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SnookerUSF

Since people are complaining about the turnout at ACF Regionals and mentioning my team (South Carolina) by name, I would like to throw in a few cents since we are one of apparently many "usual suspects" that didn't go to ACF. I am not playing for South Carolina these days, but still help ...

SnookerUSF

Jerry, I tried downloading the regionals set from the website and I got this message:

WinRAR Archive wrote:! C:\Documents and Settings\Ahmad Ragab\Desktop\regionals.zip: Unexpected end of archive

The archive that downloads is 472KB in size if that helps.

SnookerUSF

My quick count shows 204 teams at SCT (including 46 community college teams) and 52 at ACF Regionals (including 1 high school team). That (1 high school team) happen to win the Southeast Regional. Actually for Much of the day, MLK high school was represented by two players Dallas and Cody Simmons. ...

SnookerUSF

That said, I'm frankly just flat-out annoyed by the turnout for this tournament at several sites. Here we have an accessible and well-edited set and lots of teams apparently aren't interested in playing it. What the hell is going on? It's particularly annoying to me in light of hearing people for t...

SnookerUSF

If any club is interested in hosting a mirror, please e-mail me [aragab at mail dot usf dot edu].

SnookerUSF

Quizbowl at the University of South Florida is proud to announce: Sun 'n Fun IX: The Medusa Laughs Again or Breaking the Curse of the Ninth …we hope It will be held on the University of South Florida's Tampa Campus on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 . This will NOT be a packet submission tournament, all qu...

SnookerUSF

-First off, even 26/26 is rare. ACF and the tournaments most directly related to ACF only ask for 24/24 now. 30/30 happened one time, three years ago. Rare but increasingly common, for example ACF Nationals is requesting 26/26, Moon Pie is 25/25. -As recently as the beginning of my own quizbowl car...

SnookerUSF

I think Seth's and Ryan's interchange has isolated an ongoing phenomena in quizbowl that has been growing for the past number of years. The increasingly pecuniary nature of tournaments has created an economy where arguably there was not one before, i.e. packet submission and tournament attendance. H...

SnookerUSF

SnookerUSF

SnookerUSF

Packet submission requirements are becoming more intense I feel, and though these measures were instituted in large part to insure higher packet quality, they are becoming quite challenging. Some tournament editors are requiring as many as 26/26 questions be submitted for a full packet and as penalt...

SnookerUSF

-I don't particularly care for dropping "for 10 points" into the middle of a sentence, rather than using it exclusively at the start of the final sentence. Do others have a preference here? I like the occasional change-up it allows some flexibility in how the giveaway is structured from t...

SnookerUSF

Just a few points: Let me preface my remarks by saying that at the FSU Mirror, a reader snafu resulted in a number of the later packets being read near the beginning of the tournament, so there was a sudden variation in difficulty, which I must admit colors my view of the tournament. I would also li...

SnookerUSF

Just curious, Will future editors of tournaments be determined by the full and provisional members or just the Editor-in-Chief? In Article 3.02 and 3.03 it qualifies members to have "satisfactorily edited" some number of tournaments, 1 for provisional members and 2 for full member status. ...

SnookerUSF

I wonder if there is some consideration to be given to the difference between originally submitted tossup length and final edited tossup length. For those individuals who find themselves in the occasionally unenviable position of being a tournament editor, do you believe it is more efficient for you...

SnookerUSF

Hello, As a note to begin the discussion, if you would like the questions that were not included in the packets proper which includes 18 extra tossups and 17 tossups in the Packet of Death, please e-mail me: aragab at mail dot usf dot edu. I would like to thank everyone who patiently stayed around u...

SnookerUSF

All,

In the interest of time, we kept full stats through the preliminary rounds.
http://myweb.usf.edu/~aragab/ChicagoOpe ... dings.html

I look forward to the discussion,
Ahmad

SnookerUSF

So after reading the debate I have a few points that I believe I can take from this to improve the next set: Namely, extreme vigilance when it comes to allowing non-canonical tossups to stay in the packet. I am all for introducing new information to the canon, and I operate under the assumption that...

SnookerUSF

The only difference between the two sets are the UF and FSU packets were not played at Sun n Fun but I believe were played at the Mirror. I also changed two obvious repeats and a couple of minor formatting issues.
However the two packets receiving the most flack were exactly the same.

SnookerUSF

My initial reaction and comments: These answers seem fairly reasonable - perhaps a bit on the hard side, but not too out of line. Some others, like Gamelan, have no business being a tossup but could work as a hard part of a bonus, and some seem like they shouldn't even be anywhere in a packet. Did p...

SnookerUSF

Damn skippy Borglum, by the way

69 days 18 hrs 37 seconds....

SnookerUSF

This year's Sun 'n Fun VIII and 1/2: Fewer N's Better Qs saw six plucky teams participate. The USF House Team consisting of Jim Baker, Kevin Comer (of Florida extraction) and Jeremy Rasmussen went an impressive 10-0 against the rest of the field, in second place was the Valencia Black Team going 7-3...

SnookerUSF

Hello, If there is already a post on this topic I could be directed to it that would be most helpful, but I was wondering if there are some standardized, or in lieu of explicit standards, handy methods for explaining to the moderator how to read an equation or math question. For example if I want a ...

SnookerUSF

Here is the updated attendance for this year's Sun n Fun:

FSU (1)
UF (1)
Valencia (2)
Charlie Dees and friends (1)

There is always room for more, so if you are in Tampa Bay area and feel like hearing some questions. There is room.

Thanks,
Ahmad

SnookerUSF

Me too.

SnookerUSF

I am also a free agent, and I come with packet already submitted. Batteries are not included. If interested e-mail me at: aragab at mail dot usf dot edu

SnookerUSF

Is the HSNCT mirror/Summer Camp still happening on the 23rd-24th?

Regards...

SnookerUSF

How about the regionals question that went something like "If you rearranged the letters in the expression 'twelve plus one', you could get another mathematical expression which is equivalent." Did the answer line include "one plus twelve" as a possible answer? And what about Re...

SnookerUSF

Well-known chestnuts re-used as tossup leadins as if people have never heard old packets. Bird in Space being charged a customs duty is a guaranteed buzzer race even at the high school level. Why would a leadin that was questionable ten years ago be the leadin again now? What does this accomplish e...

SnookerUSF

DumbJaques wrote:Matt Weiner's raging, pathological desire to keep the black man down.

Classic!

SnookerUSF

Not to expand the machinery of spite, but perhaps it is high time we came up for an appropriately quizbowl-inflected (read: snarky) name for the Bulwer-Lytton Contest for Quiz Bowl.

SnookerUSF

grapesmoker wrote:Hey, I tried to send you an email about freelancing a packet but it bounced.

Thanks for catching that. I have edited the announcement, the e-mail adress is: aragab at mail dot usf dot edu

Apologies,
Ahmad

SnookerUSF

Sweet, Ahmad: those question examples indeed do approximate what I expect ACF Fall 2009 to look like! I expect you to be there with bells on, and perhaps a knee brace... If this were true, I'd be on the plane to Florida. The invitation is of course open, perhaps you could work on "remedying&qu...

SnookerUSF

Dude, the Arnolfini thing actually earned an irate email from someone who had done that to me and read the forum... I recently had account issues, so everyone I'd ever blocked (a lot of people hate me) got unblocked, and it took her like 2 hours to IM me again and continue with the diatribe. If thi...

SnookerUSF

Quizbowl at USF is proud to announce its 8th sort of annual academic packet submission tournament: Sun n' Fun VIII and a 1/2: Fewer Ns Better Qs It will be held on the University of South Florida's Tampa Campus on June 30th, 2007. A full packet of questions will be required from each team attending....

SnookerUSF

The article which was cited at the beginning of this topic thread made it clear that criticism works especially well when the individual is willing to take his or her medicine and work through it. To quote the article directly: "What you need is not the humility and level-headedness to listen t...

SnookerUSF

To the distinguished gentleman from Illinois: There seemed to be one thing absent from her analysis of her two experiences, the presence of which I think is the primary reason why discussion on this board fails to be as effective as it probably should. Straightforwardly, the conveyance of criticism ...

SnookerUSF

One minor complaint from the 2007 Moon Pie is that two of the packets that weren't used were actually pretty good, and I wish they had been used instead of the one with questions on the Koran and left-handedness, and that one with the Lord of the Flies tossup. Due to the variety of packets, there w...

SnookerUSF

Jerry and others, What is the general consensus on having Bonus Parts that cross distributions, i.e. a geography bonus that asks for a work of literature that makes significant reference to the area in question-to be avoided all together, or only to be used sparingly? Also, there were some complaint...

SnookerUSF

Gents, One thing that I have found genuinely helpful in writing better packets and attempting to contribute to "good quizbowl" is to ask for commentary from editors after the fact. Ezequiel Berdichevsky was kind enough to send me significant commentary after last year's Chicago Open. I kno...

SnookerUSF

I was also very disappointed with the questions and for many of the reasons that have been stated so far. I will say it seemed that NAQT made an effort to increase the distribution quota for the philosophy and social science questions and they were on the whole quite good-maybe one too many bonuses ...

SnookerUSF

Hello,

I know this is very off topic, but I wanted to ask about the Virginia Tech team, and make sure everyone is okay. My dad is a professor in Norris at the time of the shooting, and I was concerned.
My thoughts and prayers go out.

Let the ICT invective continue...

SnookerUSF

Vandy played exceptionally well, and fairly aggressively as the stats will divulge. I look forward to seeing them in Nashville for Nationals. I had good time as well, at least part of that I must attribute to the accumulating snow throughout the day, I have not seen it snow and stick to the ground i...

SnookerUSF

I too await with [baited/bated] breath the full-statistical presentation. However, the questions were quite good, with cannonicity and clue selection receiving special kudos. I would as a minor comment offer that the bonus introductions were a bit long, though I think I understand the reasoning behi...

SnookerUSF

Jerry et al.,

Thank you for putting on the Science Monstrosity. The format was quick and rapid fire, and I had a great time. I enjoyed the questions immensely, especially the "phaser" tossup. Also, mad-props on the "Logic of Scientific Discovery" answer.

Regards,
Ahmad

SnookerUSF

Definitely...

SnookerUSF

Chris,

If there is room and with your permission Jim Baker will be joining me as a partner. I believe that makes 10 teams, right?

Regards,
Ahmad

SnookerUSF

If no one else is interested in playing, I would be happy to moderate for you as well.

Ahmad

SnookerUSF

I am totally amenable to the occasional neg., even the more than occasional neg.

Out...

SnookerUSF

On April 1st 2006 in lovely Tampa, the Sun n Fun 7ish: April is the Cruelest Month was hosted by USF. After the Round Robin the results are as follows: UF B 6 0 UF A 5 1 MCC A 4 2 PBCC A 3 3 PCC 2 4 MCC B 1 5 Southeastern 0 6 In Playoff UF B vs PBCC 130 125 UF A vs MCC 170 70 In the finals UF A beat...

SnookerUSF

We are happy to announce Sun nâ€™ Fun # 7ish: April is the Cruelest Month Packet submission academic quiz bowl tournament at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. When: April 1st, 2006 (seriously, we mean it) Why: Usually we have our annual tournament during our Spring Break, but this y...

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ANNOUNCEMENT: Sun 'n Fun IX @ USF -- 5/10/2008 (Date Change)

Packet Submission Requirements: The High Cost of Quality

Chicago Lit Singles Discussion

Lit Singles Results

Results

Writing and Editing questions involving Equations/Math

Update

Sun n' Fun VIII and a 1/2: Fewer Ns Better Qs (6/30/07)@USF

BULLETIN Is everyone from the VT team alright? (FrEdit: Yes)

Congratulations and a comment

Thanks,

I found a partner

Results

SUN N FUN #7ish: April is the Cruluest Month Announcement