NAQT distribution change for 2011-12

[Important Bird Area]

This is your thread to discuss "how should NAQT consider changing its distribution for next year's sets?"

The distribution we used for the 2011 SCT and ICT can be seen here.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

It may be minor, but I would consider adding an additional 1/1 or so to the computer games section and taking something away from, say, TV any time, just to modernize the tournament a little bit. I find most quizbowl players these days are more likely to be playing a video game in their spare time and not watching a rerun of TV show from the 1970s or 1980s. Video games are big these days, maybe they're worth 2/2 or 3/3 in the pop culture category. Also in the science portion, maybe you should consider giving computer science a 1/1 or 2/2 bump up or something by taking 1/1 or 2/2 away from miscellaneous science or something along those lines. What comprises miscellaneous science at any rate?

[Cody]

I find most quizbowl players these days are more likely to be playing a video game in their spare time and not watching a rerun of TV show from the 1970s or 1980s.

I find most quizbowl players these days are more likely to be watching TV in their spare time than playing videos games from the 1990s.

I am also curious what makes up Misc Science, and would be in favor of penalizing that in favor of CS.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

I find most quizbowl players these days are more likely to be playing a video game in their spare time and not watching a rerun of TV show from the 1970s or 1980s.

I find most quizbowl players these days are more likely to be watching TV in their spare time than playing videos games from the 1990s.

I am also curious what makes up Misc Science, and would be in favor of penalizing that in favor of CS.

The argument that I made was referring to much older television programs that sometimes come up at these tournaments.

[Cody]

The argument that I made was referring to much older television programs that sometimes come up at these tournaments.

The argument that I made was referring to much older video games that sometimes come up at these tournaments.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

The argument that I made was referring to much older television programs that sometimes come up at these tournaments.

The argument that I made was referring to much older video games that sometimes come up at these tournaments.

In turn, you make my point stronger without meaning to do so. The older video games that NAQT chooses to write about are usually no more than 10-15 years old, which means that a good percentage of the quizbowl population had a chance to play them as a child, whereas television programs have been around for a lot longer and some of the topics which NAQT asks from sometimes come from shows that aired before quite a bit of the current quizbowl-playing population were born. My suggestion is to perhaps eliminate the particular 1/1 that NAQT may assign to that in favor of something more modern and accessible to the field.

[Papa's in the House]

As much as I love the Pop Culture/Sports, I think this should probably set to 1/1 therefore probably letting there be more Fine Arts or Mythology, perhaps?

This, and...

And perhaps reduce the general knowledge distribution as well. I don't see a reason why NAQT should distinguish between "general" knowledge and other types of trash when making its distribution and should accordingly limit the trash distribution in its entirety.

this.

EDIT:

the older video games that NAQT chooses to write about are usually no more than 10-15 years old, which means that a good percentage of the quizbowl population had a chance to play them as a child

Not everybody is as old as you are and I very much doubt a great many of current quiz bowl players played video games when they were 5 years old or younger.

[jonah]

Misc Science consists of more of any specific science category, or things that don't fit neatly into a single science category.

Examples of the latter type of question from this year's ICT include a bonus on scientific things that can be classified as category 5 (hurricanes, Ethernet, pandemics); a common-link tossup on the word "cyclic"; a tossup on scientists surnamed Muller; a bonus on different types of stability; a bonus on the work of the Kruskal family; a bonus on kinetic effects; a tossup on electric current that covered biology, astronomy, and physics; and a tossup classified as "technology" on aerogels.

[Cheynem]

I'm not saying too many questions on old video games or TV shows or whatnot are a good idea, but the advent of technology (emulators, DVD's, Hulu, Netflix, Youtube) makes it easier for people to be exposed to older forms of popular culture that they did not necessarily grow up with.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

the older video games that NAQT chooses to write about are usually no more than 10-15 years old, which means that a good percentage of the quizbowl population had a chance to play them as a child

Not everybody is as old as you are and I very much doubt a great many of current quiz bowl players played video games when they were 5 years old or younger.

I'm old now. Thanks a bunch. While what you say is most probably true, it's at least an equally true statement when applied to TV, hence the suggestion. There's currently 5/6 for TV and 2/3 is dedicated to "any time" whereas there's only 1/1 for all video games. What I'm saying is that part of the ancient TV distribution (say 1/1) can be replaced by video games, hence creating a 2/2 video game distribution, 1/1 which may be modern and 1/1 older stuff, for instance. This would make for a 1/2 distribution for old TV an 1/1 for old video games. I'm not arguing that video games need to have a larger distribution than TV. What I'm saying is that the entirety of video games deserves to account for more than 40% of the what the old TV distribution accounts for, which is what it accounts for now. Not the TV distribution, the old TV distribution. I argue for a more even distribution between the subtopics. In addition, I don't think anyone thinks old TV deserves to have more of the canon dedicated to it than archaeology but right now that's the case. Maybe TV in general, but not a subcategory of TV. I think we'll agree that the fact that there's a 2/3 old TV distribution as opposed to a 3/3 computer science distribution is a little silly, though.

[cvdwightw]

Man, the very first reply to this topic and there's already an argument about a trash subdistribution. That's a record even by the standards of modern discourse. And Jake doesn't even have his facts right!

Anyway, to give this post actual substance, I'd like to see the mixed-impure-academic distribution gone. Unlike other people, I don't think I'd have a problem if NAQT wants to move those question allotments into the general Mixed/GK category, but I don't like the idea of enforcing a minimum quota on the number of questions that have to be part-academic part-trash.

[Important Bird Area]

I'd like to see the mixed-impure-academic distribution gone. Unlike other people, I don't think I'd have a problem if NAQT wants to move those question allotments into the general Mixed/GK category, but I don't like the idea of enforcing a minimum quota on the number of questions that have to be part-academic part-trash.

For the record, this isn't really how it works: the "mixed-impure-academic" is a cap, not a requirement. So mixed-pure-academic questions can fill needs in impure-academic or in GK.

[Adventure Temple Trail]

I'd like to see the mixed-impure-academic distribution gone. Unlike other people, I don't think I'd have a problem if NAQT wants to move those question allotments into the general Mixed/GK category, but I don't like the idea of enforcing a minimum quota on the number of questions that have to be part-academic part-trash.

For the record, this isn't really how it works: the "mixed-impure-academic" is a cap, not a requirement. So mixed-pure-academic questions can fill needs in impure-academic or in GK.

Since this is true, then literally nothing bad would happen if the Mixed_Impure_Academic cap were ratcheted to 0/0, eliminating it altogether. That way, some of the Mixed distribution could be reshuffled to bump up other subjects or they could stay as mixed as they were before -- regardless, a better tournament would result!

More idle speculation: Given that the reduction from 26/26 to 24/24 per packet seemed to make HSNCT more writable and reduced the distributional issues resulting from not getting through the entire packet, does it make sense to have that occur to DI SCT and ICT as well?

[Important Bird Area]

More idle speculation: Given that the reduction from 26/26 to 24/24 per packet seemed to make HSNCT more writable and reduced the distributional issues resulting from not getting through the entire packet, does it make sense to have that occur to DI SCT and ICT as well?

We are seriously considering this change for SCT and ICT.

[Kyle]

I know I post this every time we have this discussion, but that isn't going to stop me from posting again!

I think the percentage of history that is "world" history should be increased. It now stands at 0.9/0.9 per packet; it seems simple enough to bring that up to a full 1/1 so that we can expect a little world history in every packet. Note that this is still a much lower percentage of world history than PACE or ACF because NAQT has more questions in a round.

(I know somebody is going to point out that the separate 2/1 Non-American-Non-European history category is not technically classified under "world" history and thus makes the amount of world history higher than 0.9/0.9, but that is balanced out by the fact that 1/1 Canadian history is classified as world history, which I find kind of silly because there is no way to make the argument that Canadian history is non-Western)

[eliza.grames]

Ecology should be included. Granted there is "Organismal Population Biology" but that doesn't take into account ecosystem interactions, which aren't really earth science either.

Mythology is way too focused on Classical Myth. Egyptian and Norse should get a little more emphasis, and Mesoamerican should at least get something.

As far as pop culture goes, I think there's too much sports, but I guess a lot of people actually like those. What is the difference between "PC Other" and "PC Misc" though?

[Mechanical Beasts]

As far as pop culture goes, I think there's too much sports, but I guess a lot of people actually like those. What is the difference between "PC Other" and "PC Misc" though?

Like the other "misc" categories" "misc" means "more of any of the other categories." Other, in my understanding, excludes the already-enumerated categories.

[Important Bird Area]

Mesoamerican is in there. (The line marked "Americas Myth", which tends "usually Aztec, with slight chance of Popol Vuh, Incan myth, Native North American myth, or American frontier folklore")

The Organismal/Population Biology subdistribution allows Ecology questions.

PC Other is for the minor pop culture forms that aren't significant enough to have mandatory minima. (The current options: food and drink, boardgames, internet phenomena, celebrities, radio, advertising, fashion)

PC Miscellaneous is (like the rest of the "miscellaneous" sections throughout the distribution) a catch-all for any extra question in the broader category (so a question filling one of these needs could be tv, music, movies, or one of the smaller subcategories).

[eliza.grames]

I suppose Mesoamerican would be included in American (I think of it as a distinct category from North American and Inuit mythology). I still think there's too much emphasis on classical myth though; the other categories should get more attention.

What I think is the problem with only having 1/0 East Asian is that you can almost guarantee it's going to be either Susanoo or Amaterasu, a lot of which are the same clues. It's unlikely that anyone will choose to write on Pan Gu or Guanyin, who are equally important. Similarly with Americas, it's going to be Crow, Coyote, Tezcatlipoca, or Quetzalcoatl and Mesopotamian is Ishtar. Granted, I'm generalizing, but it seems like with such a small distribution for them, people will pick the most obvious answer lines and expect that to be the only thing people know from that region.

As far as I can tell, there isn't even a category for Hindu/Indian mythology, unless it goes under Nonclassical Myth.

[Important Bird Area]

Hindu myth indeed falls into non-classical, but it's probably a good idea to split it out into a subcategory of its own (as we do for HSNCT).