The Million Argument March

[canaanbananarama]

Hello, geography haters.

Our dear friend Matt Weiner has claimed, "i have presented a million well formed arguments and you are just giving a slightly more erudite version of "no"" as to why geography tossups are bad. Well, I want my million arguments. We can either leave this task to Matt himself or help him out, which I'll start by doing.

1.) Geography sucks
2.) Turkmenistan blows balls
3.) Nobody knows anything about Vanuatu except that its capital is Port-Vila.
4.) Iran has nothing but mountains, and none of the holiest religious shrines in Islam or among the most important ruins in archaeology.
5.) You only know the capital of Laos. But, Matt, the Plain of J-a dumbass says what, what? Oh, how you've foiled me. How little I do actually know about Laos.

I will argue that the discussion in the IRC tonight of the geography topic has been frustrating and that I am having a hard time dealing with all the self-righteousness. "member x of the ACF Cabal, what you are doing is not arguing with me, it's just making baseless contrary claims," etc.

So this is my challenge to you, Matt. Bring the 999,995 other arguments you gave last night in the chat, because I don't recall maybe more than 27, which were pretty much the same thing anyways. Yes, this thread is pointless. Just like almost every attempt at a reasonable discussion with you seems to be, Matt. I give up. I'm done. I'm spent. I'll gladly take my geography tossups, in vitro me and raise them far far away from you in Tunisia. And yes, it's 5 in the morning here, and I'm frustrated. I recently told Bruce, and he can vouch for this that I thought you were good for quizbowl and that I thought you had valid ideas about difficulty, question quality, and even things like distribution. Maybe this is still true. But you can't win an argument against somebody who's jumping up and down and screaming "I win, I win, I win" repeatedly. If you keep having this attitude with those that do respect you and want to work with you, well, you've succeeded for a long time, but will it last?

[Matt Weiner]

Charles, I asked you and Jonathan over and over again to tell me what the clues would be for a tossup on Laos that was more than half a line long, and you repeatedly said that one could just find those clues if one looked hard enough, as I predicted you would. I kept saying, tell me what the clues are, tell me what they are, and all I got back was more pie-in-the-sky assurances. That's the essence of this debate. The arguments in the main geography thread are, as I said in chat, 90% irrelevant nonsense. We're too easily sidetracked by stupid crap about who's coming to ACF Nationals or what people's motives are or a lot of other things that have nothing to do with the fundamental question: is it possible to write 150/150 good geography per year? I brought up Laos as a great example of a place that you think it's possible to write a good question on, but it actually isn't, to prove my point that the canon of possibly good geography is way smaller than you think it is. Even after endlessly going in circles, the most I could squeeze out of anyone was "mention the plain of jars." That only proves my point.

The reason I continually dismiss arguments like "one time someone came into Maryland practice and got a tossup on Jamaica" is because they are shit arguments. I want to hear an argument as to why it's possible to write 300 good geography questions. Loudly asserting "it's possible" and "it's possible if you try" *is not an argument*. It is only loudly asserting your position. If you keep peppering me with shit arguments I will keep telling you to stop making them and get back to the main point. If you are then incapable of responding directly to my challenge to tell me even one interesting thing about the geography of Laos, then it only proves that I am right. Saying that I'm being a big meanie by calling your shit arguments shit doesn't change the fact that you are making shit arguments in the first place.

[canaanbananarama]

Laos tossup: Plain of Jars, not a giveaway. Louangprabang, probably not a giveaway. Kingdom of Lan Xang, not a giveaway. Golden Triangle, just before the giveaway. These are middle clues. My memory of actual temple names is foggy on Louangprabang, but quick research shows that the distinct temple of Phu Si, which contains a footprint of the Buddha. The town itself was named after a Sinhalese (i.e. brought from Sri Lanka) Buddha statue. It used to be named Muong Swa. Lead-in clue. Its capital was first visited by the Dutch merchant Gerrit van Wusthof in 1641. Another lead-in clue. Pakxe is a major port of entry for imports into Laos.

Again, it's super-late here, but I think I gave you enough material to write a good tossup on the country of Laos. And it took me ten minutes. If I spent an hour, I could do much better. We mentioned the first four things in our discussion with you, but you seem to insist that all we came up with was the capital. Again, bullshit, and I will have sweet dreams of the knowledge of Fa Ngum that I have just picked up.

And to make Matt just a little bit perkier. Tonight, I fall on my replica samurai sword, upon which I have committed an act to the thoughts of ten thousand Sailor Moons and I can feel the sweetness of my manhood on the blade as it pierces my body and ends my quizbowl career.

[Mike Bentley]

Here are some of the reasons I don't like geography and would like to see it decreased from the 1/1 role it currently has in the ACF distribution:

1. Geography as it's usually asked about in geography questions does not correspond very well with what Geography departments teach.

2. I don't find geography clues especially interesting. There almost never is any narrative to these questions that aren't just history clues.

3. The line between history and geography tossups is low. Geography players already get a healthy portion of geography clues in questions that mention place names in battles, cities where treaties were signed, areas that countries expanded into, etc. Questions often described to me as good geography questions often make heavy use of history clues and could pass as history tossups without a lot of work.

4. Learning the geography canon is very difficult because the "canon" is so expansive. It's pretty much acceptable to write a "regular difficulty tossup" about any capital city, any most populous city in the world, any major river, any major mountain range, etc., etc. In my experience, the number of people who have non-giveaway knowledge about these things is low compared to other categories, and it's not an area to expect people to naturally acquire much new knowledge on such as literature, history, art, etc.

5. There are other categories that I think play better from a quizbowl perspective and have more "academic importance" and "interesting clues" that I'd like to see get a large portion of the distribution.

6. I've heard several people say "just because geography questions have been bad in the past doesn't mean that they'll be bad in the future". However, efforts to go in exciting new directions in geography questions haven't really impressed me--for instance, I personally didn't get a lot out of the geography at HI or the HSNCT Geography tournament.

[Mike Bentley]

Laos tossup: Plain of Jars, not a giveaway. Louangprabang, probably not a giveaway. Kingdom of Lan Xang, not a giveaway. Golden Triangle, just before the giveaway. These are middle clues. My memory of actual temple names is foggy on Louangprabang, but quick research shows that the distinct temple of Phu Si, which contains a footprint of the Buddha. The town itself was named after a Sinhalese (i.e. brought from Sri Lanka) Buddha statue. It used to be named Muong Swa. Lead-in clue. Its capital was first visited by the Dutch merchant Gerrit van Wusthof in 1641. Another lead-in clue. Pakxe is a major port of entry for imports into Laos.

Are there really a lot of people in Quizbowl who would be buzzing on almost any of these clues? Knowing former names of cities and the specifics of these statues seems like something that pretty much only you would know.

The only real clues I see a lot of people knowing are the history-related clues, which could easily be worked in to a more history-based tossup on Laos.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Are there really a lot of people in Quizbowl who would be buzzing on almost any of these clues? Knowing former names of cities and the specifics of these statues seems like something that pretty much only you would know.

They're not inherently any more inaccessible than quizbowl's love for Autler-Townes; they're almost surely more "important," too. So while a good tossup on Laos might include a fair amount of non-canonical material, it probably includes a lot of material that might naturally fall into a well-formed canon.

[Mike Bentley]

Are there really a lot of people in Quizbowl who would be buzzing on almost any of these clues? Knowing former names of cities and the specifics of these statues seems like something that pretty much only you would know.

They're not inherently any more inaccessible than quizbowl's love for Autler-Townes; they're almost surely more "important," too. So while a good tossup on Laos might include a fair amount of non-canonical material, it probably includes a lot of material that might naturally fall into a well-formed canon.

Let me be clear here: Just because Quizbowl Subject X in Category Y meets one of these criteria below ("Science question are boring!"; "Autler-Townes is hard!"), I don't believe that these criticisms can be applied as a whole to other categories. I'd have a hard time believing that the majority of science isn't academically important, or that most of its important clues come up in other distributions.

Let me also note that the above list of problems I have with geography isn't my conclusive list. I can provide some more tomorrow if requested.

[Magister Ludi]

To respond to Matt I think that geography tossups do not need to consist solely of clues that are "academic." I don't think geography tossups are invalidated by including some almanac clues as I would argue that a tossup that includes some important context (say around 2-3 lines worth) and then included more almanac material would be an acceptable tossup. I would ask Matt a few questions: 1) Do you think that the academic worth of almanac style clues are comparable to titles in literature or art questions? 2) Do you think that the inclusion of any of these types of clues invalidates geography? If so how many of these clues are allowed in a tossup before it becomes unacademic.

The reason I bring this point up is because I feel that people are holding geography to a very hard standard of academic value. I think the almanac clues that are included in geography tossups are examples of incidental knowledge that one would encounter in the study of geography. Let me compare this to literature which is the academic discipline I am most familiar with. When studying a novel, the discussion centers primarily on quotes, while character names and small plot incidents are examples of the kind of incidental knowledge that one naturally encounters in the study of literature but are not heavily analyzed. However a quizbowl tossup on a novel should not consist primarily of quotes (in fact Matt Weiner has told me he would like to see quotes completely excised from all tossups). A good tossup on a book might have some critical clues or important quotes at the beginning, but delves clues of secondary importance fairly quickly. I think a similar standard should be used for geography questions. Include a few lines of "academic" material and then if the tossup uses more almanac style clues from then on out that is not only acceptable, but similar to the way other types of tossups are written.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Are there really a lot of people in Quizbowl who would be buzzing on almost any of these clues? Knowing former names of cities and the specifics of these statues seems like something that pretty much only you would know.

They're not inherently any more inaccessible than quizbowl's love for Autler-Townes; they're almost surely more "important," too. So while a good tossup on Laos might include a fair amount of non-canonical material, it probably includes a lot of material that might naturally fall into a well-formed canon.

Let me be clear here: Just because Quizbowl Subject X in Category Y meets one of these criteria below ("Science question are boring!"; "Autler-Townes is hard!"), I don't believe that these criticisms can be applied as a whole to other categories. I'd have a hard time believing that the majority of science isn't academically important, or that most of its important clues come up in other distributions.

Okay, that's totally a fair response to what I'm saying. That being said, I will extend my argument by saying that none of that material is inherently more inaccessible or less important than what happens in the early and middle clues of science tossups.

[Important Bird Area]

Curse this IS #88 set editing that kept me out of the IRC tonight!

My memory of actual temple names is foggy on Louangprabang

Didn't you write the world's only Louangprabang tossup for Gaddis 2008? I enjoyed playing that, although I had no idea what was going on until near the end, which may mean one or both of 1)the tossup was way too hard and/or 2)I know nothing about Southeast Asian religious sanctuaries.