2018 ACF Regionals Global Announcement (1/20/18)

[Auroni]

This is the official global announcement for ACF Regionals 2018, which will take place on January 20, 2018. Please note that there are a number of significant changes from last year's tournament, which will be highlighted throughout this post in red or black bold.

EDITORS:

Head editor: Auroni Gupta
Co-editors: Will Alston, Stephen Eltinge, Will Holub-Moorman, and Kenji Shimizu

REGISTRATION:

Registration for Regionals is now open; please fill out this form: The current list of registered teams can be found here.
HOSTS:

We are actively seeking hosts in all of the regions listed below. Please contact us at acfregionals2018@gmail.com. Bidding is open until October 31st. We are seeking bids from hosts that can guarantee internet access for moderators to use online scoresheets. Moderators will be trained to use online scoresheets that will be used to create detailed stats. If you serve a different region than the ones listed but still think you could attract teams and run a viable site, please feel free to bid anyway. Depending on where the sites are distributed within the regions below, we may add or subtract sites.

Canada/Niagara: University of Toronto
Northeast: University of Connecticut
Mid-Atlantic: University of Virginia
Upper Mid-Atlantic: Penn State
Southeast (North):
Southeast (Central): Georgia Tech
Texas/Louisiana: Rice University
Florida: University of Central Florida
North: University of Minnesota
Great Lakes: University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Great Plains: Kansas State
California: University of California, San Diego
United Kingdom: Oxford-Brookes
Rocky Mountains:
High School:

We are also open to allowing high schools to host high-school-only mirrors of the set. Interested hosts of such tournaments should also email acfregionals2018@gmail.com.

PACKET SUBMISSION:

Any team with at least one person on it who played a regular, collegiate, academic quizbowl tournament* (either as a college student or as a high school student) prior to September 1, 2016 is required to submit a half-packet. House teams from host schools, as well as teams composed of people who have not played regular, collegiate, academic quizbowl tournaments prior to September 1, 2016, are not required to submit a half-packet, but may choose to do so by the no penalty deadline (December 10th), for a -$50 discount.

* For these purposes, all ACF tournaments, NAQT Division I or Division II SCT, NAQT ICT, and typical academic invitationals and summer opens count as regular collegiate academic tournaments. Trash or “hybrid” tournaments, College Bowl/HCASC, and tournaments played on NAQT's Collegiate Novice series sets do not.

The submission schedule for this tournament is:
November 12th, 2017: -$50
November 26th, 2017: -$25
December 10th, 2017: No penalty
December 28th, 2017: +$25
January 7th, 2018: +$50
After that, +$10 for each additional day that you're late.
After January 14th, you will be dropped from the tournament, with no exceptions.

Please submit your packet to acfregionals2018@gmail.com. The actual e-mail with the attached half-packet should have a subject-line reading: "School + Team Letter (if applicable) HALF-PACKET." In order to meet a deadline, you must submit your half-packet before 11:59pm Pacific Time on that date. Half-packets should be submitted in Microsoft Word .doc or .docx format.

FEES:

Base fee: $135
Buzzer: -$5/functional system
Staffers: -$10/staffer
Shorthanded fee (teams of 1 or 2 players): $60
New to quizbowl discount: -$100

"New to quizbowl" discount is intended for schools that did not send a team to any regular collegiate academic tournament (exclusively Novice tournaments do not count) since September 2016, and have no one on the team(s) claiming this discount who played those tournaments for another school.

ACCESSIBILITY:

We are continuing last year's initiatives to make ACF Regionals a more accessible tournament. Please take the following guidelines into account when submitting your half-packet:

* At least 50% of tossup answers should be things that can be tossed up at ACF Fall. This does not mean that you write an ACF Fall-style tossup. Your tossup should still be a "regular-difficulty tossup on a Fall-level answer line."

* For the remaining 50% of questions, stick to solid regular-difficulty answer lines, and don't push the envelope.

* Easy parts for bonuses should be genuinely easy, once again along ACF Fall lines.

* While hard parts should still be "regular-difficulty" hard parts, we encourage you to ask about deep things connecting to easy material. Try to guess at what someone who really knows a lot about the subject matter might find interesting or memorable, rather than simply repeating a clue or answer line that you recall hearing at a more difficult tournament.

* Tossups will be hard-capped at 8 lines. Please feel free to submit tossups that are longer than 8 lines, but do not submit any tossups that are shorter than 7 lines, or we will send them back to you.

DISTRIBUTION:

All submitting teams will be assigned a half-packet (12/12) distribution upon registration using the central registration form which will be made available soon. The assigned distribution is non-negotiable; please conform to it exactly, or we will send your packet back to you. Please contact us at acfregionals2018@gmail.com if you would like a half packet assignment before the registration form is available.

Each submitted half-packet should contain 12 tossups and 12 bonuses, following roughly half of the following distribution, which reflects a blend of distributions from acclaimed recent tournaments, and is different from past ACF Regionals:

5/5 Literature
-> 2/1 or 1/2 Long Fiction (novels)
-> 1/1 Non-Epic Poetry
-> 1/0 or 0/1 Drama
-> 1/0 or 0/1 Short Fiction (short stories and novellas)
-> 1/0 or 0/1 "Miscellaneous" (nonfiction, literary criticism, epic poetry, other literary questions)
-> 1/1 Any of the above

5/5 History
-> 1/1 US History
-> 1/1 Continental European History (post-600 CE)
-> 1/0 or 0/1 Continental or Near Eastern History (pre-600 CE)
-> 1/0 or 0/1 British, Canadian, Australian, or New Zealand history
-> 1/0 or 0/1 Historiography or Archaeology
-> 1/1 Other History (not covered above; "world" history) - At least one of these must be on a non-20th century topic (more is fine)
-> 1/0 or 0/1 Any history (more of any of the above categories)

5/5 Science
-> 1/1 Biology
-> 1/1 Chemistry
-> 1/1 Physics
-> 1/0 or 0/1 Math
-> 1/0 or 0/1 Other Science
-> 1/1 Any science (more of any of the above categories)

3/3 Arts
-> 1/1 Painting and Sculpture
-> 1/1 Music
-> 1/1 "Other" Art

3/3 RMP
-> 1/1 Religion
-> 1/1 Mythology (inc. questions about mythography/folktales)
-> 1/1 Philosophy

1/1 Social Science

1/0 or 0/1 Geography

1/0 or 0/1 Current Events

1/0 or 0/1 Other Academic

1/0 or 0/1 Trash

We have clear guidelines on what your submissions can or cannot be, with information on penalties for flouting the guidelines. Please go through this submission checklist (disregarding the portions concerning line limits) before sending your packet- if your packet violates these guidelines, I will ask you to resubmit it and consider the final submission to calculate packet discounts.

FURTHER QUESTIONS:

If you have any further questions, please send them to acfregionals2018@gmail.com.

LIST OF SUBMITTED HALF-PACKETS:

Oxford A (-$50)
MSU B (-$50)
Berkeley A (-$50)
Berkeley B (-$50)
Johns Hopkins A (-$50)
Johns Hopkins B (-$50)
Johns Hopkins C (-$50)
Johns Hopkins D (-$50)
Maryland A (-$50)
McGill A (-$50)
McGill B (-$50)
Delaware A (-$50)
Michigan B (-$50)
Carleton A (-$50)
Kentucky A (-$50)
Illinois A (-$50)
Illinois B (-$50)
Case Western Reserve University (-$50)
Michigan State A (-$50)
Boston College (-$50)
Rutgers A (-$50)
Missouri A (-$50)
Maryland B (-$50)
Wisconsin (-$25)
Wright State (-$25)
UCSD A (-$25) [received -$50 discount for optional host submission]
Penn A (-$25)
Florida A (-$25)
Rochester A (-$25)
OSU A (-$25)
Berkeley C (-$25)
New College of Florida A (-$0)
Queen's A (-$0)
Liberty A (-$0)
Liberty B (-$0)
UGA C (-$0) [received -$50 discount for optional submission]
Penn B (-$0)
Louisiana Tech A (-$0)
Cambridge A (-$0)
Cambridge B (-$0)
Carnegie Mellon A (-$0)
Carnegie Mellon B (-$0)
Carnegie Mellon C (-$0)
Warwick B (-$0)
Michigan A (-$0)
Tulane A (-$0)
Louisville A (-$0)
Louisville B (-$0)
Columbia A (-$0)
Columbia B (-$0)
UW A (-$0)
Yale A (-$0)
Yale B (-$0)
Gettysburg A (-$0)
UGA A (-$0)
UC Davis A (-$0)
Rutgers B (-$0)
UT Dallas A (-$0)
Northwestern A (-$0)
Chicago A (-$0)
MIT B (-$0)
WUSTL A (-$0)
WUSTL B (-$0)
Waterloo (-$0)
NYU A (+$25)
Duke A (+$25)
Oxford B (+$25)
MIT A (+$25)
Louisiana Tech B (+$25)
TAMU A (+$25)
TAMU B (+$25)
Chicago B (+$25)
Chicago C (+$25)
Chicago D (+$25)
Oklahoma A (+$25)
Stanford (+$25)
Colorado (+$25)
UNC L (+$50)
Kentucky B (+$50)
Virginia Tech A (+$50)
Georgetown A (+$50)
Georgetown B (+$50)
St. Olaf (+$50)
Harvard A (+$50)
Oregon (+$50)
South Carolina (+$50)
Clemson (+$60)
Caltech (+$60)
UGA B (+$70)
St Andrews (+$70)
Southampton (+$90)
NC State (+$110)
UCLA A ($+110)
Amherst ($+110)
Florida State ($110)

[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]

Hey folks! I'm really excited to be one of your ACF Regionals editors this year. With the half-packet scheme, my fellow writers and I look forward to making more use of the questions that writers send us this year. To get an idea of the questions we would love to receive and use, I encourage you to consult the following threads, which each discuss important factors beyond the basic qualities of pyramidality, uniqueness, accuracy, and accessibility:

Jonathan Magin's Music Writing Guide - This is an easily readable, accessible guide to writing music by a widely-acclaimed ACF editor. I encourage both technically trained musicians and total novices with amateur interest to consult this guide for how to write music questions that are engaging to both (technical) expert and amateur audiences.

Matt Jackson's Essay on Mythology - This tournament will use 1/1 mythology with the goal of maintaining accessibility, as mythology is a rich source of culture that many people learn about. However, I encourage people to consult this essay's sections on "How do people learn myths and why?" and "Revamp the writing of existing myth questions" for guides as to what types of material to emphasize in questions.

Matt Jackson's Essay on Geography Questions - Most of this thread's points have been incorporated into quizbowl, but I encourage newer writers to read it over in order to get an idea of what to put in a geography question that you want used.

(Blatantly self-servingly) My guide to writing history questions - This guide is for people familiar with writing, but interested in assembling history questions that are more than merely "a series of factually accurate clues in some pyramidal order." Big surprise - I will be editing some non-zero amount of this set's history, so looking at this may serve you well.

[Milhouse]

do not submit any tossups that are shorter than 7 lines, or we will send them back to you.

What margins/font/font size does this limit apply to (e.g. seven lines in size 12 Arial with one-inch margins will be less than that in size ten Times New Roman with half-inch margins)?

EDIT: I now see that the submission guidelines linked to at the end of the post specify 10 point Times New Roman with one-inch margins.

[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]

do not submit any tossups that are shorter than 7 lines, or we will send them back to you.

What margins/font/font size does this limit apply to (e.g. seven lines in size 12 Arial with one-inch margins will be less than that in size ten Times New Roman with half-inch margins)?

EDIT: I now see that the submission guidelines linked to at the end of the post specify 10 point Times New Roman with one-inch margins.

From an editor of this set - and not to imply that this is what you are trying to do - I sincerely hope people aren't looking to write the bare minimum possible for this event! Editors need clues to work because of things like repeats, trying to avoid being too close to previous questions, etc. I personally want to use people's questions, as that makes my job a lot easier and, I imagine, is a lot more gratifying for the original writers (who get to see their questions in the set). But if you're submitting a tossup that's barely reaching seven lines whose main body was taken directly from Regionals 2014 or Terrapin or something, you can sure bet I'll happily rewrite your entire question, or even make a replacement from scratch, without thinking twice.

We hope that the half-packet scheme will allow writers to focus on writing better questions in a few areas, rather than writing lots of questions in areas they may not know as well.

[Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook]

Can someone check the regionals email and send us a distro please.

[Auroni]

Reminder that the deadline for bids is tomorrow, October 31st.

[Auroni]

The initial post has been updated with the accepted bids. For the regions with unlisted sites, we are either awaiting bids or still in the process of deliberating; please email acfregionals2018@gmail.com if you would like to host.

EDIT: The centralized registration form is now up and has been linked in the opening post.

[cruzeiro]

I sent in a registration on Friday in which I said I needed to write a pack and emailed yesterday to ask for a distribution. Can someone please get back to me and give me a distribution?

[Calculus?]

I sent in a registration on Friday in which I said I needed to write a pack and emailed yesterday to ask for a distribution. Can someone please get back to me and give me a distribution?

Likewise, I registered a team for Toronto and need a distribution.

[Auroni]

A few more sites have been confirmed (including a Penn State site to serve a new "Upper Mid-Atlantic" Region). Reminder that the first deadline for packets is at the end of this Sunday.

[CPiGuy]

Can teams that are not required to submit packets do so for a discount, or at least the same discount as a required team would get?

[Auroni]

Can teams that are not required to submit packets do so for a discount, or at least the same discount as a required team would get?

I have edited the opening post to make this clear, but yes. Non-required teams can earn the maximum discount (of $-50) if they submit a half-packet by December 10th (the no-penalty deadline).

[CPiGuy]

Can teams that are not required to submit packets do so for a discount, or at least the same discount as a required team would get?

I have edited the opening post to make this clear, but yes. Non-required teams can earn the maximum discount (of $-50) if they submit a half-packet by December 10th (the no-penalty deadline).

Excellent! Can the signup form be updated to include a "not required to write but did anyway" option?

[Auroni]

I have updated the opening post to reflect all the teams that made the -$50 deadline. Congratulations to the Berkeley, McGill, Michigan State, and Illinois teams for sending two half-packets apiece for the earliest deadline, and huge kudos to the Johns Hopkins team for sending in four (4) half-packets!

[An Economic Ignoramus]

I have updated the opening post to reflect all the teams that made the -$50 deadline. Congratulations to the Berkeley, McGill, and Illinois teams for sending two half-packets apiece for the earliest deadline, and huge kudos to the Johns Hopkins team for sending in four (4) half-packets!

Not to seem petty, but Michigan State also did this.

[Auroni]

I have updated the opening post to reflect all the teams that made the -$50 deadline. Congratulations to the Berkeley, McGill, and Illinois teams for sending two half-packets apiece for the earliest deadline, and huge kudos to the Johns Hopkins team for sending in four (4) half-packets!

Not to seem petty, but Michigan State also did this.

So you did.

[kitakule]

Would it be possible to make available the spreadsheet containing the updated fields for all sites, as done with other ACF tournaments in the past?

[Alejandro]

* Tossups will be hard-capped at 8 lines. Please feel free to submit tossups that are longer than 8 lines, but do not submit any tossups that are shorter than 7 lines, or we will send them back to you.

It seems like the other references to 7 were changed, so I just wanted to double-check: can we submit questions that are 7 lines long?

[Auroni]

* Tossups will be hard-capped at 8 lines. Please feel free to submit tossups that are longer than 8 lines, but do not submit any tossups that are shorter than 7 lines, or we will send them back to you.

It seems like the other references to 7 were changed, so I just wanted to double-check: can we submit questions that are 7 lines long?

Yes. Also as a reminder that the -$25 deadline is coming up this Sunday.

[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]

The main reason I'd recommend submitting longer tossups is because editors are liable to cut and/or alter clues - so if you give us more to work with, we're more likely to keep your clues. Keep it reasonable, of course - there's probably not a real need to spend the effort writing tons of of ten-line questions - but if you're struggling between two clues to use in your submission, just throw in both. I personally like having more material to work with anyways, because it means more to learn / evaluate!

[t-bar]

The main reason I'd recommend submitting longer tossups is because editors are liable to cut and/or alter clues - so if you give us more to work with, we're more likely to keep your clues. Keep it reasonable, of course - there's probably not a real need to spend the effort writing tons of of ten-line questions - but if you're struggling between two clues to use in your submission, just throw in both. I personally like having more material to work with anyways, because it means more to learn / evaluate!

As a co-editor, I endorse this sentiment. More (good) content is generally better than less content.

[CPiGuy]

Would it be possible to update the main announcement posts with links to the announcement posts for the mirrors as they go up?

[Panayot Hitov]

Hey, Carleton's been waiting on its distro for a few days, can we get it?

[Auroni]

Second deadline half-packets added to the opening post.

[Panayot Hitov]

Hey, Carleton's been waiting on its distro for a few days, can we get it?

Resolved!

[Charbroil]

Would it be possible to make available the spreadsheet containing the updated fields for all sites, as done with other ACF tournaments in the past?

I, too, would enjoy getting to see this information.

[Coach Jim]

Liberty registered 3 teams over the weekend, and we are also waiting for the distribution list of questions for our A and B teams to write and submit before the December 10 deadline coming up in less than a week.

[Auroni]

Reminder that the no penalty deadline for submission is this Sunday.

[Coach Jim]

Yes, we submitted 2 half packets Friday afternoon.

[Auroni]

Reminder that the +$25 deadline is in two days.

[Auroni]

The +$50 deadline for half-packets has passed. This coming Sunday (Jan. 14) is the absolute latest you have to submit a half-packet if you're required to, so please don't miss it.

[Ethnic history of the Vilnius region]

I'm moderating tomorrow and was wondering about the electronic scoresheets. Is there any info out there on how to use them and stuff?

[Victor Prieto]

Assuming you are moderating at the Georgia Tech site, you should contact the tournament director at tdellaert3@gatech.edu immediately about training for the electronic scoresheets.

[Auroni]

Eric (and others), the instructions can be found at this site

[nsb2]

Are there plans for a private discussion forum within the next few days? I didn't see it on the list in my control panel.

[Banned Tiny Toon Adventures Episode]

Are there plans for a private discussion forum within the next few days? I didn't see it on the list in my control panel.

with modern technology we might even be able to run a public discussion thread

[nsb2]

Are there plans for a private discussion forum within the next few days? I didn't see it on the list in my control panel.

with modern technology we might even be able to run a public discussion thread

I was asking about a private forum in light of the possible continuation of NASAT; ACF Regs was used for Team Illinois tryouts last year and it may be used there again (and possibly also in other states).

[The Abydos Helicopter]

Are there plans for a private discussion forum within the next few days? I didn't see it on the list in my control panel.

with modern technology we might even be able to run a public discussion thread

I was asking about a private forum in light of the possible continuation of NASAT; ACF Regs was used for Team Illinois tryouts last year and it may be used there again (and possibly also in other states).

Also, the UK Mirror is next weekend

[Milhouse]

It appears that there is in fact a private forum, but no one has announced its existence.

[Auroni]

It appears that there is in fact a private forum, but no one has announced its existence.

Which is why I'm doing it now. You can join it by going to User Control Panel -> Usergroups, then scroll down to ACF Regionals 2018, select it, and hit "join selected."

[theMoMA]

A note on Nationals qualification: Any remaining autobid requests (whether based on hosting, editing, or being in far-flung proximity to the nearest Regionals site) must be submitted to me by Wednesday at 6pm central time. My email address is hartam@gmail.com.

[Auroni]

This tournament is now clear. I have uploaded the packets and they can be found here.

[Calculus?]

Just wondering when hosts can expect payment for this, I have confirmed with all schools at the Toronto site that they’ve paid but I haven’t heard anything from ACF yet.

[Galstaff, Sorceror of Light]

Just wondering when hosts can expect payment for this, I have confirmed with all schools at the Toronto site that they’ve paid but I haven’t heard anything from ACF yet.

I spoke to Gautam, who says checks should be in the mail on Monday.