Something from last year's NAC

[#1 Mercury Adept]

As the Chip season begins, here's something I came upon today while reading the NAC pages on the Quizbowl Wiki (in my state of extreme disappointment at finding out that my alma mater is going there again):

Tom Egan's report from 2008, as excerpted on the wiki, includes this as an example of the kind of trivia that made it into the packets: "Which Shakespearean characters are also named in the NATO alphabet?" I thought it sounded familiar…

Hey, guess what? It's another Chip question that just so happens to be suspiciously similar to an old Final Jeopardy question*!

Maybe someone's noticed this before, but it wasn't mentioned on the wiki, so…just thought I'd throw it out there.

*The wording's not identical, but the wiki's version is paraphrased – so, for all I know, it could have been.

[rjaguar3]

Maybe someone's noticed this before, but it wasn't mentioned on the wiki, so…just thought I'd throw it out there.

I did. However, I didn't feel the need to report it. Good work, though.

[Tegan]

In the future, I might as well stay home and watch reruns of Jeopardy! rather than sit through the NAC .... at least watching Jeopardy! doesn't make me want to shout "fraud" until I am dragged out.

As this has been brought up ... I went to the NAC as an open minded person trying to find out why there was so much animosity toward Mr. Beall and his tournament. This fits entirely with the NAC being a game show boot camp, though it would do better to avoid things like plagiarism and reusing questions.

I wonder if Jeopardy! is aware of this, and whether or not they would care that their researchers' hard work is being so misused. I would guess they likely don't care, and even if they did there is (sadly) little that can be done.

[#1 Mercury Adept]

Maybe someone's noticed this before, but it wasn't mentioned on the wiki, so…just thought I'd throw it out there.

I did. However, I didn't feel the need to report it. Good work, though.

Since the wording might not have been exactly the same, I wasn't sure whether it was anything to care about either, but the fact that last year's NAC also had that Hawaii question made it that much more worth noting in my opinion.

[Dan Greenstein]

...I wonder if Jeopardy! is aware of this, and whether or not they would care that their researchers' hard work is being so misused. I would guess they likely don't care, and even if they did there is (sadly) little that can be done.

If Jeopardy! did care, they have the legal resources to send Chip into an early retirement and end this yearly abomination.

[First Chairman]

Jeopardy! would care if there were a substantial proportion of plagiarized questions from J! that are in QU sets of questions. How to define substantial would dictate damages for copyright infringement, and thus the motivation to pursue a suit. The fact that he pilfers from other question sources means that there is substantive evidence that he has a pattern of this behavior which would support such a suit.

I'm sure there are enough people who can contact the legal department of Sony Pictures about this if one came up with a huge document of this as it pertains specifically to Jeopardy questions.