We tried very hard to make this tournament "controlled" (length, difficulty) while still having it be very flavorful. Otherwise, there was no single guiding principle, since we had a huge variety of approaches and interests. I hope that the result was a diverse set with something for most everyone.
Now for the fun part! We had a big team, with a lot of people making a big impact on the set, so here's a gigantic list of thank-yous:
I don't want to bury the lede, so: the people I most want you to get excited about from this set are Wonyoung Jang, Michael Kearney, and Derek So.
Jason Golfinos wrote:Goddamn, can Kearney just write all the classics in quiz bowl from now on?
Matt Jackson wrote:I want the Derekverse to get its own tournament at some point
- Michael's questions were fresh, conscientiously-clued from both scholarly and quizbowl perspectives, and had beautiful prose. Practically no edits needed. Since when do I like reading mythology questions??
- Derek's questions provide (for me at least) a wonderful proof-of-concept for "other history," and bring this refreshing sense of boundary-less knowledge to the other distributions as well.
- Wonyoung is not only a technically accomplished question writer (who rightly prides himself on an astounding ability to write a good question on most any topic very very quickly), but also full of great ideas and an incredible work ethic.
Our other less-experienced writers, Michael Borecki and John Marvin, were also very receptive to feedback and produced some really great questions. John's knowledge of some areas poorly covered by QB to date can be quite valuable.
He's more of a known quantity, but don't sleep on Jason Golfinos! I have no idea where he's able to find hilarious leadins for all of his questions, but that place also is full of Real, Important facts and scholarship—an impressive balancing act. And when he's on, Jason can power your set production like the Energizer bunny.
Sam and Shan were not only patient with the way I handled the mirror situation, but also wrote deeply interesting and cool questions in every category. (Sam wrote all of the economics and I learned a ton—Shan is right when he says that Sam has a true gift for communicating concepts and why they might be interesting or important.)
You shouldn't be shocked to hear that Matt Jackson was a phenomenal steadying hand, source of ideas and feedback, and general presence; at one point, I offered him co-head-editor credit for the amount of direction he did while I was busy with BHSAT. Matt wrote all of the set's psychology as well as real-ass, witty questions all over the map.
You also already know that Adam Silverman is one of the best science writers and editors in the game. You may have heard this too, but it's worth reiterating: Adam is organized as all hell. He will get his stuff done early, polish it, help out around the set, keep polishing, and help out some more. It's unbelievable.
As I posted in the announcement, a huge thanks to Joey Goldman and Will H-M for stepping up to do first-eyes editing on philosophy and literature (respectively). They both pinch-hit a few questions and offered valuable feedback on others (especially Will). Stephen Eltinge and Adam Fine did similar work helping to polish the science and threw in a few questions of their own. And Moses Kitakule also helped fill in with a few great questions during crunch time.
Finally, because I like these kind of stats, you might be interested to know that I wrote the most questions for the set (17.5%), followed by Adam Silverman (17%), and then Matt, Derek, Jason, John, and Shan with around 10% each; Wonyoung and Michael's totals at around 5% each shouldn't mislead you, since their detailed reading, idea brainstorming, and editors-chat presence had a big impact all over the set.