Cal's Mid-Spring Tournament—March 2018

[Knickerbocker glory]

This is an announcement for what we are tentatively calling Cal's Mid-Spring Tournament (CMST), the annual iteration of the Nationals-minus spring open.

The tournament will be written by members of the University of California, Berkeley's quiz bowl team. The editing team will consist of me, Aseem Keyal, and Michael Coates of Berkeley quiz bowl, and joined by Weijia Cheng, Ryan Humphrey, Will Nediger, and Jennie Yang.

The tournament will attempt to adhere to last year's (This) Tournament is a Crime set, in style, difficulty, and in its exploration of new topics. The distribution for this tournament is taken from that set; for reference, here it is:

4/4 Literature (Will)
1.25/1.25 Long Fiction
1/1 Poetry
0.75/0.75 Drama
0.5/0.5 Short Fiction
0.5/0.5 "Miscellaneous" (non-fiction, literary criticism, literary history, other things that transcend or combine these genres)

4/4 History (Bruce)
1.25/1.25 American
1.25/1.25 World
1.25/1.25 European
0.25/0.25 "Other"

4/4 Science (Aseem and Ryan)
1/1 Biology
1/1 Chemistry
1/1 Physics
0.5/0.5 Math
0.5/0.5 Other Science

2/2 Beliefs (Aseem and Weijia)
1/1 Religion
1/1 Legends

3/3 Arts (Aseem and Jennie)
1/1 Painting and Sculpture
1/1 Classical Music and Opera
0.5/0.5 Other Visual Arts
0.5/0.5 Other Auditory Arts

2/2 Thought (Will)
1/1 Social Science
1/1 Philosophy

1/1 Other (Bruce and Michael)
0.33/0.33 Geography
0.33/0.33 Current Events
0.33/0.33 Academic Other

Mirror fees: We are charging $50 per team for mirrors (including house teams). PM me or email me at brucelou AT berkeley DOT edu for more info.

Current mirror sites:
University of Maryland (Mid-Atlantic)
University of Minnesota (Midwest)
Auburn University (Southeastern)
University of Warwick (UK)
McMaster University (Canada)
Stanford University (Pacific)
New York University (Northeastern)

[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]

Glad to see this is happening.

I am playing at the Berkeley site with Neil Gurram and looking for two teammates, preferably ones that don't overlap with my knowledge base too heavily (but that's not super important). I encourage other players to visit the tournament's flagship site as well.

[Mike Bentley]

I'll most likely be playing the Berkeley site and am also looking for teammates.

[i never see pigeons in wheeling]

Same as above.

[Kevin]

Is there a date set for the Auburn mirror?

[Milhouse]

Similarly, I’d appreciate knowing when the Maryland mirror will be.

[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]

Same but for Berkeley so I can book my flights

[100% Clean Comedian Dan Nainan]

Is there a date set for the Auburn mirror?

The Auburn mirror will be on March 24. I'll get an announcement up over the break.

[Knickerbocker glory]

Same but for Berkeley so I can book my flights

We are tentatively planning to host it on March 17.

[Mike Bentley]

Same but for Berkeley so I can book my flights

We are tentatively planning to host it on March 17.

When do you think you'll have the date confirmed?

[Knickerbocker glory]

Same but for Berkeley so I can book my flights

We are tentatively planning to host it on March 17.

When do you think you'll have the date confirmed?

When we have room reservations confirmed.

[aseem.keyal]

Same but for Berkeley so I can book my flights

We are tentatively planning to host it on March 17.

When do you think you'll have the date confirmed?

When we have room reservations confirmed.

To expand on this, we've already sent in the request and it will hopefully be approved by next Friday (December 16th).

[aseem.keyal]

Same but for Berkeley so I can book my flights

We are tentatively planning to host it on March 17.

When do you think you'll have the date confirmed?

When we have room reservations confirmed.

To expand on this, we've already sent in the request and it will hopefully be approved by next Friday (December 16th).

Sorry for the delay. We've decided to change the date to March 10th, as quarter schools have finals the week after March 17th. We weren't able to get rooms in Berkeley for this date, so the tournament will take place at Stanford on March 10th. An announcement should be up shortly.

[t-bar]

Is there a date set for the NYU site?

[1.82]

I am not speaking for anyone but myself, but I find it odd and inconsistent that the Ann Arbor site was nixed for being too close to the Minneapolis site but a New York site has been approved despite the existence of a previously-announced College Park site.

[Off To See The Lizard]

Is there a date set for the NYU site?

Still in the process of booking rooms and we’ll post an announcement when we’re more certain but it looks like it will most likely be March 3rd.

[Geriatric trauma]

I am not speaking for anyone but myself, but I find it odd and inconsistent that the Ann Arbor site was nixed for being too close to the Minneapolis site but a New York site has been approved despite the existence of a previously-announced College Park site.

It's less that it was "too close" and more that having Michigan and Minnesota sites would create two very small fields, rather than one healthy field. The editors apparently feel that both New York and College Park can support a reasonably-size field. I have no idea if that is true or not, but the Eastern Seaboard is much more dense than the Midwest so I certainly wouldn't be surprised.

[1.82]

I am not speaking for anyone but myself, but I find it odd and inconsistent that the Ann Arbor site was nixed for being too close to the Minneapolis site but a New York site has been approved despite the existence of a previously-announced College Park site.

It's less that it was "too close" and more that having Michigan and Minnesota sites would create two very small fields, rather than one healthy field. The editors apparently feel that both New York and College Park can support a reasonably-size field. I have no idea if that is true or not, but the Eastern Seaboard is much more dense than the Midwest so I certainly wouldn't be surprised.

This would be fine if it were true that the East Coast could support multiple fields for a nationals-prep tournament, but it's not. When I last checked earlier this week, there were three teams signed up for the Maryland site of this tournament. Last year at the only East Coast site of (This) Tournament Is a Crime, there were six teams. Granted, several teams that year (including Maryland A) attended the Michigan site, so we can look back further to the previous year, when the only American East Coast site of "stanford housewrite" drew a field of fourteen teams, including three from Chicago and one from Michigan. Taking out the Midwestern teams, that leaves ten East Coast teams that played that tournament, which most certainly does not suggest that the field was robust enough to be split across two sites. For this reason, there has been only a single East Coast site (not counting Canada) of the spring open tournament the last three years, and there was no reason to think that things would be any different this year.

When Minnesota was awarded a mirror of this tournament, they agreed to host the tournament with the expectation that they would have the only Midwestern site. Similarly, when Maryland was awarded its mirror, everyone at Maryland expected that there would be no other East Coast site. When Michigan announced a site in spite of that, Minnesotans naturally took exception, leading to the Michigan site being canceled. Why, then, is this now happening again? For Berkeley to make the mistake of cannibalizing one field without informing its host is an honest mistake; to do it twice is a problem.

[Emperor Pupienus]

I am not speaking for anyone but myself, but I find it odd and inconsistent that the Ann Arbor site was nixed for being too close to the Minneapolis site but a New York site has been approved despite the existence of a previously-announced College Park site.

It's less that it was "too close" and more that having Michigan and Minnesota sites would create two very small fields, rather than one healthy field. The editors apparently feel that both New York and College Park can support a reasonably-size field. I have no idea if that is true or not, but the Eastern Seaboard is much more dense than the Midwest so I certainly wouldn't be surprised.

This would be fine if it were true that the East Coast could support multiple fields for a nationals-prep tournament, but it's not. When I last checked earlier this week, there were three teams signed up for the Maryland site of this tournament. Last year at the only East Coast site of (This) Tournament Is a Crime, there were six teams. Granted, several teams that year (including Maryland A) attended the Michigan site, so we can look back further to the previous year, when the only American East Coast site of "stanford housewrite" drew a field of fourteen teams, including three from Chicago and one from Michigan. Taking out the Midwestern teams, that leaves ten East Coast teams that played that tournament, which most certainly does not suggest that the field was robust enough to be split across two sites. For this reason, there has been only a single East Coast site (not counting Canada) of the spring open tournament the last three years, and there was no reason to think that things would be any different this year.

When Minnesota was awarded a mirror of this tournament, they agreed to host the tournament with the expectation that they would have the only Midwestern site. Similarly, when Maryland was awarded its mirror, everyone at Maryland expected that there would be no other East Coast site. When Michigan announced a site in spite of that, Minnesotans naturally took exception, leading to the Michigan site being canceled. Why, then, is this now happening again? For Berkeley to make the mistake of cannibalizing one field without informing its host is an honest mistake; to do it twice is a problem.

Last year there were actually two East Coast sites of TTIAC, one at Maryland and one at Harvard, with 6 and 8 teams respectively. So, it is true that there don't seem to be a ton of teams on the East Coast who seem to want to play a Nats- tournament. However, it seems that many of these Northeast/New England teams simply do not show up if there is only one site at Maryland--Columbia was the northernmost team to go to the Maryland site of Stanford Housewrite.

[1.82]

I am not speaking for anyone but myself, but I find it odd and inconsistent that the Ann Arbor site was nixed for being too close to the Minneapolis site but a New York site has been approved despite the existence of a previously-announced College Park site.

It's less that it was "too close" and more that having Michigan and Minnesota sites would create two very small fields, rather than one healthy field. The editors apparently feel that both New York and College Park can support a reasonably-size field. I have no idea if that is true or not, but the Eastern Seaboard is much more dense than the Midwest so I certainly wouldn't be surprised.

This would be fine if it were true that the East Coast could support multiple fields for a nationals-prep tournament, but it's not. When I last checked earlier this week, there were three teams signed up for the Maryland site of this tournament. Last year at the only East Coast site of (This) Tournament Is a Crime, there were six teams. Granted, several teams that year (including Maryland A) attended the Michigan site, so we can look back further to the previous year, when the only American East Coast site of "stanford housewrite" drew a field of fourteen teams, including three from Chicago and one from Michigan. Taking out the Midwestern teams, that leaves ten East Coast teams that played that tournament, which most certainly does not suggest that the field was robust enough to be split across two sites. For this reason, there has been only a single East Coast site (not counting Canada) of the spring open tournament the last three years, and there was no reason to think that things would be any different this year.

When Minnesota was awarded a mirror of this tournament, they agreed to host the tournament with the expectation that they would have the only Midwestern site. Similarly, when Maryland was awarded its mirror, everyone at Maryland expected that there would be no other East Coast site. When Michigan announced a site in spite of that, Minnesotans naturally took exception, leading to the Michigan site being canceled. Why, then, is this now happening again? For Berkeley to make the mistake of cannibalizing one field without informing its host is an honest mistake; to do it twice is a problem.

Last year there were actually two East Coast sites of TTIAC, one at Maryland and one at Harvard, with 6 and 8 teams respectively. So, it is true that there don't seem to be a ton of teams on the East Coast who seem to want to play a Nats- tournament. However, it seems that many of these Northeast/New England teams simply do not show up if there is only one site at Maryland--Columbia was the northernmost team to go to the Maryland site of Stanford Housewrite.

My apologies; I missed the Harvard site because no stats were posted on hsqb. In any case, that means that the last two spring opens both had combined fields of 14. If we accept that six teams is the bare minimum necessary for a viable field for a hard tournament, then a group of 14 teams split across two sites requires an almost even split between fields to work. This was possible when sites were at Maryland and Harvard, but only with the presence of a large number of Maryland house teams. Placing the northern site further south cannot possibly augment a Maryland site that was already marginal last year, and it's not okay to spring that without notice on a Maryland club that announced their mirror well in advance.

[Cody]

Having sites in College Park and NYC is a bad idea. It was a bad idea for George Oppen. It was a bad idea for SCT 2015. College Park and NYC will never make a good pair of sites for mirrors. Stop doing it!

(And doubly stop doing it without consulting an existing mirror first!)

[a bird]

Just like Naveed, I'm not speaking in an official capacity, but I have some observation and concerns about the East Coast mirror situation.

When a second Midwest mirror of CMST was announced, advocates of a 'one site per region' policy argued that:

the existence of this site is bad for the Spring Open

and

having only one Midwest site makes the most sense

As I understand it, the main argument was that having one site of the pre-Nats open with a strong field is better than having two with weaker, "diluted" fields. The community decided that having one site in the Midwest with a stronger field was preferable.

I think the "big picture" question is this: are Northeast teams willing to travel longer distances to allow for a single stronger spring open site? As Jason pointed out, the New England schools have in the recent past either played the spring open at a New England site, or not played the tournament. (As was the case for "stanford housewrite" at Maryland when that was the only East Coast mirror.) Dividing the strong teams (specifically the teams interested in playing a hard tournament) into two fields has clearly led to small, "diluted" fields. Avoiding this was a primary goal in canceling the Michigan mirror of CMST, so are we really happy with this state of affairs in the Northeast/East Coast?

Having two sites will probably result in a more teams playing the set, so maybe that makes it worth splitting the fields. I certainly don't blame the editors for trying to maximize the number of teams that play the set. Ultimately, though, I think the community needs to find a balance between having strong fields and having more sites for a hard tournament like this.

I've tried to address the 'number of sites' issue, not the specific issues posed by having sites in College Park and NYC, which Naveed and Cody have started to dig into. If we decide that having two East Coast sites is appropriate, there are still problems with the current mirror arrangement.

[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]

Here's another thought - teams who intend on playing Nationals should play a Nationals-prep tournament as well! I know that Penn plans to play here, but Duke, Virginia, Delaware, and other strong teams should sign up as well!

[aseem.keyal]

An update on the NYU-Maryland mirror situation: NYU has agreed to cancel their mirror, which will be done only if another school further north can mirror the tournament. We'd like to not dilute the field at the Maryland mirror of the tournament while still allowing teams like MIT, Harvard, and Yale to play the tournament. I'm currently looking into which schools may be able to host, if your school is interested please PM me.

[Edward Lansdale]

I was planning on playing this with former NYU teammates at the NYU mirror, but I find recent developments disappointing and baffling.

1. It would seem to me there are plenty of teams between Boston and Philadelphia that would prefer a New York site, without "diluting" the field at UMD. Everyone from Delaware on down to the Carolinas would be likely to send teams to UMD.

2. If it's an open tournament, there are quite possibly local teams, from high schoolers to journeymen like me, who would help to fill out a schedule. At this stage of my quizbowl career, I'm not keen to travel to play, but the steady stream of open tournaments at NYU and Columbia allowed me to remain involved, and I suspect other veterans would like the same. The paucity of open tournaments, along with the distances needed to travel to play at these tournaments, effectively prevent people from sticking around and being a part of the community.

3. Even if there's a small field at a mirror site, so what? I've played tournaments in the Northeast and in Southern California with as few as four teams, and no one from neighboring regions complained about cannibalizing.

4. Lastly, why not have a bit of a free market and let UMD and NYU compete for teams, e.g. by offering discounts for multiple teams from the same school? When did we decide that having a system based on gentlemen's agreements to award hosting exclusivity for large geographic regions is the way to go? This kind of insular mentality and backroom dealing is a major reason why college quizbowl doesn't expand or make money.

If I was still at NYU, I wouldn't have agreed to cancel. Let UMD prove they are better hosts and teams will vote with their feet. They seem insistent on quashing competition instead, which serves no one well.

[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]

Fwiw I see no problem with having an NYU mirror

[Victor Prieto]

Disclaimer: I'm totally biased because an NYC mirror would be very convenient for me and I would probably attend if at NYU, maybe not if it's at Yale, definitely not if it's even further north.

Normally, tournaments should avoid feeding off each other's regions, but for most teams in New England, having an NYU mirror is better than no mirror. It's a stretch for NYC teams to come from New York to College Park, but it's implausible to expect anybody in Connecticut or Massachusetts to travel all the way down to Maryland. So, if there's some sort of community mandate that there should be only one East Coast mirror and it should be in College Park, you're basically saying "sucks to suck" to most of New England. Recap of the last three years of spring opens:

2017, TTIAC (Maryland, Harvard): I think Richard Yu lives in New York, but aside from him, it didn't really look like the field at Maryland would have substantially changed if you got rid of everyone north of Philadelphia (I may have incomplete information here). The site at Harvard exclusively drew teams from the Boston area, plus Yale.

2016, stanford housewrite (Maryland): the Maryland site got bolstered by Michigan and a traveling trio of Chicago teams, but if a hypothetical NYC mirror happened that year, the site likely would have lost Penn, Rutgers and the leading scorer of "Downtown Sasquatch." Meanwhile, nobody from Yale, MIT, or Harvard played anywhere (none of those schools wanted to host either, apparently, but I still think New England got slightly screwed that year).

2015, George Oppen (Maryland, Columbia): the Maryland site again was bolstered by teams traveling from Stanford and Chicago. Harvard and Yale both got to play this at Columbia. The in-betweeners: Penn chose to go to Maryland, Rutgers chose to go to Columbia.

So like... I'm agreeing with Mirza's first point. I also think a tournament of only 6 or so teams is not that big a deal, possibly since I played a lot of those in Texas.

I'm mostly talking about making things easier for teams that would have a more difficult time traveling to Maryland (Columbia, Yale, MIT, Harvard, Amherst). Yale already expressed interest in the NYU mirror in this thread, so if any of those other teams want to make their feelings known, it might be a good time to reach out to either NYU or the editors at Berkeley, or just post here.

[aseem.keyal]

It seems there is far more diverse assortment of opinions on moving the mirror than we originally anticipated. We're gonna hold off on a decision until Friday, to allow anyone else who wants to voice their opinion to do so here.

[CPiGuy]

It seems there is far more diverse assortment of opinions on moving the mirror than we originally anticipated. We're gonna hold off on a decision until Friday, to allow anyone else who wants to voice their opinion to do so here.

Well, you asked... Here's my two cents: Ohio State is going to play this tournament at Maryland (a 6.5 hour drive). UChicago, plus all the open team players who live in Chicagoland, are driving at least six hours to Minneapolis. Several players from Michigan State are flying to Minneapolis, and Michigan is driving ten hours, one way (and that's without stops), to play this tournament. All of these teams have to do this because the editors, and the collective Midwest circuit, decided that having a strong field at Minneapolis was better than splitting up the field and having us host a mirror at Michigan. That's a decision that I respected by cancelling our mirror, even though it certainly caused the teams mentioned above some inconvenience*, and no doubt caused some open players who would otherwise have wanted to play to either travel further or not play this set physically. (Some of those players had no doubt already decided to travel to Minnesota for their own reasons, and that's fine.)

Now we are hearing that NYU ought to be allowed to host a mirror, because as the editors put it,

We'd like to not dilute the field at the Maryland mirror of the tournament while still allowing teams like MIT, Harvard, and Yale to play the tournament.

and as Mirza put it,

At this stage of my quizbowl career, I'm not keen to travel to play, but the steady stream of open tournaments at NYU and Columbia allowed me to remain involved, and I suspect other veterans would like the same. The paucity of open tournaments, along with the distances needed to travel to play at these tournaments, effectively prevent people from sticking around and being a part of the community.

and as Victor, who asserted an NYU mirror would be "very convenient" for him, a Penn State student, despite College Park being closer to State College than NYC is,

It's a stretch for NYC teams to come from New York to College Park, but it's implausible to expect anybody in Connecticut or Massachusetts to travel all the way down to Maryland. So, if there's some sort of community mandate that there should be only one East Coast mirror and it should be in College Park, you're basically saying "sucks to suck" to most of New England.

.

Well, I think having a site in Maryland certainly allows teams like MIT, Harvard, and especially Yale to play the tournament. Perhaps the Boston teams, who would have to drive 7 hours, have a point, but Yale is less than five hours' drive from College Park, and is also on the Northeast Corridor and therefore, I think, less than six hours' train trip (including DC metro), if they prefer to travel by train. For someone who lives in NYC to complain about travel to College Park being onerous, or for someone to assert that it's a "stretch" for NYC teams to come to College Park, is surprising, seeing as the travel distance is around three and a half hours. None of the many, many quizbowl veterans who live in the Chicago area complained about the travel to Ann Arbor to play TTIAC last year, or demanded that there be a Chicago site to accomodate them -- in fact, nor did they this year, when they have to drive six hours -- and if there's a non-NYC city whose residents would be likely to feel used to have a nearby tournament site, it's Chicago. It's unreasonable to expect there to be a site of every open tournament in the city where you live, and if you're not willing to travel outside your own city to play quizbowl, then you will be playing less quizbowl.

It's also not at all implausible to expect teams in Connecticut or Massachusetts to travel "all the way" down to Maryland -- in fact, those sorts of travel distances are being expected of other teams, in robust quizbowl circuits, for this very tournament! We're not saying "sucks to suck" to most of New England, we're saying "based on which teams were willing to host this tournament and expressed interest first, you're going to have to travel a longer distance". If you allow an NYU site to go through, you will, however, be saying "sucks to suck" to Maryland, because you'll be setting a precedent that Maryland is effectively allowed to host hard opens and expect a field of more than, say, 6.

Maybe I have skewed expectations of what constitutes a reasonable travel time, since I live in Maine and go to school in the Midwest, but what I'm basically hearing from people is that they expect all tournaments to be sufficiently close to them that they don't have to travel more than 4 hours, or in some people's cases, don't have to leave the city at all. I am also hearing that some of those teams would in fact rather not play the tournament than travel more than that. That is, in my opinion, an unreasonably entitled expectation to have of tournaments. If the editors of this set decide to appease that expectation and allow NYU to host, then I'm pretty sure nobody north of the Delaware River, save for maybe a couple open players, will go to Maryland, who will as a result have a significantly weaker field, playing experience, and hosting benefit. If there is a northeast site at all, it should be in Boston, so that the only teams it draws away from the Maryland site (if any) are in NYC. This is not to mention that if the editors decide to allow an NYU site in the name of alleviating travel, it would be an impressive turnaround from their earlier decision not to allow Michigan to host the tournament to preserve field size, travel be damned.

The editors of this tournament need to figure out what they want from their mirrors -- competitive fields, or for everyone to be able to play without any inconvenient travel. Oh, wait, they already have, and it's the competitive fields, and that's why we're driving ten hours to Minneapolis to play against a field containing a considerable number of strong teams, rather than hosting a six-team round robin between Chicago, MSU, and OSU. So, the Northeast circuit, especially teams in NYC and southern New England, need to recognize that driving three or four or five hours for a tournament is not the end of the world.


*Not to mention that, but for the existence of FST, which at the time we thought would be a novice tournament, it would have deprived us of the ability to host a college tournament this semester, because we had been told a month earlier by the editors that we were cleared to host this tournament and that the mirror list would be updated "as soon as [the head editor] was done with his problem set", a problem set which apparently took a month, as my announcement of our mirror (after we had finalized other plans in the announcement) was the first anyone outside of Michigan had heard of it, meaning that we were well behind the curve of "hey do any sets still need Midwest mirrors".

[vinteuil]

It's also not at all implausible to expect teams in Connecticut or Massachusetts to travel "all the way" down to Maryland -- in fact, those sorts of travel distances are being expected of other teams, in robust quizbowl circuits, for this very tournament! We're not saying "sucks to suck" to most of New England, we're saying "based on which teams were willing to host this tournament and expressed interest first, you're going to have to travel a longer distance". If you allow an NYU site to go through, you will, however, be saying "sucks to suck" to Maryland, because you'll be setting a precedent that Maryland is effectively allowed to host hard opens and expect a field of more than, say, 6.

Maybe I have skewed expectations of what constitutes a reasonable travel time, since I live in Maine and go to school in the Midwest, but what I'm basically hearing from people is that they expect all tournaments to be sufficiently close to them that they don't have to travel more than 4 hours, or in some people's cases, don't have to leave the city at all. I am also hearing that some of those teams would in fact rather not play the tournament than travel more than that. That is, in my opinion, an unreasonably entitled expectation to have of tournaments.

Conor, you can say this all you want, but ZERO New England teams will show up for a Maryland mirror. That is a fact that has been demonstrated on numerous occasions, despite the continual reminders from the Midwest that many teams regularly travel that far. We can debate the reasons (I-95 can't help!), but telling us all that we need to suck it up will do nothing to increase the UMD site's "competitiveness."

[CPiGuy]

It's also not at all implausible to expect teams in Connecticut or Massachusetts to travel "all the way" down to Maryland -- in fact, those sorts of travel distances are being expected of other teams, in robust quizbowl circuits, for this very tournament! We're not saying "sucks to suck" to most of New England, we're saying "based on which teams were willing to host this tournament and expressed interest first, you're going to have to travel a longer distance". If you allow an NYU site to go through, you will, however, be saying "sucks to suck" to Maryland, because you'll be setting a precedent that Maryland is effectively allowed to host hard opens and expect a field of more than, say, 6.

Maybe I have skewed expectations of what constitutes a reasonable travel time, since I live in Maine and go to school in the Midwest, but what I'm basically hearing from people is that they expect all tournaments to be sufficiently close to them that they don't have to travel more than 4 hours, or in some people's cases, don't have to leave the city at all. I am also hearing that some of those teams would in fact rather not play the tournament than travel more than that. That is, in my opinion, an unreasonably entitled expectation to have of tournaments.

Conor, you can say this all you want, but ZERO New England teams will show up for a Maryland mirror. That is a fact that has been demonstrated on numerous occasions, despite the continual reminders from the Midwest that many teams regularly travel that far. We can debate the reasons (I-95 can't help!), but telling us all that we need to suck it up will do nothing to increase the UMD site's "competitiveness."

Then the editors should find a team in the Boston area who is willing to host, and doesn't mind a small field. They've already made it clear that they value not splitting existing fields, so it would be highly unfair to do this to Maryland just over a month before the tournament. [EDIT TO ADD: I sympathise a lot more with the concerns of New Englanders who have to travel through the NYC metro area for 5+ hours, than with the concerns of teams in the NYC area who seem to be pretty willing to travel to Boston, a site which is equally far from them as Maryland, for other tournaments.]

Put it another way: suppose, in some imaginary fantasyland with a robust Maine quizbowl circuit, there were a tournament with a site in NYC, but Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, and UMaine all had teams and complained about the tournament being too far. Would it make sense to put a second site at Brown a month and a half before the tournament if they bid for it, thus siphoning off half of the existing NYC field? No -- it would make sense to put it in Maine. In reality, putting a site in NYC so that New England teams can travel to it is like putting a site in Providence so Maine teams can travel to it.

[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]

I would like to join Jacob Reed in saying that people who insist all us East Coast quizbowlers are layabouts who don't want to drive should "please shut the fuck up." No amount of pleading will get teams beyond NYC to go to Maryland. I haven't driven on many Midwest roads and I am pretty sure that I-95 is better than, say, an average California highway, but that doesn't mean it's not a pain. The idea that the Maryland site will be anemic is laughable, and I say this as someone who had to find a new team because of the site change.

Conor, once again - stop making bold pronouncements about things you don't know shit about! Victor is correct in pointing out that it's easier to get from Penn State to NYC than College Park because there is a direct Megabus line to State College from NYC and this is not true of college park. I imagine he knows a hell of a lot more about what is personally convenient for him than you do! And Yale is not a five hour drive from College Park unless you're driving fast at a time with absolutely no traffic. Realistically it's six to seven hours minimum with downside.

[CPiGuy]

I'm not the one saying the Maryland field will be anemic, Naveed is:

My apologies; I missed the Harvard site because no stats were posted on hsqb. In any case, that means that the last two spring opens both had combined fields of 14. If we accept that six teams is the bare minimum necessary for a viable field for a hard tournament, then a group of 14 teams split across two sites requires an almost even split between fields to work. This was possible when sites were at Maryland and Harvard, but only with the presence of a large number of Maryland house teams. Placing the northern site further south cannot possibly augment a Maryland site that was already marginal last year, and it's not okay to spring that without notice on a Maryland club that announced their mirror well in advance.

and he's the only person to present, like, actual historical data in this thread, so I don't see why I should believe your repeated insistence that a thing is true when another person who also knows lots more than me has been able to produce actual evidence that the thing is not true.

I have, it appears, been Wrong On The Internet. I should probably not have attempted to include so many specific data points. I did just grab the driving times from google maps, though, so it's also not just ten hours from AA to Minneapolis, but I was making a comparison and didn't think it was a good idea to try to estimate different teams' driving habits. I don't think the loss of that one anecdotal point about PSU detracts from my overall argument, which is:

The editors of this tournament have already made it clear that they value having stronger fields at this tournament, even if it causes teams on the periphery of the mirror sites to have to travel around double what is typical in their circuit. If they'd made the opposite decision, and allowed Michigan to host, basically nobody would have a problem with this. If the culture in the Northeast circuit is that such inconvenienced teams won't travel to it at all, the solution is not to grant another mirror, less than two months before the tournament, that will take a significant portion of the field away from an established mirror, and according to historical data, will in fact cause the opposite of stronger, more condensed fields. If there's a northeast mirror at all, it should be in Boston or elsewhere in northern New England. Full stop. Anything else would be highly inconsistent on the editors' part, and extremely unfair to Maryland, who had their shit together enough to announce a tournament site well in advance, with the expectation (based on precedent) that it would be the only site on the East Coast.

[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]

I have, it appears, been Wrong On The Internet. I should probably not have attempted to include so many specific data points. I did just grab the driving times from google maps, though, so it's also not just ten hours from AA to Minneapolis, but I was making a comparison and didn't think it was a good idea to try to estimate different teams' driving habits. I don't think the loss of that one anecdotal point about PSU detracts from my overall argument, which is:

The editors of this tournament have already made it clear that they value having stronger fields at this tournament, even if it causes teams on the periphery of the mirror sites to have to travel around double what is typical in their circuit. If they'd made the opposite decision, and allowed Michigan to host, basically nobody would have a problem with this. If the culture in the Northeast circuit is that such inconvenienced teams won't travel to it at all, the solution is not to grant another mirror, less than two months before the tournament, that will take a significant portion of the field away from an established mirror, and according to historical data, will in fact cause the opposite of stronger, more condensed fields. If there's a northeast mirror at all, it should be in Boston or elsewhere in northern New England. Full stop. Anything else would be highly inconsistent on the editors' part, and extremely unfair to Maryland, who had their shit together enough to announce a tournament site well in advance, with the expectation (based on precedent) that it would be the only site on the East Coast.

It's not just that you're wrong, but you're wrong about points that you highlighted in bold in an attempt to condescendingly explain to people how you know more than they do about their transportation circumstances, stemming from the fact that you don't actually have any experience traveling to tournaments in the Mid-Atlantic!

In any case, I don't have a strong opinion on the Michigan site decision, but given how travel patterns work in the Midwest it doesn't seem like it's that unreasonable overall. But regardless, the decision to have a Northeast mirror is strongly in alignment with the preferences of Northeast teams - clearly they value convenience more than the higher field quality / competition! And for all practical purposes, there's only a couple major teams that are swapping what site to go to based on New York vs Providence/Boston/etc. I don't really have enough knowledge as to why Midwest folks seem to have a higher tolerance for longer journeys, but that does not mean that everyone's circuit needs to operate the exact same as theirs.

Last year's Maryland mirror also suffered from people who'd otherwise play at the Maryland site choosing to play at Michigan (not least of these being the Maryland team itself). Between Penn, OSU, Delaware, some open teams, and (hopefully) some representation from UMD there should be a larger field than last year's field of six. Honestly, I think a much bigger problem is that local teams aren't being proactive about signing up...

[An Economic Ignoramus]

and as Victor, who asserted an NYU mirror would be "very convenient" for him, a Penn State student, despite College Park being closer to State College than NYC is,

Google maps says the drive from UMich to UMD is two hours less than the drive from UMich to Minnesota. You probably know more about your own transportation situation than I do though.

[csheep]

Honestly, I think a much bigger problem is that local teams aren't being proactive about signing up...

To be fair, if one is to make the argument that "no matter what, Northeast teams aren't going to go down to Maryland to play a tournament and there's one can do about it," you also can't harp too much on local teams not signing up. People play, or don't play in this case, quiz bowl tournaments for any and all, or no, reason whatsoever. It sucks for sure, but what else can one do? Presumably hosts are doing everything in their power to recruit more teams - but you can't force people to play quiz bowl.

I'm sympathetic to the concern that having two sites means two very diluted fields, but I'm not convinced that past example illustrates this to be an unavoidable consequence of a Maryland-NYC site. In my mind, there are three main options:

#1 Maryland only
#2 Maryland/NYC pairing
#3 Maryland/further Northeast pairing

I believe what historical example actually illustrates is that in the case of #1, a good number of teams, as pointed out, will simply not play. This does not help with the "get a stronger field at Maryland" goal, and it further hurts the total number of teams playing the set, which presumably is something the editors want to be as high as feasible, both for More Quiz Bowl is a Good Thing reasons and just more revenue generated.

#2 is the contentious one, but it seems to follow from #1 that the teams that would go to the NYC site, including many northeastern ones, wouldn't have gone to Maryland anyway. This leaves really the in-betweeners, and as pointed out in the thread, seem to get fairly evenly distributed between Maryland/NYC, and don't constitute anywhere close to a large portion of the field.

#3 seems like it will be better received than #2 by the Maryland-only site advocates (or I could be mistaken?), but it doesn't seem to be meaningfully different than #2, for reasons stated above. Northeast teams will go either to NYC or a Northeast site, or not at all. Maryland is be indifferent between #2/#3 outside of fighting over for a couple of in-between teams like those based in Pennsylvania. Losing even a single team over the appearance of another site is obviously a negative from Maryland's perspective, but at some point the concerns of one site losing 1 - 2 teams should be outweighed by 4 - 6+ teams who otherwise wouldn't play, playing. Where we draw the line is up for debate but I don't think 1 - 2 teams is that line, or else we'd have exactly one site for every tournament and anyone who wants to play will find a way to do so.

I am obviously biased, as I am based in NYC, but I am willing to go down to Maryland if that's what the ultimate decision comes down to. As stated, I'm sympathetic of the concern that having two sites ends up with two tiny fields, though it seems there could be disagreement on what is acceptable (as seen in past and current threads, where there are people who are 100% OK with 4 - 6 team fields). However, moving forward, it would appear to me that an NYC-only (or adjacent) site should be strongly considered for tournaments of this difficulty if the number of teams interested is really so low as to support only one field. An NYC-only site solves the problems of an acceptable convenient travel time (for East Coast cultural expectations, which has been shown to be demonstrably different than Midwestern expectations/willingness) for both Northeast and Maryland/DC area teams, creates a strong field, and presumably gets a larger total number of teams playing the set.

In this case, Maryland put in an early bid and were awarded a bid so their interests should obviously be heavily considered. But in the future, perhaps editors of sets of similar difficulty (i.e. sets where attendance is a real concern) might want to consider waiting for multiple bids before deciding on a site, up to a reasonable period of advanced notification so teams can plan travel and budgeting. If only one team bids, great, easy decision - no one can really bitch; but if multiple sites bid and editors are committed/have good reason to want only a single site, they should evaluate all the options together before making one announcement, instead of first-come-first-serve policy.

In any case it'd be best if the editors for this current tournament make an executive decision sooner rather than later, whatever it may be, so teams can plan accordingly.

[CPiGuy]

Will, I agree that the Midwest site selection is reasonable regardless of where any of the other sites are. I think it would have been reasonable to have a Michigan site, but I'm clearly in the minority of thinking that.

I think you (Will) are the only person actually attending the UMD site who's expressed their opinion and doesn't object to the addition of a new site. But, hey, clearly the opinions are not nearly as unanimous as they were in the Midwest case. I'm going to stop being angry about this -- I don't know why I was to start with, seeing as we're attending a totally different site and don't plan on changing that. Hopefully there's a solution which makes everyone reasonably happy. I'm looking forward to playing this set.

and as Victor, who asserted an NYU mirror would be "very convenient" for him, a Penn State student, despite College Park being closer to State College than NYC is,

Google maps says the drive from UMich to UMD is two hours less than the drive from UMich to Minnesota. You probably know more about your own transportation situation than I do though.

Yyyyeeeaaaahhhh this was wrong of me. Sorry Victor. I should have known better than to immediately assume Victor just doesn't know where things are, and that's my fault.

Oh, and this is completely unrelated but can the OP be edited to link to the announcement posts for mirrors? It's really nice when you can immediately navigate to the announcement for any specific site from the main announcement.

[a bird]

There are essentially two question about East Coast mirrors in this thread:

1) Should there be a single mirror site on the East Coast to allow for the largest/strongest possible field?

2) If there are two mirror sites on the East Coast, is it a good idea for those two sites to be Maryland and NYU?

Conor is focussing more on question 1). I appreciate that he has pointed out the inconsistency between how the question was decided in the Midwest (a second mirror was canned in favor of one with a larger field) and on the East Coast, but I'm not sure how productive that line of discussion is going to be. It seems most people are content to accept the status quo of two East Coast spring open sites, or as Jacob put it:

ZERO New England teams will show up for a Maryland mirror.

Maybe this is true now, but I'm not sure it needs to be true forever. I think it's worth having a conversation about the trade off between convenience and having a single site East Coast with a larger field. That said, I'm going to move on to question 2), which seems more pressing.

There's nothing inherently wrong with having an NYC as well as a Maryland site. Clearly each site will be more convenient for different teams, and having both sites could result in more teams overall playing. By the same logic, we might as well institute a seperate Boston area mirror in addition to the NYC and Maryland sites. That way Boston area teams won't need to travel all the way to NYC, and the "journeymen" like Mirza can play an open tournament without leaving New York. This would probably result in three sites with 6 or so teams (not a big deal Victor, and possibly others). If this three mirror solution was a serious proposal, I'm sure lots of folks would be unhappy about the proposal going against our usual scheduling principles.

My point is that there is a trade off between having sites with large fields and having conveniently located sites, and that we should find an appropriate middle ground. It's pretty evident that having NYC and DC area sites will result in at least some field splitting (i.e. some teams that would have attended mirror A were it the only site attending mirror B instead). We can talk about specific examples if anyone doubts this. I think there is significant benefit to having a larger field (e.g. 12-14 teams instead of 6-8), so we should try to reduce field splitting as much as possible. In some cases that may mean one or two teams not playing the tournament, this is a downside that has to be balanced with the benefit of having a larger field.

It seems like the most reasonable way to reduce field splitting is the have one site for the New England teams (probably in the Boston area) and one site for the rest of the East Coast. That gives most teams an option within reasonable (even by East Coast standards) travel distance, without splitting fields too much.

Edit: typo

[Hobbie Klivian]

I would like to point out that it's in the interests of the writers/editors of this set to make the physical mirrors of this set accessible to as many teams as possible; if the teams simply choose not to play the tournament because a mirror site is too far away from them, it means lost revenue for the writers at the cost of providing a more competitive experience for the teams that happened to live closer to the designated mirror. I am slightly baffled by the posts writing off the distance as an "inconvenience" when it is, in fact, one of the most salient point for teams choosing to attend a tournament, especially those under a tight travel budget. Perhaps the editors of this set could reach out to UMD and NYU/Northeast mirror hosts separately and estimate exactly what the gains/losses in field size would be.

For what it's worth, as someone from a school geographically "in-between", the Mar. 3 date currently offered by UMD is the first day of our Spring Break, so we are awaiting to see if the hypothetical Northeast site has a more favorable date. If not, we will probably attend the UMD mirror.

[Edward Lansdale]

I'm glad to see the discussion continuing and taking input from different people.

For the record, I am willing to (but just not very keen on) travel to UMD or another non-NYU site. For what it's worth, I played a NASAT mirror at VCU last August that required me to do an overnight trip involving Greyhound, Amtrak, and carpooling with Will Alston et al.

I'm not sure about a Boston site. Personally I am agnostic about Boston vs DC, since travel times and bus/train fares from NYC are largely identical for both cities. Putting sites at two ends of the Bos-Wash megalopolis seems misguided, however, especially since there isn't really much of a circuit in northern New England (unless things have changed since I was more actively involved). As has been pointed out by others, sites in New York are ideal for its central location and because it's a hub for bus/rail networks. Many young professionals don't own cars, so drive times are a meaningless statistic, and work schedules make it difficult to travel over 200 miles on Friday evening if getting a good night's rest is desirable. Sites like Yale and UPenn are a good compromise; and allow New York area residents to travel on Saturday morning.

I sympathize with Michigan folks who are stuck with long trips to Minnesota, but they should have put their foot down and demanded to keep their mirror.

[Auks Ran Ova]

Lest Conor get too thoroughly dunked on here, I'd like to voice my agreement with the assertion that most East Coast teams are indeed huge babies about traveling more than a couple hours to tournaments, especially compared to noble, hardy, attractive Midwesterners who will happily accept six-plus-hour drives as simply the cost of doing business. He is, however, perhaps too young to know that this has been pointed out many times before, which (for many reasons, including a number of admittedly reasonable ones that have been brought up in this very thread) has not thus far resulted in that fact changing.

Incidentally, having made the long, long drive (or the slightly shorter but slightly more expensive flight-drive combination) to Michigan from Minnesota myself many times, I do appreciate the willingness of Michigan and other teams to reciprocate.

[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]

For the record, I am not at all averse to the idea of a single regional mirror being in New York - I'd happily travel to that! New York is a far better city than DC anyway.

[Off To See The Lizard]

For the record, I am not at all averse to the idea of a single regional mirror being in New York - I'd happily travel to that! New York is a far better city than DC anyway.

That would be extraordinarily unfair to UMD. Let's not throw that idea out there.

[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]

For the record, I am not at all averse to the idea of a single regional mirror being in New York - I'd happily travel to that! New York is a far better city than DC anyway.

That would be extraordinarily unfair to UMD. Let's not throw that idea out there.

Oh, definitely not for this instance! Just more for future tournaments. Letting those Midwesterners have the most prestigious site is unacceptable.

[Edward Lansdale]

It seems there is far more diverse assortment of opinions on moving the mirror than we originally anticipated. We're gonna hold off on a decision until Friday, to allow anyone else who wants to voice their opinion to do so here.

Has a decision been made yet?

[aseem.keyal]

It seems there is far more diverse assortment of opinions on moving the mirror than we originally anticipated. We're gonna hold off on a decision until Friday, to allow anyone else who wants to voice their opinion to do so here.

Has a decision been made yet?

Yes, we are going ahead with the NYU mirror. The editors decided this based on what we think will maximize attendance, while still having a negligible impact on Maryland's field. While we understand that our decision may seem contradictory to our decision to cancel the Michigan mirror, we determined that moving the mirror further north to Harvard wouldn't greatly impact teams in the middle and encourage them to play at the Maryland site. I appreciate the input everyone gave on the issue, and we're sorry our inexperience and lack of caution caused it.

[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]

It seems there is far more diverse assortment of opinions on moving the mirror than we originally anticipated. We're gonna hold off on a decision until Friday, to allow anyone else who wants to voice their opinion to do so here.

Has a decision been made yet?

Yes, we are going ahead with the NYU mirror. The editors decided this based on what we think will maximize attendance, while still having a negligible impact on Maryland's field. While we understand that our decision may seem contradictory to our decision to cancel the Michigan mirror, we determined that moving the mirror further north to Harvard wouldn't greatly impact teams in the middle and encourage them to play at the Maryland site. I appreciate the input everyone gave on the issue, and we're sorry our inexperience and lack of caution caused it.

This seems like the best reasonable outcome.

In the future, I think it's worth considering having a single East Coast mirror of the big winter open in New York, Philadelphia, or New Jersey.

[women, fire and dangerous things]

Scattergories 2 is running as a side event at the UMN and UMD sites of this - if you're hosting another mirror and you're interested in running it, please get in touch with me.

[CPiGuy]

this is completely unrelated but can the OP be edited to link to the announcement posts for mirrors? It's really nice when you can immediately navigate to the announcement for any specific site from the main announcement and vice versa.

[aseem.keyal]

this is completely unrelated but can the OP be edited to link to the announcement posts for mirrors? It's really nice when you can immediately navigate to the announcement for any specific site from the main announcement and vice versa.

This is now done, apologies for the delay.