ACF Regionals 2011 Global Announcement (February 26, 2011)

[Ukonvasara]

This is now the official global announcement for ACF Regionals 2011. Regionals will take place on the weekend of February 26 and 27, 2010. We are now accepting bids.

Correspondence

Please be advised that ALL official ACF Regionals 2010 correspondence will be carried out via one single email account: acfregs2011@gmail.com. This address will be used to receive bids, packets, and any questions you may have. You may, of course, email any of us personally, but we would prefer that you contact the editing team via this email.

Editors

I, Rob Carson, will be the chief editor of ACF Regionals this year. I will be assisted by Ted Gioia, Matt Weiner, Jeremy Eaton, and Dwight Wynne.

Hosting

We are happy to accept bids to host ACF Regionals at this time. To learn more about the requirements for hosting an ACF event, please consult the ACF hosting guidelines. If you feel that you are able to meet these guidelines, please submit a bid to acfregs2011@gmail.com; due to my own laxness in this area, I'll be accepting bids until 11:59 on January 1, 2011.

Packets

Any collegiate team with at least one person on it who played a regular, collegiate, academic quizbowl tournament prior to September 1, 2009 is required to submit a packet in order to participate in an ACF tournament in 2010-2011. If you experience any confusion regarding this requirement, feel free to contact us. You will not be allowed to buy your way out of writing a packet, nor will exceptions be made in any but the most pressing of circumstances (as determined by us). Note that finals, schoolwork, and general laziness will not be considered "pressing circumstances." This applies doubly to experienced teams; we will drop you from the tournament if we have to. Please consult the ACF packet submission guidelines for further edification. Here's a brief summary of the deadline schedule:

Before January 2, 2011: -$50 and my undying respect
January 2, 2011: -$50
January 16, 2011: -$25 (-$50 for optional packets)
January 30, 2011: early birthday present for me gets you no penalty (-$25 for optional packets)
February 6, 2011: +$25
February 13, 2011: +$50 and a big frowny face

Please send all packets to acfregs2011@gmail.com; to make things easier, mention "packet" in your subject line.

Other Discounts

Are available, for new teams, long-distance travel, laptops, etc. Please consult the ACF packet submission guidelines under "Tournament fees and discounts" to see if any of these apply to you.

Note that ACF has recently voted to eliminate both the high school discount and the special packet-submission considerations for high school teams; if your high school team has players that played in a college tournament before September 1, 2009, you will have to submit a packet to be able to play. Exceptions may be granted on a case-by-case basis; email acfregs2011@gmail.com to inquire about such a thing.

Formatting - Read this part carefully!

All packets MUST be formatted according to the official ACF formatting guidelines. Please turn off all Word auto-formatting, don't use non-standard templates, and don't mix styles. Ten-point TNR with 1-inch margins is what I want to see. Break up your packets by categories, with tossups first and then bonuses in each category. If I find packets that significantly deviate from these guidelines, I will send them back and make you reformat them. Do not think that I won't. Do it right the first time and I will love you. I will be enforcing a strict 7-line limit on tossup length at this tournament, but your submitted tossups may be longer than that. If it's longer than 10 lines, you're doing it wrong.

If you have any questions about any of the information in this announcement, please send them to acfregs2011@gmail.com. If you have a question that you think might be relevant to the whole community as opposed to just your team, feel free to pose it here.

[Ukonvasara]

HOSTS

Northeast: TBA
Mid-Atlantic: William & Mary [this site will be on Sunday, February 27]
Southeast: TBA
Florida: UCF [this site will be on Saturday, March 5 due to scheduling conflicts with the CCCT]
South Plains: Chris Romero at, most likely, Seven Lakes High School
Midwest: WUSTL
North: Minnesota
California/Northwest: Stanford
East Canada/Niagara: RIT

PACKETS RECEIVED
Cornell (-50)
Yale C (-50)
Northwestern (-50)
RPI (-25)
UCSD (-25)
Kansas State (-25)
Maryland (A) (-25)
Miami A (-25)
Miami C (-25)
Yale A (-25)
VCU (-25)
Toronto A (-25)
Arizona State A (optional, -50)
Yale B (no penalty)
Berkeley (no penalty)
Minnesota (optional, -25)
Bellarmine (optional, -25)
Georgetown (no penalty)
Boise State (no penalty)
South Carolina A (no penalty)
State College (no penalty)
OSU B (+$25)

[Sun Devil Student]

Just to clarify: House teams are still not required to submit packets, right?

I will be submitting a hosting bid for ACF Regionals soon, since there is currently no mirror within driving distance of ASU (and we assume South California is not hosting, since North California is). This does mean that ASU is hosting ACF Regionals with the intention of competing in it, so if our house teams need to write packets, it's best to know that now.

Also, if anyone knows about any teams in Nevada, Utah, Colorado, or New Mexico, please send them our way!

California teams (and rotating staffers) will be very welcome, though Stanford is probably a more challenging house team to play against if the field strength is a consideration.

[nadph]

EDIT: No, I'm wrong.

For house teams, you do not owe the editors anything and the teams are not required to write packets. However, you have an option of writing a packet for the house team to save money: If your house team (or any combination of your house team and the people staffing the tournament) writes an acceptable packet by the no-penalty deadline, then you can take a -$50 discount off of the total amount that you owe to the editors.

Just to clarify: House teams are still not required to submit packets, right?

I'm pretty sure hosting in and of itself does not grant house teams exemptions from writing packets. So if ASU x has players who have competed in a college tournament before 9/1/09, they have to write a packet even if ASU gets a host bid.

[Sun Devil Student]

EDIT: No, I'm wrong.

For house teams, you do not owe the editors anything and the teams are not required to write packets. However, you have an option of writing a packet for the house team to save money: If your house team (or any combination of your house team and the people staffing the tournament) writes an acceptable packet by the no-penalty deadline, then you can take a -$50 discount off of the total amount that you owe to the editors.

Yes, I wanted to make sure the above-quoted guidelines were still in effect, I had heard something about there being recent changes in ACF packet rules.

[Kuandian Manchu Autonomous County]

EDIT: No, I'm wrong.

For house teams, you do not owe the editors anything and the teams are not required to write packets. However, you have an option of writing a packet for the house team to save money: If your house team (or any combination of your house team and the people staffing the tournament) writes an acceptable packet by the no-penalty deadline, then you can take a -$50 discount off of the total amount that you owe to the editors.

Yes, I wanted to make sure the above-quoted guidelines were still in effect, I had heard something about there being recent changes in ACF packet rules.

The only change I know of was the removal of the high school discount.

[grapesmoker]

The only change I know of was the removal of the high school discount.

To be precise, not only is the discount no longer effective but high school teams that meet the packet-writing requirements are now required to write.

[Sun Devil Student]

Some time ago I put in a hosting bid for an additional mirror to be located at ASU. Any word on this?

If you approve an ASU mirror quickly, we will also be able to give you a packet by the -$25 deadline. We also happen to be closer to some of the South California schools than the Bay Area is, so we might save certain teams some driving time. And we can try to get Region 13 SCT teams into it, too.

[Tanay]

We also happen to be closer to some of the South California schools than the Bay Area is, so we might save certain teams some driving time. And we can try to get Region 13 SCT teams into it, too.

Nothing against the ASU bid, but I just want to dispel the notion that the Bay Area circuit is prohibitively far compared to its alternatives. Google Maps indicates that the distance between Los Angeles and Stanford is less than the distance between Los Angeles and Tempe (by about forty miles if you start from UCLA). In fact, the Stanford mirror would be a shorter driving distance for every non-UCSD team currently on the list.

[Sun Devil Student]

We also happen to be closer to some of the South California schools than the Bay Area is, so we might save certain teams some driving time. And we can try to get Region 13 SCT teams into it, too.

Nothing against the ASU bid, but I just want to dispel the notion that the Bay Area circuit is prohibitively far compared to its alternatives. Google Maps indicates that the distance between Los Angeles and Stanford is less than the distance between Los Angeles and Tempe (by about forty miles if you start from UCLA). In fact, the Stanford mirror would be a shorter driving distance for every non-UCSD team currently on the list.

Well no, I never said it was "prohibitively" far - the difference is an hour or two at most. That said, Google maps tells me that Claremont is 57 minutes closer to ASU-Tempe than to Stanford, UC-Irvine is about 50 minutes closer, and UC-San Diego about 1 hour and 50 minutes closer. UCLA is about half an hour closer to Stanford, USC's choice is only 2 minutes apart. This of course changes depending on which hotels you use etc and are by no means prohibitive under most circumstances. But it's there.

And in fairness to other Bay Area teams, we should certainly have tournaments hosted there too - there seem to be more teams in the south but a sizable fraction are in the north, and I think the hosting distribution should reflect that proportion. I am still given the impression that the optimal location for this entire corner of the country is Southern California, and thus when tournaments are hosted at either "end" of our essentially linear region (North California or Arizona) it is only because we don't want to make the same teams travel the same long trips every time. So when tournaments are held at the ends, teams in the center (South California) get to pick which end to travel to. This seems like a nice arrangement to me.

[Sun Devil Student]

As I still have no answer for my team's hosting bid submitted last year (ok, last month), and was hoping to be able to announce it soon in order to allow time for other teams to possibly make travel arrangements, I would like to know if anything in particular is holding up my hosting bid and what, if anything, I can do to address whatever concerns are relevant. I can't see anyone other than Stanford being negatively impacted by having this tournament mirrored in Arizona, and there is plenty of upside (giving ASU and maybe other Region 13 teams a chance to play is the big one, and also slightly shorter travel for some Californians as mentioned above). I don't think the editors are secretly trying protect Stanford's site from competition by delaying the ASU site's announcement, so I'm guessing it's something less sinister and I would like to know about it for logistical planning reasons. Maybe I can even help. (If it is indeed about trying to keep the California teams at Stanford, I would offer to bar all California teams from the ASU site in exchange for permission to host at ASU, as my first priority is getting my team access to this tournament. And the sooner we can make plans, the better for everyone.)

I apologize if I sound impatient here; this seems like a really simple hosting bid and I don't know what could possibly be holding us up.

[Papa's in the House]

I apologize if I sound impatient here; this seems like a really simple hosting bid and I don't know what could possibly be holding us up.

Some people are still on break and a subset of those people work over break. I'm sure they'll get to your bid before the tournament takes place elsewhere in the nation.

[minusfive]

Just as a question, does a school have to go to the Regionals in their, ahem, Region? I love Brick City and RIT-but the UCF site has the makings of a Fantasy Island episode...cuz it's cold here.

Or is it like, an exemption thing?

[Kenneth Widmerpool]

A school can go to any ACF Regionals site it wants to.

[ValenciaQBowl]

the UCF site has the makings of a Fantasy Island episode...cuz it's cold here

Hey, if you can afford it, come on down. The field will be nearly all CC teams, but Dallin Kelson will probably be here for a difficult match, and it should be nice in March, though it's 30 degrees here tonight.

[Sun Devil Student]

I apologize if I sound impatient here; this seems like a really simple hosting bid and I don't know what could possibly be holding us up.

Some people are still on break and a subset of those people work over break. I'm sure they'll get to your bid before the tournament takes place elsewhere in the nation.

Thanks for that reassurance; the question now though, is will they get to it in time for other schools in our corner of the country to make travel plans and find funding. (There seem to be at least two other unannounced mirrors, too... better get on that...)

Can I safely assume that ASU will get a green light eventually and submit a packet?

[Ondes Martenot]

Can you confirm that you received the packet we sent about a week ago?

[Ukonvasara]

Can you confirm that you received the packet we sent about a week ago?

I can!

[Distance model]

Can you confirm that you received the packet we sent about a week ago?

I can!

Hey, good idea. Can you confirm that you received Cornell's packet, which I sent either on December 31st or January 1st depending on your time zone?

[RyuAqua]

A running list of submitted packets would probably be the most convenient way to do this, no?

[Mechanical Beasts]

A running list of submitted packets would probably be the most convenient way to do this, no?

No! Er, yes.

[Ukonvasara]

Your wish is my command.

[Distance model]

Awesome!

[Sun Devil Student]

Can you confirm just two things:
1) that you received ASU's house team packet, sent last night for the -25 deadline;
2) that the ASU mirror has been approved, so I can put up an official announcement?

Thanks!

[Ethnic history of the Vilnius region]

I heard that there might be a regional for the Southeast in the works. Is there any news on that?

[ValenciaQBowl]

If nothing closer to you opens up, Eric, we'd love to have y'all back in Orlando. This, of course, goes for Tech and Clemson and any other programs in the Southeast.

[Ethnic history of the Vilnius region]

Thanks Chris; it's a definite possibility that we'll be coming to VCC, which is always a good trip.

[nadph]

The submitted packets list doesn't seem to have been updated with packets submitted at the no penalty deadline (or -25 for optional submissions). Can I confirm that you have received a packet from Bellarmine HS for the -$25 optional submissions deadline?

[Ukonvasara]

I can confirm that. I'll be updating this within the next couple days.

[Ukonvasara]

Packet list updated. If any of those should be optional and aren't, please contact me.

Additionally, it seems likely at the moment that the southeast mirror will be at North Georgia. More information will soon be forthcoming.

[Ondes Martenot]

Is there any news on the Northeast site?

[nadph]

I was under the impression that our packet was categorized as "optional," since the first college-level tournament anybody on our team has played was Stanford's mirror of T-Party on 2/27/10. Is this correct?

[Ukonvasara]

I was under the impression that our packet was categorized as "optional," since the first college-level tournament anybody on our team has played was Stanford's mirror of T-Party on 2/27/10. Is this correct?

It is, and the list has been duly updated.

Is there any news on the Northeast site?

Currently in talks with MIT.

[Ethnic history of the Vilnius region]

Is there any more info on the North Georgia regional?

[Ukonvasara]

Is there any more info on the North Georgia regional?

They've agreed to host on March 5th; it'll hopefully be announced soon.

[The Superfluous Man]

Also, is the northeast site happening??

[Ukonvasara]

Also, is the northeast site happening??

We're in talks with MIT. Stay tuned. It may be delayed to accommodate people inconvenienced by the late announcement date.

[Charbroil]

Could you update the packet receipt list so we can issue pre-tournament invoices to teams which factor in their packet situations? Thanks!

[Mechanical Beasts]

Also, is the northeast site happening??

We're in talks with MIT. Stay tuned. It may be delayed to accommodate people inconvenienced by the late announcement date.

Any word?

[Ukonvasara]

Also, is the northeast site happening??

We're in talks with MIT. Stay tuned. It may be delayed to accommodate people inconvenienced by the late announcement date.

Any word?

Now waiting to hear back from Penn and NYU. Brown has volunteered their services as an emergency site.

[grapesmoker]

Now waiting to hear back from Penn and NYU. Brown has volunteered their services as an emergency site.

Both of those sites seem like they would be rather inconvenient for the New England set. Are there mid-Atlantic teams that might come to this that aren't already going to W&M but that would go if it were at Penn or NYU?

[Sir Thopas]

Now waiting to hear back from Penn and NYU. Brown has volunteered their services as an emergency site.

Both of those sites seem like they would be rather inconvenient for the New England set. Are there mid-Atlantic teams that might come to this that aren't already going to W&M but that would go if it were at Penn or NYU?

We probably would, especially in New York, just because it's hundreds of miles more convenient.

[MicroEStudent]

Now waiting to hear back from Penn and NYU. Brown has volunteered their services as an emergency site.

Both of those sites seem like they would be rather inconvenient for the New England set. Are there mid-Atlantic teams that might come to this that aren't already going to W&M but that would go if it were at Penn or NYU?

We probably would, especially in New York, just because it's hundreds of miles more convenient.

Not for anything, but Rochester is closer than Williamsburg for anyone in New England.

[grapesmoker]

We probably would, especially in New York, just because it's hundreds of miles more convenient.

You aren't in the mid-Atlantic. It would be even more convenient for you if this were somewhere in the Boston/Providence area.

Regardless, if this does go down at NYU, you may get a special visitor.

[RyuAqua]

Turns out it's at Brown.

[Charbroil]

Not that it's terribly important, but will there be an Editors' Packet 2 in the final tournament set? Or did we simply not get sent Editors' 2?

[Ukonvasara]

Not that it's terribly important, but will there be an Editors' Packet 2 in the final tournament set? Or did we simply not get sent Editors' 2?

The latter, mostly; it will be in the final set.

[Matt Weiner]

There is a discussion forum; join the ACF Regionals 2011 Discussion usergroup to be approved.

[Distance model]

Are all the sites over by now, and/or are the packets available somewhere that I haven't heard about?

[Eccles cake]

There may or may not be a very delated ACF regionals mirror at Tulane on the 19th so not all of them are done yet (at least not for sure).