General Discussion (DEES)

Old college threads.
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Victor Prieto
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General Discussion (DEES)

Post by Victor Prieto »

Hi,

I'd like to recognize all the people who saved this tournament: Ike Jose, Rob Carson, Mike Cheyne, Will Alston, Shan Kothari, John Lawrence, Jacob Reed, Tejas Raje, Saul Hankin, Mik Larsen, Cody Voight and Matt Weiner. Thank you all so much for rescuing Brian and I, for putting up with crazed directives coming from me left and right, and for editing and writing what I hear was a solid set (in two weeks!). I especially thank you, Brian, for handling head editor responsibilities with me when we realized it was up to us. You were great to work with, and I'd look forward to doing something with you again.

Responsible for each subject (lead editors in bold, sorry if I didn't properly recognize someone!):
Literature (4/4): Ike
History (4/4): Mike, Will, Saul, Mik, Victor, Tejas
Science (4/4): Brian, Victor, Cody
Visual Arts (1.5/1.5): Rob
Auditory Arts (1.5/1.5): John, Jacob, Saul
Religion (1/1): Shan, Brian, Will
Mythology (1/1): Rob
Philosophy (1/1): Shan, Brian
Social Science (1/1): Shan, Saul, Rob, Victor
Geography/Other (1/1): Rob
Trash/CE (1/1): Tejas

I'll open up a thread for specific questions, science and music. Please feel free to pick apart the set and help us improve it for the additional mirrors later on, you all know the difficult timeframe under which this set was completed. I'm not forbidding it, but I would extremely, extremely appreciate it if electronic copies of the set are not disseminated to people not present at a tournament. The last thing I want is a copy of the set finding its way into someone's hands who will play the set in December or January. On a sort-of-related note, now that I'm two for two in terms of getting stabbed in the back by a fellow editor, I'm taking a year-long vacation from writing anything else outside of HSAPQ and packet submissions. I'm just pretty weary of cataclysms occurring on top of normal tournament-writing stress.
Last edited by Victor Prieto on Mon Mar 09, 2015 4:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Victor Prieto
Secretary, PACE
Tower Hill School '11 | Rice University '15 | Penn State University '21
Writer: NAQT (2019-present) | Writer, Editor: HSAPQ (2013-2016)
Member (and lots of other stuff): PACE (2015-present)
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Sam
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Re: General Discussion

Post by Sam »

I may have more to say later, but I'd like to thank the editors for their speedy rescue of this tournament. I hope it's not faint praise to say it was very good given the circumstances.
Sam Bailey
Minnesota '21
Chicago '13
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Adventure Temple Trail
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Re: General Discussion

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

I moderated at the Maryland site.

I definitely want to give all the editors a digital round of applause for getting DEES assembled, re-growing the regional fields, and providing a day of quizbowl fun for many a team. You guys took what could have very well been a catastrophe and put together a pretty solid set which will do well to fill what would otherwise have been a large hole in the tournament calendar. In particular, Victor, you put in a ton of effort under very adverse circumstances. I'll do what I can to put in a good word for you the next time they're handing out medals for the Order of Socialist Quizbowl Labor.

On the whole I think this set was basically fine. Nothing stuck out as particularly stellar or revolutionary, but it didn't really have to be -- the sizable bulk of questions worked well, were on real things with clues in a pyramidal order, and did their job distinguishing teams properly. As I alluded to, there maybe could have been a bit more effort put into ensuring that the pre-giveaway clues of tossups and the middle parts of bonuses were a little kinder to less qb-experienced teams, but even the worst teams I saw today were getting some stuff. I don't have many complaints about content, though I think I'll leave that for the most part to people who played the set.
Matt Jackson
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Yale '14, Georgetown Day School '10
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Fado Alexandrino
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Re: General Discussion

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

Thank you to all that took extra time out of your schedule to salvage this. It was definitely not the best tournament I have played, but it was very good. However, Charlie said this tournament was regionals with the side of caution, but I definitely saw some answer lines on the harder side. The middle clues lacking was a comment at my site too.
Joe Su, OCT
Lisgar 2012, McGill 2015, McGill 2019, Queen's 2020
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Cheynem
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Re: General Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

I wrote/edited the American history for the set (and provided some stray comments elsewhere).

I generally shot for 6-7 lines; in my opinion, 6 lines is awful hard to do for regular college sets without sacrificing a bit of middle clues, so I can see why this might happen in both my and others' questions. In terms of my answerlines, I believe the tossups to be definitely within normal difficulty, although I agree that sometimes middle parts could be a little rough on weaker teams. The time crunch obviously is a major factor here, as I think it made many of us wedded more to submissions than normal, and also deprived us of time to establish a consistent difficulty (even harder since many of us joined the project at different times, very late).
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota

"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
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naan/steak-holding toll
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Re: General Discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Thanks to Victor for inviting me on board. This was my first time editing a packet-submission tournament, and I had a lot of fun doing so, since it exposed me to a lot of topics that I hadn't really looked at in the past. I think I definitely had a different difficulty in mind than the other editors, and this probably resulted in the set feeling a little uneven, but for the most part I'm happy there was a set in the first place.
Will Alston
Dartmouth College '16
Columbia Business School '21
Tejas
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Re: General Discussion

Post by Tejas »

I would also like to thank Victor and Brian as well as all of the other editors for their work on the set. This was my first experience doing any editing and I want to thank everyone for helping me out and giving some feedback there. Also, thanks to Matt Jackson for help with some of the questions.
Tejas Raje
Cornell '14
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Re: General Discussion

Post by RexSueciae »

I've got to say--given the circumstances, I actually found this tournament quite DEES-ent.
Vasa Clarke

Maggie Walker '14
Virginia '18
William and Mary '21
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Victor Prieto
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Re: General Discussion

Post by Victor Prieto »

I forgot to recognize two people in my initial post:

Joelle wrote me an awesome pick-and-choose five part bonus on acute coronary syndromes that became myocardial infarction/ST segment/Purkinje fibers in Editors 3, one of my favorite bonuses in the tournament.

Matt Jackson has been incredibly helpful with 1) making important decisions about what to do when the communication situation with Charlie became FUBAR, 2) who to contact for help, 3) advice on changing this to an packet-submission, open tournament. If it wasn't for his advice, this tournament would not have been saved, for sure.
Victor Prieto
Secretary, PACE
Tower Hill School '11 | Rice University '15 | Penn State University '21
Writer: NAQT (2019-present) | Writer, Editor: HSAPQ (2013-2016)
Member (and lots of other stuff): PACE (2015-present)
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Gautam
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Re: General Discussion (DEES)

Post by Gautam »

Great work by Victor in gathering the right resources and bringing this to fruition. Thanks to all the other editors who chipped in at short notice, too. It's great to see folks stepping up.

Victor, it's unfortunate that you'd had negative experiences working on a tournament. Taking a break is a great idea - but I'd gently suggest being receptive to working on an event should the right set of people with a solid history of producing things solicit your help.

It was fun to play the set. Thanks, los editors, and the people who submitted packets!
Gautam - ACF
Currently tending to the 'quizbowl hobo' persuasion.
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