The Quizbowl Resource Center

This post is basically a compendium of observations I've made from playing and staffing some recent tournaments. I'll update it if I think of more things I want to add, and if you have your own tips you're more than welcome to reply to this post. Make teams and players put their answers in text chat...

as you go up it's going to be hard for editors to give meaningful advice for questions outside their categories other than grammar or phrasing You are correct that not many people have the knowledge and skill to effectively edit high-difficulty questions in terms of changing clues or conceits. Howe...

communication Kevin said in the main Discord that 2020 WORKSHOP didn't have a writing Discord server, which I think is something every set [or at least every set with new writers] really needs. CALISTO and Saturnalia facillitated inter-writer/editor communication by keeping everyone together in a D...

This tournament happened. Congratulations to " https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQnVmUKxSOupYsHFsvW2jIA " for winning the tournament! They went 7-1, and agreed with second-place team University Lab not to hold a final. Full stats, including category stats, are available here . This tournament would ...

Due to staffing constraints, we've capped the field at 12 teams. If you want to staff or know anyone who can please reach out as soon as possible!

QuizBug 2 has moved to a new home and can now be found here: http://quizbug2.karangurazada.com
I'll try to set up HTTPS after college applications are done.

With the tournament now ten days away, we'd like for all teams interested in finalizing their registrations to email me at entropy15360 [at] gmail [dot] com with their team's name, roster, contact info [email address, phone number, Discord tag], and their preferred method of payment. If possible, we...

There exists a Scrim Server on Discord for players in HS and under. You can join it here.

entropy wrote: ↑Thu Sep 24, 2020 9:54 pm

mrkirkmath wrote: ↑Thu Sep 24, 2020 6:18 pm When can we expect the date to be settled upon?

We'll close the date poll at the start of October 1. At that time we'll settle upon the date that has the most votes in the poll and works best with our staffer pool.

We have settled on Sunday, November 8th as the date for this tournament.

mrkirkmath wrote: ↑Thu Sep 24, 2020 6:18 pm When can we expect the date to be settled upon?

We'll close the date poll at the start of October 1. At that time we'll settle upon the date that has the most votes in the poll and works best with our staffer pool.

Having even one person, let alone two (!), cheat at your tournament is very difficult, most people are not experienced at it, and there is basically no community-level guidance available about how to handle it. I think Olivia makes a very relevant point here. With the increase in online tournaments...

I am very proud and grateful that PACE has officially recommended that TDs use this bot for Discord tournaments. This page on the PACE website provides a detailed guide for how to use the bot.

I'm excited to announce the IKEA HS Open Mirror, to be run over Discord on one of the dates specified in the poll above. IKEA is a college-level set written by Columbia and Georgia Tech that is designed to be harder than EFT but easier than ACF Regionals and will approximate the difficulty of 2016 T...

osbornrj wrote: ↑Tue Aug 18, 2020 11:16 am the set Sparkman High School is writing is middle school level difficulty

Thank you for your clarification, I wasn't sure what difficulty ASBOT was aiming for. I'd like to suggest you mirror either ERIS or TAILS, both of which are middle school difficulty. I wish ASBOT the best of luck!

ASBOT is a house-written set by the Sparkman High School Varsity Team: (Sparkman High School is not affiliated with this tournament, it is independently run by us 4) Andrew Goetz Caleb Ethridge Eshan Pokhrel Rebecca Jensen Why has ASBOT chosen to write a new set for this tournament? The market for ...

Recently several Discord bots for quizbowl-related purposes have been created, with a few having been announced on these forums. This is both a cause for celebration, since custom Discord bots can provide extensive functionality, and for caution, because Discord bots are a security risk. Discord bot...

Some updates: Users can now append the "--force" flag to any command to skip confirmation; the bot will acknowledge these commands by reacting with 👍 The .m command creates numbered team roles within a specified range, randomizes their colors, and creates team huddle rooms The .b command sets the bi...

Thanks so much for all your suggestions Mike! I'll update my announcement post when I implement all of them. The biggest limitation was that I had to move teams around each and every round. I'm not sure if this was the way you chose to run the tournament or if I made my help manual unclear [it's pro...

Avinash Iyer is good at quizbowl . Also, I know it's not my place to tell people how they should vote, but in my opinion voters should not take online performances into account for this poll. I understand that the COVID-19 pandemic moved the part of the season from March on entirely online, and tha...

I've created a new Discord bot that is capable of facilitating most of the "Discord-fu" needed to run online tournaments, eliminating most unnecessary staff labor. The bot comes with a new paradigm for how Discord tournaments are run. "Traditionally," Discord tournaments have been run by creating a ...

This tournament happened.

Congratulations to "It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's A D.B. Cooper" for winning the tournament by clearing the field. Full stats are available here. Thanks everyone for playing!

Why is the fee for this tournament so high? $60 fees are the standards for college sets, where the mirror fees are $40+. I don't see the need to charge such a high amount for a high school set like CALISTO with a $10 mirror fee.

Quietly tweaking your posted distribution does nothing to assuage our concerns, and if anything makes me more worried about the choices behind this set potentially being arbitrary and unjustified. Can you please be more clear about the reasoning behind the distribution for this set?

Why is there so much Geography?

100% Clean Comedian Dan Nainan wrote: ↑Sat Dec 28, 2019 7:30 pm Do you need mods for this

No, but thanks!

- Buzzinga (https://buzzinga.netlify.com/): A simple LAN application that let users buzz in a local network (A Mac is required to run the program, although Windows and Linux editions should come out soon) Regrettably, Buzzinga is not currently in a working state on any platform and is not in active...

James Stevenson from GPS isn't mentioned on the Groger Ranks post at all, but I'd like to congratulate him for being the well-deserved unanimous first place among the RMPSS ballots.

This tournament happened. Congratulations to Frulia et al. for going 7-0 to win the tournament! In addition, congratulations to Fred Zhang for being top individual scorer. Full SQBS-style stats are available here and will be beautified/fixed when I get the time. (sorry!) In addition to SQBS-style st...

I am pleased to announce an open FST Discord Mirror for high school teams, set for May 19th. FST is an easy college set matching ACF Fall difficulty and will provide good practice for any team intending to attend HSNCT or NSC, or just teams who want a good challenge on a higher level set. The set an...

Is this mirror open?