The Quizbowl Resource Center

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 7:41 pm

This was true for the current events tossup on Guatemala, which went like this:

And how, pray, did you know that?

by **grapesmoker** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 7:46 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:And how, pray, did you know that?

Dude, I know you had this plan that involved not disseminating the set, but that's not how the Internet works.

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 7:48 pm

No, I agree it's not surprising the set was disseminated notwithstanding assurances to the contrary (just as it's not surprising, say, that banks take unacceptable risks on the understanding of tacit bailouts thanks to moral hazard). But that doesn't mean it's not outrageous.

by **RyuAqua** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 7:53 pm

I'm confused. Usually, when a set is cleared for discussion and there are no more mirrors, it then gets posted to the Internet for public viewing. In the event that there's a delay in that process, a set will often get sent around between people who played the questions already. What problem do you have with this? It's not like any mirrors could happen at this point.

by **grapesmoker** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 7:53 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:No, I agree it's not surprising the set was disseminated notwithstanding assurances to the contrary (just as it's not surprising, say, that banks take unacceptable risks on the understanding of tacit bailouts thanks to moral hazard). But that doesn't mean it's not outrageous.

I don't want to get too deep into this debate here, but I think your plan was misguided. Anyone who wants the set can and will get it; by placing arbitrary restrictions on its distribution, you're only guaranteeing yourself grief. I think people have a reasonably justifiable desire to see and read questions that they played. I'm tempted to say that it's sort of one of those unspoken compacts of quizbowl.

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 7:56 pm

What problem do you have with this?

Simply that I requested it not happen, that request was agreed to, and nonetheless it happened. As I said, just because it's predictable people don't take their own word seriously doesn't mean it's justifiable.

I'm tempted to say that it's sort of one of those unspoken compacts of quizbowl.

If you're going to disseminate the set, don't make a liar of yourself by pretending otherwise.

by **RyuAqua** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 7:58 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:
What problem do you have with this?

Simply that I requested it not happen, that request was agreed to, and nonetheless it happened. As I said, just because it's predictable people don't take their own word seriously doesn't mean it's justifiable.

I meant to ask "Why would one ask for a set not to be disseminated, given that there are no further mirrors and people want to discuss it/practice on it?" Sorry if I didn't make my idea clear.

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:03 pm

Why would one ask for a set not to be disseminated, given that there are no further mirrors and people want to discuss it/practice on it?

Obviously if people think they can practice on the tournament on their own, that reduces their desire to play the tournament at the sites where it's being run. I don't think it's all that complicated, is it? I suppose I could have put on a halftime show at the Chicago site that would make it less substitutable with the pirated product....

by **Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr.** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:06 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:
Why would one ask for a set not to be disseminated, given that there are no further mirrors and people want to discuss it/practice on it?

Obviously if people think they can practice on the tournament on their own, that reduces their desire to play the tournament at the sites where it's being run.

I'm pretty sure that would only work if people had known beforehand that you would prevent the set from being spread. As it stands, everyone (correctly, as it happens) assumed that they would be able to get a hold of the set afterward.

by **Kenneth Widmerpool** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:07 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:
Why would one ask for a set not to be disseminated, given that there are no further mirrors and people want to discuss it/practice on it?

Obviously if people think they can practice on the tournament on their own, that reduces their desire to play the tournament at the sites where it's being run. I don't think it's all that complicated, is it? I suppose I could have put on a halftime show at the Chicago site that would make it less substitutable with the pirated product....

Yes, this free product that people can do whatever they want with is pirated if they didn't buy it when it cost money.

by **grapesmoker** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:07 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:Obviously if people think they can practice on the tournament on their own, that reduces their desire to play the tournament at the sites where it's being run. I don't think it's all that complicated, is it? I suppose I could have put on a halftime show at the Chicago site that would make it less substitutable with the pirated product....

Are you really serious about this? Because if you are, I feel like you're really misunderstanding why people play tournaments. I didn't drive to Chicago because the experience of playing a tournament is identical to the experience of playing questions sitting in a room all by myself. In fact, I don't know of anyone who would skip a tournament for no other reason than that they can just read the set later.

by **kdroge** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:12 pm

The tossup on the battle of Ayn Jalut, if I remember right, had a clue about Alexander IV ordering Christians to provide tacit support for the Mongols, but my understanding (confirmed by some internet searching) seems to say that Alexander IV expressly forbid Christians to fight in the battle. Were you referring to something different by that clue?

The child labor tossup seemed to go on forever about some recent case in the lead-in, which I think could have been more concise as well as more historically based rather than current events-ish. I think that there exist meaningful clues that could come before Keating-Owen Act that weren't there in the tossup, and, while I'd like to see the question to say something more concrete about the clues that could come afterwards, I'm pretty sure that as it stands most rooms will just lead to a multiple way buzzer mash off that clue.

Honestly, I think that emailing the set to people who want it after the tournament, especially to teams that played the set, is just a matter of common courtesy, not to mention that it lets teams play the rest of the packets at their practices and it allows for more constructive feedback than requiring everybody to ask to post certain questions.

by **grapesmoker** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:20 pm

Unfortunately my attempt to introduce the Eel Revolt into the canon at last year's Nationals was a dud...

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:50 pm

As it stands, everyone (correctly, as it happens) assumed that they would be able to get a hold of the set afterward.

Yes indeed, you point out wide adherence to an anti-social norm. Just like wriggling out of jury duty is considered acceptable (even though in most cases it costs little to go and everyone agrees that jury trials are good) while draft-dodging ruins professional and political careers (even though going to war is highly personally costly, and the moral and strategic status of aggressive wars is widely questioned) My point is that "everyone does it" is not a defense, morally speaking.

Yes, this free product that people can do whatever they want with is pirated if they didn't buy it when it cost money.

I'm not sure if this is somehow ironic, but that is the thrust of what I'm saying, yes.

I didn't drive to Chicago because the experience of playing a tournament is identical to the experience of playing questions sitting in a room all by myself. In fact, I don't know of anyone who would skip a tournament for no other reason than that they can just read the set later.

No, the products are not completely substitutable, but if you can't hear the questions other than by playing the tournament, you're more likely to play the tournament. It has nothing to do with the ontological status of ***tournament*** vs. ***playing the questions at quiz practice*****.

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:00 pm

Here is the Ayn Jalut tossup:

Kirakos of Gandzak records a diplomatic mission conducted in expectation of this battle that resulted in Hethum I’s alliance with the eventual losing side, to which he and his son-in-law contributed troops. That alliance led to the Disaster of Mari six years after this battle, when Hethum’s kingdom of Cilicia was overrun and that son-in-law, Bohemund VI, was thrown out of his principality of Antioch. (*) Alexander IV ordered the French crusaders in Acre to provide passive support for this battle’s victor at the expense of the Nestorian Christian Kitbuqa. The victorious general at this battle used his victory to overthrow the ruler he served, Kutuz, and install himself as Sultan. For 10 points, name this 1260 battle at which the Egyptian Mameluks under Baibars halted westward expansion of the Mongol empire.

ANSWER: Battle of Ayn Jalut

I didn't know anything about this, but my takeaway from researching this question was that prior Crusader policy had been pro-Mongol, and that by ordering the Acre Franks not to do anything (and let the Mameluks pass through their territory unimpeded), the Pope was in effect reversing that policy.

Here's child labor:

Though guilty of many crimes, Sholom Rubashkin was acquitted of this practice in 2009 after an ignorance-based defense. In defending the constitutionality of legislation which in effect prohibited this practice, Justice Holmes cited Champion v. Ames, which upheld Congress’ ban inter-state sale of lottery tickets. That opinion criticized the distinction between federal prohibition as a means to regulate “strong drink, but not as against ruined lives,” upholding the (*) Keating-Owen Act of 1916 The majority opinion argued that North Carolina, where that case, Hammer v. Dagenhart, originated, already had legislation prohibiting this practice, but the photography of Lewis Hine showed that the legislation was ineffective. For 10 points, what is this practice promoted by Newt Gingrich, against which compulsory school attendance laws proved an effective way to undermine judicial opposition?

ANSWER: child labor (accept equivalents)

The recent case is very brief; the rest of it is talking about Hammer v. Dagenhart. In fact, the first version of this question had the "Keating-Owen Act" even earlier as I'd never heard of it; Jonathan suggested it go later and apparently it didn't appear late enough. I'm sorry about that.

by **grapesmoker** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:10 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:No, the products are not completely substitutable, but if you can't hear the questions other than by playing the tournament, you're more likely to play the tournament. It has nothing to do with the ontological status of ***tournament*** vs. ***playing the questions at quiz practice*****.

I can't possibly let this go.

Look, I think I've established my tournament-attendance credentials, like, for life. I literally cannot think of any instance where I said to myself "I will not attend this tournament because I can hear the questions at practice," even though this has been incontrovertibly true for almost every tournament I have ever played. What is more, I have never heard such a rationale offered for one's failure to attend a tournament; usually people either can't make the date, don't have the money, or just think the tournament will suck. I am prepared to stake my position on my decade-plus experience of playing quizbowl and interacting with people who do the same. I do not know whence comes your conjecture but it is wholly unfounded and bears no relation to any empirical fact about quizbowl tournament attendance.

edit: To clarify the above, there obviously comes a point even in my enthusiasm when attending a tournament is simply too much work. This usually translates to the tournament being too far away, and thus being too expensive to attend. With that in mind, I have at least once crossed the country to play a non-national tournament, and have virtually never not gone to a local tournament if I had that weekend free. Most people who like playing quizbowl are a lot like me in that regard (with the above caveats applying). My point is that the whole practice of tournament attendance is by and large completely independent from the post hoc availability of the questions. Indeed, if it weren't so, we wouldn't even be able to run most ACF tournaments, since the questions are made available almost immediately after the event. However, mysteriously, ACF events continue to be run and be pretty successful.

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:19 pm

You yourself just said the counter-factual has never been tried. How can you say that the empirical evidence all goes against me?

I'm not impugning your status as a quizbowler or a decent person; I'm just saying that if people couldn't play the tournament other than by attending, they would be more likely to attend. I think that's particularly true in this case, which was intended as a nationals prep tournament and thus satisfies that goal by having as teams attend as will be at nationals.

by **Ukonvasara** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:29 pm

This might've ended a little less farcically if you'd informed anyone that the packets would not be available immediately afterwards, as is standard, before the tournament was run.

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:31 pm

This might've ended a little less farcically if you'd, say, informed anyone that the packets would not be available immediately afterwards, as is standard, before the tournament was run.

But as Matt Bollinger noted, that would have been farcical also.

by **Ukonvasara** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:35 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:
This might've ended a little less farcically if you'd, say, informed anyone that the packets would not be available immediately afterwards, as is standard, before the tournament was run.

But as Matt Bollinger noted, that would have been farcical also.

Perhaps! I suppose, then, I'm left wondering how you thought this would succeed at all.

by **cvdwightw** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:35 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:
This might've ended a little less farcically if you'd, say, informed anyone that the packets would not be available immediately afterwards, as is standard, before the tournament was run.

But as Matt Bollinger noted, that would have been farcical also.

Yes; you merely caused a whole bunch of teams to seriously consider to pulling out of next year's tournament rather than this year's. Although I suppose you don't care about that if there isn't a 2013 version or you think that quizbowlers have short enough memories not to remember this farce.

Seriously, you do realize that your packet distribution policy is literally more restrictive than CBI's?

by **Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr.** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:36 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:
This might've ended a little less farcically if you'd, say, informed anyone that the packets would not be available immediately afterwards, as is standard, before the tournament was run.

But as Matt Bollinger noted, that would have been farcical also.

Actually I noted the exact opposite. My point was that if you'd told people that before the tournament was run, then theoretically your plan might have worked, assuming your ideas about why people would miss tournaments are accurate (which, well, yeah.) As it stands, I'm not sure what you were trying to accomplish.

by **grapesmoker** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:37 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:You yourself just said the counter-factual has never been tried. How can you say that the empirical evidence all goes against me?

The counterfactual of withholding the questions until a later date? I believe it has been tried (Auspicious Incident may have done this) but there's a reason it hasn't been terribly popular, and that reason is that it's not something that ever enters into anyone's calculations. The empirical evidence I'm talking about is the years of experience I have in talking to people. So when I say things like "hey, are you going to tournament X" and I receive a negative response, it's almost uniformly of the style "no, I have a concert/final/whatever on that date" or "no, our club doesn't have the money." No one ever says, "no, because we'll just read those questions in practice."

Of course, people do read questions in practice, and if they can get a hold of your set, they'll read it too. But they don't need your set to practice on because there are, like, hundreds of other sets that many people probably haven't heard. No one set is particularly valuable as practice material; you might say that they are almost perfectly substitutable for each other, unless the set is of legendary quality. So there's really no marginal benefit to be had by having your set as practice material vs. not having it, and thus people aren't going to make their decisions based on that consideration.

You're telling me about some sort of theoretical ceteris paribus calculation; I'm telling you about what actually goes on in the real quizbowl world. This is one of those situations where a misunderstanding of micro-level dynamics leads to incorrect predictions at the macro level.

I'm not impugning your status as a quizbowler or a decent person; I'm just saying that if people couldn't play the tournament other than by attending, they would be more likely to attend. I think that's particularly true in this case, which was intended as a nationals prep tournament and thus satisfies that goal by having as teams attend as will be at nationals.

And I'm telling you that you are wrong, and that the field at the mirrors should have amply demonstrated this. How many teams that will be at Nationals attended this event? Three or four, if you stretch the definition of "team?" Look, half your field at Chicago was composed of old dinosaurs who rolled in from locales of varying distance from Chicago to play it because, not being students, they're not eligible to play regular sets. So your purported "nationals prep" tournament drew mostly... people who are not eligible to play nationals (and in some cases are actually helping write and edit it). If this was supposed to be an experiment to demonstrate the validity of your hypothesis, then I would say that the hypothesis has been utterly falsified.

People are going to attend tournaments if the following conditions are satisfied: the tournament is reasonably close (this varies for every team, but I think ~4 hours is a reasonable boundary), they have the money to do so (connected with point 1), they are not otherwise occupied that weekend, and they think the tournament will be good. If any of those conditions are violated, people will likely decline to attend. The stated reasons of a lot of teams for not attending the mirrors were that they didn't think the set would be very good. I don't know why you don't accept that statement at face value and acknowledge that this has literally nothing to do with question availability at all.

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:42 pm

I suppose, then, I'm left wondering how you thought this would succeed at all.

I didn't.

I'm not particularly eager for another evening of preening outrage heightened by the remove that remote internet-forum-posting offers. If it's obviously ridiculous to attempt to curtail dissemination, than those in a position to disseminate should not have given their word not to do so.

by **Susan** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:45 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:...if people couldn't play the tournament other than by attending, they would be more likely to attend.

If this is true, I shudder to think how few circuit teams Berry's Southeastern tournament (which, so far as I can tell, has never publicly disseminated its questions) would draw if Berry made the questions available after the tourament.

by **grapesmoker** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 10:15 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:I didn't.

I'm not particularly eager for another evening of preening outrage heightened by the remove that remote internet-forum-posting offers. If it's obviously ridiculous to attempt to curtail dissemination, than those in a position to disseminate should not have given their word not to do so.

What were you hoping to accomplish by trying to demand conditions that contravene established quizbowl norms, and which were virtually certain to fail? I mean, yes, I agree: it was bad of people to lie to you and then spread the set around anyway. But since it was a near-guarantee that this exact scenario would transpire, what was the point? To catch someone (we don't even know who) in a lie? Why?

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 10:18 pm

I thought there was a small probability it would succeed; large enough that it was worth trying since the cost of trying is not very high.

by **The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 10:31 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:if people couldn't play the tournament other than by attending, they would be more likely to attend.

No one factors this in. Ever. The reason several teams didn't attend this tournament is they knew you'd pull stupid bullshit like the Frederick the Great tossup and all of the terrible nonsense that was in Sack last year. Plus people were rightly skeptical of Ike's writing ability after IO last year (to be fair, he seems to have rectified many of his issues). You attempted to stifle the dissemination of your tournament to make more people attend while simultaneously putting subpar questions into it on purpose. This is utterly inexcusable.

by **grapesmoker** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 10:40 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:I thought there was a small probability it would succeed; large enough that it was worth trying since the cost of trying is not very high.

Ok, here's where I think we come to the crux of the matter: you don't understand how to value "cost" correctly.

As I've argued before (and have drawn agreement on from diverse source ranging from Susan Ferrari to Bruce Arthur), quizbowl is a community enterprise, above (or perhaps alongside) all else. Fundamentally, the real currency of the game is not money (which is, at most, what you would have gained even if your plan had been successful). The real currency is essentially reputation. You gain reputation by being a contributing member of the community: writing questions, attending tournaments, hosting tournaments, and so on. Your gain is roughly commensurate with how well you do these things. Of course, there are also various established quizbowl norms, violating which is likely to draw opprobrium; this was one such example.

I'm not saying you must agree with all these norms, but a surefire way to lose reputation is to disagree with them by, essentially, trolling the people who hold them. Which is kind of what you did, not just with the question release policy, but by doing things like intentionally writing a bad question. When people think they're engaged with an intractable adversary who does things for inscrutable reasons (and, frankly, despite doing my Davidsonian best to try and understand what you're doing, I'm at that point myself), they're going to stop assuming good faith and just think you're being a dick. Whether they're right or wrong about that is something we could probably argue over for ages, but that's where the public perception is right now.

I'm not here saying "obey the hivemind!" (however appropriate that might be coming from the mouth of my avatar), I'm just saying, if you disagree with people on something, you should engage them in a reasonable way about it. There are lots of reasonable people in quizbowl who are amenable to having a sustained discussion with you about whatever aspect of quizbowl theory you care to bring up. But no one's going to take kindly to being trolled or having restrictions imposed on them for bogus reasons.

To bring this back to my original point, the cost you're paying right now is the cost of reputation. It's going to affect the decisions of people to come to your future tournaments, as Dwight has pointed out, and thus in the long run ironically run counter to your stated goal. A further irony, perhaps unintentional, is that due to the Chicago club's infinity-dollar budget, you maybe are able to allow yourself this privilege, as your club's income is effectively independent of anyone attending your tournaments; thus what is happening here is a sort of moral hazard situation in which you are able to act with impunity because you aren't bearing the full consequences of your decisions. But you're still damaging your own, and Chicago's reputation; I take you at your word that you care about that, but, to quote the bard, "believing and shitting are two different things." By which I mean: you can say whatever you want, but your actions kind of tell a different story.

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 10:59 pm

You're absolutely right that I don't want to damage my or my team's reputation, and the whole reason for this tournament was to contribute to the quizbowl community both by writing a tournament and by making my team better and thus a better participant in other tournaments. I've asked forgiveness for an intentionally bad tossup, which I regret, and I genuinely don't see why it's "outrageous" to make a reasonable effort not to have our work proliferated. Futile, fine, but this is seriously disproportionate.

Gillian Welch has a great song about this, as it happens, called "Everything is Free." Basically the point is that you [the world] all realized she'd make good music whether her work is pirated or not, but of course she's still much worse off if her work is pirated. So this outrage is analogous to saying "how dare Gillian Welch be pissed off?" when in fact, the whole point is that because she's committed to art for its own sake, she'll keep making it regardless of whether people steal it from her.

I don't claim that our quiz tournament is a great work of art, but it's a little rich to see everyone madly demanding to see it, then stamp all over me for how anti-social I and my team are for daring to question the norm that says it's fine to proliferate. And I certainly don't see why that has anything to do with attendance at a future Chicago-written tournament. Out of spite that last year Marshall tried and failed not to circulate it?

by **Bartleby** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:12 pm

Well, but here's the thing:

You didn't announce this in advance, which means people didn't know that the only way to have access to your tournament would be to attend it. People have a reasonable expectation that tournaments are going to be available for their perusal after all mirrors are completed. Not everyone goes to tournaments, for reasons which have already been clearly elucidated in this discussion, but most people like reading tournaments! So when you don't want to distribute your tournament, and don't let people know until after it's been played that this is the case, you aggravate a lot of people!!

ETA: Also, how does it make you "worse off" if people have access to your tournament for free after all mirrors have been completed? There's no reasonable expectation that you're going to continue to profit from it if no further schools are hosting mirrors.

by **mhayes** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:21 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:but of course she's still much worse off if her work is pirated.

Yes, but Gillian Welch can still profit from her music. Chicago's club can no longer profit from this tournament since there are no remaining mirrors.

Even so, I can still buy one of Gillian Welch's songs as long as I pay for it. In the case of your question set, you are not making it available *at all*. You're not protecting any future profits by keeping it private.

Of course it's your set to do as you please, but I can't see any incentive for you to not make it public.

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:21 pm

On this issue of "you didn't announce this despicable policy IN ADVANCE!! That's why we're pissed...." I simply don't believe the reaction would have been any different had it been announced in advance, and I think the effort would have been even less likely to succeed--various people would simply have told me I'm an idiot; then, given the chorus of disapproval, everyone in a position to proliferate would have done so since the hivemind said I'm an idiot so it must be okay to proliferate.

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:25 pm

In the case of your question set, you are not making it available *at all*.

That has never been the intention; I certainly intend to submit it to the packet archive, given the chance to correct grammar SO THAT IT'S EASIER TO PRACTICE ON IN THE FUTURE.

You're not protecting any future profits by keeping it private.

Not monetary profits, that's true, but there are other kinds. Actually, the fact that everyone wants it NOW NOW NOW is sufficient to conclude that.

by **Cheynem** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:27 pm

This is a pretty stupid thread.

Like I'm somewhat sympathetic to Marshall in the sense that you had people openly bashing this tournament before it happened and then immediately wanting to obtain the questions, which if I were an editor, I guess I wouldn't like. However, this scheme was pretty much doomed to fail and it seemed rather silly to not allow people who actually did choose to pay for the questions and attend the tournament not to have it. That said, much ink is spilled in this thread discussing Marshall's silly ideas and not like the actual questions themselves.

by **Matt Weiner** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:29 pm

Marshall should stop meta-commenting on other people's attitudes, which is against the rules.

by **grapesmoker** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:33 pm

Tees-Exe Line wrote:I've asked forgiveness for an intentionally bad tossup, which I regret, and I genuinely don't see why it's "outrageous" to make a reasonable effort not to have our work proliferated.

It's not "outrageous" but it's really uncommon. If you really wanted to prevent this, I think at the very least you could have asked for it publicly, but whatever; the point is that this is the norm, for easily understandable reasons, and you wanted to go against it.

Gillian Welch has a great song about this, as it happens, called "Everything is Free." Basically the point is that you [the world] all realized she'd make good music whether her work is pirated or not, but of course she's still much worse off if her work is pirated. So this outrage is analogous to saying "how dare Gillian Welch be pissed off?" when in fact, the whole point is that because she's committed to art for its own sake, she'll keep making it regardless of whether people steal it from her.

No, it isn't. Your work is not being "pirated" in any meaningful sense, because it has no value in the sense that someone is going to pay money for it. The simple reason for this is because people are already giving away their tournament sets for free, so why would anyone pay for yours? That's different from Gillian Welch, because no one but Welch can produce Welch's music, but a great number of people can and do write the same quizbowl questions.

I don't claim that our quiz tournament is a great work of art, but it's a little rich to see everyone madly demanding to see it, then stamp all over me for how anti-social I and my team are for daring to question the norm that says it's fine to proliferate. And I certainly don't see why that has anything to do with attendance at a future Chicago-written tournament. Out of spite that last year Marshall tried and failed not to circulate it?

Yes, it's anti-social to question implicit social norms; that's what makes them social norms! That doesn't necessarily make it wrong (though in this case, I do think you're wrong), but yeah, that's kind of the definition of being anti-social. And yes, I'm surprised that I'm having to explain how people's thinking "that guy's kind of a dick" (however rightly or wrongly) might influence people's decision to attend your future tournaments. I mean, I'm guessing if whatever sequel to this tournament happens next year, if I'm available I'll come, because I like playing quizbowl and none of this really bothers me in any meaningful way. But I'm not sure how many other non-dinosaur people are going to make the same decision.

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:44 pm

Marshall should stop meta-commenting on other people's attitudes, which is against the rules.

It's probably foolish to question the judgment of the moderator since they can just make this all disappear, but.... at the end of a long thread where my attitude has been impugned for having the gall not to want the tournament I edited to proliferate, how exactly am **I** the one who's meta-commenting on other people's attitudes? That--exactly that--is what is being directed AT me.

Anyway, this is unfortunate because I was just going to try to sound a note of conciliation toward you specifically. I'll do so anyway: when that high school tournament had major problems last spring, you blew a gasket, in my view for understandable reasons. You've devoted a huge amount of time and energy to making the quizbowl community large and vibrant and anything that discourages lots of high schools from attending a national championship is a problem for you, personally and directly. I edited one tournament (or two, now); it doesn't even come close to what you've put into this. But when my and my colleague's work is spread around indiscriminately notwithstanding assurances we asked for and received, it similarly amounts to disrespecting our contribution. Everyone has emphasized that there is no future monetary reward to be gained from this tournament, as though monetary reward is the only kind that matters. You who value the quizbowl "community" as such should see that can't possibly be right.

Anyway, thanks to Mike Cheyne for making sense, as usual.

by **Matt Weiner** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:50 pm

You can say whatever you want about the issue of sharing the packets, but drop the stuff about how the "hivemind" is oppressing you and such. Talking about what people choose to post is against the rules, as is talking about the enforcement of the rules on the board.

If you would like to send anything conciliatory towards me, you can start by not attributing to me bizarre positions such as "quizbowl should be played only by a select group of Virginians," not posting non-sequiturs such as PDFs of breastfeeding statistics as responses to discussions of quizbowl, and editing better tournaments that, at a minimum, do not intentionally include bad questions in order to prove an ill-defined point.

by **Grams's Go-Go Boots** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:52 pm

Pretty sure Gillian Welch never recorded a crappy album on purpose.

by **grapesmoker** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:59 pm

Fred wrote:Pretty sure Gillian Welch never recorded a crappy album on purpose.

Although I'm fairly sure I've heard of at least one instance of a band doing so, since the album was required by their contract but they didn't feel like doing a good job on it. I forget who it was though.

And let's be fair to Marshall, I was the one who used the term "hivemind" albeit in a sarcastic sense.

Ok, for more pressing questions: now that we know the questions have been distributed, can we acquire them and use them to discuss? Or are we still limited to having Chicago people post them? Because I think that's a pretty bad way to have a discussion, but if Marshall insists on maintaining the embargo, I'll respect it.

by **Kouign Amann** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:04 am

grapesmoker wrote:
Fred wrote:Pretty sure Gillian Welch never recorded a crappy album on purpose.

Although I'm fairly sure I've heard of at least one instance of a band doing so, since the album was required by their contract but they didn't feel like doing a good job on it. I forget who it was though.

Don't know if it's what you were thinking, and Lou Reed isn't really a band, but a lot of people believe this is what he was doing with Metal Machine Music.

by **pray for elves** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:23 am

grapesmoker wrote:Although I'm fairly sure I've heard of at least one instance of a band doing so, since the album was required by their contract but they didn't feel like doing a good job on it. I forget who it was though.

Van Morrison came in with a detuned guitar while slightly intoxicated to record enough songs to fulfill his contract with Bang Records, which mandated that he record a number of songs per year (I think 25). See "Ringworm", "The Big Royalty Check", and "Want a Danish?"

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled discussion of this tournament.

by **Tees-Exe Line** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:24 am

I'm going to bed--I'll leave Mike Cheyne's statement as the last I have to say on the larger issue of nonproliferation. As for whether this tournament will be officially released, I'm not going to decide now or without consulting Ike and the others.

Finally, the best thing you could do (related to this tournament) vis a vis the quizbowl community is actually critique questions from this tournament, especially those from first-time writers. That would be constructive, regardless of your personal opinion about me.

by **Grams's Go-Go Boots** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:26 am

Tees-Exe Line wrote:Finally, the best thing you could do (related to this tournament) vis a vis the quizbowl community is actually critique questions from this tournament, especially those from first-time writers.

I''m not going to be the one making the critiques, but this is hard to do without a set of the questions.

by **Quantum Mushroom Billiard Hat** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:29 am

Tees-Exe Line wrote:I'm going to bed--I'll leave Mike Cheyne's statement as the last I have to say on the larger issue of nonproliferation. As for whether this tournament will be officially released, I'm not going to decide now or without consulting Ike and the others.

Finally, the best thing you could do (related to this tournament) vis a vis the quizbowl community is actually critique questions from this tournament, especially those from first-time writers. That would be constructive, regardless of your personal opinion about me.

One of the reasons people want to see the questions is so that they can do exactly this. I certainly don't have a perfect memory, and I don't have all of the answers written down, so the only things I can comment on are the two or three that stuck out in my memory. If we had a chance to look at the set, people would be able to make lots of informed comments and suggestions. (beaten by Fred)

by **grapesmoker** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:32 am

Tees-Exe Line wrote:I'm going to bed--I'll leave Mike Cheyne's statement as the last I have to say on the larger issue of nonproliferation. As for whether this tournament will be officially released, I'm not going to decide now or without consulting Ike and the others.

Finally, the best thing you could do (related to this tournament) vis a vis the quizbowl community is actually critique questions from this tournament, especially those from first-time writers. That would be constructive, regardless of your personal opinion about me.

What does this mean regarding our ability to acquire this set and post comments on it?

by **Distance model** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:46 am

Am I the only one who felt as though the rounds got progressively harder; and if not, was this intentional?

by **setht** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:53 am

Back in 2003, Michigan put on Auspicious Incident, a house-written tournament that was intended to serve as a warm-up for nationals. There were no mirrors, and the writers/editors chose not to post the packets (or sell them to anyone) until after nationals that year, the rationale being that part of their motivation for writing the tournament was to help them get ready for nationals and they didn't want to facilitate rival teams' packet-studying of their well-researched set. I don't think this was announced in advance, and I don't think anyone had a problem with it (I know I didn't). The quizbowl culture has changed since then, with way more tournament sets being made freely available online, but I thought it was a defensible stance then and I think it's a defensible stance now. I imagine this factored into the decision to try to restrict access to the PR set, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Moving on to actual discussion of the tournament, I want to give some feedback on the questions, because I know several young, up-and-coming writers (and also some not-quite-so-young folks like Marshall and Ike) put in a lot of work on the set and would really appreciate some constructive criticism. Unfortunately I was rather under the weather on Saturday, so my memory of the tournament is even hazier than it usually is 2 days out from the event. Hopefully other people with better memories will jump in with more feedback.

Overall, I had a good time and thought the set was just fine for what I understood the tournament to be: a slightly wacky* open/high-level event. There were issues with bonus consistency, there were questions with unclear sentence constructions, there were misplaced middle clues in tossups; enough so that I wouldn't have wanted to compete for a national title on the set, but again, for what I believe the event was aiming for I thought it was fine. Actually, given the relatively low average and collective amount of writing/editing experience of the people who produced the set, I was pleasantly surprised. There's always room for improvement, but I think this set constitutes a good marker on the road of progress.

* I should note that Peaceful Resolution was actually quite a bit less wacky than I was expecting, but still had a goodly number of creative questions, which I appreciated.

Looking specifically at the science I like, there were a number of tossups that were worded confusingly, dropped pretty easy clues very early, or both. I was playing Jerry's team in the round with the equivalence principle tossup; at the moment he buzzed I'd decided the answer was GR, Newtonian gravity or maybe MOND but wasn't sure which. I definitely did not think "equivalence principle" was a possibility. I don't know if the question said "This theory" or something like that early on; if it did, that's not a good noun to use in referring to the equivalence principle. I think the precession tossup started off by saying "One form of this phenomenon occurs in the geodetic effect" or something like that; oddly enough, that feels like a clue that is both a little too vague and a little too easy to be a lead-in: I hear that and I know it's precession, or the question is going to take a weird turn (and after that equivalence principle tossup the round before I wasn't willing to take the plunge). There was something about the wording in the "finite" tossup that made me think the answer was a property that could be applied to the axiom of choice. I think that was me mishearing something, but possibly the wording was suboptimal. The damping tossup confused me (probably my fault) and the quoted equation was egregious (I'm pretty sure a much simpler equation would suffice to illustrate a damping term). The earth science tossups generally didn't play well for me, which is largely my fault but possibly also partly a result of Marshall writing with the assumption that other people have the same kind of knowledge base he does (e.g. that caldera tossup whose giveaway I think mentioned some particular caldera that didn't mean anything to me; if the geography buffs all know that as "the famous caldera" then I guess I'm glad the straightforward geological description of what a caldera is came first, but it seemed weird at the time). The Gaia tossup seemed like one that dropped easy clues early. On the plus side, I thought the lead-in for the Magellanic Clouds was cool and reasonably coy while remaining buzzable and (I think) unique.

Finally, I had no clue on that Zalmoxis bonus part, but Jerry knew it and I think it's preferable to have very hard myth bonus parts--if we're going to have them at all--that come from stuff in Herodotus that gets extensive commentary from Mircea Eliade, or equivalents, rather than parts on Basque cave goddesses (or whatever) whose main claim to coming up in quizbowl is that they've come up before.

-Seth

by **Mike Bentley** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:57 am

Some question feedback:

Filippo Lippi - I was not aware there was an artist besides Fra Filippo Lippi with the name Filippo Lippi. Thus, I was confused for most of this question because I wasn't sure what was being described with the term "name". Usually such questions make it specific that they want a last name or a first name or something. I guess in this case it was fine, but I was mostly lost in Caraci land for most of it.

Rogier van der Weyden - I don't know a ton of clues about him but this seemed okay.

Toilette of Venus - Seemed like a fine tossup.

astronomer/journalist/artist - "Journalist" was a little confusing here. We ended up saying "writer" and were correct, based on the Zola clue. I was thrown off a bit by the description of Louis-François Bertin (aka my avatar), who was also a businessman besides just being a journalist (the painting was famously called by Manet the "The Buddha of the bourgeoisie").

Creative Destruction - I don't have any real primary knowledge about this but I was able to figure it out about half way through because it seemed to repeatedly talk a lot about how it was hard for one firm to innovate and easy for another firm to take over.

North Carolina - I was pretty sure I knew the first clue about the Wilmington coup but was waiting for something specific to confirm this and it never really seemed to come. It seemed like this tossup was a little narrow in scope, but this could also just be a lack in my knowledge base.

Act of Union - I don't know a ton about this, but I was not anywhere close until the giveaway. I'd have to see the tossup to offer more precise criticism.

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