The Quizbowl Resource Center

Chris Frankel

Well, since Chip posts a good share of samples of his questions in his post-Nationals recaps, I thought I'd have some fun with archive.org to see what kind of questions we could come up with as examples of trivia, not significa. The usual URL is http://www.qunlimited.com/national.htm ; I just went t...

Chris Frankel

Granted, since 4th grade I have always played with bounce back, I am definitely biased. That said, it seems ridiculous to associate 30 extra points with a couple milliseconds on the buzzer. Perhaps this is more accentuated by the fact that the South plays more speed questions, where shorter times a...

Chris Frankel

After reading Mr. Dillon's post in the NAC Chicago thread, I think it would be worthwhile to make a consolidating thread documenting the various unusual occurrences that have given many players reason to believe Chip Beall plays favorites or fixes his results. Obviously since intent is incredibly ha...

Chris Frankel

But here's what I don't get. Some of those same people damn Chip for what I call "the other charges" too, e.g. the favoritism, and yet I don't see that evidence documented. If you really want to "convert" me and get me off the fence, don't just throw that stuff in there. Obvious...

Chris Frankel

I think Matt summed it up well. The intense dislike of NAC on this board stems just as much, if not moreso, from the ethical flaws of the tournament administration as/than the quality of questions and format rules. If you ask Matt or look back on the Yahoo group archives, you can find documented exa...

Chris Frankel

If you want a more concrete answer, you might as well just open registration for both events, with the caveat that the less popular runs the risk of being cancelled. That way you can get an idea of who's going and who'd be up for what.

Chris Frankel

I liked the tournament a lot and had a good time playing, so keep that in mind when considering my criticisms. History in particular was very well done. I have to say the answer selection for the music tossups was my chief complaint. I know I've had this exchange with Andrew before in an ACF nats di...

Chris Frankel

Until I figure out this thing's name, I'll use this post as a placeholder for the field listing; if you e-mail me and see your name here, that'll be your confirmation that I've received your expression of interest: Teams: Beyer/Platzer Borglum/Kendall Lafer/Westbrook Passner/Stratton Turner/Arthur V...

Chris Frankel

I'm going to open up the (currently unnamed) History Subject Tournament to reservations. I haven't worked out the specific scheduling yet aside from the obvious "it's during CO weekend," but here's the long and short of the tournament, much of which has been stated above already: -There wi...

Chris Frankel

I'm pretty sure Noah's a sophomore, though he can speak for himself. And Noah, whether you meant it to or not, your post comes off as saying, "I want to eat my cake and have it too." Is it honestly your opinion that a tournament or format is not worthwhile for you if your team, just by vir...

Chris Frankel

As I just observed from Yahoo, a second NAQT survey has been posted here.

Chris Frankel

It's hard to conclude that "the majority want change" when a lot of the answers regarding distribution were clearly "status quo". Which categories require change according to the survey? In the every case of category but GK (which baffled me that a noticeable amount of people se...

Chris Frankel

I think the funny thing is that aside from the two finalists, Illinois and UCLA, CBI Nationals had a much weaker field than either division at Moon Pie.

Chris Frankel

Can you please set a specific time range and number of rounds (and solicit official registrations if you haven't already)? My transportation plans (and I imagine I'm not the only) appear to be contingent on when your tournament is happening.

Chris Frankel

After reading this discussion thread, I have a question for Jerry, Chris, Matt...(I don't mean to say you all think in lockstep on everything, this is more of a general query to anyone) Aside from the centrally-written vs. team written and playing on a clock, and if NAQT took all of your suggestion...

Chris Frankel

ACF editors take years off from playing to edit...why can't current experienced players take a year off to write a crapload of questions for the ICT. That would make it better. I mean, If you're so eager to jump ship on ICT anyway, why don't you help the rest of the circuit AND make some money? Thi...

Chris Frankel

First off, I'd like to see/trade for the packets if at all possible so as to see for myself, but assuming Charles' comments are accurate (feel free to correct me if they're not), two quick points stand out: 1. Theme packets of any kind, regardless of how well-crafted, are really a bad idea for any s...

Chris Frankel

I'm not as pessimistic about the survey as the prior expressed opinions from the thread; the fact that they did put it out and include a long-awaited revelation of the distribution (thank you for doing this!) is saying something significant, and I hope NAQT follows through with its results. I took t...

Chris Frankel

Look, Miami is a bad choice. It's expensive, and it's not centrally located for the SE. But your heart's in the right place. I think the idea of locating ACF nationals somewhere where teams that don't traditionally come is something the editors should really consider. In my opinion, the region with...

Chris Frankel

NoahMinkCHS wrote:Not to get into it, but is Mexico really considered "non-western"?

I'm a history major, and taking a Latin American history class allowed me to fulfill the "non-Western" distribution requirement for my department. I can't imagine Princeton is unique in this aspect.

Chris Frankel

Since it seems to be the time for announcing CO accessory tournaments, I'll put it on the agenda that I'm planning on running a history subject tournament for the weekend. The format will be analogous to that of past Science Monstrosities, namely teams of 2 playing on 20/20 tu/bonus packets. All the...

Chris Frankel

Title says it all. Just trying to see who's planning on going, since I'm considering making the trip and may base that decision on the field.

Chris Frankel

ICT 2006's fee is one of the few things I can comments as I haven't actually gone to the tournament, but with that said: I think Eric may be a little harsh on the trophy issue, not in the sense that your average player needs a trophy for validation, but in the sense that it can be a reasonably inter...

Chris Frankel

Without having heard both sides of the case (FWIW I think Weiner has offered solid defenses for his claims here, and Britannica seems to refer to J. Arminius as J. Hermansz as well), I have to ask the question of what the NAQT policy is on researching protests and whether this particular protest was...

Chris Frankel

Thanks, Craig, now I'll have something to distract myself with as I plow through my thesis. Did Harvard not show? I noticed they have a D2 team listed, but no D1 team there. Also, at the risk of being upstaged by the real results that come eventually, the last two brackets (Brin in particular) look ...

Chris Frankel

Few quick thoughts before I spend some time in the future doing question discussion. 1. Andrew et al. did a good job toning down the overall difficulty from last year's set. There were a few rounds that skewed noticeably easy or hard, but for the most part the set was even and maintained a balance b...

Chris Frankel

Well, while we're talking about annoying trends in QB as of late, does anyone find it disappointing that it looks like only ~3 independently edited academic packet sets will have been produced this past spring? I miss the days where you could make a schedule of as many local tournaments and still be...

Chris Frankel

The problem is the idea that we should JUST have a survey-level knowledge of the different subject areas within the liberal arts and sciences. Are we to eliminate majors altogether? I understand the draw of such a concept for someone that's say, prelaw, but should we have this program for all under...

Chris Frankel

Were stats kept, and if so, any chance of them getting posted soon?

Chris Frankel

FWIW, I think that while ICT does have the larger field and wider range of teams, the competition looks to be more intense at ACF. Consider that TAMU , Princeton, and Michigan aren't showing up at full force for ICT, but are coming with their big guns for ACF, and you've got yourselves one tournamen...

Chris Frankel

It's not all difficulty; for some schools (us), Maryland is a lot more convenient than Michigan. Does that mean UNC isn't going to ACF? I think Dan's point, at least in context for my team, was also that the exceptionally high fees can fast undermine the convenience and cost issues of having a tour...

Chris Frankel

All right, so there's a pre-tournament thread for ICT, but none for ACF, and I'm a little bored at the moment. Should everyone show up as planned, it looks to be an interesting field, with a wide range of both title contenders and high-level teams with the potential to play spoiler, so I guess the u...

Chris Frankel

Quick ICT Predictions: 1. Illinois 2. Chicago A dropoff here 3. Brown dropoff here Some order of Virginia (if they keep Leo Wolberg instead of that horrible Leo Wolpert), Princeton, UNC, Yale, and UCLA. Weiner/VCU is worth mentioning, in spite of his SCT showing, and if the Harvard team that went 5-...

Chris Frankel

We're pretty much up in the air right now, and it looks like whatever teams Princeton sends will be organized at the last minute. That said: ACF: There's recently been some internal talk about trying to organize a full strength team i.e. Chris Frankel, Lenny Kostovetsky, Jordan Boyd-Graber, and Dan ...

Chris Frankel

Chris: Point taken; Wagner is by far my weak spot as far as opera knowledge/interest goes, so perhaps the river setting may hold more than I gave it credit. I guess my frustration lies more in tying it to a 30-20-10 format; in that that single clue holds the full point potential of the bonus in its ...

Chris Frankel

One specific pet peeve with NAQT sets is the handling of opera questions (I'm generally disappointed by the treatment of fine arts in general, but opera is the one I'll single out now). There never seems to be any emphasis on the musical aspects of these pieces; rather the questions either reduce th...

Chris Frankel

As an NAQT editor myself, I come neither to defend nor attack last weekend's tournament, but to point out that criticizing the NAQT distribution and the SCT set simultaneously may tend to confuse matters. Love it or hate it, the NAQT question distribution -- which happens to devote less space to su...

Chris Frankel

This should more be a complaint on the tournament host's protest committee/policy, if it would have affected the outcome of a match. The same thing happened at the site I volunteered at(Yale) and in both cases affected the match(ironically, in one of the rooms it was Columbia who would have negged ...

Chris Frankel

As I mentioned earlier, I didn't attend, but one particular tossup I was told about from several different sources really stuck in my craw. There was a tossup on the University of Michigan (based on the affirmative action Supreme Court cases), whose leadin began to the effect of "This universit...

Chris Frankel

I may be wrong about this, but R. cleared the Division I sets for both those years for discussion. I would guess that those sets were cleared for discussion because there was no possibility the questions would be used at a later date. I am therefore confused about the reversion, since there appears...

Chris Frankel

This same disclaimer was present on packets from at least the 2004 and 2005 SCT's, and you can observe how the precedent has gone by looking through the college quizbowl discussion archives on here and on Yahoo Groups.

Chris Frankel

ACF Mid-Atlantic Regionals ended at around 7:00 pm EST, brief results are as follows: Preliminary results: 1. VCU 8-1 (lost to Princeton A) 2. Princeton A 7-2 (lost to Yale, lost to UNC) 3. Yale 6-3 (beat Virginia, lost to UNC, lost to Maryland A, lost to VCU) 4. Virginia 6-3 (beat UNC, lost to Yale...

Chris Frankel

I've had to run the QB booth at Oklahoma State the last couple of times. We're a fairly young organization, too. The two things that have helped pull people in to our booth (since we didn't have a buzzer system at the time) were the trophiesâ€”especially the unusual ones from TRASH tournamentsâ€”an...

Chris Frankel

If we're going to talk about silent majorities and what not, I think it's only fair to note that Sword Bowl 2006 hardly marks the first time anyone has had a bone to pick with Mr. Steinhice's editing skills or questioned whether his cavalcade of tournaments are more harmful than helpful to the South...

Chris Frankel

No intention of stirring up a hornet's nest, but if one of the purposes of tournament fees is to provide an incentive for teams to host tournaments and encourage the flow of cash from one team to another in the name of increased circuit participation, what is the general opinion on programs that hav...

Chris Frankel

In response to Chris's point about money: Obviously cost is a big factor, but people in the "real world" manage to find time and money to do all sorts of things which they enjoy, or so I'm told. People who love to play Scrabble go to weekly Scrabble clubs, and make excursions to weekend t...

Chris Frankel

As Eric beat me to saying, there is a sort of chicken/egg issue going on in terms of attracting new masters players and creating new tournaments. Perhaps it's just the cynic in me speaking, but the "let's start a set of masters tournaments" suggestion, as partially exemplified by Mill, see...

Chris Frankel

To draw on what Jerry said, the logistics of money and location are the substantial hurdle to the creation of any sort of independent circuit. Why are college teams the heart of the circuit? Because universities have the money to help subsidize travel and entry fees and provide free/cheap venues for...

Chris Frankel

While you're here, can you explain this little blurb that's apparently been making its way through the rumor mill: "A faculty rep at Nationals might have prevented the obvious, odious cheating at a tournament last year, when USF players had obviously read the questions and didn't share that int...

Chris Frankel

Wrestling does have national championships that are held each year. No it doesn't. There are several national-scale tournaments out there that claim to be national: the National Prep Tournament for private school wrestlers (often about as tough as a top state tournament in terms of difficulty, thou...

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Past "Incidents" at NAC/Chip

Re: NAQT Modifications

CO History Subject Tournament

Who's going to Mill

pre-ACF Nationals thread

ACF Regionals Results