 45
Views: 45810

Re: The Big Vision: [2] The "Sales Pitch": Talking Up Quizbo

Now that I've read the whole series, I'm going to start writing some things about my experience that may or may not be generalizable to other places. 1. In some areas, it is easier to expand a small circuit than to convert "bad quizbowl" teams . Imagine that you're trying to convince your ...
by cvdwightw
Tue Jun 10, 2014 8:23 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Favorite Quizbowl Experiences
Replies: 77
Views: 68619

Re: Favorite Quizbowl Experiences

Hey look, for old time's sake, it's another long Dwight Wynne post! I don't remember having a whole lot of fun playing quizbowl. But it did have its good moments, including (in reverse chronological order): Winning a buzzer race against Mike Cheyne at 2010 ICT off the names of two obscure St. Louis ...
by cvdwightw
Mon Jun 02, 2014 10:51 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Power Matching
Replies: 17
Views: 6119

Re: Power Matching

I haven't posted anything in a while, but I wrote some stuff for HSNCT, so I thought I'd check out the resulting discussions. It is theoretically possible, but perhaps not plausible in practice, to run a card system that seeds 6-3 and 5-4 teams for their last game. Let me explain using the 256 team ...
by cvdwightw
Sat Apr 20, 2013 12:38 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Head-to-head as a tiebreaker (split from UCU announcement)
Replies: 27
Views: 7900

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Urgent Call for Unity (Summer 2013)

Apologies for necroing this thread. In my defense, I haven't posted anything here in over 6 months. As for people whose arguments actually deserve discussion, if the thread Jeff linked above is what established the consensus in favor of a PPG tiebreaker and against head-to-head, that consensus ought...
by cvdwightw
Fri Aug 10, 2012 10:32 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Clock theory
Replies: 22
Views: 9796

Re: Clock theory

(Some related stats: 77.3% of 2012 HSNCT games heard at least 20 tossups; 94.9% heard at least 18 tossups; and 98.8% heard at least 17 tossups. So we are talking about a comparatively very small number of tossups here; and the relevant unfairness would be even smaller, given that many, perhaps most...
by cvdwightw
Thu Jul 26, 2012 2:53 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Hey it's time to talk about tone! (LIVE CHAT AUGUST 13)
Replies: 116
Views: 42564

Re: Hey it's time to talk about tone!

I'm really late to this discussion, but I'd like to talk about about a theory from social science that I think discusses some of the tone issues on the board. This theory is called "situated learning theory" and was largely developed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger in the late 1980's and e...
by cvdwightw
Mon Jul 02, 2012 3:36 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: future of the Torrey Pines housewrite
Replies: 30
Views: 13384

An Open Letter to Torrey Pines

Dear Torrey Pines (and any other team that wants to write a tournament): Writing a tournament is hard. Like, really hard. It is an extremely labor-intensive process. In order to write a good tournament, you absolutely need the following two people: 1. An editor-in-chief who sets the overall vision o...
by cvdwightw
Mon Jul 02, 2012 1:55 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Translations
Replies: 9
Views: 3436

Re: Translations

This is what happened the last time the music mafia got into the question. A more updated version of the discussion starts at this post and continues for about six posts. Given that a lot of the arguments there are basically being rehashed here, I'm more interested in whether the arguments advanced...
by cvdwightw
Tue Jun 26, 2012 9:40 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Three Rules of Difficulty
Replies: 0
Views: 1784

Three Rules of Difficulty

I've been reflecting on years of awful post-tournament discussion, and I've come to the conclusion that much of it can be avoided if question writers follow three rules concerning difficulty: 1. If you know something, that doesn't make it easy. 2. If you don't know something, that doesn't make it no...
by cvdwightw
Mon Jun 25, 2012 4:06 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2013 NAQT HSNCT: Congratulations LASA!
Replies: 109
Views: 69143

Re: 2013 NAQT HSNCT: May 25-26, Atlanta

A 256-team tournament can in theory be run with the following considerations (as in, the math works out, but I haven't checked an entire card system): LOGISTICS: -Each team plays 10 games in 16 rounds. -The number of prelim rooms remains the same as 2012. -Somewhere between 95 and 98 teams make the ...
by cvdwightw
Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:02 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Fine arts/music
Replies: 117
Views: 44747

Re: Fine arts/music

I'm not really clear on what the basis for treating the academic/trash split in film exactly the same as in music is supposed to be. I think what Andrew's arguing is that it's incumbent on Tommy to show that there is a basis for treating the academic/trash split in film differently than in misc. au...
by cvdwightw
Tue Jun 19, 2012 2:44 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Fine arts/music
Replies: 117
Views: 44747

Re: Fine arts/music

John, that was a great post. To answer your first question: I'm surprised by the distinction you make between how we treat directors and authors. Is there a particular example of an author you were thinking of whose "trash" works have been snuck into the canon because he also wrote "r...
by cvdwightw
Mon Jun 18, 2012 9:37 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Fine arts/music
Replies: 117
Views: 44747

Re: Fine arts/music

This discussion has kind of devolved from its original purpose, but I think reviving the central point can bring it back on track. In April, Tommy posted a discussion of the woeful state of current film questions, identified a number of problems with how those questions are constructed in both answe...
by cvdwightw
Mon Jun 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: NASAT Discussion
Replies: 24
Views: 8692

Re: NASAT Discussion

I would even go as far as to suggest that the easy parts could be made significantly harder without harming the experience of any team. This is mainly because unlike other nationals there are no weak teams. Without going full Chrz on you, I'm going to disagree with this. If HSAPQ's goal is to expan...
by cvdwightw
Tue Jun 12, 2012 1:19 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Southern California Date Claim 2012-2013
Replies: 30
Views: 10542

Re: Southern California Date Claim 2012-2013

Our current solution is to move the Arcadia tournament back a week to Saturday, September 29. Is this possible/plausible or should Arcadia just relinquish its claim to this tournament? This is plausible given that I think most schools in the area start no later than the week after Labor Day. It mig...
by cvdwightw
Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:56 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: PACE NSC 2012 "going to hell" protest resolution
Replies: 29
Views: 18041

Re: PACE NSC 2012 Set Discussion

I was largely responsible for this year's rule revisions concerning protests. Here are the relevant sections: 4.2. The protesting team, and the counter-protesting team, if applicable, will fill out protest sheets explaining their arguments. A staff member will communicate these arguments to the indi...
by cvdwightw
Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:21 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81080

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

Great scott! 14? 15? Even with 'slow teams', one wonders if the moderator(s) was just completely oblivious to the clock and the expectations of this tourney. The 14-tossup game is perhaps the most disturbing, not just because 14 tossups were heard, but because from what I can tell, this was Round 1...
by cvdwightw
Tue Jun 05, 2012 3:05 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81080

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

Loyola and Northmont combining to go 4-16-4 on 19 tossups in their Round 18 playoff match is probably not right. Of the 24 playoff rooms that read at least three rounds of the main playoffs: -5 (Centennial I, Centennial III, Grand Hall East B, Grand Hall East D, Chicago A) finished the packet in eve...
by cvdwightw
Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:46 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Southern California Date Claim 2012-2013
Replies: 30
Views: 10542

Re: Southern California Date Claim 2012-2013

I am wondering if geographic exclusivity could be used for that set. Why would you need that? It would make far more sense to have a local San Diego tournament use that set too considering how few NAQT sets there are available each year. Three of this year's four NAQT A-sets have been used this yea...
by cvdwightw
Thu May 31, 2012 3:09 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 NAQT HSNCT: Congratulations to Bellarmine!
Replies: 100
Views: 54645

Re: 2012 NAQT HSNCT: Congratulations to Bellarmine!

C) If you find a mistake--two teams scheduled to play each other who didn't actually play each other--find the previous erroneous result and fix it or let me know about it. Just to be clear--this is boring work that doesn't really lead to anything significant, since NAQT has already posted full res...
by cvdwightw
Thu May 31, 2012 2:04 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Southern California Date Claim 2012-2013
Replies: 30
Views: 10542

Re: Southern California Date Claim 2011-2012

At least three new schools have contacted me indicating their interest in hosting tournaments next year, so we need to get a tournament date wrangling email thread going. If anyone outside of the teams who have hosted tournaments in the past year (UCSD, Torrey, Arcadia, La Jolla, Westview, Irvine) ...
by cvdwightw
Tue May 29, 2012 2:50 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: The best readers
Replies: 32
Views: 11121

Re: The best readers

I think John makes some excellent points. I'd also add the following: -Cadence. I think this may be part of what Mike is talking about when he says that some moderators just subjectively bug him, even though they're not doing anything wrong. -Good moderators are able to parse something akin to the I...
by cvdwightw
Tue May 29, 2012 1:30 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2012 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 81080

Re: 2012 HSNCT discussion

This tournament was extremely well-run and Joel (and others) deserves a whole lot of credit for Saturday going as smoothly as it did. I got to moderate for a lot of awesome teams and players and saw some epic games (High Tech - IMSA B being one of my favorite games I've ever moderated - both I and t...
by cvdwightw
Fri May 18, 2012 5:07 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Triton Spring II (5/19/2012)
Replies: 24
Views: 10874

Re: Triton Spring II (5/19/2012)

In case someone from Arcadia checks this board before Andrew checks his e-mail, Chris just called me to say that a spot opened up for Arcadia C.
by cvdwightw
Tue May 15, 2012 1:08 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Triton Spring II (5/19/2012)
Replies: 24
Views: 10874

Re: Triton Spring II (5/19/2012)

cchiego wrote:All teams should've received a logistics email with full instructions and directions.
What about freelance mods? I'm still trying to pull in some more Irvine people but won't be able to let you know until probably tomorrow night.
by cvdwightw
Thu May 10, 2012 11:08 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: MSNCT/HSNCT bonus difficulty discussion
Replies: 25
Views: 8757

Re: MSNCT/HSNCT bonus difficulty discussion

Systematic differences in tournament-wide bonus conversion are due to skill. Game-to-game fluctuations in bonus conversion around that tournament-wide bonus conversion, which is what I was looking at in my last argument, are due to random luck. Similarly, to some extent, buzzer races are due to som...