The Quizbowl Resource Center

Swank diet wrote:EDIT: Also, I sincerely hope those on the GA board will allow people and ideas from outside of Georgia to post freely, particularly when the discussion could benefit from new information. Censorship is definitely not the answer.

Speaking officially on this...

I have to say I'm highly disappointed by the decision of the Georgia Academic Team Association to not allow PACE to defend itself on their forum. We have no issue with anyone criticizing our organization on that website, or hsquizbowl, or anywhere else. However, I only think it's fair to allow the organization being criticized to answer those critics.

Trygve Meade, PACE's Director of Communications, recently became aware of some criticism pointed at PACE. It was originally contained in this thread, but then the thread was then split off here as the topic changed. I don't believe anything in Meade's posts were offensive, attacking or anything along those lines.

However, in this post, forum administrator Robin Richards announced that Meade would not be allowed to post there any more, with the reason being, "This board is for Georgia coaches and players only." As you can see from the rules thread cited by Richards, there is no rule stating that people who are not from or in Georgia are not allowed to use the forum (as of this writing, anyway)

We at PACE have no intention or interest in overrunning the Georgia board. The only three posts made on that board were with regards to criticism of PACE and our qualification system. Unfortunately, it seems we won't even be permitted to do that.

Since I am neither a current Georgia Coach nor have I ever played a GATA tournament, I am apparently unable to respond to some of the threads on the Georgia forum. Consequently, I will reply here and hope that my words will eventually seep over into the secured bastion of Georgia quizbowl:

RountreeCHS » Tue May 25, 2010 9:14 pm
In addition to the aforementioned absence of Brookwood in the "Best of the Rest" section, the blog also says things like Walton never played Alpharetta, which of course they did at Varsity State, with Walton winning big. Maybe Chris' source for GA quizbowl news pulled a Rip van Winkle the month of March?

Here's what I said:

They [Walton] did appear to do fairly well at this tournament, but never actually played Alpharetta head-to-head thanks to yet another quirk of GA tournaments- single elimination playoffs.

The tournament being mentioned there was the Berry tournament (a rare tournament with PPB!) which featured a single-elimination playoff where Alpharetta lost in the semifinals and didn't get a chance to play Walton in the finals. Thus, the two best teams statistically in the tournament never played each other head-to-head in that tournament. Note that in the context of the sentence, "never actually played" refers to that tournament. I am well aware that Walton beat Alpharetta en route to a fine finish at GATA's state tournament and that was again a plus factor in where I eventually placed Walton.

Honestly, can we stop pretending that tournaments like Berry and GATA State are useful predictors of performance in national tournaments (or even as predictors of quizbowl ability, but that's a different argument)? Berry's questions were poor. They were chock full or biography and trivia and the kind of stuff that made up old College Bowl sets. GATA State was some sort of mishmash of NAQT, mathcomp, and who knows what else, all with the golden GATA "distribution."

On my ballot for the pre-Nationals poll, I had Alpharetta at #17 and Centennial at #18. No other Georgia teams crack the top 25, in my opinion (though I think Abubakar and Walton could make a strong run, as could Chattahoochee, because of their willingness to play harder questions).

AlphaQuizBowler wrote:Honestly, can we stop pretending that tournaments like Berry and GATA State are useful predictors of performance in national tournaments (or even as predictors of quizbowl ability, but that's a different argument)? Berry's questions were poor. They were chock full or biography and trivia and the kind of stuff that made up old College Bowl sets. GATA State was some sort of mishmash of NAQT, mathcomp, and who knows what else, all with the golden GATA "distribution."

Good points, but those are some of the very few datapoints that I had to work with, particularly for Walton, and at least Berry kept track of bonuses. It's kind of like using data from some African country's Bureau of Statistics- you don't trust it and you're sure it's full of holes, but it's all you've got to work with.

In any case, I'm glad the previews have at least stirred up some discussion; the blog's been getting lots of hits from Georgia IP addresses, so I hope it encourages more teams to make a nationals attempt next year (and congrats on Bainbridge for making it into the field! Good to see QB alive in South GA).

I was one of the coaches in Georgia advocating for a separate GATA forum. Believe me, "censorship" was certainly not the goal in creating the separate forum; rather, we hoped to achieve a platform that would promote a more open and free exchange of ideas between Georgia high school players and coaches. Here is what I posted on the GATA forum about the decision to keep people from outside of Georgia from becoming registered members of the forum. Hopefully, it will help people understand our rationale for only allowing people from within Georgia to post on our new forum.

"Registration to [the GATA forum] is NOT supposed to be public, unrestricted or unmonitored. Trygve Meade was mistakenly let into the forum and has, I believe, since been removed. The reason that we (GATA board) wanted to restrict the forum to people from Georgia was to keep it from becoming exactly like the HS Quizbowl forum. That so-called "High School" forum has become dominated by college students (and their sometimes hostile tone) to the extent that many high school students are afraid to post on it. When we decided to start a GATA forum, we specifically wanted it to be a place where the focus was exclusively on Georgia and on tournaments at the high school level. I don't personally have anything against PACE or Trygve Meade, and I agree that his posts were friendly and respectful. However, I believe that if the forum is opened to college students outside of Georgia, the focus will inevitably be taken away from Georgia and away from high school."

Chris: I am very impressed with the obvious effort that you put into your HSNCT blog and predictions. My team wasn't able to make the trip to HSNCT this year, but I will be following the tournament (and your blog) this weekend with a great deal of interest. Thanks for your work on this.

In practice, this has not been the case in the instance of at least one other state. In Missouri, our quizbowl board has remained totally open to outsiders, and instead of having the Missouri board be flooded by posts from people outside of the state, we have instead had the vast (like, probably at least 98%) bulk of our users be from Missouri, and most of the users who aren't come on and make like 5 total posts related to something that specifically involves them, or maybe asking for clarification on a rule or something of that nature. Unless the Georgia board were to become dominated by dishonest posters who need to be called out for lying, or otherwise be in a situation where the rhetoric is out-of-hand or inaccurate and unchecked, I would be shocked if anyone on these boards really was interested in taking the time to fully read, and then extensively post about, a circuit that they have no direct involvement in. Assuming that were to remain the case for your state, I see no reason for there to be limitations on users when, as evidenced by Trgyve, it is possible for out of state users to make very useful posts to help facilitate discussion.

centralhs wrote:That so-called "High School" forum has become dominated by college students (and their sometimes hostile tone) to the extent that many high school students are afraid to post on it.

This is made up, unsubstantiated nonsense. Just one look at the various subforums here would tell you that this is not the case!

Nothing that I said in my earlier post is "made up, unsubstantiated nonsense." There was an extensive thread earlier this year (I can look it up and make a link to it, if you would like) where several high school students said that they did not appreciate the hostile tone on the HS Quizbowl forum and that it nearly made them want to stop reading or posting on the forum. And these comments were made by high school students who DO post on the forum. I have worked with high schools students for years and, while I know that some of them have read the HS Quizbowl forum, none of them have ever felt comfortable posting on the forum. Their reluctance to post on the forum is due to the sometimes hostile tone taken by some frequent posters on this board. Not all high school students have the confidence to risk posting a question when they fear that an older player may mock their lack of knowledge/experience. (Although, on a positive note, I will say that the tone has been much more positive and less hostile in recent months.)

centralhs wrote:Nothing that I said in my earlier post is "made up, unsubstantiated nonsense." There was an extensive thread earlier this year (I can look it up and make a link to it, if you would like)

Please do. Also, I was objecting to the specific implications you made with that one sentence. They are:

1) That this is a "High School" forum. It is in the name, sure, but it has been used for a long time to announce tournaments of both kinds, air discussions about both games, and discuss theories about both games

2) That it has become dominated by college students, who bully and instill fear in high school students. None of this is remotely true. The vast majority of college students who post on here do so in a completely calm manner and do not take to wantonly attacking just anyone who might have differing opinions. I will not disagree with you that the tone that is taken is sometimes hostile, but I cannot think of more than one or two instances where a completely new person was treated poorly merely for presenting a differing opinion. Those instances where this has happened have been met with efforts to restrain the person who decided to be so hostile, and has always facilitated a discussion of future posting trends.

3) That less knowledgeable posters are fearful of being criticized, and so don't post here. When I look at this forum, I see high school students not only from prominent teams or teams rooted in the circuit, but also teams from far-flung places as Northern California, Montana, and Connecticut. This tells me posters who are less experienced or less knowledgeable in matters pertaining to quizbowl do, in fact, post here, and do so without the fear that anyone will take them to task for the crime of being inexperienced or less knowledgeable.

Coach Gwinnett, part of this might stem from your players' experiences with modern quizbowl. Did your team play a substantial schedule of modern tournaments this season (those written by HSAPQ or NAQT or a hosewrite in some mACF format)? I only noticed Prison Bowl after a quick search. (But I probably missed something.) The majority of the posters on HSQB are supporters of modern quizbowl. I know when I first started posting here I had no experience (and for a long time after that, minimal experience) with modern quizbowl, and some of the college posters (even some of the high school ones) did come up off as a little rude. But it really all stems from ideological differences. If your players feel hostility as a result of what I perceive as intense, yet civil, discussions and disagreements about modern quizbowl (which often include advice that is genuinely meant to help you and your players) on HSQB, then perhaps a public forum is not a good use of their time.

Auroni:

When I have more time, I will look for the thread that I referred to and post a link to it here. If anyone wants to locate it in the meantime and link it for me, I believe that it was somewhere in the vast Illinois subforum.

I stand by my statement that some high school students do, in fact, feel uncomfortable posting on the HS Quizbowl forum. (Unfortunately, the high school players who feel this way aren't going to back me up on this because... they don't post on here!) The only current Georgia high school player who posts on this forum, at least on a frequent basis, is William Horton from Alpharetta. (Actually, not many Georgia college players post here, either, but that's another subject...) Our hope in creating the GATA forum was that the separate forum might encourage the other 100+ Georgia high school players to share ideas and opinions with one another.

So you want your own forum so that the state of Georgia (less my friend William Horton) can make posts that won't result in intelligent discussion and debate, lest that result in feelings of "hostility"? That's just a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. I dunno what, if anything, Georgia will gain in terms of modern quizbowl as a result of this forum either. I think HSQB is great, but, going by Charlie's post, the Missouri boards sound like they have provided a good opportunity for that state too. So whatever.

Dan:

I and my students are well aware of what modern quiz bowl is all about. At our practices, I almost exclusively use questions from the HS Packet archive -- most recently the GSAC questions but we have also used Prison Bowl, Harvard Fall Tournament, etc. We ran a mirror of the Harvard Fall Tournament this past December and we attended a mirror of the HFT in 2008.

As for what tournaments we attended this year... unfortunately, we did not attend quite as many tournaments as we have in previous years due a variety of reasons -- primarily a lack of funds and a group of "overscheduled" students who did not have as many free weekends as students that I have had in the past. Of the 10 tournaments that we did attend, 5 were events that used NAQT questions, one was the Prison Bowl mirror, and one was the UGA tournament that used challenging, pyramidal, "modern quiz bowl"-like questions. In previous years, we have attended more tournaments than we were able to this year (usually 14-16 Varsity events per year), including many NAQT events, and we did attend the NAQT Nationals in 2007. Believe me, if more "modern quiz bowl" events or mirrors were held in the Atlanta area (or a short drive away), we would be there.

EDIT: I realized that we attended one more NAQT tournament than I had remembered, so I changed the number to reflect that.

centralhs wrote:Dan:

I and my students are well aware of what modern quiz bowl is all about. At our practices, I almost exclusively use questions from the HS Packet archive -- most recently the GSAC questions but we have also used Prison Bowl, Harvard Fall Tournament, etc. We ran a mirror of the Harvard Fall Tournament this past December and we attended a mirror of the HFT in 2008.

As for what tournaments we attended this year... unfortunately, we did not attend quite as many tournaments as we have in previous years due a variety of reasons -- primarily a lack of funds and a group of "overscheduled" students who did not have as many free weekends as students that I have had in the past. Of the 10 tournaments that we did attend, 4 were events that used NAQT questions, one was the Prison Bowl mirror, and one was the UGA tournament that used challenging, pyramidal, "modern quiz bowl"-like questions. In previous years, we have attended more tournaments than we were able to this year (usually 14-16 Varsity events per year), including many NAQT events, and we did attend the NAQT Nationals in 2007. Believe me, if more "modern quiz bowl" events or mirrors were held in the Atlanta area (or a short drive away), we would be there.

All righty then...I think there need to be more coaches like you...but I also can't imagine why anyone would be hostile to you. But if you feel Georgia boards are the way to go, knock yourself out.

centralhs wrote:The only current Georgia high school player who posts on this forum, at least on a frequent basis, is William Horton from Alpharetta. (Actually, not many Georgia college players post here, either, but that's another subject...)

Maybe that's because William's coach/sponsor/whoever doesn't forbid him, or his teammates, from posting on the forum? I know at least one team in Georgia whose players are explicitly told not to post on HSQB unless they wish to suffer the "consequences" of doing so.

I have no idea what coach/team Sandy is referring to (and, no, I neither need nor want to know), but I can assure anyone and everyone that my own team members are free to express themselves on this forum, or any other.

Dan-Don wrote:...going by Charlie's post, the Missouri boards sound like they have provided a good opportunity for that state too.

I looked very briefly at the Missouri forum and it looks great, with a wealth of useful information. Hopefully, the GATA forum can become a useful tool for Georgia teams in the same way the Missouri forum has for teams in that state. It is reassuring to hear that the focus has remained on quiz bowl in Missouri, even with the input of people from other states. Once our Georgia forum has become more established, perhaps we will open it up to people from other states, as Missouri has done (although that decision would, of course, not be mine alone.)

For anyone else who is curious: Chattahoochee.

Anyways, I agree that some students are wary of posting -- but not solely because they are "scared" (or solely because of any other silly reason). It's not like the Georgia subforum is desolate. Not every state can be like Illinois (thank god). And I disagree that the current GATA forum would facilitate better discussion. Reading through just the forum rules (http://www.georgiaquizbowl.org/forum/vi ... hp?f=3&t=6), it's clear that a hierarchical system is being set up by the coaches. Not that I disagree with referring to teachers by their last name, but such a forum is far more "intimidating" for a student than the one on HSQB where people don't care if you're a student or teacher (state forums like the Ohio and Missouri boards don't include such rules concerning students and teachers).

Disclaimer: I do not speak on behalf of PACE.

If you only want people from the Georgia circuit on there, why don't you make this explicit? This is not in the rules as posted here.

Also, I predict that any attempt to open the forum up will be met with heavy opposition. After all, why would anyone even consider allowing people from outside Georgia to defend themselves from baseless accusations?

Coach Hirsch,
While it is true that the GATA forum may provide a better environment for Georgia quizbowl players, I wouldn't say that posting on the GATA forum is without its own pressures. I have heard from one student who felt uncomfortable disagreeing with their coach on the GATA forum.

And to back up Sandy, I have heard that, too.

For a coach to tell (or even suggest) that a student can't post of their own free will on a message board, unless that student and coach have signed a code of conduct in the beginning of the year explicitly saying that, is against that student's civil liberties and not something that any teaching/coaching professional should be allowed to do.

A coach can certainly tell a student of his/her opinion of these boards (or any other), but to say there is a "consequence" for doing one thing or the other related to their free speech is pretty nuts.

With that said, obviously a student can't come on a board and say "my coach sucks, i hope he gets fired and never teaches again" without probably some sort of consequence, and that would probably be warranted. But to simply prevent them from posting anything is a little too much against free speech for me, the professional judgment and authority position that a coach/teacher has notwithstanding.

Of course I told my players not to post on here. Of course, in the same breath, I also encouraged them to read these boards for many of the valuable insights they provide. One of the main reasons I asked my kids not to post is the same reason that Mrs. Hirsch pointed out: the civil discussions here can sometimes devolve into attacks, some of which have become personal (and not just to me). Maybe they were meant to be civil, but that is not always what they turned into. I have had at least one player every year I have been a coach come to me in private and say they couldn't believe they way people talked to one another on the forums, what they said about this tournament or that, etc. Never did I or any other GA coach I have talked to give a player an ultimatum for posting here. After my kids graduate and go off to college, I have no desire to monitor what they do in relation to these boards, so several former players are quite active posters here: Wes Austin and Adam Liem immediately come to mind. I also find it curious that other schools with very active programs whose players don't post here at all are not called into question, but mine is. Brookwood and Dorman immediately come to mind. Anyway, as this is an open, civil discussion about what it best for GA quizbowl, I will continue.

Once the GATA boards opened, I encouraged ALL of my players to join and post on the GATA forum as a potential stepping stone to these boards. Believe me when I tell you that my players do NOT represent the vast majority of the state of GA in regard to quizbowl. Neither do I, William, Mr. Barry, Mr. Richards, or Mrs. Hirsch for that matter. The people who read these boards and post here represent maybe 20% of the GA quizbowl-playing population. There are HUGE number of students in GA that have no idea that hsquizbowl, PACE, and NAQT even exist. Heck, some, haven't even heard of GATA. Part of the idea behind the GATA boards was to expose them to quizbowl as we know it in GA. At least we could inform them of the tournaments in GA and, hopefully, get them playing some NAQT tournaments hosted by GATA. To that end, all GATA tournaments are FREE in this year of Jubilee. Odd that no one has mentioned that yet. GATA is also creating a Fall tournament in October meant to expose even more teams to good quizbowl early in the year. There will be 2 sites: Chattahoochee and Bleckley County. Hopefully, that will encourage teams from different parts of the state to attend. (We will be using an NAQT A-set for that tournament as it is meant for experienced and novice teams.) Anyway, I have to go, but I will continue this discussion later.

In regard to non-GA people posting on the GATA forums, I guess it never occurred to the board that this would even be an issue. I guess we thought since it is called the GATA forum or Georgia Quizbowl forum, only GA people, coaches and players, would post there. In contrast, this forum calls itself the High School quizbowl forum, and is designed for ALL HS (and college) info from the entire country. Ours is not. We aren't trying to be secretive or deceptive of that fact. In other words, the GATA forum is not trying to represent itself as speaking for the larger world of quizbowl. The boards are designed for GA coaches and players - simple as that. We are only trying to generate more interest in quizbowl in our own state. Maybe some believe that idea to be misguided, but I think it is progress. Obviously, the GATA board is still in its infancy in comparison to hsquizbowl, but over time we hope it develops into the same kind of useful tool for GA coaches and players that these boards have become for an even wider audience (with perhaps a bit more focus on GA than this one thread could ever provide). As the saying goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I encourage other states to create their own boards if they so choose. The hsquizbowl model works pretty well, so why not use it?

Since the GATA Forum is now officially closed to non-registered members, here are some highlights:

Considerations for the GATA Board Meeting
GATA Board Meeting Results pg. 1
GATA Board Meeting Results pg. 2
GATA Board Meeting Results pg. 3
GATA Board Meeting Results pg. 4
High Schoolers Playing College Tournaments
The Rules
NAQT 2010(missing at least one reply)
Keeping Statistics pg. 1
Keeping Statistics pg. 2

I seem to have misplaced the thread where J R Barry says (quoting from memory): "speaking for myself, Brookwood will never attend PACE until the management changes". Also, of particular interest is the Keeping Statistics thread where the Director of Communications for PACE attempted to speak on behalf of PACE before being summarily banned from the forum.

Going by the links in post 187186, the first link can be read at Keeping Statistics pg. 1. The third link can be read on pg. 2, last post (which is worth reading even if you aren't interested, it's quite a post, especially now). The fourth link (rules thread) can be read at "The Rules".

As for what this says about some Georgia coaches.. well I'll leave that up to you.

I'm glad that we can count on the few Georgia high schoolers who are members of these boards to represent opinions that aren't totally insular. A ninth of this tournament is arithmetic, hooray! Single elimination gives every team a chance to win--for example, the nine seed can win the tournament if it beats a bunch of better-seeded teams--unlike those bracketed formats where the nine seed is has to do something much harder than just beating a bunch of better-seeded teams, hooray!

But it'll be people like you, Coach Hirsch, and the various high schoolers who post here who are keeping that forum reasonable. Thank you; I wish we weren't in a position where we just had to trust that the discourse there isn't dominated by figures who believe in some good things and many bad things.

Not to be a downer, but was it really necessary to publicly post these things?

Cheynem wrote:Not to be a downer, but was it really necessary to publicly post these things?

The Internet publicly posted them long before Cody did; Cody just sped up the process of finding that freely available information for the rest of us.

Crazy Andy Watkins wrote:

Cheynem wrote:Not to be a downer, but was it really necessary to publicly post these things?

The Internet publicly posted them long before Cody did; Cody just sped up the process of finding that freely available information for the rest of us.

Plus, it wouldn't do to have the GATA Forums "secret and parochial".

I dislike the decision to make GATA a closed forum to non members too, but I'm not exactly sure what this accomplished.

Cheynem wrote:I dislike the decision to make GATA a closed forum to non members too, but I'm not exactly sure what this accomplished.

I imagine this thread dying out will be one accomplishment.

Andrew's a Freshman wrote:

Cheynem wrote:I dislike the decision to make GATA a closed forum to non members too, but I'm not exactly sure what this accomplished.

I imagine this thread dying out will be one accomplishment.

Alternatively, people who would have access to the forum could use this thread to post updates about what's happening in there, resulting in this thread continuing.

The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio wrote:

Andrew's a Freshman wrote:

Cheynem wrote:I dislike the decision to make GATA a closed forum to non members too, but I'm not exactly sure what this accomplished.

I imagine this thread dying out will be one accomplishment.

Alternatively, people who would have access to the forum could use this thread to post updates about what's happening in there, resulting in this thread continuing.

That's against the rules and might lead to them getting banned as well, so that's probably not going to happen.