2019 EFT - Thanks and General Discussion

[naan/steak-holding toll]

I'd like to quote what I said to open the EFT 2016 discussion:

Thanks for playing EFT, everyone! I hope you enjoyed the set. I know it’s not the hardest set in the world, but we put an awful lot of thought and hard work into this tournament and, at the risk of sounding overconfident, I think the end product really reflects this (aside from the phrasing and grammar errors littered throughout the first version).

This set was very much an attempt to replicate the model that succeeded at EFT 2016 and to tone down some of the excesses of the two succeeding iterations of the tournament. We made a few changes from the baseline 2016 model - these mainly being a few distributional tweaks (genre based lit, more geography and other academic), a bit more adventurousness in content, a little more humor, and a reduction the number of impossible world history, social science, and philosophy questions that I write. Beyond this, I think the product speaks for itself.

Our cadre of writers - Aayush Rajakesaran, Matthew Lehmann, Rohith Nagari, Catherine Qian, Julia Zhou, Rebecca Rosenthal, Nick Collins, Ankit Aggarwal, and Ophir Lifshitz - contributed a number of excellent questions to this goal, and our editors (who also doubled as writers) - Jakob Myers, Rahul Keyal, and Eric Mukherjee - did excellent work in refining them. I'd particularly like to recognize Jakob, Rahul, and Matthew, who each wrote over 80 questions, and Ophir for doing about half the music editing work in addition to his usual excellent work on proofreading and prose improvement.

As I've made public, this is the last full-blown collegiate tournament (re: not side event!) I intend to edit, with the possible exception of helping out with ICT in the future and/or editing CO. I'm incredibly happy to go out on this note and hope you all were as happy playing the tournament as I was in seeing it come to its final form.

Discuss away.

[Santa Claus]

In light of all my criticism of the set and all the nit-picking I’ve done, I want to just publicly affirm that I did greatly enjoy the set and that I think it did a very good job in providing interesting content accessible across different skill levels. A lot of the first clues felt rewarding when people got buzzes and for the most part it ramped down to stuff that people could convert in power.

My concerns about the difficulty in the science are mostly a consequence of this attempt to really open up the upper part of the questions - I’m just much more liable to notice them in subjects I’m well-versed in. To that effect, I’d appreciate if, when the numbers point out that things are too difficult, that changes are attempted because no one benefits from an unwillingness to fix things like difficulty.

[Gene Harrogate]

I think this was the best iteration of EFT (and one of the better tournaments in 4 years of collegiate qb) I've played yet. All the stuff in my wheelhouse (lit, thought, history) was very well done and there was a high percentage of fun or interesting tossups. Additionally, some of the science and fine arts content was enjoyably outside the box and therefore fun for people who might learn pockets of knowledge in these disciplines from non-traditional sources.

[Quinctilius Varus]

This tournament was very accessible and fun to play. Thank you to Will and the other editors for your hard work.

I do have to question some of the humor that was added to the set. The mythology bonus centered around 4chan (the bad website) was not amusing to anyone I discussed it with. Talking about 4chan (the bad website) or Pepe the frog or using the word "kek" will produce groans in all but a small group of people. The bonus that prominently used the number 69,000 was another example of this. It's not as bad as the first instance, but it is emblematic of the unnecessary "jokes" that only detracted from the quality of this otherwise excellent set. There is a place for humor in quizbowl questions - bonus lead-ins about some quirky historical fact, for example - but this wasn't the way to do it.

Again, I would like to emphasize this was a very minor problem, and it was clear a lot of care went into this year's EFT.

[cwasims]

As someone who read this tournament and saw teams of varying skill levels playing the question, I thought this tournament did a great job of creating a fun experience for people pretty new this game while avoiding questions on a lot of the tired subjects that might be tempting to write about for this sort of tournament. In the categories I'm familiar with, there were almost no tossups that I thought weren't good ideas (the somewhat confusing UA flight being one of the only exceptions) and many that I thought were very inspired (the Heroic music common link leaps to mind here).

That being said, I do think the bonus hard parts sometimes veered a bit too hard for this difficulty. In particular, I think if you're asking an answerline that would probably be too hard for even a tossup answer line at ACF Nats (as at least I perceived Leighton, Ogdoad, etc.) I'm not convinced that's a great idea. Of course there are differences in what you can substantively ask about in bonuses versus tossups, and bonuses certainly give more leeway for much harder answer lines, but for this level I would probably have rather seen more deep (or semi-deep) cuts on better-known answers. I think it's also beneficial insofar as a tournament like this is a learning experience for players that they're able to connect a harder clue to something they've actually heard of than something hard about something they've never heard of and thus will probably forget.

[jinah]

I thought this was a great set -- fun clues, accessible topics, interesting answerlines, and well-written; it hit the bases on both content and technical execution. In particular I thought the literature and fine arts were very well done, and the history seemed quite fun from my perspective as a non-history-player -- lots of interesting leadins and memorable clues.

I have a few nits to pick, though, none of which are damning, but hopefully most of which are still worth considering;

• There were a fair number of typos in the later packets, which hopefully should be fixed before future mirror iterations (especially since typos in late packets tend to happen in more important games, when moderators are also more tired and less able to fix things on the fly).
• This set had a lot of well-done pronunciation guides, which was great, but I think in some cases there might have been too many. Pronunciation guides send a signal to the moderator that this is a tricky/hard to pronounce word, which threw me off for words that are relatively standard, and they also just make questions very busy to look at.
• I think there were too many questions that tried to be "cute" or humorous in a questionable way. I was also not a fan of the two bonuses William mentioned, but I actually minded the Ogdoad bonus part less than the stats one. For one, there is no reasonable justification for inserting a pointless joke about the number 69 into a tournament that is intended to be accessible to new players, explicitly including high schoolers. For another, the "paper and pencil ready" portion of the question struck me as something that was mostly there to essentially "troll" players. I felt similarly about the use of "this thinker" for Elizabeth Warren, which seemed intentionally misleading (a discussion I've already had with Will, and I appreciate that he changed the first pronoun to be "this academic" accordingly). Humor is great, but I don't think it's great to have a lot of meta-humor at the expense of the player.
• The film seemed skewed towards borderline-art/academic film: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Dead Poets Society; Scarface; Woody Allen.

Speaking of Woody Allen, I felt like this tournament took a step back from recent trends in including a number of men who have prominently and notably been accused of sexual assault or abuse, without acknowledging this fact. In addition to Allen, there were questions cluing John Searle, Franco Moretti, and Tao Lin (that I can recall) (as well as a lot of questions on artists/authors that have gotten recent criticism for being generally sexist, like Bret Easton Ellis, Hemingway, and John Updike). The question of how we engage with academically or artistically notable people who have committed or been accused of such behavior is much larger and more complicated than can be addressed in a quizbowl tournament, but it seemed like an odd thing to completely ignore. Overall I thought this set was very inclusive in terms of including women, nonwhite/non-Western, and queer creators in a non-tokenistic way, but this aspect of it stood out to me.

[a bird]

This was a good set, and I thought it captured many of the good aspects of previous EFTs!

Speaking to the science, I'm not sure if the set distribution served this tournament well. As I understand it, roughly 3/4 of the packets had a fairly standard split, while 1/4 of the packets had had no chem TU and 2 other science TUs. I think the rationale behind this choice is sound, but it makes things unpredictable and sometimes less enjoyable (1/4 games chem players have less to contribute). While I thought the chem covered many good topics, there was a ton of biochem, including a lot of medicine/biology clues. I didn't have a problem with any of these questions, but collectively it seemed like too much for a tournament that already cut the chem distribution. I'm definitely not advocating for more organic chem; the biochem in this set was far preferable to old school questions on named reactions! I would have liked to see more pchem and instrumentation/analytic techniques.

The biochem issue probably felt more extreme because biochem questions were often in the same packet with molecular biology questions. When using cross disciplinary questions, I think it's important to try to balance things between packets. I tried to do this in last year's Terrapin by pairing biochem chem TUs with ecology bio TUs, for example.

The physics was generally well written, but felt easier than most of the rest of the science distribution.

[a bird]

Following up William Golden's point:

This tournament was very accessible and fun to play. Thank you to Will and the other editors for your hard work.

I do have to question some of the humor that was added to the set. The mythology bonus centered around 4chan (the bad website) (the bad website) was not amusing to anyone I discussed it with. Talking about 4chan (the bad website) (the bad website) or Pepe the frog or using the word "kek" will produce groans in all but a small group of people. The bonus that prominently used the number 69,000 was another example of this.
...

I think it should be obvious why these questions make quizbowl look insular and unprofessional! This is unfortunate since the editors delivered a quality product in an otherwise professional manner. Lots of folks in the community have done great work over the last few years trying to professionalize things and address issues behind the gender imbalance in quizbowl; I hope future writers and editors will consider this work and avoid including random sexual innuendo or memes in questions to be funny.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

Apologies for the typos concentrated in the later packets - I think a lot of these arose during our later changes to the tournament post-Discord mirror, after which I didn't have time to do yet another read through of the set. It's a bad excuse, but that's what happened.

I would refer those who consider Kek only as an irrelevant meme to a fascinating book by the journalist Angela Nagle titled Kill All Normies. Mythology and its motifs permeate culture in many ways, as I hope this tournament made clear, and I don't think it's fair to say we need to avoid such discussions because they come from a "bad website" or whatever. For those whose strongly object, though, I'll state that all blame should be directed to me for editing the bonus to include this - as I strongly believed this would be more relevant to today's audience than just "hey name this local grouping of ancient deities."

[a bird]

I would refer those who consider Kek only as an irrelevant meme to a fascinating book by the journalist Angela Nagle titled Kill All Normies. Mythology and its motifs permeate culture in many ways, as I hope this tournament made clear, and I don't think it's fair to say we need to avoid such discussions because they come from a "bad website" or whatever. For those whose strongly object, though, I'll state that all blame should be directed to me for editing the bonus to include this - as I strongly believed this would be more relevant to today's audience than just "hey name this local grouping of ancient deities."

I know the bonus in questions is a more complicated case than I implied in my earlier post, and I don't want to imply that it is wholly inappropriate to mention 4chan (the bad website). I do want to emphasize that referencing content from male dominated spaces like reddit and 4chan (the bad website) can send subtle messages, especially if the writer/players are implied to be part of the in group.

I don't think the number 69 is an appropriate joke in any quizbowl question.

[1.82]

The egregious examples have already been pointed out (the 69 bonus attracted a lot of comment at my site, none of it positive), but more generally there were too many questions in this set that strained to be funny. Examples of this include the bonus in Packet 2 on "shitty modern art" and the bonus in Packet 10 on brothers that referred to "some bros" in European literature. Both bonuses had perfectly legitimate subject matter, but both were excessively informal in what I do have to conclude were attempts at humor. In isolation, neither question would warrant my comment, but seeing several questions like this alongside the really objectionable questions did not suggest great things about the intentions of the editors. On the whole, this set fell short of the standards of professionalism that I would expect for an edited quizbowl tournament.

When a quizbowl question is genuinely humorous, the effect is positive but minimal; a well-written question that is also funny is not much better than a well-written question that is not funny. When a quizbowl question attempts humor and fails, the effect is very negative. Editors in the future would do well to avoid attempting humor.

[Zealots of Stockholm]

Thanks for all of the writers and editors for their hard work on this set. I thought it was quite good, and definitely one of the better sets I've played. I also plan to go through all of the twelve packets we played at our site and give feedback where I'm able (lit, vis art, some history), which I'll do sometime during fall break which starts Wednesday.

I did notice a few issues while playing, besides what's been mentioned. A few questions felt extremely "fraudable", and I don't generally think I'm good at just figuring out questions if I don't have any actual knowledge (a few that come to mind are the tossups on "God is dead" and unions, though I'm sure I'll find more examples when going through the packets). Additionally, the lit answerlines felt all over the place accesibility-wise, and many seemed inappropriate to me for a tournament of this difficulty, and I look forward to seeing the advanced stats for other sites to see if the data confirms this. I'm happy to back off of this point if it doesn't.

[Abdon Ubidia]

I enjoyed this set a lot and I think it did a good job of hitting its target difficulty. However,

A few questions felt extremely "fraudable"

is how I feel as well. I got a lot of buzzes by just going in with the answer I think everyone in the room was thinking without really knowing the clues. Some examples that spring to mind are the tossups on passports, women, and teachers.

[Votre Kickstarter Est Nul]

This set was a great time, and I really appreciate the hard work y'all put into this. A few comments:

I feel pretty confident in saying this set had the best American history I've played in my time in college. I enjoyed it greatly, and thought there was a very good mix of wonderful answerlines, creative themes, and good staple material done well.

I agree with other comments about the humor, and think the best approach is to sprinkle in some amusing anecdotes in bonuses, etc. rather than shoehorn in humor like "some bros in literature."

The literature was pretty wonderful from what I know, and I think, not to speak for him so maybe I'm wrong, Darren and Joelle enjoyed it as well. Lots of cool content and ideas!

The difficulty as a whole seemed well constrained, and, while there were a few tossups here or there that remained sort of difficult for this level for a line or two too long, overall the set seemed to have found a very good balance between not getting carried away with "never before come up" content and being creative and interesting.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

Without wanting to dismiss the comments of fraud ability out hand, I think very often that sort of reaction results from your first inkling at a tossup turning out to be right. Thus, it might be a sort of confirmation bias which just doesn't kick in when your initial inkling turns out to be wrong (for obvious reasons). If you're a reasonably experienced player, this is going to happen a fairly substantial portion of the time.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

The film seemed skewed towards borderline-art/academic film: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Dead Poets Society; Scarface; Woody Allen

I wanted to address this point - this is the list of film topics:

Tossups: Brazil, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Woody Allen, Scarface (clued from Hawks and De Palma)
Bonuses: Van Gogh bonus, sexual obsession bonus, dead poets bonus, film techniques bonus

I can't speak to Rahul's approach, but my decisions on film topics have basically been guided by Tommy Casalaspi's film manifesto since I started writing on the subject - pick things that are critically notable and which you can write a good mix of clues about (scores, cinematography, plot, history, criticism, etc). To write my questions I always consulted critics and blogs that discussed each of these aspects. Without getting into the debate of what is "art film" or not, I think all of these pass that test and did the job for a film distribution at this tournament.

[Mike Bentley]

The film seemed skewed towards borderline-art/academic film: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Dead Poets Society; Scarface; Woody Allen

I wanted to address this point - this is the list of film topics:

Tossups: Brazil, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Woody Allen, Scarface (clued from Hawks and De Palma)
Bonuses: Van Gogh bonus, sexual obsession bonus, dead poets bonus, film techniques bonus

I can't speak to Rahul's approach, but my decisions on film topics have basically been guided by Tommy Casalaspi's film manifesto since I started writing on the subject - pick things that are critically notable and which you can write a good mix of clues about (scores, cinematography, plot, history, criticism, etc). To write my questions I always consulted critics and blogs that discussed each of these aspects. Without getting into the debate of what is "art film" or not, I think all of these pass that test and did the job for a film distribution at this tournament.

It does seem that 3 out of 4 of those film tossups (Crouching Tiger, Woody Allen, Scarface) all fall pretty squarely within mainstream pop culture. I don't remember too many of the clues, but I'd be buzzing on "these were popular movies that I saw" rather than any deeper engagement with "film." When quizbowl has had this discussion about other border-line pop culture subjects, there's often been a thought that: 1. It should be done in relative moderation. 2. It should usually try to reward some deeper level of engagement than what you'd encounter in a version of this question in a trash tournament.

I think there's an argument to be made that these 8 questions probably leaned a little too hard in the pop culture direction and thus breached #1. But there have also been years of tournaments leaning way too hard in the "French arthouse film is the only acceptable film" direction so, eh, not a big deal.

[Abdon Ubidia]

Is this set clear now? It seems the last mirror was this past weekend.

[aqblsheetsmanager]

There may or may not be an online HS mirror some time in January

[naan/steak-holding toll]

Bo is correct, we're keeping it non-clear for that purpose.

[Vembanad]

My apologies if this has been addressed elsewhere -- are advanced stats unavailable for that reason, and can we assume that they will be available after January?

[Bosa of York]

Also, considering that it is very nearly January, is there an idea of whether such an online mirror will or will not happen, or when that determination will be made?

[aqblsheetsmanager]

As far as I know, the online mirror will be taking place on January the 19th (Sunday).

[Abdon Ubidia]

I know I asked earlier, but I think it's worth asking again. Is this set clear now that the 1/19 mirror is over? In addition, are there any plans for the advanced stats to ever be released? I know there was some complicated situation regarding payment, but I know that my team (and probably several others) would still be willing to pay for access.