Search found 55 matches

by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Fri May 22, 2020 6:36 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Brain of Quarantine 2020 - Online Charity MIMIR tournament
Replies: 1
Views: 1850

Re: Brain of Quarantine 2020 - Online Charity MIMIR tournament

So this tournament is reaching its eventual conclusion tomorrow evening at 8:00pm BST. The final will feature David Stainer, Iain Thoms, Peter Ediss and the internet's own Jakob Myers. If you want to cheer him on I'll be streaming the final on Twitter (@QuizVsCovid) and Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Mon Apr 13, 2020 5:42 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: This Time, A Stern Warning
Replies: 179
Views: 147177

Re: This Time, A Stern Warning

Fair play to Eric for confessing. Stepping back a little, I think the rancour all round, the poring over slightly contrived statistics and gigaton of psychic effort exerted in purging cheaters as well as the negative aspects of the cheating itself should hopefully show people that the ultimate, plea...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Sat Apr 04, 2020 7:40 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Brain of Quarantine 2020 - Online Charity MIMIR tournament
Replies: 1
Views: 1850

Brain of Quarantine 2020 - Online Charity MIMIR tournament

While quite a lot of the present situation is doom and gloom, I thought it would be fun to try some things which we don't normally do, rather than just having events which are version of previous events. In this vein, and to raise money for charity, a small team (me, Joey Goldman and George Charlson...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Mar 24, 2020 8:29 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: College Nationals and Its Problems
Replies: 132
Views: 54220

Re: College Nationals and Its Problems

It's interesting that a lot of the issues people have pointed to here are ones that we also have in the UK, and that solutions like trying to provide more prestige to regional championships are things we in the UK have seriously pointed to. This is very much still the case in an ecosystem without fo...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Thu May 03, 2018 7:19 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Smoothing Out Your Set
Replies: 18
Views: 10826

Re: Smoothing Out Your Set

I can see the basis of both the geographic and format based divisions of literature and I think both are with merit. Maybe the best thing for editors to do is to try and balance both at the same time rather than balancing along one axis and seeing this as more balanced more of the time. I really don...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:28 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals discussion
Replies: 121
Views: 62657

Re: ACF Nationals discussion

I'm always in favour of air-quotes.
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Apr 24, 2018 10:50 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals discussion
Replies: 121
Views: 62657

Re: ACF Nationals discussion

I have a few minor gripes which are barely worth mentioning (e.g. Bletchley Park isn't a park), but in general I thought the set was very good. The most noticeable thing from my perspective is that there were very few tossups which people thought were bad or bonuses which were bad ideas or poorly ex...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Thu Mar 22, 2018 7:55 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Advice For Someone Who Wants To Edit History Questions
Replies: 3
Views: 3419

Advice For Someone Who Wants To Edit History Questions

I'm sure I'm not alone in having seen a lot of things on the forum recently about trying to get more people involved in editing quizbowl tournaments and it struck me that there isn't that much information on the forum afaik about how someone should go about editing a particular part of a tournament....
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Fri Feb 16, 2018 9:28 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2018 Oxford Open - Question Feedback
Replies: 8
Views: 777

Re: Question Feedback

Yeah, in hindsight the Khrushkev and Bush tossups were both a bit easy and there is probably more leeway possible with these things in the UK than I thought before the tournament. How hard did people find the rest of the US history for this tournament for Brits? (Kansas, Chicago, Viksburg, GHWBush, ...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Fri Feb 16, 2018 3:00 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2018 Oxford Open - Question Feedback
Replies: 8
Views: 777

Re: Question Feedback

Do people want to point out particular questions they had an issue with in a set category. Let's start with European history. Tossups: Serbia [DJ] Gustavus Adolphus [DJ] Procopius [DJ] Toledo [AP] Khrushchev [FL] Council of Trent [AP] Hadrian [WZ] Maria Theresa [DJ] Communards [DJ] Emperor Frederick...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Feb 13, 2018 8:29 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Oxford Open: American Editors Required
Replies: 5
Views: 4234

Re: Oxford Open: American Editors Required

PSA: There is now a private discussion forum for this tournament.
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Feb 13, 2018 8:16 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2018 Oxford Open - Question Feedback
Replies: 8
Views: 777

2018 Oxford Open - Question Feedback

As with most of these things it would be great if people who played the set said which things about it they liked and disliked and then also pointed out issues with particular questions. Did some categories seem too hard and some too easy? What were the good ideas and what were the bad ideas? I don'...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Sun Feb 11, 2018 2:50 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Oxford Open: American Editors Required
Replies: 5
Views: 4234

Re: Oxford Open: American Editors Required

We played the British set yesterday and the response to the set overall was very positive. In general, I think most people would say that it was the best incarnation of Oxford Open thus far and don't think that there would be an undue amount of work for someone. The main thing that needs changing is...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Thu Feb 08, 2018 9:03 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Quizbowl men, get a haircut
Replies: 102
Views: 50002

Re: Quizbowl men, get a haircut

I'm increasingly convinced this is just the blue eyes-brown eyes social experiment but with hairstyles.
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:02 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2018 ACF Regionals (non-Continental Euro) history
Replies: 17
Views: 5367

Re: What did people think of the (non-Continental Euro) hist

I agree with a lot of what people have said and I do think there are genuine philosophical debates to be had about what the purpose of Regionals is and where it should position itself. I personally think regionals is a great time to expand the canon if it is done in the right way. It has a big audie...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Thu Feb 01, 2018 9:08 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2018 ACF Regionals (non-Continental Euro) history
Replies: 17
Views: 5367

Re: What did people think of the (non-Continental Euro) hist

I liked most of the history in this tournament and I didn't think there was much to complain about. I didn't like the tossup on "beys" because I think that a lot of the clues ended up being contrived but I recognise that a lot of those things are hard to ask about so I praise the intent. I...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Mon Nov 06, 2017 8:02 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: we should be doing religion better
Replies: 26
Views: 12583

Re: we should be doing religion better

I do think there is a strong case for there being some form of canon for theologians at regular difficulty, as I think that this is an academic discipline which has been overlooked. I do try and write these questions for packet sub and they do sometimes get used (shout-out to WAO's editors). I think...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Sun Sep 24, 2017 4:04 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2018 ACF Regionals Global Announcement (1/20/18)
Replies: 43
Views: 51756

Re: 2018 ACF Regionals Global Announcement (1/20/18)

Can someone check the regionals email and send us a distro please.
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Mon Mar 27, 2017 3:21 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Oxford American Tournament 2017 (OAT)
Replies: 14
Views: 9336

Re: Oxford American Tournament 2017 (OAT)

If people are feeling generous then I do suggest that they join the private discussion and suggest things which are "impossible British content" because I can then go and manage them.
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Fri Mar 24, 2017 2:46 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Oxford Open 2017: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 17
Views: 4384

Re: Specific Question Discussion

I've removed the Waterford and covenants questions, more suggestions for changes would be nice ASAP.
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:37 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Oxford Open 2017: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 17
Views: 4384

Re: Specific Question Discussion

If you mention ask the things that felt awry that would be great so I can neaten them up before others play the set. In general, we were a bit short-handed on the Americanization (I personally did almost all of it) so I can only apologize for the history difficulty being variable.
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Mon Mar 13, 2017 4:32 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Easy Parts
Replies: 19
Views: 9683

Re: Easy Parts

I may not have expressed my personal skepticism very clearly because obviously some teams get easy parts wrong. I guess my intent was to see what the philosophy behind the easy part was and everyone who has posted so far has endorsed a normally distributed difficulty range, albeit with some particul...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Sun Mar 12, 2017 5:57 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Easy Parts
Replies: 19
Views: 9683

Easy Parts

What is the point of easy parts? It seems to me like the philosophy behind easy parts could do with some definition, not least because as far as I can tell the difficulty of easy parts varies quite a lot. Some easy parts ask for capital cities of significant countries which 100% of people know to ea...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Mar 07, 2017 8:42 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Oxford American Tournament 2017 (OAT)
Replies: 14
Views: 9336

Re: Oxford American Tournament 2017 (OAT)

I have updated the post with news of the new Canadian and Californian mirrors!
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Feb 28, 2017 9:21 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2017 (T)TIaC: Religion Distribution
Replies: 2
Views: 1219

Re: Religion Distribution

I too agree that the shift towards abrahamic may be a bit harsh on other religions and I think sometimes the answer, especially at harder difficulties is for people to grin and bear it. I frequently see people play continental philosophy better than analytic philosophy (apologies for making the dist...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Feb 28, 2017 8:30 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion
Replies: 90
Views: 20286

Re: 2017 (This) Tournament is a Crime Specific Discussion

There were a number of things which I can't recall off the top of my head but the Schliemann repeat mention was confusing.
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Thu Feb 23, 2017 7:36 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: περί μυθολογιῶν/De Mythologia
Replies: 17
Views: 8738

Re: περί μυθολογιῶν/De Mythologia

Having sat next to Oli negging Classics for two years I can attest to his frustration, but I think the answer lies somewhere between the two perspectives. There are not many people who play quizbowl and have studied Classics so it makes sense that Classics like geology or some other subjects don't s...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Feb 21, 2017 8:08 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2017 ACF Regionals - thanks and general discussion
Replies: 39
Views: 13484

Re: 2017 ACF Regionals - thanks and general discussion

I agree with a lot of what is written here, but I do think that where tournaments are used for qualification there is an extent to which people should tend towards conservatism with the way they select bonuses etc. If someone goes a bit rogue on myth bonuses in a housewrite that's fine; if one area...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Mon Feb 20, 2017 3:11 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2017 ACF Regionals - thanks and general discussion
Replies: 39
Views: 13484

Re: 2017 ACF Regionals - thanks and general discussion

On the more general point about interest, I think a lot of interesting things came up but Joey's criticism is partly justified. Regionals is a qualifying tournament, and you need to judge canonical baseline knowledge as well as deeper stuff. This means there should be stock clues and people should ...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Mon Feb 20, 2017 2:54 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2017 ACF Regionals - thanks and general discussion
Replies: 39
Views: 13484

Re: 2017 ACF Regionals - thanks and general discussion

Oli is right about a UK/US split in these terms. I would say that while it appeared I was setting up a straw-man, at the collegiate level people regularly tossup philosophers of the first grade, but they aren't going to tossup the French Revolution or Han in the same terms. The other thing I would s...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Mon Feb 20, 2017 7:19 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2017 ACF Regionals - thanks and general discussion
Replies: 39
Views: 13484

Re: 2017 ACF Regionals - thanks and general discussion

For philosophy in particular, it is worth keeping in mind that philosophy is one of the categories people are least likely to be significantly exposed to in their general education, particularly modern philosophy. Going too off the beaten path in that category will put far too many people out of th...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Fri Feb 17, 2017 7:08 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2017 ICT bids
Replies: 157
Views: 81075

Re: 2017 ICT bids

Pardon my intruding on a debate that isn't really anything to do with UK quizbowl, but it seems like one sensible strategy in the long term is for the better teams to host these tournaments rather than teams that are borderline qualifiers. I know its not always possible and sometimes good teams want...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Sat Feb 11, 2017 1:34 pm
Forum: Databases and Quizbowl Software
Topic: Improving pricing entry on the tournament database
Replies: 3
Views: 4411

Re: Improving pricing entry on the tournament database

I know this isn't a priority for most people but could we please have a button for £s because it can be confusing having to use $.
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Fri Feb 10, 2017 4:21 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: TTIC @ Oxford (2/25)
Replies: 0
Views: 1582

TTIC @ Oxford (2/25)

We will be mirroring This Tournament Is a Crime in Oxford on the 25th February. The team entry will be £60. The tournament will start at 10:00am, the venue is tbc, but almost certainly St. John's or Magdalen. £5 discounts will be given for buzzers and for moderators. If you are interested in attendi...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:49 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Oxford American Tournament 2017 (OAT)
Replies: 14
Views: 9336

Re: Oxford Open 2017

armitage wrote:Can we mirror it? What's the mirror fee?
Richard I have updated the info about the tournament. We'd be more than happy for you to mirror the tournament at the end of March.
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Feb 07, 2017 5:18 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2017 WAO: Religion and Other Academic
Replies: 12
Views: 3046

Re: 2017 WAO: Religion and Other Academic

FYI the extra like about Ali is added as a third and final line to the shahada, if you want to consider it part of the shahada at all, rather than just a separate customary utterance. On this basis the way the question in phrased means that you can't take shahada.
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Mon Jan 30, 2017 3:22 pm
Forum: Scheduling reform
Topic: 2016-17 Tournament Schedule: Planning, Discussion, etc.
Replies: 65
Views: 62292

Re: 2016-17 Tournament Schedule: Planning, Discussion, etc.

I would like to play this. If someone wants to tack on an additional $5 mirror fee to compensate the Americanizers for their work, I would be totally cool paying that. That is completely reasonable and we're more than happy to compensate people for helping to make it playable for an American audien...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Mon Jan 30, 2017 7:54 am
Forum: Scheduling reform
Topic: 2016-17 Tournament Schedule: Planning, Discussion, etc.
Replies: 65
Views: 62292

Re: 2016-17 Tournament Schedule: Planning, Discussion, etc.

This might be seen as a bit of Oxford-Cambridge one-upmanship, but the Oxford Open set was played this weekend in the UK, and people seemed happy with it. If people want to play a hypothetical tournament in March, all of the Oxford tournament is already written so you could start sorting out the thi...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Wed Dec 28, 2016 11:46 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Continuing to rethink the distribution
Replies: 54
Views: 37146

Re: Continuing to rethink the distribution

While I do agree that distributional changes might be a little hasty, I do think it would be a good thing if tournaments incorporated more of these things, perhaps through a sub-distribution at tournaments like Regionals to have at least 1 on topics which aren't political or military, just as they h...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Wed Dec 21, 2016 8:44 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Continuing to rethink the distribution
Replies: 54
Views: 37146

Re: Continuing to rethink the distribution

A few responses: 1.) The Alma Mahler question which has informed much of this discussion is slightly misleading because she isn't a particularly historically significant figure, interesting though she is, while many of the science figures are, IMO. There should be tossups on Alma Mahler, but perhaps...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Dec 20, 2016 8:37 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Continuing to rethink the distribution
Replies: 54
Views: 37146

Re: Continuing to rethink the distribution

To clarify: I think most tossups on these historical figures who did science should be history. There is a lot of history and not much science so bleeding a little is fair enough. I really object however to people defending what comes up in quizbowl on the basis of being limited by what comes up in ...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Dec 20, 2016 8:23 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Continuing to rethink the distribution
Replies: 54
Views: 37146

Re: Continuing to rethink the distribution

I agree with a lot of things written here but I really don't think expanding the cannon and moving beyond political and military focused history should be seen as a last resort, it should really be seen as central to writing a balanced set at the collegiate level. Looking at OOT 2017 which we are wr...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Wed Oct 19, 2016 11:59 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: EFT 2016 @ Oxford 11/26
Replies: 1
Views: 2305

EFT 2016 @ Oxford 11/26

We will be hosting a mirror of EFT 2016 on the 26th November 2016. It will be held at St. John's College Details about the set can be found here http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18443 . The tournament will only be open to university teams, at least initially. There should be ...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Sat Jul 02, 2016 10:48 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Oxford American Tournament 2017 (OAT)
Replies: 14
Views: 9336

Oxford American Tournament 2017 (OAT)

I am pleased to announce that Oxford has written another edition of the Oxford Open Tournament in 2017 and this year we will be producing an American version which we will dub OAT! This is essentially the same as the Oxford Open Tournament set but we have removed the more arcane british geography an...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Fri Jun 10, 2016 8:11 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: UK Player Poll 2016: We the East!
Replies: 26
Views: 14354

Re: UK Player Poll 2016: We the East!

Fun Fact from further analysis #1 - People who completed the poll were on average placed 11.194 by others, whereas they placed themselves 10.4, which is a surprisingly small difference. Fun fact #2 - People at Oxford gave other people at Oxford an average of 149 points, whereas overall (including O...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Fri Jun 10, 2016 7:57 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: UK Player Poll 2016: We the East!
Replies: 26
Views: 14354

Re: UK Player Poll 2016: We the East!

AIRballer wrote:Are the honourable mentions in any particular order?
They are in the order from 25 onwards, but there was surprisingly a substantial gap between 25 and 26.
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue Jun 07, 2016 1:36 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: UK Player Poll 2016: We the East!
Replies: 26
Views: 14354

Re: UK Player Poll 2016: We the East!

Fun Fact from further analysis #1 - People who completed the poll were on average placed 11.194 by others, whereas they placed themselves 10.4, which is a surprisingly small difference. Fun fact #2 - People at Oxford gave other people at Oxford an average of 149 points, whereas overall (including Ox...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Mon Jun 06, 2016 8:08 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: UK Player Poll 2016: We the East!
Replies: 26
Views: 14354

Re: UK Player Poll 2016: We the East!

So thanks to the 15 people who submitted responses (Joey Goldman, me, George Corfield, Afham Raoof, Edmund Dickinson, Chris Stern, Ben Salter, Elysia Warner, Ewan Macaulay, Spence Weinreich, Samuel Cook, Tomas Kesek, Evan Lynch, Florence Chen, Hugh Binnie). Here are the results of the poll. I will l...
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Tue May 31, 2016 8:19 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: UK Player Poll 2016: We the East!
Replies: 26
Views: 14354

Re: UK Player Poll 2016: We the East!

Yes Joey and any other people who have played this year are eligible, even if they were to never play student Quizbowl in the future.
by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
Mon May 30, 2016 7:54 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: UK Player Poll 2016: We the East!
Replies: 26
Views: 14354

UK Player Poll 2016: We the East!

So inspired by the discussion of the best Canadian players and a healthy dose of Monday evening public house what-iferry, we thought it might be interesting to see who people think are the best currently active student Quizbowl players in the United Kingdom . The eligibility rules are that people ha...