2017 ICT bids

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Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook »

Pardon my intruding on a debate that isn't really anything to do with UK quizbowl, but it seems like one sensible strategy in the long term is for the better teams to host these tournaments rather than teams that are borderline qualifiers. I know its not always possible and sometimes good teams want to play, but if the teams that are all but certain to qualify were to host and have a roster of good players reading it would mean that these sites had better readers and SCT would be a method to distinguish mid range teams, rather than discerning between top range teams, which is presumably the whole point of ICT and national tournaments.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

Mewto55555 wrote:I’m not sure where that skill cutoff should be (my hunch is around 50th), and I’m curious whether people who disagree with me think there should either be no such cutoff or it should be significantly lower.
I've finally been able to give your longest post the full read it deserves, and I wanted to respond to this. In terms of future reform, I do think we can try to figure out a better system for awarding host/editor bids. ACF provides a good template but I'm not sure what criteria they use to determine whether a team is worthy. There is not really a great measure of who the 50th best team is, but I'm guessing in this case NAQT would want to use D-value. If we wanted NAQT to implement a system where they award host/editor bids only to teams that would be comparable or better to the 50th best team, I don't see a major issue with that depending on who is doing the assessment.

Where there may be an issue is that it introduces a subjective element. I am admittedly biased, but I think WKU at full strength (or at least for our purposes here being a roster of Ella, Matthew, Jacob, and Olivia) is clearly equal to or better than Kentucky A (the 50th ranked team in this year's D-values). That is based on the fact that their team without Matthew was 60th in D-value and competitive with the 50th ranked team, and that last year a team of literally just Matthew and Ella was the 44th ranked team according to D-value. You seem to place them much lower on your ranking of teams, which is fine, but introduces the concern about how we evaluate teams and whether our assumptions/perceptions cloud any chance of reaching an objective measure. We can quibble a few ways in each direction about where a team ranks, but that is exactly the point of concern: there are times when arguments can be made for or against, and that is a new complication that the current system does not include.

But with all that said, I don't think NAQT gets away with the current system forever. If the circuit expands and we have more sites in the future (which I hope to be the case) then NAQT can't simply hand out host bids to everybody. There will come a breaking point even if it's not this year, and I think after ICT the community has to have serious discussions about what NAQT's collegiate quizbowl program looks like, how the community wants that to change, and how we (the community as a collective) might make those changes happen. My hope is that we can put aside whatever tense discussions we've had this week and work on this together, because ultimately the best interests of Chicago, WKU, Louisville, and other teams align more than any of our interests align with NAQT.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by ValenciaQBowl »

I honestly don't mean to be obtuse here, Jerry, but what about eliminating the clock potentially doubles the available staff? Is the idea that some otherwise qualified moderators won't/can't read at ICT because they can't consistently read more than 20 questions in the 20 available minutes? Or am I missing something else?

FWIW, I really liked the ICTs held at campus locations, though I understand why NAQT moved away from that.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Mike Bentley »

Are there any campus locations that can reliably get rooms for an expanded ICT? Based on my experience, the only way to do this is through conference event services. This ends up being as expensive if not more expensive than going through a hotel with the downside of the organization hosting the event still having to pay for hotel costs to lodge people. Transportation from an airport to a university will also almost certainly be harder than getting from O'Hare to the Hyatt Regency.

Yes, clubs can hypothetically reserve large numbers of rooms. But it's very rare that they can reserve the 40+ rooms needed for such a tournament with enough certainty to announce the tournament more than a few months ahead of time. And even then, you might have to trek between several buildings, the rooms might not open as early as desired, you need to build in more time for transportation in the morning, lunch may be less convenient, etc.

In order to make the economics of a larger tournament work, I suspect that NAQT would need to significantly increase the entry fee. Which maybe is fine if demand keeps growing, but that extra $200 or whatever might disadvantage some teams.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Ike »

University of Illinois can reserve 50-70 rooms free through the campus system. Obviously the problem becomes getting teams to come to the University of Illinois. If NAQT ever wanted to host ICT in good ol' Urbana, that would be great!
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Excelsior (smack) »

ValenciaQBowl wrote:I honestly don't mean to be obtuse here, Jerry, but what about eliminating the clock potentially doubles the available staff? Is the idea that some otherwise qualified moderators won't/can't read at ICT because they can't consistently read more than 20 questions in the 20 available minutes? Or am I missing something else?
With the clock, you need two people per room (a reader and a scorekeeper/clock-manager). Without the clock, you only need a single reader per room to handle reading/score-keeping/etc.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by ValenciaQBowl »

That makes sense--thanks, Ashvin. So at ACF Nats, for instance, are there generally no (or not many) score keepers separate from readers? I know the score sheet for ACF is certainly easier to manage (having just read rounds for a timed NAQT HS tournament yesterday by myself with no score keeper). But this makes me wonder: how long on average do rounds take at ACF Nats? I might guess they average over 35 minutes, as it can only go as fast as the slowest room, and of course those are longer toss-ups.

I don't mean this as a tangent, as my main support for the clock is that it does make for a more efficiently run tournament, with not much time waiting between rounds for teams. I've read at CCCT without a scorekeeper and been able to get through the packets reasonably well, and I know I'm far from the only one who can do this; perhaps expanding the rounds to even just 11 minutes would allow a decent number of the more experienced moderators to go without a scorekeeper, allowing for some field expansion while keeping the efficiency of the clock.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by grapesmoker »

ValenciaQBowl wrote:I honestly don't mean to be obtuse here, Jerry, but what about eliminating the clock potentially doubles the available staff? Is the idea that some otherwise qualified moderators won't/can't read at ICT because they can't consistently read more than 20 questions in the 20 available minutes? Or am I missing something else?

FWIW, I really liked the ICTs held at campus locations, though I understand why NAQT moved away from that.
It's just that the clock requires you to have 2 people per room. At ACF Nats, we of course prefer to have two staffers to a room because it keeps things going, but a very good moderator can often move as fast as a slower reader with a scorekeeper. This isn't an option with NAQT because the scorekeeping has to be done on the clock (or the clock would have to stop... not a good solution), which necessitates two staffers. I wouldn't love to run Nats with one moderator and no one else per room, but if we had to do it, it would be theoretically possible although clearly suboptimal. It would not be possible with the clock.
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