2023 Festivus (12/23/23)

[Dantooine is Big!]

Hey all, in the absence of anyone else announcing any Festivus related events (I think?) for this holiday season, I'd like to say I'd be happy to organize a Festivus event this year in line with the tradition from previous years. I welcome suggestions on what we should do this year, and aim to solidify a date that works with everyone soon. If you know you're interested in writing a packet for Festivus, please fill out this Google form. EDIT: Scratch that, please add your packet to this Google spreadsheet - you can also see the topics of other packets there as well.

[Dantooine is Big!]

Hey, I copied over all of the Google form responses into a publicly editable Google spreadsheet so everyone can see what people are planning on writing packets about. Feel free to continue adding your packet ideas here.

[Adventure Temple Trail]

If the list of packets gets long enough, I might advise everyone to write at most 20 tossups or ~160 lines of clue text, so that a large number of people can go within a reasonable timeframe. Longer-than-that experiences can tend to drag.

I'd also re-up from a past event of this type -- try to be specific about what your vanity entails:

I'll add that describing a pack as "Things I like" or "Name-gories" isn't great, because many people don't know what you like.

Also, in the spirit of holiday giving, is there a charitable donation you have in mind?

[Mike Bentley]

If the list of packets gets long enough, I might advise everyone to write at most 20 tossups or ~160 lines of clue text, so that a large number of people can go within a reasonable timeframe. Longer-than-that experiences can tend to drag.

I'd also re-up from a past event of this type -- try to be specific about what your vanity entails:

I'll add that describing a pack as "Things I like" or "Name-gories" isn't great, because many people don't know what you like.

Also, in the spirit of holiday giving, is there a charitable donation you have in mind?

What's worked well in past years is to do some initial polling of people's interest in packets and then schedule some of the more niche packets to run simultaneously so more can be fit in. It's also usually the case that there's a decent amount of churn between throwing out an idea on this form and actually writing a full packet. But, yeah, I agree that in general you should keep things short and not go too far over 20 tossups per packet for this event. If you have so many ideas that you're going to have 80 questions, just make that a separate event apart from Festivus.

[Dantooine is Big!]

Hi all, I'm beginning to solidify scheduling and planning for this event.

If you are authoring a packet for Festivus, please fill out this Google form. Importantly, if you listed a packet on the public spreadsheet but, for whatever reason, the packet will not be played on Festivus, please either also fill out the author form (there's a question that asks if you're still planning on your packet being played at Festivus - just select "no") or contact me directly (youngflee99 at gmail dot com) to inform me of this.

If you are planning on playing any Festivus packets (authors who are planning on playing other packets, please fill this out as well), please fill out this Google form. It will ask you which packets you are interested in playing, what your time restrictions on Festivus look like, and whether you would be interested and able to moderate for others' packets if needed.

Thank you all!

[Dantooine is Big!]

I would also like to announce that I will be collecting donations for Palestine Red Crescent Society as part of participation in Festivus after the event.

[meebles127]

For those who do not wish to donate to the listed organization, I would encourage people to make a direct donation to Partners in Health. PIH has been around since the 1980s and if you'd like to read more about the organization I encourage you to explore my post history. Last month, a study was published showing the results of a randomized control trial hosted throughout PIH member countries to attempt to identify a shorter treatment regimen for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. Tuberculosis will kill over one million people this year despite the fact that we have known how to treat this condition for decades. This new study identified 2 new MDR-TB drug regimens that are just 9 months long AND happen to be significantly cheaper than the existing 18-month+ treatment protocol.

Edit: I forgot to mention that when choosing charities to donate to, it is important to consider the organization's expenditures. I personally do not trust the Red Cross given that they raised half a billion dollars to build homes in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and built just 6 homes.

[Cheynem]

An announcement thread is not really the best place for this back-and-forth, but to clarify--

1. Festivus involves optional donations. If you don't support the cause or don't want to donate, nobody has to donate, or, as always, you can donate to whatever organization or cause you prefer.

2. The Palestine Red Crescent Society is merely a recognized member group of the International Red Cross. The Red Cross has issued statements supporting the work of both the Palestine Red Crescent Society and Magen David Adom in Israel.

3. Any more ideological discussion of the work of these groups or the conflict they take place in should go to another thread (in my opinion).

[Dantooine is Big!]

Can a mod clean this thread up a bit? I feel a lot of the above posts are inappropriate in an announcement thread as well as disrespectful.

[halle]

Can a mod clean this thread up a bit? I feel a lot of the above posts are inappropriate in an announcement thread as well as disrespectful.

I just FZ'ed several of Dan's posts in this thread. While it is potentially within the bounds of this discussion thread to question the choice of the charity that (always optional!) Festivus donations will support, relating a Jewish holiday to donation to emergency medical aid to Palestine is a non sequitur and a harmful reinforcement of the idea that support of Palestine is antithetical to Judaism.

[Stinkweed Imp]

I would hate to see a forum argument derail a good cause so I'll happily make a donation on Dan's behalf if he decides to not play this tournament.

[The Unbearable Lightness of Negging]

I want to chime in considering I discussed potential charities with Young before we decided on the Palestine Red Crescent Society. PRCS is responsible for operating the plurality of aid trucks entering Gaza. They operate a robust ambulance & paramedic service. They were entrusted by both parties as the primary transportation for hostage exchange during the temporary ceasefire. A breakdown of their services and budget allocation can be accessed at their website.

It's totally fine if you choose to donate elsewhere, but I find reprehensible the attempt to discredit the PRCS with an article about the 2011 Red Cross operation in Haiti. Multiple PRCS volunteers have been killed in the last few weeks while performing their lifesaving operations. In my opinion, there is not a more courageous and vital organization deserving of your money at this moment.

[Dantooine is Big!]

Hi all, just wanted to announce that I'll be trying to set up scheduling for packets in the coming week. If you are authoring a packet for Festivus, and your packet listing on the public spreadsheet does not have a checkmark in the first column, please fill out the author Google form for Festivus so I have your info and can confirm your packet should be scheduled for the event. IMPORTANT: If you do NOT end up filling out this Google form OR somehow contacting me otherwise with relevant information (whether you can confirm your packet will be ready to be played at Festivus as well as your time constraints on Festivus day), your packet will NOT be on the finalized schedule for the event, so please fill it out! If you know for sure your packet will not be ready for Festivus, it would also be helpful to get your response on the form so I can clear that packet from the spreadsheet.

If you are playing Festivus, to ensure the packets you want to play will be scheduled during your available time, please fill out the player Google form here. Thank you all!

[Yeah, that's a thing]

Could not be more excited for the possibility of a Magin X-Files packet!

[Dantooine is Big!]

Here is the big logistics update for Festivus on Saturday, December 23rd. Thank you to everyone who has signed up to write a packet or otherwise expressed interest in playing packets on Festivus.

I have drafted up a finalized schedule here. The actual schedule for up to four concurrent rooms of players is on the left side of the "Festivus" sheet and should be uneditable. There are 25 packets scheduled. I listed every packet under at least two concurrent rooms and allocated three rooms to some packets that were particularly popular according to votes in the players' Google form. There are also some packets that overlap due to scheduling constraints. Not every packet has to be read in two or more rooms; the decision will come down to whether additional moderators are available and whether there is actual demand for multiple rooms. Here are results from the players' poll showing how many votes each packet got (some packets may be listed twice, so you may have to add some numbers to see how many total votes some packets got):



The right side of the "Festivus" sheet is editable and where you can list your name to read that time slot's packet; all authors are listed under the first room for their packet as a matter of dibs. If you can, please sign up to moderate for additional packets; it will help a lot throughout the day. Finally, under the "Events" sheet, I have listed all of the confirmed/scheduled packets, their descriptions, and their length.

An invite to the Discord server is linked at the top of the "Festivus" sheet in cell F2; it can also be accessed here. When you join the server, please change your nickname to your name and I will perm/role you into the rest of the server.

I have set up the server to align with the setup from previous years' iterations of Festivus. Here are details for how procedures on the day of the event will go, from Em Gunter's post from 2022 (with slight adjustments):

In order to enter into the room for your event, please go to the #roles channel and select the appropriate number. If you will be moderating an event, you will select the turtle emoji for that event. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES may you have the @Moderator role if you will not be reading during that time slot. If you are caught doing this, you will be immediately banned unless it was a technical issue or some other mistake like you left to go get lunch, for example.

Furthermore, all players are required to be in only one room throughout the entire reading of an event, i.e. once the mod has started reading an event, you can't switch to another room. (You can obviously still switch rooms between different events, though). This is to prevent players from listening to one room that goes ahead of another, then switching rooms and exploiting the information they heard. Any player who does this once will be kicked and forced to sit out the round unless it's a technical issue, and anyone who does it twice will be banned from the rest of the event unless they successfully appeal to me.

I would also like to borrow the following procedures from Em's previous iterations as well:

Ejection Procedures:

• Mods are allowed to kick people from rooms at any time - they should inform me if they do so and explain why they kicked a player from their room.

• If a player is being obnoxious, suspected of cheating, etc. then any three players in a room may initiate a vote to kick them. The player will be kicked if a two-thirds majority of players, rounded down, votes to remove them; mods will not vote in these procedures. The mod should then report this to me.

• Any player who is kicked twice will be banned.

Regarding cheating, to quote something that Will Alston said in April 2020: "If you need to cheat to win an online charity packet to boost your ego, you're a fucking loser and should feel ashamed of yourself."

I will not be requiring you to use a camera; however, writers have the right to require a camera for you to play their packet, except in instances where you have prior permission. If you expect this to be an issue please reach out to me as soon as possible. If you are playing without a camera, and any allegations of cheating arise, you will be asked to turn it on. If you do not, you will be immediately ejected.

Lastly, as said upthread, after the event I will be collecting donations for Palestine Red Crescent Society.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns about the event.

Thank you all!

[Dantooine is Big!]

Hi all, I'm pleased to say Festivus has finished up, with 27 packets total read throughout the day.

To reiterate some info I sent out through the Festivus Discord server and the email list accumulated through the Google forms I sent out for initial interest polling: I am now collecting donations that will be sent to Palestine Red Crescent Society via the Venmo handle @Hokwang-Lee and the PayPal account at [email protected] — please include "Festivus" somewhere in the note/memo line. If you would like to donate directly to Red Crescent and want it to be grouped under my general tracking of how much money we raise for the organization, just let me know directly via Discord DM (call_me_red) or email ([email protected]), and if you would like to send money to me for the donation effort through some other method, just contact me. I'll provide updates in the coming weeks on how our efforts go. This effort means a lot to me and many others looking from afar at the situation in Gaza.

Have a great night everyone, and happy holidays, and most of all, happy festivus!

[Cheynem]

Thanks for running this. I had fun at the packets I heard.

[RexSueciae]

Seconded, thank you for running Festivus this year.

[Dantooine is Big!]

To reiterate some info I sent out through the Festivus Discord server and the email list accumulated through the Google forms I sent out for initial interest polling: I am now collecting donations that will be sent to Palestine Red Crescent Society via the Venmo handle @Hokwang-Lee and the PayPal account at [email protected] — please include "Festivus" somewhere in the note/memo line. If you would like to donate directly to Red Crescent and want it to be grouped under my general tracking of how much money we raise for the organization, just let me know directly via Discord DM (call_me_red) or email ([email protected]), and if you would like to send money to me for the donation effort through some other method, just contact me. I'll provide updates in the coming weeks on how our efforts go. This effort means a lot to me and many others looking from afar at the situation in Gaza.

Hi all, packets from Festivus (minus unclear packets that will have later readings) have been uploaded to the packet archive (accessible via https://collegiate.quizbowlpackets.com/3088/ or https://hsquizbowl.org/db/questionsets/3088/). We have raised over $400 for Palestine Red Crescent Society so far and hope to continue collecting donations. Thank you all!