Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

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Important Bird Area
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Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Important Bird Area »

I'm thinking about running an experimental all-geography tournament sometime late next spring.

Reasoning: I've always wanted to play an all-geography event, but no one (to my knowledge) has ever written one. So, I thought I'd step up and offer to run the thing myself. That being said, I still want to play, so this will have a few changes from other recent subject tournaments.

Here's the idea: packet submission, guerrilla-style all-geography tossup-only rounds, to be held sometime around HSNCT (not conflicting with Gaddis, obviously). I'll write a distribution, some guidelines, and a packet. Other people who are interested in playing write their packets. An odd number of teams (5, 7, or 9 sounds plausible) then play a round-robin to determine the Ultimate Geography Champion.

So, post in this thread if you:

A. ... are a person or entity interested in playing in an event like this. If a sufficiently large field actually materializes, I will at some point ask people to commit to writing packets.

B ... are interested in providing a freelance finals packet to resolve circles of death. This would be terrific if someone volunteers, but it's probably not strictly necessary. If need be I could recuse myself and write a second packet.

C. ... think this is a terrible idea for some quizbowl-theoretic reason I failed to outline above.

Comments?
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by grapesmoker »

I see we have finally emerged on the other side of the rabbit hole.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by No Rules Westbrook »

Notwithstanding the truth of Jerry's rabbit hole observation, I would provisionally be willing to write a packet for and participate in this event.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by cchiego »

Definitely in and willing to show that geography can be both well-written and interesting. I might not be able to make it to a mirror site, but I want to at least send in a packet.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Matt Weiner »

Would this be strict atlas-style geography, or would it allow Meigs/Meade-style questions that happen to be on places but might include the occasional cultural or historical clue?
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by swwFCqb »

I'd play this if it took place at the HSNCT.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by MiltonPlayer47 »

As probably the only person on this board who is a Geography major, I'd be willing to write/play.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Ondes Martenot »

If this occured at HSNCT I'd definitely be interested
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by ... and the chaos of Mexican modernity »

If this was at HSNCT, I would most definitely play without a doubt.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Maxwell Sniffingwell »

MiltonPlayer47 wrote:Geography major.
Really? What's that like?
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Eärendil »

I would love to play in this tournament.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

I would maybe learn things from moderating. But playing would be hilarious because my geography knowledge consists of world capitals plus a little bit of miscellany.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by MiltonPlayer47 »

cornfused wrote:
MiltonPlayer47 wrote:Geography major.
Really? What's that like?
This semester I took Cartography and Geography of Latin America. In Cartography I sat at a computer and made maps. In the lecture we learned about the science behind making maps.

Geography of Latin America focused on discussing issues that affect that region. We didn't really do anything where we actually had to know where places are located. That seems to be more of an underlying concept that we're expected to be familiar with already. Tomorrow I get to present a powerpoint about the effects of drug production in the Andes.

I also have to take a couple of climatology classes, since I am going for a B.S. Next semester I am taking Satellite Climatology, Computer Programming for G.I.S., and Urban Geography.

Didn't mean to get off track but I thought I should briefly answer the question.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by The Goffman Prophecies »

I was a GIS major for two semesters - this should be fun. I'd enjoy playing it.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Important Bird Area »

Matt Weiner wrote:Would this be strict atlas-style geography, or would it allow Meigs/Meade-style questions that happen to be on places but might include the occasional cultural or historical clue?
It will certainly be the latter (as is my own preference). That being said, we're talking about 20-tossup all-geography rounds, so there will be plenty of clue space to delight the most atlas-addicted players out there.

I count eight people who've expressed interest, so it sounds like we have enough people to make this work, maybe even as a doubles event, which would reduce the writing burden on individuals.

Sometime in the next couple of days I'll put together a distribution and post it here for discussion.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Strongside »

I have interest in playing in this tournament. I don't know if I will be at HSNCT, but this is a cool idea.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by cvdwightw »

I would have interest in playing this, but no confidence in my geography writing abilities. As such, I would prefer it to be a doubles event.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by evilmonkey »

I suppose I'll either play this or read for it, since I'll almost certainly make it up for HSNCT.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Quantum Mushroom Billiard Hat »

I would certainly like to play or read.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by fleurdelivre »

I'll assist, and if you'd like it to be at least lightly edited (duplicates, grammar, etc), I'd be happy to do that. I couldn't do anything more in-depth, but if it might still be useful...
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by pray for elves »

I would play this.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Auroni »

I'll read this.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Maxwell Sniffingwell »

If it's at HSNCT, I'll read for this.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by ClemsonQB »

I would love to play this, but under the very likely circumstances that I won't be able to do so, I would be interested in serving as the editor of the tournament.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by canaanbananarama »

Jeff,

I just sent you a message on Facebook, but wasn't aware of the existence of this thread. Have you come up with a distribution yet-I'm very curious to see it.

That being said, I'm going to try my darnedest to get some vacation time that would allow me to spend a couple of weeks in California and go to HSNCT, either directly from Kiev or from LA, depending on my work schedule. I would really like to play in this tournament and by that time, I won't have been in the States for ~ 1 year, so my family would probably appreciate me coming and visiting.

I would suggest that this be run after Gaddis (I will recklessly abandon any plans to organize a social event in favor of geography), even considering that Gaddis will probably run until 11 PM. An all night geography marathon would be much more interesting to me than sleep, and I can moderate on little or no sleep on Sunday. Another option would be Friday night, after the scrimmage rounds-this might be slightly more palatable and from my experience, the scrimmage games seem to break up before the scheduled end (10:00, right?) and the field could probably be organized at something like 9, pending NAQT's permission. I don't think all of NAQT's scrimmage moderating contingent will want to play this, so starting at 9 or so would probably not disrupt the scrimmages. I actually do try to do as many scrimmages as I can, and I often find myself released from duty at like 8:30 because there's just more moderators than HS teams that want to scrimmage.

Also, in terms of players: Peter Austin and Kyle Haddad-Fonda, where are you? Go to HSNCT, get your free trip to Chicago, and play this. And even though the tournament would likely end at 2 AM or later, what better practice could you have for NAQT HSNCT, famed for its high geography content, than this tournament, Henry Gorman? I also encourage other interested high school players to play, although I don't know that this could be run at a time that would allow this tournament to get done at anywhere near a reasonable hour of the night, what with Gaddis presumably having the post-HSNCT slot locked up, and given that tournament director's notoriously slow way of running tournaments.

Charles

Also, I'll just add a list of people who expressed interest in this thread:

Players:
Ryan Westbrook (packet)
Jeff Hop-pes (packet)
Charles Meigs (packet)
Chris Chiego (packet)
Steven Wellstead
Steven Hanley (packet)
Aaron Cohen
Zach Foster
Arnav Moudgil
Dan Goff
Brendan Byrne
Dwight Wynne
Michael Hausinger
Bryce Durgin
Evan Nagler (packet, come on)

Moderators:
Andy Watkins
Auroni Gupta
Greg Peterson

Likely (?) Editor:
George Stevens

Copy Editor/Proofreader (?):
Katy Peters

At this point, it looks like you will need to make it a doubles tournament (possibly trios, since this is so preliminary). Given the possibility of a paucity of good geography players, I'd suggest that no superteams be formed. That being said, I will offer my tentative open spot on my team to Dwight, since you don't want to write a packet and since I love you.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Important Bird Area »

Friday night is a lot more likely than late Saturday-into Sunday morning. I think I would enjoy playing the tournament a lot more if I were actually awake, never mind that I would like to moderate coherently and/or search for the Prothonotary Warbler Sunday morning.

The first priority is of course to coordinate with Jonathan so there's no overlap with Gaddis II.

There's enough interest that I fully support people creating doubles teams, or even regular four-player teams as long as we can balance a field. I'm not really worried about superteams, given the proposed extreme difficulty level.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Kyle »

canaanbananarama wrote:Kyle Haddad-Fonda, where are you?
Bring it on, Charles.
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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by Captain Sinico »

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Re: Interest check: experimental all-geography tournament

Post by evilmonkey »

Charles, just so you can have an accurate list, I'm thinking that I'm more likely to read than play.
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