How can we explain the rules more clearly?

[Kyle]

Yesterday was an interesting day in the Oxford Intercollegiate Quiz. All of the teams still competing at this point have played at least three games to make it to the knockout stages. But that doesn't mean that the participants have learned the rules.

I moderated one game in which I had to award a team no points after the other team negged and they conferred on the answer. I curtly said that this was their fourth game and that they should know better by now. Not more than two minutes later, the other team did exactly the same thing. Note that I had summarized the rules before the game, including the rule that players may not confer on tossups.

In a different game, there was a tossup on a certain author. A player for one team had read the novel referenced in the first line and knew it from the name of the first obscure character. Sadly, she did not buzz in and get 10 points because she could not remember the author's first name.

None of these people is a regular quizbowl player, but neither are they totally new at this. Obviously, I and others have totally failed in explaining the rules to people. I feel like this is a major problem, since actually understanding the rules will undoubtedly make a person better able to enjoy the activity.

So my question is: how can we do a better job of explaining the basic rules of quizbowl to new people?

[silverscreentest]

You could boardsource the most common mistakes, post them online and refer your novices to them. I think everybody would benefit from that.

If you have the time and energy, you could make and post a video demonstrating the most common mistakes.

[#1 Mercury Adept]

While I was reading for MIT's high school tournament the other day, several times I found myself saying "You may not confer; one of you may buzz"…

Explaining to people what exactly is meant when a moderator utters the word "prompt" is probably also a good idea. In the bad high-school formats I used to play, they would ask "Can you be more specific?" instead, so that's usually my go-to phrase when someone looks puzzled when I say "prompt". But (also last weekend) once I had to prompt someone on an answer line that said to "prompt on" a thing which, logically, was an anti-prompt. It was NAQT, so I can't give specifics -- but let's say it was a tossup on "dogs", which specified to prompt on "beagles" because of some super-famous clue in the middle. If the player says "beagles" but doesn't know what "prompt" means, asking them to be "more specific" is misleading, and asking them to be "less specific" gives it away almost entirely. If we gave people examples of the concept of "prompting", then they'd know that it basically means "usually they want more information, like a first name; but on some common-linky things it can mean that you're close enough not to be wrong, but you haven't got it exactly".

[Mike Bentley]

Conferring is probably the #1 thing teams don't understand, so I try to go over this as many times as possible during the team meeting. I suggest doing some example tossup/bonsues of people who know the rules and point out when conferring is okay and when it's not.

[Kyle]

Regarding examples -- I'm not convinced that that would necessarily help. Things in the UK are complicated by the popularity of University Challenge, which is sometimes a positive thing for the quizbowl circuit (but usually not). In this case, the rules for UC are almost exactly the same (and the rules for conferring are exactly the same). I can pretty well guarantee you that every person participating in the Intercollegiate Quiz here has seen at least one episode of UC.

[Cheynem]

A potential derail here, but as a reader, I've wondered to what extent you can say things other than "prompt" when being instructed to prompt or "anti prompt." While I think some rules specifically frown upon it, I personally don't see anything wrong with being fairly specific in prompt instructions (like, is it really a travesty of knowledge that the reader says "Provide the full name" or "We want a specific Balearic Island"--note that I'm not saying just make up your own prompting rules, I'm just saying my opinion). Like the anti-prompt is basically a fancy way of saying "Please be less specific"--it doesn't seem right that the people who benefit from it are those who understand what an anti-prompt is, so I think some explanations should be provided.

The one thing that people really have trouble understanding regarding conferring is when the other team has negged or when the question is over. In my experiences reading, I rarely see teams begin conferring as soon as I start reading, but it frequently happens after a neg or the question ends. It must be stressed that conferring is completely not allowed, except during bonuses.

[Kyle]

The one thing that people really have trouble understanding regarding conferring is when the other team has negged or when the question is over. In my experiences reading, I rarely see teams begin conferring as soon as I start reading, but it frequently happens after a neg or the question ends. It must be stressed that conferring is completely not allowed, except during bonuses.

I feel like the other team negging almost always leads to the total abandonment of common sense. I really don't understand how it is so difficult for new players to recognize that their chance of getting the tossup might be improved by waiting for the moderator to finish reading the question.

(Although this is a viable strategy when your vulturing the tossup prevents your teammates from conferring and thus getting your team no points)

EDIT -- Actually, I have a question about Mike's point. Does there exist a format in which a team is allowed to confer after the other team has answered incorrectly? This practice is a feature of certain gameshows that require individual answers only from one team (e.g. Family Feud).

[dtaylor4]

The one thing that people really have trouble understanding regarding conferring is when the other team has negged or when the question is over. In my experiences reading, I rarely see teams begin conferring as soon as I start reading, but it frequently happens after a neg or the question ends. It must be stressed that conferring is completely not allowed, except during bonuses.

I feel like the other team negging almost always leads to the total abandonment of common sense. I really don't understand how it is so difficult for new players to recognize that their chance of getting the tossup might be improved by waiting for the moderator to finish reading the question.

(Although this is a viable strategy when your vulturing the tossup prevents your teammates from conferring and thus getting your team no points)

EDIT -- Actually, I have a question about Mike's point. Does there exist a format in which a team is allowed to confer after the other team has answered incorrectly? This practice is a feature of certain gameshows that require individual answers only from one team (e.g. Family Feud).

Parkland College has some sort of quiz show where this is allowed, James
Garcia could provide more detail.

[Important Bird Area]

Does there exist a format in which a team is allowed to confer after the other team has answered incorrectly?

The local TV show (Quiz Kids) uses this rule. We've had to be very clear about the precise rules in play during our rules meetings (I have seen a number of mistakes in both directions this fall.)

[Scaled Flowerpiercer]

The one thing that people really have trouble understanding regarding conferring is when the other team has negged or when the question is over. In my experiences reading, I rarely see teams begin conferring as soon as I start reading, but it frequently happens after a neg or the question ends. It must be stressed that conferring is completely not allowed, except during bonuses.

I feel like the other team negging almost always leads to the total abandonment of common sense. I really don't understand how it is so difficult for new players to recognize that their chance of getting the tossup might be improved by waiting for the moderator to finish reading the question.

(Although this is a viable strategy when your vulturing the tossup prevents your teammates from conferring and thus getting your team no points)

EDIT -- Actually, I have a question about Mike's point. Does there exist a format in which a team is allowed to confer after the other team has answered incorrectly? This practice is a feature of certain gameshows that require individual answers only from one team (e.g. Family Feud).

Parkland College has some sort of quiz show where this is allowed, James
Garcia could provide more detail.

The Challenge, a quizbowl like show in New York / New Jersey, allows / encouraged conferring during the tossups and almost necessitates conferring following an incorrect answer, as the other team's captain then has to provide their answer. There are many other things wrong with this format, most importantly having to wait to buzz until you a see a light at the end of the question, but those are the rules, so certainly formats where you can confer on tossups exist.

[Masked Canadian History Bandit]

The one thing that people really have trouble understanding regarding conferring is when the other team has negged or when the question is over. In my experiences reading, I rarely see teams begin conferring as soon as I start reading, but it frequently happens after a neg or the question ends. It must be stressed that conferring is completely not allowed, except during bonuses.

I feel like the other team negging almost always leads to the total abandonment of common sense. I really don't understand how it is so difficult for new players to recognize that their chance of getting the tossup might be improved by waiting for the moderator to finish reading the question.

(Although this is a viable strategy when your vulturing the tossup prevents your teammates from conferring and thus getting your team no points)

EDIT -- Actually, I have a question about Mike's point. Does there exist a format in which a team is allowed to confer after the other team has answered incorrectly? This practice is a feature of certain gameshows that require individual answers only from one team (e.g. Family Feud).

Canadian Reach for the Top teams are discouraged from consulting before the other team buzzes and actively encouraged to consult after the other team misses the answer. Don't know if you have any Canadians though.

[Fond du lac operon]

[L]et's say it was a tossup on "dogs", which specified to prompt on "beagles" because of some super-famous clue in the middle. If the player says "beagles" but doesn't know what "prompt" means, asking them to be "more specific" is misleading, and asking them to be "less specific" gives it away almost entirely.

Of course, if anti-prompting becomes SOP, since "anti-prompt" means almost exactly "be less specific," just saying that is probably okay. But if you aren't allowed to anti-prompt, I guess this is still a problem.

I guess we could tell people that "prompt" means "you're on the right track, but you need to say something slightly different to get credit"? That covers cases like Strauss -> Johann Strauss, as well as ones like dogs -> beagles and beagles -> dogs.

[dxdtdemon]

I think that in the case of the conferring, the fact that they are used to seeing University Challenge where Jeremy Paxman says "You may not confer, one of you must buzz," and are still allowed to answer is the problem. If they enforced the rules better on the British quiz shows they're used to watching, they would probably not break the rules.

[Kyle]

I think that in the case of the conferring, the fact that they are used to seeing University Challenge where Jeremy Paxman says "You may not confer, one of you must buzz," and are still allowed to answer is the problem. If they enforced the rules better on the British quiz shows they're used to watching, they would probably not break the rules.

I believe you mean if they had rules. University Challenge makes it up as they go along.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

I think quizbowl has a chronic inability to listen,* and I don't know that there is any way for us to get around it other than to present the rules as clearly and fully as we can to teams and then force them to learn things the hard way when they screw up, with perhaps a little bit of lightly dosed shaming from the moderator for those people not listening.

*Anecdotally, I was giving a rules talk this weekend where I repeatedly emphasized that bonuses wouldn't rebound, and then immediately afterwards, a kid came up and asked me if bonuses rebounded. Similarly, I criticized the fact that PACE surveyed coaches about the format last year because I felt that many coaches didn't really understand what they were voting on, and felt vindicated when multiple Missouri coaches asked me during the morning meeting (one of whom asked AFTER the meeting was over) to clarify whether their teams were even guaranteed any games at all after the prelim rounds finished. I know these are small samples, but if you talk to anybody who organizes a lot of quizbowl, you'd basically come to the independent conclusion that 90% of quizbowlers are retarded because of this problem.

[#1 Mercury Adept]

[L]et's say it was a tossup on "dogs", which specified to prompt on "beagles" because of some super-famous clue in the middle. If the player says "beagles" but doesn't know what "prompt" means, asking them to be "more specific" is misleading, and asking them to be "less specific" gives it away almost entirely.

Of course, if anti-prompting becomes SOP, since "anti-prompt" means almost exactly "be less specific," just saying that is probably okay. But if you aren't allowed to anti-prompt, I guess this is still a problem.

I guess we could tell people that "prompt" means "you're on the right track, but you need to say something slightly different to get credit"? That covers cases like Strauss -> Johann Strauss, as well as ones like dogs -> beagles and beagles -> dogs.

Yeah, that's the definition I have in my mind. I felt like since the packet's instruction was merely "prompt", I had no right to specifically anti-prompt. So if the particular player who buzzed in with "beagles" had seemed confused when I said "prompt", I don't know what I would have done.

The original question actually had a verb in it, so "riding dogs"/"riding beagles" is probably a better analogy for it then an answer line consisting only of "dogs" (yeah, the real one makes a lot more sense). So the tossup consisted of a bunch of references to "performing this action", and there wasn't really the option for the question writer to make those clues more clear by saying "a specific type of these" or whatever. Also, the beagle clue was so clearly about beagles that if you knew the clue, the thing you were going to say was "riding beagles", and it would be difficult to realise that they just wanted "riding dogs" (again, this wasn't so silly in the real question).

But yeah, either "anti-prompt" becomes SOP, or the meaning of "prompt" is defined as "you're not wrong, but be more right in one of the usual ways" (including being more specific or less specific).

[Kyle]

The original question actually had a verb in it, so "riding dogs"/"riding beagles" is probably a better analogy for it then an answer line consisting only of "dogs" (yeah, the real one makes a lot more sense). So the tossup consisted of a bunch of references to "performing this action", and there wasn't really the option for the question writer to make those clues more clear by saying "a specific type of these" or whatever. Also, the beagle clue was so clearly about beagles that if you knew the clue, the thing you were going to say was "riding beagles", and it would be difficult to realise that they just wanted "riding dogs" (again, this wasn't so silly in the real question).

Your commitment to preserving question security is laudable, but your post makes no sense.

[Important Bird Area]

I found the original question; I'll put this on file for "2011-12 NAQT IS set discussion" in June.

[Stained Diviner]

To deal with the original point of this thread, it probably would help if there was a one page summary of the rules that focused on things new players should know. It wouldn't solve the problem, since a lot of people wouldn't read it, but it could be passed out at tournaments with new players and linked to when a newish team registered for a tournament, leading to a reduction of the problem. The current rules start out with a lot of things like eligibility whose details are unimportant to people attending a school who want to give quizbowl a shot.

Charlie makes a lot of sense. I hate to revisit the disaster that was NSC last year, but the coaches vote on the format was very unclearly worded and shouldn't have happened, and the idea of students voting for the All Star Team with access to stats would be pretty awful, and having them do it without stats was a joke.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

To deal with the original point of this thread, it probably would help if there was a one page summary of the rules that focused on things new players should know. It wouldn't solve the problem, since a lot of people wouldn't read it, but it could be passed out at tournaments with new players and linked to when a newish team registered for a tournament, leading to a reduction of the problem. The current rules start out with a lot of things like eligibility whose details are unimportant to people attending a school who want to give quizbowl a shot.

Charlie makes a lot of sense. I hate to revisit the disaster that was NSC last year, but the coaches vote on the format was very unclearly worded and shouldn't have happened, and the idea of students voting for the All Star Team with access to stats would be pretty awful, and having them do it without stats was a joke.

For Rider Bowl III, we're inviting tons of new teams, and schools that don't even have teams. I had Alexa type up directions, and i absolutely love them. I've attached them here if you want to take a look at what she wrote. It's about the best simple description of quizbowl rules i've ever seen.

[Howard]

The one thing that people really have trouble understanding regarding conferring is when the other team has negged or when the question is over. In my experiences reading, I rarely see teams begin conferring as soon as I start reading, but it frequently happens after a neg or the question ends. It must be stressed that conferring is completely not allowed, except during bonuses.

I feel like the other team negging almost always leads to the total abandonment of common sense. I really don't understand how it is so difficult for new players to recognize that their chance of getting the tossup might be improved by waiting for the moderator to finish reading the question.

(Although this is a viable strategy when your vulturing the tossup prevents your teammates from conferring and thus getting your team no points)

EDIT -- Actually, I have a question about Mike's point. Does there exist a format in which a team is allowed to confer after the other team has answered incorrectly? This practice is a feature of certain gameshows that require individual answers only from one team (e.g. Family Feud).

Regarding the conferring after one team negs, I think this is an issue primarily with school that also routinely play formats that allow conferring. Here's what I think happens: once the other team negs, the team in question then begins treating it like a bonus since it's obviously just for them at this point. I try to remind my team that they must always use the buzzer to answer a tossup, even after the other team negs. I also link their ability to confer with the use of the buzzer. Anytime they're using the buzzer-- no conferring. Off the buzzer-- conferring allowed.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know the origin/philosophy behind not allowing conferring?

I believe the issue with interrupting questions after the other team negs is separate. While there are a few instances of people doing this to garner individual points for themselves, most of what I see is players who seem to simply be in the habit of trying to get the early ring and not paying attention to what is occurring in the game. The solution to this is simply practicing keeping in mind that there are times it is important to buzz first, and there are times it is important to ensure correctness at (nearly) all costs. Next in line is just players getting impatient. I've also seen a couple instances of players trying to power on the second buzz, and depending on strategic philosophy, this can be completely justifiable.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Regarding the conferring after one team negs, I think this is an issue primarily with school that also routinely play formats that allow conferring. Here's what I think happens: once the other team negs, the team in question then begins treating it like a bonus since it's obviously just for them at this point. I try to remind my team that they must always use the buzzer to answer a tossup, even after the other team negs. I also link their ability to confer with the use of the buzzer. Anytime they're using the buzzer-- no conferring. Off the buzzer-- conferring allowed.

One of the things i like to say to new/young teams as i'm moderating a game at tournaments is, after the other team negs and i still have more of the tossup to read, "neg five... i'll complete... buzz if you know it." That seems to help.

[Charles Martel]

Once at Masonic Bowl last year, we negged after the second sentence. After the moderator waited a few seconds, the other team buzzed and got it wrong. After the match, the coach asked to see that tossup because he thought it was particularly short. Turned out, the moderator didn't know that you were supposed to continue if one team negged (Actually, IHSA and Masonic rules say that if someone interrupts, you're supposed to read everything from the beginning of the tossup, quite annoyingly).

[jonah]

(Actually, IHSA and Masonic rules say that if someone interrupts, you're supposed to read everything from the beginning of the tossup, quite annoyingly).

"or, at the moderator's discretion, the last salient portion of a lengthy question" (4-D-4). This is badly phrased because it could be interpreted as "skip to the giveaway".

[dtaylor4]

This is badly phrased because it could be interpreted as "skip to the giveaway".

Assuming the moderator doesn't do this to begin with.

[Charles Martel]

Last year, the masons almost uniformly reread the entire tossup. Wouldn't it make sense to change that rule to "Read everything starting at the beginning of the sentence interrupted on"?

[jonpin]

To deal with the original point of this thread, it probably would help if there was a one page summary of the rules that focused on things new players should know. It wouldn't solve the problem, since a lot of people wouldn't read it, but it could be passed out at tournaments with new players and linked to when a newish team registered for a tournament, leading to a reduction of the problem. The current rules start out with a lot of things like eligibility whose details are unimportant to people attending a school who want to give quizbowl a shot.

Charlie makes a lot of sense. I hate to revisit the disaster that was NSC last year, but the coaches vote on the format was very unclearly worded and shouldn't have happened, and the idea of students voting for the All Star Team with access to stats would be pretty awful, and having them do it without stats was a joke.

NAQT provides just such a single-page summary with the idea that TDs can print it out and stick it in the pile of things they hand to teams as they arrive, alongside schedules and roster sheets. I also made a page like that for the middle school tournament we ran, but I guess that file is on school computers.
One thing I'd remind TDs of is that quiz bowl has some terminology that we all know the intended meaning of, but new teams don't. Don't be afraid to explain "tossup" or "conferring", or to be clear on what you'll be taking as a "directed" answer on a bonus.