Search found 35 matches

by vathreya
Sat Jul 02, 2022 12:12 am
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: Where Are You Going Next Year? (Collegiate 2022)
Replies: 25
Views: 13558

Re: Where Are You Going Next Year? (Collegiate 2022)

In August I'll be moving to New Jersey for a research assistantship at Rutgers. I probably won't be involved much in quizbowl, but I am open to helping out at the occasional tournament.
by vathreya
Mon Nov 08, 2021 3:22 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 ACF Winter - Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 10
Views: 4227

Re: 2021 ACF Winter - Thanks and General Discussion

Editing the World History for this set was a really enjoyable experience, and I’m extremely thankful to everyone involved in the production of the set for their help and guidance. 

In no particular order, I’d like to offer my thanks to the following people:
 - Special thanks to Tim, our head editor...
by vathreya
Sat Dec 12, 2020 11:47 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2021 UW Winter Classic
Replies: 1
Views: 2133

2021 UW Winter Classic

Hi all, It is my pleasure to announce the 2021 UW Winter Classic, which will take place on January 23, 2021 . I, Vikshar Athreya, will be the tournament director, and I can be contacted at vikath@uw.edu. RULES AND RESOURCES Useful information regarding what quiz bowl is can be found here . This tour...
by vathreya
Mon Oct 26, 2020 10:58 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Longhorn Invitational Tournament Individual Questions
Replies: 54
Views: 10387

Re: Longhorn Invitational Tournament Individual Questions

Minor issue, but the answerline for the tossup on "LSD" should have some instructions on what to do if a player gives the answer "acid." "Acid" is a common street name for LSD. However, there seem to be no instructions in the packets (at least from the packets from 9/26...
by vathreya
Tue Oct 20, 2020 10:41 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Packet Submission discussion
Replies: 28
Views: 10370

Re: Packet Submission discussion

At the end of the day, I think the arguments for and against packet submission ultimately boil down to how it serves as a driving force. The arguments for packet submission argue that it is a necessary measure driving people towards greater roles in set production and proliferation, ultimately drivi...
by vathreya
Sat Oct 17, 2020 3:53 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 ACF Winter at Washington (11/7/2020)
Replies: 1
Views: 1531

2020 ACF Winter at Washington (11/7/2020)

I am pleased to announce that the Mountain West/Northwest site of 2020 ACF Winter will be held at the University of Washington on Saturday, November 7, 2020. The tournament will take place virtually on Discord. The opening meeting will begin at 8:30 a.m. and gameplay will begin at 9 a.m . Mike Bentl...
by vathreya
Fri Jul 24, 2020 3:29 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Why am I not improving?
Replies: 4
Views: 3853

Re: Why am I not improving?

The obvious answer to this question would just be to study more. However, there's a lot more to quiz bowl than simply "studying" and coming across things. It's hard to translate whatever you come across when reading packets or when taking notes into something you can store and retrieve fas...
by vathreya
Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:41 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: IKEA (Fall 2020)
Replies: 48
Views: 32763

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: IKEA (Fall 2020)

What's the logic behind including Idaho along with the "Mountain" circuit? Idaho teams (such as Boise State) play just as often, if not more, at UW and West-Coast sites, than at "Mountain" tournament sites. Teams from Washington and Oregon also attend tournaments in Idaho somewha...
by vathreya
Sat Jul 18, 2020 10:53 am
Forum: Community Discussion
Topic: On HS Teams Without Coaches
Replies: 68
Views: 48490

Re: On HS Teams Without Coaches

At the risk of appearing self-aggrandizing, I told you this story to point out that, there really is something to be said for professionalizing the coaching ranks with the idea that quizbowl is something that is worth being a part of. It's worth being passionate about. The number of incredible peop...
by vathreya
Fri Jul 17, 2020 5:41 pm
Forum: Community Discussion
Topic: On HS Teams Without Coaches
Replies: 68
Views: 48490

Re: On HS Teams Without Coaches

If things like robotics and video gaming teams can mushroom at schools and in states and demand things of their coaches, why not us? To what extent are we allowing ourselves to be sold short by having low expectations? I have a theory for why this is the case. I'm not sure if it holds true everywhe...
by vathreya
Fri Jul 17, 2020 4:01 pm
Forum: Community Discussion
Topic: On HS Teams Without Coaches
Replies: 68
Views: 48490

Re: On HS Teams Without Coaches

I think you're right to a point, but the heart of your statement is a false dichotomy. Meeting standards of practice necessary to ensure safety and good conduct to the extent possible is the most important part of professionalism for a coach or educator. Any professionalism that doesn't have that a...
by vathreya
Fri Jul 17, 2020 3:39 pm
Forum: Community Discussion
Topic: On HS Teams Without Coaches
Replies: 68
Views: 48490

Re: On HS Teams Without Coaches

I think the argument being made here for actual teacher advisors/coaches to accompany teams vs. parents is less about "ensuring safety" and more about maintaining professionalism. Anecdotally, however, I am familiar with multiple school activities my high school engaged in that had no teac...
by vathreya
Thu Jul 16, 2020 11:36 am
Forum: Community Discussion
Topic: On HS Teams Without Coaches
Replies: 68
Views: 48490

Re: On HS Teams Without Coaches

Vikshar, I hear you loud and clear, and when I was your age 12 years ago (and for a plenty long time thereafter) I agreed with pretty much everything you said. The mindset that quizbowl is a grassroots community with no need for bureaucratic red tape like adult supervision and school approval share...
by vathreya
Wed Jul 15, 2020 4:16 pm
Forum: Community Discussion
Topic: On HS Teams Without Coaches
Replies: 68
Views: 48490

Re: On HS Teams Without Coaches

I'd be fine with a chaperone attending, as long as there was still a contact at the school who had authority to mete out negative consequences. Otherwise, as I was saying earlier, this is a club quiz bowl, not high school quiz bowl. From personal experience, this may not necessarily be a good idea....
by vathreya
Wed Jul 15, 2020 3:04 pm
Forum: Community Discussion
Topic: On HS Teams Without Coaches
Replies: 68
Views: 48490

Re: On HS Teams Without Coaches

I think a lot of the debate here rests on the ability (or lack thereof) of students to bring an official "coach" or advisor to a tournament. On one hand, teams may not be able to bring a coach to tournaments (which primarily seems to be due to excessive red tape on the part of school admin...
by vathreya
Sat Jun 27, 2020 7:06 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: The Online Quizbowl in the West
Replies: 12
Views: 4625

Re: The Online Quizbowl in the West

UW will also be hosting online summer practices over Discord, in our server here: https://discord.com/invite/sFevHKB. Practices will occur on Wednesdays (starting this Wednesday) and Sundays from 6-8 p.m. (the date and time may change in the future, but this is it for now). We welcome everyone who ...
by vathreya
Fri Jun 19, 2020 11:37 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: The Online Quizbowl in the West
Replies: 12
Views: 4625

Re: The Online Quizbowl in the West

If we're going to have to play regional tournaments online next fall (which, as Alistair pointed out, is looking increasingly likely), I think we should consider zoom as a platform as opposed to discord. Obviously zoom tournaments would be more complicated from a logistical standpoint, but there is...
by vathreya
Mon Jun 15, 2020 12:21 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: The Online Quizbowl in the West
Replies: 12
Views: 4625

Re: The Online Quizbowl in the West

We are tentatively thinking of running summer online practices for anyone in the Pacific Time zone. Details will come later (we just finished our spring quarter) but these practices could be a good opportunity to test out Discord video. UW will also be hosting online summer practices over Discord, ...
by vathreya
Mon Mar 30, 2020 1:07 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: The Problem of the West
Replies: 9
Views: 4116

Re: The Problem of the West

Re: travel - I think more can be done to help newer clubs find sources of funding. Travel is a pain because funding is relatively hard to come by (in the case of UW, our school's student organization travel fund literally ran out in December, so we couldn't use it to fund trips to Regs and ICT (rip)...
by vathreya
Fri Mar 13, 2020 10:41 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: College Nationals and Its Problems
Replies: 132
Views: 54238

Re: College Nationals and Its Problems

Should high schoolers expect "having good knowledge of a subject for a high schooler" to immediately translate into "having good knowledge of a subject for a college student"? (That seems like, among other things, a very low opinion of how much people learn in four years of coll...
by vathreya
Fri Mar 13, 2020 10:23 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: College Nationals and Its Problems
Replies: 132
Views: 54238

Re: College Nationals and Its Problems

I don't see how claiming that "quizbowl is a game anyone can be good at" and it requiring "a considerable amount of effort" to become an elite player are in anyway contradictory. Quizbowl, like all other activities, requires effort to be good at. If anything, quizbowl is much mo...
by vathreya
Fri Mar 13, 2020 9:56 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: College Nationals and Its Problems
Replies: 132
Views: 54238

Re: College Nationals and Its Problems

I would like to endorse John's whole post, and this paragraph in particular. I love the culture of high-level college quizbowl because it's all about the recognition that there is a gigantic universe of things out there to learn, and a whole community of people striving to do so together. The most ...
by vathreya
Fri Mar 13, 2020 9:09 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: College Nationals and Its Problems
Replies: 132
Views: 54238

Re: College Nationals and Its Problems

I want to clarify the point about graduate students. I don't think many people have a problem with graduate students playing because they're graduate students, but rather the problem is because they've been playing for so long. Experience is a pathway to many advantages some consider to be unfair: ...
by vathreya
Fri Feb 21, 2020 2:07 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Ideal Host Cities for a Nationals Event
Replies: 10
Views: 5164

Re: Ideal Host Cities for a Nationals Event

hosting national tournaments on the west coast is a bad idea because then it will be substantially more expensive to get there for the majority of teams, which are not on the west coast. In my opinion this is somewhat of a Catch-22, because the current situation regarding nationals makes it prohibi...
by vathreya
Tue Feb 11, 2020 4:04 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: A Modest Proposal Regarding D2 ICT Qualification
Replies: 15
Views: 7590

Re: A Modest Proposal Regarding D2 ICT Qualification

I think it was mostly the strength of schedule metric that did us (Washington B) in. I think this serves as a double-edged sword, because it helps teams in strong regions that don’t put up good statistics due to strong opponents, but also hurts teams in relatively weak regions that put up relatively...
by vathreya
Wed Jan 29, 2020 5:26 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: How to improve on a team with a strong generalist
Replies: 1
Views: 2523

How to improve on a team with a strong generalist

Hi all (I'm posting this on behalf of another community member who is in high school), How do you motivate yourself to become a good specialist on a team which already has an elite generalist? Let's say you're already very familiar with the high school canon in your subject, but can't seem to make m...
by vathreya
Mon Jan 27, 2020 5:18 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 ACF Regionals: Specific Questions and Errata
Replies: 66
Views: 25419

Re: 2020 ACF Regionals: Specific Questions and Errata

Edit 2: Someone knowledgeable buzzed in early on the question on Tamils with Dalits. And apparently this was correct? I didn't resolve it since the protest didn't end up mattering, but figured it would be worth noting. I was actually wrong about this, because I’m fairly certain the first clue was s...
by vathreya
Sat Aug 31, 2019 3:34 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2019 ACF Fall at Washington (11/02/2019)
Replies: 0
Views: 2140

2019 ACF Fall at Washington (11/02/2019)

I am pleased to announce that the Northwest site of 2019 ACF Fall will be held at the University of Washington on Saturday, November 2, 2019. The tournament will take place at Savery Hall, with team check-in beginning at 8:00 AM (room TBD, more info will be emailed closer to the date of the tourname...
by vathreya
Fri May 03, 2019 6:50 pm
Forum: New High School Teams
Topic: Getting Other Schools to Join Quiz Bowl
Replies: 3
Views: 8964

Re: Getting Other Schools to Join Quiz Bowl

Hey Justin, I’d be more than happy to get in touch with you about expanding the scope of quiz bowl in Washington, especially the Seattle area, and this has been something on my mind as well ever since I joined UW. I believe that a lot of schools, especially on the East Side (Bellevue and Redmond) wo...
by vathreya
Mon May 14, 2018 1:42 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: HSNCT-only predictions
Replies: 9
Views: 9570

Re: HSNCT-only predictions

Does buzzes per twenty tossups heard include negs? It seems like it does, but I can't think of what the use that stat would be for comparing teams if it can't distinguish between teams that score a lot and teams that neg a lot. Similarly, what's the advantage of using powers/buzz instead of powers/...
by vathreya
Sun May 13, 2018 9:34 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: HSNCT-only predictions
Replies: 9
Views: 9570

Re: HSNCT-only predictions

I was of the opinion that since HNSCT is timed and has more tossups and no bouncebacks, it places a greater emphasis on tossup-getting than bonus conversion, because you don't have a chance at bouncebacks and have to rely almost solely on tossup-getting.
by vathreya
Sun May 13, 2018 7:22 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: HSNCT-only predictions
Replies: 9
Views: 9570

Re: HSNCT-only predictions

I've attempted to fix these discrepancies by using Buzzes/20TUH instead of buzzes/game.
by vathreya
Sat May 12, 2018 10:59 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: HSNCT-only predictions
Replies: 9
Views: 9570

HSNCT-only predictions

Hey everyone! One day I was wondering why Morlan's rankings and the Pre-Nationals polls aren't quite as accurate in predicting results for nationals, and I noticed that while both seemed to be similar in their predictions, they weren't able to distinguish between teams that were good at housewrites,...
by vathreya
Fri Aug 25, 2017 7:48 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Preseason Predictions
Replies: 20
Views: 19539

Re: Preseason Predictions

As a NorCal player, I'd like to add some insight about teams from my region that are usually overlooked in analyses like these: I think the Crystal Springs Uplands School could also do very well this season. They graduate no one, and in their first HSNCT they stormed to a T-41 finish (and player Jus...
by vathreya
Fri Aug 25, 2017 7:38 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Preseason Predictions
Replies: 20
Views: 19539

Re: Preseason Predictions

The thing about TJ and other underranked teams is that their performance, especially at national tournaments, is highly variable. Teams like this tend to rely on tossup conversion instead of bonuses to win games, and while that certainly does produce results, it's also more susceptible to change (i....