ATTN R. Robert Hentzel

[Auroni]

please email me immediately and explain why you were negotiating providing UCSD with NAQT questions for intramural use without even notifying me, the specified contact on the Maize Pages for the school, and the figure generally understood as the guy who should be in the know for anything relating to quizbowl and UCSD.

[STPickrell]

You may also want to talk to your teammates and/or the entity at UCSD that was on the other end of these negotiations.

[Maxwell Sniffingwell]

You may also want to talk to your teammates and/or the entity at UCSD that was on the other end of these negotiations.

It would be safe to assume that he has, yes?

[kevinatcausa]

During my time at UCSD (2003-2006), the Quiz Bowl club and the annual intramural Quiz Bowl event were completely separate entities, and the intramurals were around long before any sort of club was.

Assuming it's the same people, you may want to try working with them instead of saying they have to go through you.

[Matt Weiner]

During my time at UCSD (2003-2006), the Quiz Bowl club and the annual intramural Quiz Bowl event were completely separate entities, and the intramurals were around long before any sort of club was.

Assuming it's the same people, you may want to try working with them instead of saying they have to go through you.

I think we have a right to expect NAQT not to behave the same way College Bowl did.

[vandyhawk]

During my time at UCSD (2003-2006), the Quiz Bowl club and the annual intramural Quiz Bowl event were completely separate entities, and the intramurals were around long before any sort of club was.

Assuming it's the same people, you may want to try working with them instead of saying they have to go through you.

Vandy had something like this for a while too. There was some student group that purchased NAQT IM questions to use as an on-campus, fundraising intramural tournament. I don't see any harm in that kind of thing, assuming they are indeed separate entities like Kevin said.

[cvdwightw]

My guess is that NAQT probably sent something out to a list of old CBI contacts, and UCSD's old CBI contact responded.

Intramural tournaments run by people other than the quizbowl club are nothing new; which is kind of sad because it's typically the quizbowl club people who know what they're doing. There were several lowlights from my "career" in UCLA ORL's "Dorm College Bowl" tournament, as one would expect from a bizarre tournament where QU questions, NAQT tossups, and single NAQT bonus parts are used indiscriminately as both 10 point tossups and 20 point, single-part bonuses.

I don't think the issue is that someone other than the club is running the tournament; the issue is that NAQT (knowingly or unknowingly) tried to run the tournament without the knowledge of the people who would most benefit from the tournament. Seeing as UCSD is a relatively new club that could greatly benefit from using the tournament as a recruiting tool.

[fleurdelivre]

I don't think the issue is that someone other than the club is running the tournament; the issue is that NAQT (knowingly or unknowingly) tried to run the tournament without the knowledge of the people who would most benefit from the tournament. Seeing as UCSD is a relatively new club that could greatly benefit from using the tournament as a recruiting tool.

Yeah, but the way to do that isn't getting angry and demanding that the question vendor report only to you; it's contacting the intramural people and building a friendly relationship with them. As frustrating as this dual system might be, expecting NAQT to defer to the authority of the quiz bowl team in these cases is ridiculous (unless the intramural people are in direct competition with the quiz bowl program and could be reasonably presented as a threat to the team's funding/status).

[Auroni]

I received an email response from him:

Auroni --

Actually, the answer is pretty simple: It never occurred to us that
there were two separate quiz bowl groups on campus; we assumed that
you had been in contact with the existing student activities people.
This was reinforced by the fact that we got your EF list information
shortly after they contacted us to buy questions. We figured that it
was partly your influence that swung them to start using NAQT.

Had we know that you and the campus activities people were unaware of
each other, we would certainly have passed along contact information
to both of you; we've done that in the past with other universities.
I'm sorry that we didn't know to do that and am glad that you found
out about each other through other channels.

I would like to think that this goes without saying, but NAQT has no
policy (and no interest) in trying to keep on-campus programs and quiz
bowl teams separate. We think it's in everybody's interest to work
together to promote quiz bowl and we hope that you are able to lend
your expertise to UCSD's intramurals.

-- R. Robert Hentzel
President and Chief Technical Officer,
National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC

[Matt Weiner]

I'm sure Auroni can speak for himself as to what his feelings are about this situation in general now that R. has replied, but it should be noted that he was in contact with the IM group and trying to work with them to recruit people out of their tournament and make sure it was run properly, from as soon as he heard about this event. Jumping to conclusions about how UCSD's quizbowl club is handling this is unwise.

[JackGlerum]

Is calling someone out and then posting their e-mail response really necessary? I feel like this whole thread is a private affair conducted on a not-very-private forum.

[Auroni]

yeah, I agree, let's shut this down. It's outlived its usefulness.