Audience Member - how to introduce better QB?

[David Shannon]

I'm new to this forum, so I apologize if this topic has come up before; I couldn't find it on the main threads.

About 25 years ago, I participated in my local quizbowl league. I've returned to my hometown, and decided to see some matches.

My first reaction: "Boy, are these questions terrible!" I discovered that the league gets its questions from Academic Hallmarks, which members of the qbwiki have described as the bottom of the barrel. I'm convinced they're overrating the company's quality. Among other annoyances, there's a huge emphasis on science fiction and young adult literature, with almost no references to European and world literature, as well as an overwhelming love for the grammatical analysis of memorized folksong lyrics. I've noticed multiple swerves and hoses, as well as questions which reward people with little knowledge of a subject and penalize those who wait ("In 1916, which Mexican general ...").

The moderator purchased the sets because, for just $91, he can get enough previously used questions for an entire league season. (He's paying $91 too much.) He believes tossups should consist mainly of buzzer races, and doesn't see much value in pyramidality. He's even said that toss-ups which wait to the very end to actually ask the questions are good, since competitors should wait for the entire question to be asks. I find those toss-ups extremely annoying. One example: " Borobudur is," followed by 30-40 seconds discussing the site, before asking, "What island is Borobudur on?" If I were a competitor in the match who knew about Borobudur, I would be frustrated at having to wait so long before hearing how I had to answer the question.

Actually, since there's a lot of trivia in the Academic Hallmarks questions, there are very few buzzer races. In fact, in half of the league's matches so far, the two teams have combined for less than one correct answer per minute, and that's counting both toss-ups and bonuses. Did I mention that the Great Auk doesn't differentiate between the two types of questions, so the league only uses one bonus for each toss-up?

I spoke to the league commissioner about pyramidal toss-ups, and discovered her opinions about NAQT questions. First, they're too hard (although I doubt that a single-line question like "Ploiesti is a major oil-producing center in what country?" are easy); and, second, they're too expensive.

If it's frustrating for me to listen to these lousy questions and sit through extremely low-scoring matches, I can only imagine what the competitors are thinking. I'm not sure what to do to get better quizbowl around here. Any ideas?

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[Ndg]

I would suggest first trying to get local schools to host one-day events on pyramidal questions (outside the local league, that is). Once players and coaches are exposed to higher quality questions, you will have a better chance at getting the league to switch. I think most people in this community will tell you that theoretical discussions about question quality usually don't convince people like your league commissioner, no matter how hard you try.

If it's frustrating for me to listen to these lousy questions and sit through extremely low-scoring matches, I can only imagine what the competitors are thinking.

Drawing from my experience, the competitors probably don't realize how bad the questions are that they're playing. I quite happily played Questions Unlimited questions and went to Chip Beall's NAC my whole high school career because I had no idea that better products like NAQT existed --- I just assumed that's what quiz bowl was. It's probably the same for the players in your area --- which is why it's key to expose as many of them as possible to better questions so they can see the difference for themselves.

There have been quite a few discussions over the years regarding how to convert regions to better quiz bowl. Here is a recent one, and I'm sure other members of the community here can point you towards others.

[cchiego]

Where is this particular league? Some areas may be easier to change than others depending on who runs it and nearby good qb options.

[David Shannon]

cchiego - The league is in Cambria and Somerset counties in Pennsylvania.

Ndg - Thank you for the links.

As for theoretical discussions -- pointing out actual problems might not be that helpful.

Last week, we had a question which started with some statements about PTSD. One team rang in, and gave "PTSD" as an answer. The response was wrong. The full question said that these related to PTSD, and wanted to know what PTSD stood for.

I pointed out to league officials that the question was terrible, since teams could not expect to read minds. The commissioner's attitude was that, since each team got the bad question, everything is fair. The moderator, on the other hand, believes that teams ought to sit through an entire question before buzzing in, so, as long as the answer matches what the question asks, the question is good.

---
True story about how bad the questions are: one question which started "This Beethoven opera" (he wrote only one opera) stated the name "Fidelio" in the middle of the question. Another one about a Noyes poem included the words "the highwayman" in the clue. No credit here for guessing the answers.

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[Everything in the Whole Wide World]

It sounds like you're running into a problem that is prevalent across the state of Pennsylvania in local leagues. This problem stems in part because of the way they run their state tournament. Berths are given out through the Pennsylvania education department's Intermediate Units, and so 29 separate commissions decide what they want to do. They are all isolated, super insular, and the only outside quiz competition they see is at the PA state competition in Harrisburg (which is run on the horrendus format invented by the Chester County IU, which I played in high school). Buzzer races, trivia, and a general game show feel are high priority in most.

From my experience, it's best to work with individual schools to try to get them to attend invitationals. While we've seen some cases of successfully getting the IU leagues to adopt pyramidal formats (the Lancaster-Lebanon IU is a fine example), generally these boards will hold firm on their own formats. Do you have contacts with coaches in your area? There are usually a few tournaments in Pittsburgh every year, and if willing to travel further there is an event almost every weekend somewhere in the Phialdelphia, Baltimore, or DC area.

[Stained Diviner]

Ben's advice is good, but the problems described in the original post are prevalent in local leagues throughout the country. Like he says, the best solution generally is to find out what good quizbowl is at least somewhat nearby and encourage teams to go to it. You can also try talking to several of the coaches and players involved in the league to find out if any of them are interested in making things better. If so, you can encourage them to take more of a leadership role with the league or to make sure that the problems get discussed. If you have the time, you can also offer to help them host a tournament on good questions.

Other than that, as an outsider there is not much you can do. Unfortunately, being right often is not enough.

[Great Bustard]

At the risk of sounding totally self-serving, why don't you encourage teams to play History Bowl and/or see if they can get a history teacher to support them if the quiz bowl coach is wedded to bad formats. The History Bowl format is designed to help ease new teams into good quizbowl, and we've helped a number of teams transition more over to pyramidal questions simply by making them aware of the existence of something else out there. Anyway, we have a number of tournaments throughout PA this year; if you'd be able to hand out our flyers and brochures to teams you come across, please let me know and I'd be happy to send you some.