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Post by Everything in the Whole Wide World »

Great Bustard wrote:
bluejay123 wrote:
Great Bustard wrote:The nominating committee consisted of Niki Peters, Raynell Cooper, and David Madden.
And it's the National QUIZBOWL Awards? Kind of confused on how the nominating committee of NHBB folks extends to the entire realm of quizbowl, but ok.
Combined, Raynell, Niki, and I have over 25 years of involvement in quiz bowl, and don't forget that NHBB now runs the all-subject US Academic Bee and Bowl, so I think those are more than sufficient bona fides.
If anything, does the fact that you're now running an alternative series of tournaments and claiming dates for them that could be used for mainstream quizbowl events not suggest you are now a direct competitor to the rest of all-subject quizbowl rather than a complementary event?
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Great Bustard »

Beatlefan11 wrote:
Great Bustard wrote:
bluejay123 wrote:
Great Bustard wrote:The nominating committee consisted of Niki Peters, Raynell Cooper, and David Madden.
And it's the National QUIZBOWL Awards? Kind of confused on how the nominating committee of NHBB folks extends to the entire realm of quizbowl, but ok.
Combined, Raynell, Niki, and I have over 25 years of involvement in quiz bowl, and don't forget that NHBB now runs the all-subject US Academic Bee and Bowl, so I think those are more than sufficient bona fides.
If anything, does the fact that you're now running an alternative series of tournaments and claiming dates for them that could be used for mainstream quizbowl events not suggest you are now a direct competitor to the rest of all-subject quizbowl rather than a complementary event?
This is an incoherent comment. What "alternate series of tournaments" am I "now running"? Do you mean the entirely all-subject USABB which you could say I'm "now running" since that just started in January? Or NHBB, which I've "been running" for 6 years - 5 of those while I've also personally funded and organized the National Quiz Bowl Awards. Furthermore, what bearing does that have on the National Quiz Bowl Awards anyway? If I were really trying to "compete" with all-subject quiz bowl, as opposed to being supportive of the community and help bring much-deserved recognition to some of the top players in the country, why on earth would I be doing this for quiz bowl (instead of, say, just history players)?
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by RexSueciae »

Great Bustard wrote:
Beatlefan11 wrote:
Great Bustard wrote:
bluejay123 wrote:
Great Bustard wrote:The nominating committee consisted of Niki Peters, Raynell Cooper, and David Madden.
And it's the National QUIZBOWL Awards? Kind of confused on how the nominating committee of NHBB folks extends to the entire realm of quizbowl, but ok.
Combined, Raynell, Niki, and I have over 25 years of involvement in quiz bowl, and don't forget that NHBB now runs the all-subject US Academic Bee and Bowl, so I think those are more than sufficient bona fides.
If anything, does the fact that you're now running an alternative series of tournaments and claiming dates for them that could be used for mainstream quizbowl events not suggest you are now a direct competitor to the rest of all-subject quizbowl rather than a complementary event?
This is an incoherent comment. What "alternate series of tournaments" am I "now running"? Do you mean the entirely all-subject USABB which you could say I'm "now running" since that just started in January? Or NHBB, which I've "been running" for 6 years - 5 of those while I've also personally funded and organized the National Quiz Bowl Awards. Furthermore, what bearing does that have on the National Quiz Bowl Awards anyway? If I were really trying to "compete" with all-subject quiz bowl, as opposed to being supportive of the community and help bring much-deserved recognition to some of the top players in the country, why on earth would I be doing this for quiz bowl (instead of, say, just history players)?
Actually, I've got a question about this.

Why were questions called "all buzz" and "team buzz" in your company's recent expansion to middle and elementary levels?

The above is one of many points raised in the other thread (which have thus far gone unanswered) but the reason I ask this again, here, is that the discussion has apparently turned once again to how NHBB competes with the mainstream quizbowl circuit. The fact that an official NHBB competition has evidently done away with the preferred terminology, to me, feels like the beginning of a formal divorce--after all, can an event even be considered quizbowl if it lacks "tossups" and "bonuses," one or both of which are generally required for an activity which is discussed on these boards? Your arguments that NHBB and its fast-multiplying slate of events aren't competing with quizbowl would hold more worth if NHBB itself weren't apparently shifting itself to the point where, by all standards, it would be a de facto "alternate series of tournaments." Maybe this wasn't, like, the actual intent of the terminology change, but nobody's popped online to say otherwise as of five minutes ago.

I also disagree that "some of the top players in the country" lack in recognition, given their tendency to 1) win tournaments, and 2) gain accolades that aren't sponsored by NHBB and which generally hold more prestige. Instead of throwing money at a selected minority of the community or creating yet another national championship, why not pursue geographical expansion? Though I would prefer that less volatile organizations make outreach efforts first, the entire of southeastern Virginia (Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Newport News, Hampton Roads), one of the most densely populated sections of the United States, lacks most quizbowl entirely (except perhaps a VHSL team or two and at least one school that made it onto Battle of the Brains, once). If NHBB could bring schools from that area into the fold (preferably into mainstream quizbowl events as well, not exclusively NHBB's private fiefdoms) then that would be an act with measurably positive long-term effects, and would gain NHBB considerable respectability.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by AZQuizbowl »

Great Bustard wrote:
Beatlefan11 wrote:
Great Bustard wrote:
bluejay123 wrote:
Great Bustard wrote:The nominating committee consisted of Niki Peters, Raynell Cooper, and David Madden.
And it's the National QUIZBOWL Awards? Kind of confused on how the nominating committee of NHBB folks extends to the entire realm of quizbowl, but ok.
Combined, Raynell, Niki, and I have over 25 years of involvement in quiz bowl, and don't forget that NHBB now runs the all-subject US Academic Bee and Bowl, so I think those are more than sufficient bona fides.
If anything, does the fact that you're now running an alternative series of tournaments and claiming dates for them that could be used for mainstream quizbowl events not suggest you are now a direct competitor to the rest of all-subject quizbowl rather than a complementary event?
This is an incoherent comment. What "alternate series of tournaments" am I "now running"? Do you mean the entirely all-subject USABB which you could say I'm "now running" since that just started in January? Or NHBB, which I've "been running" for 6 years - 5 of those while I've also personally funded and organized the National Quiz Bowl Awards. Furthermore, what bearing does that have on the National Quiz Bowl Awards anyway? If I were really trying to "compete" with all-subject quiz bowl, as opposed to being supportive of the community and help bring much-deserved recognition to some of the top players in the country, why on earth would I be doing this for quiz bowl (instead of, say, just history players)?
Because you like to think you're important/helping while ignoring what everyone else, including people who have done this longer than you, are saying.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Everything in the Whole Wide World »

Great Bustard wrote: This is an incoherent comment. What "alternate series of tournaments" am I "now running"? Do you mean the entirely all-subject USABB which you could say I'm "now running" since that just started in January? Or NHBB, which I've "been running" for 6 years - 5 of those while I've also personally funded and organized the National Quiz Bowl Awards. Furthermore, what bearing does that have on the National Quiz Bowl Awards anyway? If I were really trying to "compete" with all-subject quiz bowl, as opposed to being supportive of the community and help bring much-deserved recognition to some of the top players in the country, why on earth would I be doing this for quiz bowl (instead of, say, just history players)?
I refer here to USABB, which attempts to test students on all the same skills that all-subject quizbowl does, but does so without many of the standards outside of pyramidal questions. Good quizbowl is more, and good questions on all subjects does not always mean good quizbowl. One need not look farther than various wacky formats in various circuits that buy NAQT questions to see this. The continued strange behaviors seen at the collected tournaments under your umbrella, such as long delays, poorly trained staff, overcrowding of subject events that have at best received mixed reviews, and use of strange formats such as three-team matches dilute the product of good quizbowl if they are seen to be equivalent. These points are not new, but they bear repeating. Though the effort is appreciated, I don't think most in quizbowl would agree that past issues have been sufficiently addressed for you to speak for quizbowl with such authority, or for you to self-declare that USABB counts as good quizbowl until it has been proven a bit more.

I do think that your generous awards and prizes for high achievement at NHBB and the donations you've given are great. My concerns come from NHBB trying to act as the voice for something larger, or claiming to be larger than it is.
RexSueciae wrote:Why were questions called "all buzz" and "team buzz" in your company's recent expansion to middle and elementary levels?
This is also concerning and is another point of departure.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Great Bustard »

Regarding the radio silence vis a vis the middle school Nationals, from my end, that's largely because my operating agreement with ACE prevents me from commenting on things under their umbrella, namely the middle school and elementary school tournaments that ran entirely under ACE's auspices and which I had no control over once the operating agreement was signed. Certainly, ACE is welcome to comment from my end, if they wish - there's nothing in the operating agreement that prevents them from commenting. I do understand it's a confusing situation to try and parse what is under ACE's auspices (and thus what I can't comment on / don't have control over) and what is still under NHBB's auspices (and thus what I have total control over). I am looking into ways to clarify this for 2016-17, but haven't settled on any approach yet that I'm comfortable announcing.

As for Vasa's comment on geographic expansion, isn't that something that I/NHBB have done better and work harder at already than pretty much anyone ever? If you're talking NHBB/IHBB, just see http://www.ihbbglobal.com If you're talking all-subject quiz bowl, then doesn't setting up a whole new series of competitions (USABB) count, as well as running the largest tournaments to date for pyramidal quiz bowl in Asia and Europe? If you're referring to quiz bowl at the high school level in the US, as far as NHBB goes, we've had steady growth every year, and will be making a push to get a few new areas going for next year. For all-subject quiz bowl in the US at the high school level, there are plenty of other organizations working on that, and that's not where our comparative advantage is / where the biggest gaps are (when looking at the broader picture). As for "bringing teams into the fold" - each year there are more and more teams and players who first encounter pyramidal quiz bowl through NHBB and I've always encouraged players to branch out into all-subject quiz bowl. For Southeastern Virginia specifically, if you know of teams and coaches to reach out to, let me know, and I'll be happy to do that. Otherwise, we will likely be doing a Virginia-wide mailer in the early fall, so perhaps that will translate into a new NHBB circuit there.

On the matter of lacking recognition, since quiz bowl is primarily a team activity, there actually is a limited amount of recognition at the individual level. This is less of a concern within the community where saying something like, (this is a hypothetical example) being the second highest scorer on a team that finished in 6th place at NSC with 40ppg is understood (by at least some people, though no means everyone) in context, but try getting, say, a college admissions counselor, to make sense of that. Beyond that, is there really anything wrong with providing additional recognition?

Ben, your comments on USABB are, again, incoherent. USABB Nationals ran logistically very smoothly, everyone seemed to greatly enjoy the side events, and it very much is good, pryamidal quiz bowl by any definition. The biggest departure from the usual norms there is having 60 second rounds, but that's hardly enough to disqualify it from falling entirely under the heading of good quiz bowl. The 3 team issue is likewise, a minor thing that has been addressed to the nth degree elsewhere. The other stuff you mention is largely in reference to ACE-administered events which I won't comment on, or things you're blowing out of proportion and making sweeping claims on with no firsthand evidence of beyond one tournament you assisted with in January 2015 (which I ran, and ran very well, in fact). Again, none of this should have any bearing on the National Quiz Bowl Awards.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by RexSueciae »

To be blunt on the geographic expansion principle, I don't see the value of IHBB and its work. At best, you've created islands in the metaphorical sea which might or might not grow a self-sustaining community (but limited by factors like extreme distance from the nearest quizbowl or NHBB region, a dependence on English unless you've got an army of reliable translators, need for an altered subject distribution to account for local concentrations of knowledge). At worst, you've found a way to go on vacation and make a show of expanding the great enterprise to, I dunno, the Mekong River Delta, while NHBB and the community at large foot the bill (in terms of operating costs, the demand for location-specific questions, the demand for international championship questions, and so forth). I think that, if History Bowl as an activity is looking to make the most impact on more participation, it would be far more effective to target high-population areas like those I mentioned instead of grabbing impressive-sounding accolades for being the first to do quizbowl someplace across the world.

On recognition -- it's great, sure, but you're only bringing recognition to four high schoolers, one middle schooler, and two adults. The example of college admissions being something creating a demand for individual recognition in quizbowl therefore goes moot. If you think that awards for individual prowess are things that quizbowl needs, go ahead and declare that everybody who scores greater than 50 ppg is an "All-Star Player" so they can write that on their college applications. (When I applied to college, I wrote about the camaraderie and my responsibilities because that's the sort of things admissions officers go for, not so much about the awards I'd won or how high we'd placed.)

I have sincere doubts about the quality of USABB, given the base of writers that it draws from and the ever-increasing load that is being piled upon them. Every year, the NHBB machine comes out with a new side event, championship, or question set even in times of distress. I doubt I will be able to convince anybody to change this.

Now, on another note --
Great Bustard wrote:Regarding the radio silence vis a vis the middle school Nationals, from my end, that's largely because my operating agreement with ACE prevents me from commenting on things under their umbrella, namely the middle school and elementary school tournaments that ran entirely under ACE's auspices and which I had no control over once the operating agreement was signed. Certainly, ACE is welcome to comment from my end, if they wish - there's nothing in the operating agreement that prevents them from commenting. I do understand it's a confusing situation to try and parse what is under ACE's auspices (and thus what I can't comment on / don't have control over) and what is still under NHBB's auspices (and thus what I have total control over). I am looking into ways to clarify this for 2016-17, but haven't settled on any approach yet that I'm comfortable announcing.
:aaa:

What? So it's a NHBB event, run on NHBB questions, but it's under ACE's "auspices," and the head of NHBB can't even comment on this event because of an "operating agreement"? What kind of operating agreement contains a non-disclosure clause?

Since you say that you had "no control over" these events after singing this agreement, I presume that the "team buzz" and "all buzz" change happened after you signed over control? Also, since you have emphatically denied having anything to do with the middle and elementary school event with a tenacity that would have made Richard Nixon proud, why even have these events use the NHBB name?

Can you tell us at least which of your events you can and cannot comment upon? Also, can we seriously get someone from ACE here (or, rather, in the other thread) so that we can hear both sides of the story?
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by TheDoctor »

RexSueciae wrote:I have sincere doubts about the quality of USABB, given the base of writers that it draws from and the ever-increasing load that is being piled upon them.
Head editor for USABB here. The USABB writing pool isn't the same as the NHBB writing pool. The personnel and the program that we use are entirely separate from the NHBB production process.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

Given the growing organizational and conceptual separation between quizbowl* and History Bowl, and the continued disappointment on the part of many in quizbowl with various facets of History Bowl as currently put in practice, it doesn't strike me as odd that people are more frustrated now than they were in years past about NHBB taking it upon itself to issue "National Quizbowl Awards." As I wrote about at length a year ago, at the outset most of quizbowl was willing to welcome NHBB in as part of the broader quizbowl ecosystem, whereas more recently, many prominent quizbowl community members have had misgivings, and no longer see NHBB as having enough direct role in the day-to-day management of the quizbowl circuit to give awards to it. A plausible analogy here is if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (which gives out the Oscars) established and kept giving out the Tonys, claiming that film is just a kind of theater. It wouldn't be, like, unethical, but it'd seem like a strange assertion from without.

That said, I question the tactical effectiveness of airing every hitherto existing grievance against NHBB every time it does one odd thing.

*in this post I use this term to refer to "all-subject academic quizbowl"; I am aware of the line of reasoning that "as far as we're concerned, History Bowl is [a subspecies of] quizbowl," but engaging it again here seems unnecessary
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Cheynem »

I've proposed this in the staff forum, but maybe it's worth a proposal here.

Please note that I am not speaking for the chief admin or any other board staffer. This should not be considered an official policy or even a proposed one at this time.

With NHBB and its NHBB-affiliated crop of tournaments becoming larger and more diverse and as Matt alludes to, this "special relationship-bordering-on-uneasy" that NHBB has with quizbowl at large, perhaps it might be best to revise the NHBB presence on the Quizbowl Resource Center forums. Let me be clear that I'm not saying we should penalize Dave or NHBB, that the boards should take an official stance pro or against NHBB as a company or product, or that discussion of NHBB should be "banned."

Rather, I wonder if the somewhat byzantine subforum for NHBB and the almost moribund private discussion forums it maintains have run their course--in other words, perhaps NHBB could set up its own forum to make its own announcements and moderate its own discussions so that we don't have to keep dealing with either discussions like this or deal with the sense that NHBB is being "officially recognized" by its status on the boards. A few very broad threads "discuss NHBB" and the like could be maintained here, Dave could certainly do things like call for staff or writers here, but as NHBB continues to morph into an institution that takes a very very broad definition of what quizbowl is, maybe this is for the best for all parties. To put it another way, we don't ban talking about science bowl here but people don't post announcements about science bowl competitions. NHBB is much closer to quizbowl than science bowl is, but there are differences (in some cases, ones that appear to be pretty deep ones at least as some folks are concerned).

Thoughts?
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Lo, Marathon Ham! »

If the man wants to give out money, let him. Quiz Bowl is already so far lacking in monetary awards that I don't see this as a big issue. If your biggest problem was with the nominating committee or the people making selections, then I'm sure something could be reasoned out with NHBB so that they would still give out the awards but instead several of our overlords could make the award decisions instead. Everyone on this forum seems to want to attack NHBB every time they/he announce something. I agree that it may be time for NHBB to have its own forum.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Ndg »

Cheynem wrote:I've proposed this in the staff forum, but maybe it's worth a proposal here.

Please note that I am not speaking for the chief admin or any other board staffer. This should not be considered an official policy or even a proposed one at this time.

With NHBB and its NHBB-affiliated crop of tournaments becoming larger and more diverse and as Matt alludes to, this "special relationship-bordering-on-uneasy" that NHBB has with quizbowl at large, perhaps it might be best to revise the NHBB presence on the Quizbowl Resource Center forums. Let me be clear that I'm not saying we should penalize Dave or NHBB, that the boards should take an official stance pro or against NHBB as a company or product, or that discussion of NHBB should be "banned."

Rather, I wonder if the somewhat byzantine subforum for NHBB and the almost moribund private discussion forums it maintains have run their course--in other words, perhaps NHBB could set up its own forum to make its own announcements and moderate its own discussions so that we don't have to keep dealing with either discussions like this or deal with the sense that NHBB is being "officially recognized" by its status on the boards. A few very broad threads "discuss NHBB" and the like could be maintained here, Dave could certainly do things like call for staff or writers here, but as NHBB continues to morph into an institution that takes a very very broad definition of what quizbowl is, maybe this is for the best for all parties. To put it another way, we don't ban talking about science bowl here but people don't post announcements about science bowl competitions. NHBB is much closer to quizbowl than science bowl is, but there are differences (in some cases, ones that appear to be pretty deep ones at least as some folks are concerned).

Thoughts?
I have to agree with this. These discussions don't seem especially productive to me, seeing as it's the same few people making the same hyperbolic complaints every time, and in cases such as this one, many of the complaints have only the most tenuous connection to the topic at hand.

It seems clear that the larger quiz bowl community (at least in the context of these forums) no longer exerts much influence on NHBB and other "NHBB"-but-not-NHBB events. I won't make a judgement on whether that's a good or bad thing, if either. But I think that NHBB's activity here suggests a degree of closeness to, and a state of being answerable to, the quiz bowl community that NHBB/David clearly doesn't believe exists (again, leaving aside the issue of whether that's good or bad). To put it another way, there's an underlying disagreement about nature of the "special relationship." I doubt that these discussions are going to improve until this mismatch of assumptions is resolved. I doubt such a resolution is possible (or at least easily sustainable), which is why I think Mike's proposal is an excellent one.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by a Joe »

Cheynem wrote:I've proposed this in the staff forum, but maybe it's worth a proposal here.

Please note that I am not speaking for the chief admin or any other board staffer. This should not be considered an official policy or even a proposed one at this time.

With NHBB and its NHBB-affiliated crop of tournaments becoming larger and more diverse and as Matt alludes to, this "special relationship-bordering-on-uneasy" that NHBB has with quizbowl at large, perhaps it might be best to revise the NHBB presence on the Quizbowl Resource Center forums. Let me be clear that I'm not saying we should penalize Dave or NHBB, that the boards should take an official stance pro or against NHBB as a company or product, or that discussion of NHBB should be "banned."

Rather, I wonder if the somewhat byzantine subforum for NHBB and the almost moribund private discussion forums it maintains have run their course--in other words, perhaps NHBB could set up its own forum to make its own announcements and moderate its own discussions so that we don't have to keep dealing with either discussions like this or deal with the sense that NHBB is being "officially recognized" by its status on the boards. A few very broad threads "discuss NHBB" and the like could be maintained here, Dave could certainly do things like call for staff or writers here, but as NHBB continues to morph into an institution that takes a very very broad definition of what quizbowl is, maybe this is for the best for all parties. To put it another way, we don't ban talking about science bowl here but people don't post announcements about science bowl competitions. NHBB is much closer to quizbowl than science bowl is, but there are differences (in some cases, ones that appear to be pretty deep ones at least as some folks are concerned).

Thoughts?
I must dissent from this, as I feel this action is too drastic. My reasoning is that Dave seems to have a penchant for doing nutty things, like run far too many side-events or move outside the limits of "Good Quizbowl" with three-team matches or opponent selection and such. I feel that, despite these things, this community as a whole is somewhat of a "check" on Dave's nuttiness, and booting him from these boards will make it far, far worse. If we do, we may start to see a whole host of other ridiculous gimmicks that we would never even think of doing in the good Quizbowl world.

I think that these problems can be solved using a different approach. Perhaps, instead:
The people in this community should know that, should they continue to bash Dave, nothing good will occur, which not only is highly counter-productive but also puts Dave on the defensive;
Dave and NHBB should know that dodging questions, presenting crap arguments, and not consulting with a level-headed member of these boards before you make a drastic change (That's the key thing here, imo) makes life more difficult for all of us. To be blunt, there is a reason why the people on these boards (I.E. Charlie's post from back in the day) are so frustrated with you. I, too, am a businessman, and I do understand when I need to back the hell off of one of my ideas, even if I thought it was really good at the time.

Look, I feel like that's better than the current approach, and I strongly disagree with throwing NHBB off of these boards.

EDIT: Changed phrasing without changing content to avoid telling others how to post
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by AKKOLADE »

I'm a little surprised at the relatively low number of nominations DCC got.

Also removing NHBB from the forums is a really bad idea.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Cheynem »

Why do you think that, Fred?

Perhaps a #NHBBrexit vote? I kid.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by AKKOLADE »

Remind me and I'll add a long response, but I think its discussion on these boards is worthwhile, even if occasionally Dave Madden has to be yelled at to not do silly/bad things.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Cheynem »

Just to be clear, I think DISCUSSING NHBB would be fine, but that we'd get rid of the sub-forum.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Great Bustard »

I will have more to say later once I've recovered from 14 hours of flying to India on top of not having slept the prior evening, but one quick point - this thread should have been split ages ago, as virtually nothing here seems germane to the National Quiz Bowl Awards and my trying, in this particular case, to recognize achievement rather than get all worked up about the far broader argument of how NHBB fits into quizbowl. That's certainly a discussion worth having - it should be in a different thread though.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Great Bustard »

RexSueciae wrote:To be blunt on the geographic expansion principle, I don't see the value of IHBB and its work. At best, you've created islands in the metaphorical sea which might or might not grow a self-sustaining community (but limited by factors like extreme distance from the nearest quizbowl or NHBB region, a dependence on English unless you've got an army of reliable translators, need for an altered subject distribution to account for local concentrations of knowledge). At worst, you've found a way to go on vacation and make a show of expanding the great enterprise to, I dunno, the Mekong River Delta, while NHBB and the community at large foot the bill (in terms of operating costs, the demand for location-specific questions, the demand for international championship questions, and so forth). I think that, if History Bowl as an activity is looking to make the most impact on more participation, it would be far more effective to target high-population areas like those I mentioned instead of grabbing impressive-sounding accolades for being the first to do quizbowl someplace across the world.
Some values of IHBB and its work:
-Thousands of students internationally have gotten a chance to play a version of quiz bowl, and have enjoyed it (which is self-evident, given the amount of schools that are playing year after year, and the general increase in the number of competing teams). There's no compelling reason why quiz bowl / NHBB should be limited to solely students in the USA (which we haven't exactly ignored either in terms of outreach, growth, and creating new competition opportunities for age groups / geographic areas that don't have a full schedule of events already.)

-IHBB makes the International History Olympiad possible and a worthwhile event for many of the top US players - if it weren't for IHBB, there'd be no possibility of having a legitimate international championship level event that brings together the best students from both the US and around the world.

-Ultimately, IHBB will help bring all-subject quiz bowl and other subject specific competitions to students around the world by being a platform from which to build. As I've mentioned many times before, NHBB/IHBB has an advantage in that it's often easier for us to get an interested ear at a school by approaching its social studies dept. / history teachers than it would be if we were doing all-subject quiz bowl (since in that case, it's far less obvious to know who to reach out to at a school that isn't yet competing). This approach is already bearing fruit in Europe and Asia through our championship level tournaments there which feature the Geography Bee of Asia/Europe and the Academic Bowl of Asia/Europe.

-IHBB far from being a drain on resources, is itself sustainable, completely independent of NHBB at this point. This is due to the fact that we're getting solid turnouts at our championship level events, the Olympiad, and many of the larger regionals. NHBB helped IHBB get started in a sense, but IHBB is itself now self-sustaining, and in turn, the larger IHBB circuits (Hong Kong, Switzerland, Sweden, Tokyo, Toronto, Singapore, etc.) are now helping us continue to grow in new cities and countries.

Beyond that, your worst case scenarios are rather inaccurate. Neither my wife nor I have had a day off since last August - we worked a few hours on Christmas too. We do this because we love what we do and thousands of people around the world see the value in it and appreciate it even if you are unable to. When we're abroad, 95% of our time is spent at hotels, schools, and airports. I also don't buy the argument about there being a huge drain on community resources. What events aren't happening because people are writing for IHO / IHBB instead? There was a near-negligible number of location specific questions written this year, of which Brad Fischer and I probably wrote the bulk, except for the Canada-specific content, which Canadian quiz bowlers were happy to help with. The championship events in Asia and Europe were largely just drawn from US Nationals questions that Brad and I edited as needed. Meanwhile, the fact that people are able to get paid writing for IHBB / IHO (especially in a relatively down time in the calendar like right now) helps people fund their own participation in the coming year.
RexSueciae wrote:On recognition -- it's great, sure, but you're only bringing recognition to four high schoolers, one middle schooler, and two adults. The example of college admissions being something creating a demand for individual recognition in quizbowl therefore goes moot.
There are over two dozen people nominated above, and I tend to doubt any of them see this as a negative thing (nominations alone are a form of recognition, of course too). Also, college admissions is only one small part of this (and obviously a moot point for the coaches). It's rather a matter of recognizing individuals in an activity that's largely team based. Virtually every team sport has some version of a set of awards for individuals at the end of the year - there's no compelling reason why quiz bowl should somehow not have this.
RexSueciae wrote:If you think that awards for individual prowess are things that quizbowl needs, go ahead and declare that everybody who scores greater than 50 ppg is an "All-Star Player" so they can write that on their college applications. (When I applied to college, I wrote about the camaraderie and my responsibilities because that's the sort of things admissions officers go for, not so much about the awards I'd won or how high we'd placed.)
Admissions officers certainly care about academic competition accolades, and in my opinion and I'm sure this is widely shared, should care more about them. That and leadership positions are hardly at odds with each other - obviously leadership positions are important too, but isn't some zero sum game.
RexSueciae wrote:I have sincere doubts about the quality of USABB, given the base of writers that it draws from and the ever-increasing load that is being piled upon them.
Kristin already responded on this, but if you want to see for yourself, have a look at the USABB Regionals set at: http://www.usacademicbowl.com/about/training-resources/
Like any set, I'm sure there are things that can be improved upon, but across 9 regional competitions, we got very few (if any) complaints, and many people indicated to us they liked the new format.
RexSueciae wrote:Every year, the NHBB machine comes out with a new side event, championship, or question set even in times of distress. I doubt I will be able to convince anybody to change this.
You're correct there.
RexSueciae wrote: What? So it's a NHBB event, run on NHBB questions, but it's under ACE's "auspices," and the head of NHBB can't even comment on this event because of an "operating agreement"? What kind of operating agreement contains a non-disclosure clause?
It's not an NHBB event at the moment, it's an ACE event. It's not run on NHBB questions; ACE was fully responsible for question production. Many operating agreements and similar contracts contain clauses that limit the ability for one organization to comment on another, since otherwise that could be mutually harmful not to mention confusing, since it would lead to even greater confusion about who is speaking for whom.
RexSueciae wrote:Since you say that you had "no control over" these events after singing this agreement, I presume that the "team buzz" and "all buzz" change happened after you signed over control?
Yes, that is correct.
RexSueciae wrote:Also, since you have emphatically denied having anything to do with the middle and elementary school event with a tenacity that would have made Richard Nixon proud, why even have these events use the NHBB name?
They are called the National History Bee and National History Bowl because that is how people have always known them, and after 2019, whether or not the operating agreement is extended and/or modified, I wish to see them retain those names. It also helps ensure that students who begin competing in these events at the elementary and middle school level are aware of the existence of the Varsity and Junior Varsity division and can continue competing at that level too when they reach it (or earlier, if they so choose).
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Great Bustard »

Adventure Temple Trail wrote:Given the growing organizational and conceptual separation between quizbowl* and History Bowl, and the continued disappointment on the part of many in quizbowl with various facets of History Bowl as currently put in practice, it doesn't strike me as odd that people are more frustrated now than they were in years past about NHBB taking it upon itself to issue "National Quizbowl Awards." As I wrote about at length a year ago, at the outset most of quizbowl was willing to welcome NHBB in as part of the broader quizbowl ecosystem, whereas more recently, many prominent quizbowl community members have had misgivings, and no longer see NHBB as having enough direct role in the day-to-day management of the quizbowl circuit to give awards to it. A plausible analogy here is if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (which gives out the Oscars) established and kept giving out the Tonys, claiming that film is just a kind of theater. It wouldn't be, like, unethical, but it'd seem like a strange assertion from without.

That said, I question the tactical effectiveness of airing every hitherto existing grievance against NHBB every time it does one odd thing.

*in this post I use this term to refer to "all-subject academic quizbowl"; I am aware of the line of reasoning that "as far as we're concerned, History Bowl is [a subspecies of] quizbowl," but engaging it again here seems unnecessary
This post misses the broader point. Over the past year, NHBB (meaning the organization I lead, not the two competitions known as the National History Bee and the National History Bowl) has drawn itself closer to all-subject quiz bowl through the launch of USABB and the Academic Bowl of Europe and Academic Bowl of Asia. Furthermore, I've continued to mention in any of number of places that I, at least, see NHBB as a vital member of the quiz bowl community (and ideally, as a conduit for new players to approach quiz bowl - Eric Xu and Eric Wolfsberg being two of just many players who have come into quiz bowl through competing first in NHBB events). Again, I think it's important to disaggregate ACE and NHBB here.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Great Bustard »

Cheynem wrote:I've proposed this in the staff forum, but maybe it's worth a proposal here.

Please note that I am not speaking for the chief admin or any other board staffer. This should not be considered an official policy or even a proposed one at this time.

With NHBB and its NHBB-affiliated crop of tournaments becoming larger and more diverse and as Matt alludes to, this "special relationship-bordering-on-uneasy" that NHBB has with quizbowl at large, perhaps it might be best to revise the NHBB presence on the Quizbowl Resource Center forums. Let me be clear that I'm not saying we should penalize Dave or NHBB, that the boards should take an official stance pro or against NHBB as a company or product, or that discussion of NHBB should be "banned."

Rather, I wonder if the somewhat byzantine subforum for NHBB and the almost moribund private discussion forums it maintains have run their course--in other words, perhaps NHBB could set up its own forum to make its own announcements and moderate its own discussions so that we don't have to keep dealing with either discussions like this or deal with the sense that NHBB is being "officially recognized" by its status on the boards. A few very broad threads "discuss NHBB" and the like could be maintained here, Dave could certainly do things like call for staff or writers here, but as NHBB continues to morph into an institution that takes a very very broad definition of what quizbowl is, maybe this is for the best for all parties. To put it another way, we don't ban talking about science bowl here but people don't post announcements about science bowl competitions. NHBB is much closer to quizbowl than science bowl is, but there are differences (in some cases, ones that appear to be pretty deep ones at least as some folks are concerned).

Thoughts?
NHBB as an organization certainly oversees some things (for example, many of the component events of the International History Olympiad) that are not quiz bowl-related - I'm not denying that. Having said that, there are, at a quick glance, something close to 20,000 or more separate views on posts in the NHBB subforum, nearly all of which are from members of the quiz bowl community. Beyond that, I think I agree with what Fred was going at, in the sense that despite the frequent hyperbole, there is value that both NHBB and the broader community gain from the discussions that do occur. The post-Nationals discussions in particular are valuable for me to get new ideas - witness my decision to try a double elimination format next year at the National History Bowl Varsity National Championships.
Also, the overlap in terms of those who compete in History Bowl vis a vis quiz bowl (nearly every top quiz bowl program in the country has competed in NHBB events at some point, and most do so each year) is so vastly greater than it is for Science Bowl that that too is an argument for why discussion of NHBB on the forums is worthwhile. If there's one major issue I have with discussion of NHBB on the forums, it's that dozens of people I speak to each year (and no doubt this is true for many who don't say it to me as well explicitly) is that while overall, things have improved in recent years, the tone of discussion on the forums is still often hostile to dissenting views, and not welcoming. To be clear, that's what people are telling me - that's not necessarily my own view, though I do think that there is a bit of truth in this. In any case, arguing whether is true or not somewhat misses the point, since if this is what people are thinking, then that alone is creating a problem.
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Re: 2016 National Quiz Bowl Awards: Nominees Up, Vote Thru 6

Post by Whiter Hydra »

Cheynem wrote:I've proposed this in the staff forum, but maybe it's worth a proposal here.

Please note that I am not speaking for the chief admin or any other board staffer. This should not be considered an official policy or even a proposed one at this time.

With NHBB and its NHBB-affiliated crop of tournaments becoming larger and more diverse and as Matt alludes to, this "special relationship-bordering-on-uneasy" that NHBB has with quizbowl at large, perhaps it might be best to revise the NHBB presence on the Quizbowl Resource Center forums. Let me be clear that I'm not saying we should penalize Dave or NHBB, that the boards should take an official stance pro or against NHBB as a company or product, or that discussion of NHBB should be "banned."

Rather, I wonder if the somewhat byzantine subforum for NHBB and the almost moribund private discussion forums it maintains have run their course--in other words, perhaps NHBB could set up its own forum to make its own announcements and moderate its own discussions so that we don't have to keep dealing with either discussions like this or deal with the sense that NHBB is being "officially recognized" by its status on the boards. A few very broad threads "discuss NHBB" and the like could be maintained here, Dave could certainly do things like call for staff or writers here, but as NHBB continues to morph into an institution that takes a very very broad definition of what quizbowl is, maybe this is for the best for all parties. To put it another way, we don't ban talking about science bowl here but people don't post announcements about science bowl competitions. NHBB is much closer to quizbowl than science bowl is, but there are differences (in some cases, ones that appear to be pretty deep ones at least as some folks are concerned).

Thoughts?
Given the recent ethically repugnant issues that have surfaced regarding NHBB, perhaps it might not be a bad idea to revisit this suggestion.
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Re: NHBB, the Community, and the Forums

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

We are indeed discussing this at the moment, and have been for days.
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Re: NHBB, the Community, and the Forums

Post by Ike »

Auks Ran Ova wrote:We are indeed discussing this at the moment, and have been for days.
Is there a place where various members of the community who are not board staff can publicly or privately drop off their two-cents?
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Re: NHBB, the Community, and the Forums

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Ike wrote:
Auks Ran Ova wrote:We are indeed discussing this at the moment, and have been for days.
Is there a place where various members of the community who are not board staff can publicly or privately drop off their two-cents?
Please feel free to PM or email me.
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Re: NHBB, the Community, and the Forums

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Here's a post regarding the legal segments of the latest flare-up. More updates coming soon.
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Re: NHBB, the Community, and the Forums

Post by apk1741 »

NHBB should make a US Politics Bee, it'd be really interesting and fun.

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Re: NHBB, the Community, and the Forums

Post by anageswaran »

apk1741 wrote:NHBB should make a US Politics Bee, it'd be really interesting and fun.
I agree, but I'm not sure if this forum is the right place to post that.

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