TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

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TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

We at TRASH are pleased to announce the initial set of bids for TRASHionals XII: The Dirty Dozen, to be held over the weekend of April 18-19, 2009, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. Including the defending champions, the team who played at last year's TRASHionals as "Dirka Dirkastan," the initial field includes 36 teams - 10 reserved for host schools, 10 reserved for regionals winners, and 15 at-large invitations. (We anticipate, but cannot guarantee, that other teams who fielded competitive teams at the various TRASH regionals but do not appear on the list below will also receive invitations in the near future.)

The official invitation will be extended to individual teams via email within the next two days. A list of no fewer than eight alternate teams will also be contacted in the coming days to ascertain their interest in bid consideration in the event that some of the teams covered in the initial invite either decline or forfeit their bids or received duplicative bids.

Once the official invitations are sent, teams will have a total of 21 days to accept their bids but are asked to at least express interest in acceptance within 14 days; we would prefer quicker notification, particularly in cases where a team knows for sure it is unable or unwilling to accept its bid. If no messages from any representative from a team/school are received in 14 days their spot will be opened up for another team. The decision to accept or decline one's bid can be sent to the tournament director, Tim Young, either via private message on this board or via an email to the address dcanswerguy_at_gmail_dot_com. If you know that are going by a different team name and/or have a different roster composition, it would be good to know that as soon as possible though we are not requiring final names or rosters at this time.

Note that tournament fees and discounts and other logisitical aspects of the event are still being worked out. It would good if TRASH were made aware of any anticipated contingencies regarding logistics in advance.

It is my intention to post regular updates to this board regarding the list of bids accepted, those declined, and those still outstanding. It is also my intention to personally notify contacts for teams whose bids are about to expire, but I may not be able to do so under some circumstances.

From the Northeast Region:
Host: Boston College
Champion: Brandeis Alumni Team
At-Large: BC Alumni et al.
Tufts
NYU A

From the Canada Region:
Host: University of Toronto
Champion: American Bacon (Rochester)
At-Large: Wacky Deli Yeah! (Rochester)

From the Mid-Atlantic Region:
Host: University of Maryland
Champion: Deportivo Juan Valdez
At-Large: Clusterpitt (Pitt A)
College Park Retirement Castle
Dans You Can Believe In

From the Southeast Region:
Host: Berry College
Champion: Chuck & Kilby Make A Porno
At-Large: Year of Living Johnny Dangerously
Lysistrata & The Well Hungarians

From the Great Lakes Region:
Host: University of Illinois
Champion: Stone Cold Peter Austin
At-Large: Car Ramrod
Luminaries of Illinois QB
Grinnell & Rom

From the Southwest Region:
Host: University of Tulsa
Champion: Insert Bill O'Reilly Joke Here
At-Large: Alcoholics Synonymous (Tulsa)
Liga de Justia (Oklahoma)

From the Rocky Mountain region:
Host: University of Colorado
Champion: ASU Kinsler (Ariz. St.)
At-Large: Left Handed Belladonnas
ASU Pedroia (Ariz. St.)
Tia and the TRASHmen

From the Arizona region:
Host/Champion: Arizona State University

From the West Coast region:
Host: University of California-Berkeley
Champion: THEM

From the Pacific Northwest region:
Host: University of Washington
Champion: CUBE

Anyone with any questions regarding bids or TRASHionals are encouraged to email me, and I will attempt to answer them as best I can. I also read this board on a regular basis and will try to address any questions or concerns to the best of my abilities.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

Update:
Email messages regarding the first set of bids have been sent out to all regionals hosts and to all teams whose regional hosts forwarded us contact information.

We are still waiting for contact information for teams who attended the Maryland, Illinois, Tulsa, and Colorado regionals. Teams who qualified from the Boston, Toronto, Berry, Berkeley, and Seattle regionals have been notified.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Cheynem »

I was one of the members of Car Ramrod from Illinois, which was a team consisting of free agents from Minnesota, Chicago, and Florida State. Speaking for myself, I PROBABLY am not going to go because it is too far for me to go on my own. I cannot speak for the others.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by yoda4554 »

For any attending teams--I'm going to declare myself an available free agent for this, so if you have an extra spot, I'm happy to go. Email is my first name dot my last name at gmail.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Captain Sinico »

Luminaries of Illinois QB is probably interested in the bid (though we're considering if we can afford the missed work and travel expenses.) We'll get back to you later.
As for finding contacts for Illinois teams, whom did you ask? If that person doesn't get back to you shortly, e-mail me and we'll work it out.

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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

Captain Scipio wrote:Luminaries of Illinois QB is probably interested in the bid (though we're considering if we can afford the missed work and travel expenses.) We'll get back to you later.
As for finding contacts for Illinois teams, whom did you ask? If that person doesn't get back to you shortly, e-mail me and we'll work it out.

MaS
Trygve Meade was listed as the person at Illinois who ran the regional. I don't specifically need contacts for the Illinois team, as it appears that there's more than one of you who reads this board, but contact information for the other teams that qualified from that regional.

The indication of interest on the part of "Lumanaries of Illinois QB" is noted for the time being.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Captain Sinico »

answerguy wrote:
Captain Scipio wrote:Luminaries of Illinois QB is probably interested in the bid (though we're considering if we can afford the missed work and travel expenses.) We'll get back to you later.
As for finding contacts for Illinois teams, whom did you ask? If that person doesn't get back to you shortly, e-mail me and we'll work it out.

MaS
Trygve Meade was listed as the person at Illinois who ran the regional. I don't specifically need contacts for the Illinois team, as it appears that there's more than one of you who reads this board, but contact information for the other teams that qualified from that regional.
Yes; I'm talking about the other teams from the regional. Are you saying Trygve is the person whom you e-mailed (which is what I asked you?)

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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by marnold »

I can say that Stone Cold Peter Austin will almost certainly be accepting its bid from the Illinois regional. I can be the contact; you should use the email m a r n o l d AT uchicago.edu.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

Captain Scipio wrote:
answerguy wrote:
Captain Scipio wrote:Luminaries of Illinois QB is probably interested in the bid (though we're considering if we can afford the missed work and travel expenses.) We'll get back to you later.
As for finding contacts for Illinois teams, whom did you ask? If that person doesn't get back to you shortly, e-mail me and we'll work it out.

MaS
Trygve Meade was listed as the person at Illinois who ran the regional. I don't specifically need contacts for the Illinois team, as it appears that there's more than one of you who reads this board, but contact information for the other teams that qualified from that regional.
Yes; I'm talking about the other teams from the regional. Are you saying Trygve is the person whom you e-mailed (which is what I asked you?)

MaS
Yes.

So far, for what it is worth, I have seven teams who at least tentatively expressed an interest in attending, and no declines thusfar.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Captain Sinico »

answerguy wrote:Yes.
Cool; Trygve says he's e-mailed you, so please check and see.

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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

I'd like to thank the 11 teams that have thusfar expressed interest in accepting their bids.

I now have the necessary contact information for qualifying teams who attended the Tulsa and Illinois regions and emails will be sent to those teams (unless they have already expressed interest) this evening. I hope to have the information for those who attended the Maryland or Colorado regionals soon, though several of the Mid-Atlantic teams have already contacted me on their own.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Mike Bentley »

It's unlikely we will accept our host bid, but if enough people are interested in paying for the plane tickets/registration then we will.

I'll ask at practice tonight.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by DumbJaques »

What is the tournament schedule? Is it definitely going to span two days? How many packets will there be?
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

DumbJaques wrote:What is the tournament schedule? Is it definitely going to span two days? How many packets will there be?
The exact schedule and number of rounds will depend on the field. Teams can expect to play somewhere between 14 and 16 rounds, not including the finals rounds or any theme/exhibition rounds that may occur.

It is definitely going to be two days, as even with the field already committed we have too many teams for a one-day championship tournament. We are going to be done with everything by 2:00 PM on Sunday, recognizing that several teams will have either flights to catch or long drives ahead of them after things wrap up.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Coelacanth »

answerguy wrote:I'd like to thank the 11 teams that have thusfar expressed interest in accepting their bids.

I now have the necessary contact information for qualifying teams who attended the Tulsa and Illinois regions and emails will be sent to those teams (unless they have already expressed interest) this evening. I hope to have the information for those who attended the Maryland or Colorado regionals soon, though several of the Mid-Atlantic teams have already contacted me on their own.
Tim

This whole indirect contact method seems bizarre. Didn't the hosts provide you with everyone's contact details at the time of the Regionals?

Our team (Tia and the TRASHmen) attended the Colorado regional and I'll send you an email once I've talked with the rest of the team. For now, put us down as "probably" attending TRASHionals.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by DumbJaques »

It is definitely going to be two days, as even with the field already committed we have too many teams for a one-day championship tournament. We are going to be done with everything by 2:00 PM on Sunday, recognizing that several teams will have either flights to catch or long drives ahead of them after things wrap up.
Hmm, I'm afraid I don't understand this. Are you saying that the reason you are running a two day tournament is that you have insufficient staff to run all rounds at once, and thus must have so many byes that the tournament cannot possibly fit into one day?

Also, it says you have 11 teams signed up. I can buy that you need two days for a championship, but the "even with the field already committed" comment mystifies me. You can't run a one-day tournament for 11 teams? How many people are staffing TRASHionals, you and a couple of Rhesus monkeys formerly owned by Harry Harlow? I mean, Maryland is strongly considering coming, but the lack of logistical explanation here is kind of discouraging. I cannot imagine you couldn't find 18 staffers in the mid-Atlantic, meaning no byes would be necessary. I would further think you could run 14 rounds in one day, as many tournaments do this all the time.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Theory Of The Leisure Flask »

DumbJaques wrote:
It is definitely going to be two days, as even with the field already committed we have too many teams for a one-day championship tournament. We are going to be done with everything by 2:00 PM on Sunday, recognizing that several teams will have either flights to catch or long drives ahead of them after things wrap up.
Hmm, I'm afraid I don't understand this. Are you saying that the reason you are running a two day tournament is that you have insufficient staff to run all rounds at once, and thus must have so many byes that the tournament cannot possibly fit into one day?

Also, it says you have 11 teams signed up. I can buy that you need two days for a championship, but the "even with the field already committed" comment mystifies me. You can't run a one-day tournament for 11 teams? How many people are staffing TRASHionals, you and a couple of Rhesus monkeys formerly owned by Harry Harlow? I mean, Maryland is strongly considering coming, but the lack of logistical explanation here is kind of discouraging. I cannot imagine you couldn't find 18 staffers in the mid-Atlantic, meaning no byes would be necessary. I would further think you could run 14 rounds in one day, as many tournaments do this all the time.
So, I heard about us hosting TRASHionals by reading this board, so I'm clearly not speaking in any official capacity and you should probably be talking to Mehdi or Sid instead. However, I'm pretty confident that a) with a little help, we should have enough competent moderators together to do this thing in one day, and b) if it's possible to run TRASHionals as a one-day tournament, that's surely what we'd prefer, especially given the expense involved in hiring a security officer for Sunday and relative ease of herding enough cats to help out one day instead of two.

I for one would strongly prefer a tournament that ran to 9-10 PM over one that breaks at 5 and is spread out over two days; no doubt most people would agree with me.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by DumbJaques »

So, I heard about us hosting TRASHionals by reading this board, so I'm clearly not speaking in any official capacity and you should probably be talking to Mehdi or Sid instead. However, I'm pretty confident that a) with a little help, we should have enough competent moderators together to do this thing in one day, and b) if it's possible to run TRASHionals as a one-day tournament, that's surely what we'd prefer, especially given the expense involved in hiring a security officer for Sunday and relative ease of herding enough cats to help out one day instead of two.
Hey TRASH, are you aware of any of these things at all? Maryland could also probably bring a staffer if it was a one day event.
I for one would strongly prefer a tournament that ran to 9-10 PM over one that breaks at 5 and is spread out over two days; no doubt most people would agree with me.
This. Although, even for an event that runs 16 rounds, there's no reason on Earth the tournament should run until 10 pm. Most 12-14 round tournaments end around 6 or 7, and there's no reason to believe a tournament which would draw good staff from the Mid-Atlantic would suffer from slow reading or anything like that.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Theory Of The Leisure Flask »

DumbJaques wrote:This. Although, even for an event that runs 16 rounds, there's no reason on Earth the tournament should run until 10 pm. Most 12-14 round tournaments end around 6 or 7, and there's no reason to believe a tournament which would draw good staff from the Mid-Atlantic would suffer from slow reading or anything like that.
Well, it's better to throw out a worst-case number in case something goes wrong, or TRASH wants to add in a brief side tournament (they mentioned theme rounds), or have time to give out twenty neg prizes or something like that. I mean, we have some decent moderators at Penn, but it's not like we're all ICT-caliber and able to finish every round in 20 minutes.

I should also mention, personally, that I'd be happy to read this on Saturday but will probably be stuck in workshop on Sunday, so by cramming TRASHionals into one day you will have likely added at least one high-quality moderator who otherwise probably would not have been available for the entire tournament.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

DumbJaques wrote:
So, I heard about us hosting TRASHionals by reading this board, so I'm clearly not speaking in any official capacity and you should probably be talking to Mehdi or Sid instead. However, I'm pretty confident that a) with a little help, we should have enough competent moderators together to do this thing in one day, and b) if it's possible to run TRASHionals as a one-day tournament, that's surely what we'd prefer, especially given the expense involved in hiring a security officer for Sunday and relative ease of herding enough cats to help out one day instead of two.
Hey TRASH, are you aware of any of these things at all? Maryland could also probably bring a staffer if it was a one day event.
I for one would strongly prefer a tournament that ran to 9-10 PM over one that breaks at 5 and is spread out over two days; no doubt most people would agree with me.
This. Although, even for an event that runs 16 rounds, there's no reason on Earth the tournament should run until 10 pm. Most 12-14 round tournaments end around 6 or 7, and there's no reason to believe a tournament which would draw good staff from the Mid-Atlantic would suffer from slow reading or anything like that.
I'm going to try to address the points that are worth addressing :

1. TRASHionals not an 11 team tournament. Our target field is 36 teams. At the time of my last update, 11 of those teams had expressed interest (and that did not include the teams requesting alternate bid consideration) and since then more than that have contacted me, enough to the point where I could say by the time of that post that a one-day TRASHionals would be inadequate. Even if our field is, say, the 22 we had at UTC last year - and it will almost certainly be larger than that - at a bare minimum that's 14 rounds - not including finals.

2. The staff issue is something the host and TRASH and some of our friends will be working out. I expect to have enough competent people to run the tournament, but lack of competent staff is far from the only thing that can slow down a tournament.

3. To the extent that I have not provided every last logistical detail, well, I don't know what you would expect over two months before the tournament date when we are not even sure how many teams we have yet. My projections are based as much as anything else on the fact that TRASHionals has happened for 11 years straight, and has had roughly the same schedule every year. There have been years where the 11-12 rounds customarily scheduled for Saturday ran past 7 PM. I hope to run a tighter ship than that, but I'm not going to risk shortchanging customers who come from miles around by cutting out rounds because we absolutely must get the thing done in one day.

4. Do most people really think players *want* to play even 14, let alone 16, rounds in one day? Keep in mind that rounds at trash tournaments usually take more time than those at academic tournaments, even those without a clock. Build in the possibility that things might take longer than we anticipate to get started (very few college QB tournaments start on time) and trying to play even 14 rounds in one day could easily have us there at 10 PM if not later. Maybe this is a decent choice for a random Saturday invitational where everyone hits the highway the minute the last round-robin game ends (or in some cases, even sooner) For better and for worse, that's not, for a variety of reasons, what TRASHionals is about, nor has it ever been.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Coelacanth »

answerguy wrote:4. Do most people really think players *want* to play even 14, let alone 16, rounds in one day? Keep in mind that rounds at trash tournaments usually take more time than those at academic tournaments, even those without a clock. Build in the possibility that things might take longer than we anticipate to get started (very few college QB tournaments start on time) and trying to play even 14 rounds in one day could easily have us there at 10 PM if not later. Maybe this is a decent choice for a random Saturday invitational where everyone hits the highway the minute the last round-robin game ends (or in some cases, even sooner) For better and for worse, that's not, for a variety of reasons, what TRASHionals is about, nor has it ever been.
Regardless of the number of rounds scheduled for Saturday, any team flying in for this is going to be arriving on Friday and leaving on Sunday. I realize that there are logistical issues (staff and room availability) involved in playing on Sunday, but surely TRASH would not award the hosting bid for what has always been a two-day event to a school who can't accomodate Sunday games.

Put me down as one of those who definitely does NOT want to play 14 or 16 rounds in a day. If we come, we're going to be in town Sunday anyway, so we might as well spread out the fun.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Theory Of The Leisure Flask »

Perhaps it would make sense to poll the teams who have been awarded bids and see which they prefer?
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by DumbJaques »

Well, I expected when Chris White and I brought up some reasonable points about what might make a TRASHionals experience more rewarding that we'd at least get a reasonable discussion. I have had nothing but fine interaction with TRASH members, despite the stories of friction I've heard. I did not expect to get a dismissive "go away" from the tournament director, but here we are.
I'm going to try to address the points that are worth addressing
Perhaps I'm misinterpretating this, in which case I apologize, but this comes off as snarky, dismissive, and jerkish to me. As a potential customer and attendant at something I presume you take a lot of pride in producing, I would think that any points I raise in a reasonable manner on a discussion forum for the tournament you are in charge of would be worth addressing, even to point out if they are terrible ideas. Apparently you have already decided what matters and what does not, and feel perfectly fine declaring that you'll only deem to respond to what you think is "worth addressing."
TRASHionals not an 11 team tournament. Our target field is 36 teams. At the time of my last update, 11 of those teams had expressed interest (and that did not include the teams requesting alternate bid consideration) and since then more than that have contacted me, enough to the point where I could say by the time of that post that a one-day TRASHionals would be inadequate. Even if our field is, say, the 22 we had at UTC last year - and it will almost certainly be larger than that - at a bare minimum that's 14 rounds - not including finals.
Obviously I know TRASHionals is not an 11 team tournament, nobody was making that claim. I connected your field update and your statement about already not being able to run a one-day tournament, which clearly didn't make sense then. It doesn't really make sense now, either. I am not sure why you think you couldn't run a 22 team tournament in one day - it's done all the time. Heck, let's say it's a 36 team tournament. You could run bracket of 6 and rebracket, that would take 10 rounds before finals. If it was a 32 team tournament, you could run four brackets of 8 and rebracket with crossovers, 13 rounds before finals. There are tons of variations here, and none of them would require two days - in fact, many of them have been done in one day several times at tournaments that finished at a reasonable time.
The staff issue is something the host and TRASH and some of our friends will be working out. I expect to have enough competent people to run the tournament, but lack of competent staff is far from the only thing that can slow down a tournament.
Aside from a not insignificant curiosity about what kind of "friends" you're talking about, I don't get this comment. Do you anticipate something slowing the tournament down? As TD, if you're putting together a good staff, the questions are all ready to go, and you do your job, there's no reason the tournament should run late. If you can't do those things it seems silly to give us attitude for wondering about an unnecessary split of the tournament dates.
To the extent that I have not provided every last logistical detail, well, I don't know what you would expect over two months before the tournament date when we are not even sure how many teams we have yet. My projections are based as much as anything else on the fact that TRASHionals has happened for 11 years straight, and has had roughly the same schedule every year. There have been years where the 11-12 rounds customarily scheduled for Saturday ran past 7 PM. I hope to run a tighter ship than that, but I'm not going to risk shortchanging customers who come from miles around by cutting out rounds because we absolutely must get the thing done in one day.
This doesn't make any sense. First of all, there's a lack of professionalism here. What would I expect over two months before the tournament? How about how many days the tournament will run, and when it will end, without having to ask you first? Perhaps you should check out the NAQT ICT page or the ACF Nationals announcement to see what an actual announcement looks like. Despite being farther away than your event and having a higher degree of unpredictably (ACF Nats has no field cap, and no bids, so they can't even really make a best guess field size), ACF nationals has a firm schedule of when things will happen, with a lot more detail then "oh, yeah, it will be two days and we'll probably be done by 2:00." I don't really appreciate the flippant nature of your responses to a pretty reasonable line of inquiry. Particularly if the same thing has happened at Trashionals for the last decade, you ought to have a decent idea of what's going to happen.

Also, nobody would be shortchange by cutting out rounds; that's a ludicrous strawman that you're just making up. The worst thing that could happen would be that the Saturday rounds would go later, and the tournament would end late at night (and that could really only happen due to failure on the part of the TD). I'm also less than convinced at your concern for the teams flying for miles around when for absolutely no reason, TRASH waited until plane tickets for April have started to get expensive to announce bids and a location, despite the qualifier taking place in November.
Do most people really think players *want* to play even 14, let alone 16, rounds in one day? Keep in mind that rounds at trash tournaments usually take more time than those at academic tournaments, even those without a clock. Build in the possibility that things might take longer than we anticipate to get started (very few college QB tournaments start on time) and trying to play even 14 rounds in one day could easily have us there at 10 PM if not later. Maybe this is a decent choice for a random Saturday invitational where everyone hits the highway the minute the last round-robin game ends (or in some cases, even sooner) For better and for worse, that's not, for a variety of reasons, what TRASHionals is about, nor has it ever been.
I find the way you have phrased this point rather telling. You ask if most people here are studying the species playerius quizbowlerus and wondering what it desires. Well, you're talking to players here, not conjecturing. Ask them. I am hardly arguing that what we would prefer is best for everyone, just that a lot of your explanations don't make sense and your attitude is unprofessional. As a player, I certainly would rather play 14 rounds (again, why you think you need to run 14 rounds as some kind of iron fast rule, I don't understand) in one day rather than have to get up early two-three days in a row and play a couple of rounds Sunday morning under almost any circumstance. Chris White evidently agrees, so maybe you should, you know, ask other players.

I do not know why you believe trash rounds take longer. I do not think this is the case, and see no possible inherent explanation for why this would be true. Perhaps "trash tournaments often take organization and efficiency less seriously" is a more valid assessment; if so, you certainly can use your position as TD to do something about that. The same ludicrous attitude is reflected in your other argument ("I plan on my national tournament starting late, yeah!"). And no, it has certainly not been my experience that nationals tournament start late. If you want to start on time, it's not that hard, just don't tolerate teams showing up 30 minutes late and run a tight ship. Both of these things seem like they should be in effect for a national tournament, but perhaps you disagree.

As to your final point, well, it's not very well-explained, but I presume you mean you want a more laid-back atmosphere at which everyone can just chill out and socialize. I guess that's cool, but you really ought to see if this is really something the players want as well. I have no idea what your references to "What TRASHionals has ever been about" means or what's going on with your veiled disparagement of "random Sunday invitationals" (read: what people who actually play quizbowl, of any variety, do on a regular basis and are thus the standard rather than a random outlier), but you really could have just explained your position and asked what people thought, rather than making nonsensical assessments of how quizbowl events work.

At the very least, you have, as the TD of TRASHionals, expressed the following:
A) You (at least implicitly) doubt your ability to competently run a tournament on time
B) You do not expect your own NATIONALS tournament to start on schedule
C) You seem at the very best to be partially connected with the plan for acquiring staff for your event,
D) You think trash rounds just have to take longer than normal quizbowl, which sense I know isn't true, indicates you have no problem with your tournament taking too long.
E) You become marginally irritated when someone expects you to match the information posted by not just other national tournaments, but almost every invitational event hosting out of town teams ever.

I really enjoy playing trash tournaments, but it bothers me that the same standards of professionalism, competence, and question quality (though that's an issue unrelated to this discussion) aren't always applied or, more to the point, expected. Stuff like this makes me hesitant to want to commit a Maryland team to this event, and I at least tangentially know several good, reliable people involved in this tournament (one of whom is you!), so hopefully you'll address the points I raised.


EDIT:

Again, where are people getting these numbers? 16 rounds? Nationals par is something around 13 plus finals at every event I've ever been to, and it shouldn't run into the late evening unless you have royally fucked up. Unless you're hearing 15+ rounds of ACF Nationals length questions, well, it's doubtful it's necessary to split the tournament over two days. It's still fine to do that, but given other issues (Penn room stuff, staff, team preference) it should hardly be a foregone conclusion, which is really all I'm suggesting. Even the legendary 08 Chicago Open, featuring 18 rounds plus a final written by notorious lacker of brevity Ryan Westrbook, was not finishing up at 10 pm. If everyone wants to play 11-12 rounds, spend the evening enjoying Philly, and wake up early the next morning to play just 2-3 more at most, well, so be it, but that sounds kind of weak to me. There are teams who will just want to hit the road Saturday night, but even if most teams want to enjoy the day Sunday, well, why require them to haul their asses out of bed early to spend a few hours at the tournament, then have even less time to enjoy themselves while exhausted on Sunday? It seems lose-lose if the situation is that you can run all the rounds you need on Saturday, which seems to be what it is.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Cheynem »

I agree with Chris that I don't understand the idea that "trash tournaments invariably take longer than academic tournaments." Assuming decent moderators, professional organization, and the usual brisk pace I expect with tournaments, I have no idea why this would be true. In fact, given TRASH's generally shorter questions than, say, ACF and the fact that trash tourneys invariably feature a great deal of quick buzzes (as opposed to tossups going dead as I suppose could happen in academic tourneys featuring inexperienced teams), I would say there is a strong chance that a trash tournament should be quicker, not slower than academic tournaments.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Coelacanth »

Historically the TRASHionals schedule has been bracketed round-robin on Saturday (11 rounds) followed by theme rounds Saturday night and playoffs (3 or 4 rounds plus potentially an advantaged final) on Sunday. I'm not speaking for Tim or TRASH, but I don't think it's unreasonable for them to assume that a similar schedule will obtain this year given that that's been the schedule for at least the past 9 years.
DumbJaques wrote: If everyone wants to play 11-12 rounds, spend the evening enjoying Philly, and wake up early the next morning to play just 2-3 more at most, well, so be it, but that sounds kind of weak to me.
I'm certainly not "everyone", but that is the schedule I want. If that makes me kind of weak, so be it.
DumbJaques wrote: There are teams who will just want to hit the road Saturday night, but even if most teams want to enjoy the day Sunday, well, why require them to haul their asses out of bed early to spend a few hours at the tournament, then have even less time to enjoy themselves while exhausted on Sunday?
Are you making the assertion that playing 11 rounds on Saturday, getting to bed at a reasonable hour, and then playing 4 more rounds starting at, say, 9 am on Sunday is more exhausting than playing 15 rounds on Saturday? You have a different definition of exhausted than I do.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by MichaelKearney »

Alright, putting my two cents in. I believe that we can spare a little invective here, as I think that Tim chose to not respond to the comment that TRASH is run by Rhesus Monkeys.
I'd hardly consider that "reasonable discussion".

Yeah, I'd prefer a two-day tournament, as would my team. I've been to a lot of trash tournaments, and while TRASH tends to run a much tighter schedule, that's still a bunch of rounds....with a lot of talking, laughing, and screwing around. That happens less at academic tournaments. The nature of these kind of events is more laid-back, and that does lead to things taking a while longer.

TRASHionals has been run for 11 years, and it's been a two-day affair for as long as I've been going, and while it's cool that people want to offer up their opinions, TRASH has traditionally used a survey to garner this info. They've been pretty good at modifying their events in recent years, and if they saw a giant call for a one day event, they'd do it. Let's not reuse the old stereotype of "TRASH never listens to nobody".

And I'm going to point out the purple elephant in the middle of the room. Trash tournaments tend to have......more seasoned veterans of quizbowl, and those veterans need their sleep. While the average college player should be pretty used to pulling late nights, these veterans are at a bit of a disadvantage later in the day. Also, they walk with canes and drink Ensure.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by cvdwightw »

As someone who neither was offered an initial bid nor would be likely to accept one if my team's name magically popped off the far, far bottom of the waitlist, I think the problem with this is not that the tournament is one day or two days, but that it's two months before a national tournament and the people in charge of the tournament are apparently unaware of several key issues involving the tournament:

1. If TRASHionals has had a set format for the past nine years, and no one has complained, why was it not announced that "we're doing it the same way that we have done it the past nine years" rather than giving an ill-founded explanation for why the tournament would be held over two days?
2. I am under the assumption that TRASHionals has a set field size, and is not a packet submission tournament. Therefore, TRASH should be able to dictate the exact number of rounds played, instead of a nebulous "it's 14 to 16 rounds" commitment. Saying "it's dependent on field size," when TRASH clearly expects a certain field size, implies that someone is not confident in TRASH's ability to fill out the field.
3. Somewhere along the line, signals got crossed between Penn and TRASH, and now Penn is apparently expected to provide a security officer on the second day of the tournament. This situation falls under "exorbitant room fees," and I'm not sure who's to blame here. If Penn knew about the possibility of a two-day tournament, and about the "exorbitant room fees" situation, and still bid on it, then it's their fault. Otherwise, it's TRASH's fault, for not providing sufficient information to dissuade Penn from bidding on a tournament for which they would pay "exorbitant room fees," or for accepting the bid and attempting to impose a two-day tournament even though Penn indicated that there would be exorbitant room fees on Sunday.
4. Despite Regionals having happened three months ago, TRASH was unable to plug statistics into its magical formula to determine at-large bids until a week ago. Furthermore, they appear to have only recently realized that hosts did not do their duty and report contact information to TRASH. I can guarantee that if, for example, SCT West was even a week late in reporting stats and contact information to NAQT, someone from NAQT would be all over that host. Apparently it doesn't work that way in TRASH.
5. Such things as TOURNAMENT FEES have not been announced. In other words, TRASH expects teams to accept or decline bids without telling them how much it is likely to cost them.

I realize I'm nowhere near your target audience (I don't particularly enjoy trash, and my participation was part of a deal with my teammates that I would stay for it if they came up for the Berkeley Illinois Open mirror), but maybe you should think about how the above five points make TRASH look extremely unprofessional. Maybe you think it's okay to look unprofessional because there's a group of TRASH-playing non-students that are going to attend TRASH Regionals and TRASHionals regardless of how poorly the tournament is run or how poor the question quality is, but the ("current"/)"next" generation of TRASH players has grown up on well-run national tournaments by ACF and NAQT with high-quality questions, and expects the same thing whether it's academic or trash. When combined with a distribution that still seems to skew older than "stuff current college students have heard of" (though not as bad this past Regionals as in years past), it almost seems as if TRASH is trying to drive the college student market away.

EDIT: Forgot the fees thing.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Theory Of The Leisure Flask »

cvdwightw wrote:3. Somewhere along the line, signals got crossed between Penn and TRASH, and now Penn is apparently expected to provide a security officer on the second day of the tournament. This situation falls under "exorbitant room fees," and I'm not sure who's to blame here. If Penn knew about the possibility of a two-day tournament, and about the "exorbitant room fees" situation, and still bid on it, then it's their fault. Otherwise, it's TRASH's fault, for not providing sufficient information to dissuade Penn from bidding on a tournament for which they would pay "exorbitant room fees," or for accepting the bid and attempting to impose a two-day tournament even though Penn indicated that there would be exorbitant room fees on Sunday.
FWIW, Penn needs to provide a security officer for Saturdays, as well. Again, I am NOT speaking as any sort of official anything, and this is all secondhand, but my impression was the announcement on this board was the first that anybody at Penn knew that TRASHionals was going to be two days long (and I guess they didn't mention anything about the room fees when making the bid). Besides me, the team is very young- all freshmen and sophomores who enjoy trash but aren't familiar with the history of the TRASH organization.

I suspect we'll be happy to host anyway- it just won't be a big help to our coffers or anything like that.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by cvdwightw »

Theory Of The Leisure Flask wrote:FWIW, Penn needs to provide a security officer for Saturdays, as well. Again, I am NOT speaking as any sort of official anything, and this is all secondhand, but my impression was the announcement on this board was the first that anybody at Penn knew that TRASHionals was going to be two days long (and I guess they didn't mention anything about the room fees when making the bid).
Fair enough; the point remains that Penn seems to have been willing to do whatever was necessary for the Saturday rounds, but likely submitted the bid under the assumption it would be a one-day tournament (whether that's the fault of TRASH for not communicating that "this tournament will be run exactly like last year" or Penn for not having the experience to know that TRASHionals is traditionally a two-day event is debatable). Would Penn would need to pay for the full day for the security officer on Sunday even if the tournament let out around noon? If so, ouch. We get slammed with that stuff on Sundays and during the summer (thus prompting a site move to UCLA when we hosted TRASH Regionals in 2007), so I assumed it was similar at Penn.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

I'll address what Chris and Dwight have been saying later tonight, after I get home.

Though I ended up volunteering to administer TRASHionals XII, I was not part of the host selection decision so I cannot speak to what was said between TRASH and Penn, other than to note that TRASHionals has been a two-day event for as long as I can remember and that if Penn or any other prospective hosts had indicated a strong preference for a one-day tournament, that did not come up insofar as I have heard.

Re: fees. We're going to discuss that and that information will be available well before anyone will lose their place in the field for waiting to find out whether the entry fees are going to be a deal killer.

There are certainly aspects of planning TRASHionals that could have gone smoother than they did. We had a tough time finding a host and that did tend to push a lot of things back. I can only imagine how annoyed some people would have been (and not without justification) if we had announced at-large bids and asked teams to accept or decline without telling them where the event would even occur.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Matt Weiner »

MichaelKearney wrote:stuff
It seems to me that "TRASH is for old people and will continue to do things the way they were done in 1999" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If TRASH is interested in getting up to speed with modern quizbowl and ensuring its long-term viability by attracting more current undergrads as players or writers, then it should stop, you know, explicitly saying that it does not want to do those things.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Theory Of The Leisure Flask »

answerguy wrote:Though I ended up volunteering to administer TRASHionals XII, I was not part of the host selection decision so I cannot speak to what was said between TRASH and Penn, other than to note that TRASHionals has been a two-day event for as long as I can remember and that if Penn or any other prospective hosts had indicated a strong preference for a one-day tournament, that did not come up insofar as I have heard.
Yeah, I'm going to emphasize once again that I can't really speak to that either. For all I know the folks who actually accepted the bid might have been explicitly informed about it being two days long and decided that wasn't a dealbreaker.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Captain Sinico »

Coelacanth wrote:...any team flying in for this is going to be arriving on Friday and leaving on Sunday.
Okay, except my team and some others intend on driving. It would be massively more convenient for us to have a one-day event. If a two-day is necessary, then so be it, but I'm not seeing anything that argues that here.
In fact, it seems to me that what you're saying is, in fact, an argument for a one-day event. It seems like teams who are flying lose very little by having a one-day event (they're stuck until Sunday anyway; perhaps they could leave a little earlier given a one-day.) Conversely, teams who want to drive would lose a great deal due to a two-day event. I understand that there may be some utility lost for some by having many rounds in a single day, but I think it's a normative fact that a lot of tournaments of this kind successfully operate one-day events that people still enjoy them (or even enjoy them more; I'd place myself in that camp.)
You may disagree, but at any rate you must agree that the matter is not so cut-and-dried as you were at first asserting. I hope TRASH will ask its attending teams what they'd like, rather than cleaving to what it's done in the past without regard to what its teams might want. That's doubly so given that it really ought to be eminently possible to run a 32-team tournament, even one with 16 rounds, in a single day.

MaS

PS:
MichaelKearney wrote:TRASH has traditionally used a survey to garner this info.
Laffeaux.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Lapego1 »

Regarding what's been said about the Penn/TRASH exchange, I gave the go-ahead for this thing to happen when Sid mentioned it to me, provided we could work something out fee-wise so that we're not in the hole afterwards. It's not like the people in charge have been hearing about this for the first time through the boards. The only info I personally have received is what Sid's forwarded me, and when TRASH accepted our bid, they did make it clear to get the rooms for both days. I've tentatively got them reserved for Saturday and Sunday, and this can be changed easily should people want anything differently. That said, I'd still appreciate it if we could have a role in deciding the fees so that we indeed do not end up in the hole for the security guard expenses we'll have to dish out.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by DumbJaques »

I'm certainly not "everyone", but that is the schedule I want. If that makes me kind of weak, so be it.
Well, whatever that makes you or anyone else, that isn't anything remotely close to what I was saying. I expressed a personal preference that noted I found the other option to be "kind of weak" - you somehow translate that to an assertion that you, noted person I don't know at all, are weak? Also all of the is entirely peripheral to the central issue about TRASH's refusal to professionally address concerns about (and, it seems, handle in a larger sense) the event. If most teams want a two day event, that's cool dude, it's not like anyone's saying you're morally lacking for preferring that. Chillax.
I believe that we can spare a little invective here, as I think that Tim chose to not respond to the comment that TRASH is run by Rhesus Monkeys.
I'd hardly consider that "reasonable discussion".
If you would have actually processed my comment, you would have noted that it was a hyperbole meant to illustrate why it made no sense that, with 11 teams, TRASHionals "already" couldn't run a one day event. You would literally need like 2 people to do this if you made a bye team staff, so the situation in which you would lack sufficient staff to run an 11 team tournament in one day is comically implausible, unless of course TRASH was deciding to devote just poor Tim and a couple of Pit of Despair veterans to the event. I also didn't say anything like "TRASH is run by Rhesus Monkeys," I was discussing the apparent lack of a devoted staffing contingent, and in fact I did not say anything about the people involved in TRASH at all (most of whom I don't know). I DID assert tremendous unprofessionalism in this entire thing, but that had nothing to do with the Harry Harlow joke. Explain to me how you find this so unreasonable.

Yeah, I'd prefer a two-day tournament, as would my team. I've been to a lot of trash tournaments, and while TRASH tends to run a much tighter schedule, that's still a bunch of rounds....with a lot of talking, laughing, and screwing around. That happens less at academic tournaments. The nature of these kind of events is more laid-back, and that does lead to things taking a while longer.
Well, I have been to only a few trash tournaments, but I've been to lots of academic ones and I don't think there's any validity to this distinction. Perhaps our respective peer groups differ in their desires during a tournament, but at CO trash or any of Maryland's trash tournaments, there's joking and talking, just like there is at academic tournaments. It seems to me that you're adopting some kind of "oh those academic people, they just want to play their games and be on their way and they hate having fun," but in fact if you chose to involve yourself in this group, you'd find that we socialize a great deal at tournaments. This never seems to impede the ability of a TD to competently run an event, and I don't know why it would when the questions are about cartoons rather than carrachemish.
Let's not reuse the old stereotype of "TRASH never listens to nobody".
Instead, let's adopt the stereotype of "TRASH events are only played by old people and should be geared that way" and "academic tournament participants do not spend as much time having fun and enjoying each other's company as trash participants do?" Also, nobody is saying anything like "TRASH never listens to nobody." We're saying "this announcement is comically unprofessional, and you are being dismissive when people point this out."

This kind of stuff sort of epitomizes why I find this whole sequence so upsetting. For whatever reason, the standards of efficiency, professionalism, competence, question quality, etc etc that apply throughout the quizbowl circuit seem to stop applying for trash events (note that I do not say TRASH events). This is something I see on the part of players and organizers. Last week I expressed dismay about the Princeton trash tournament distribution; if an academic event had someone post a patently ridiculous distribution, then say "but really, I don't care what you do if it's good," nobody would tolerate that. It's because I really want to play more (good) trash events that I raise these points, but if you want to sit back and pretend I'm calling people names or that I hate trash (or TRASH), I'm not sure what I can do about that, dude.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

OK, I have a lot on my mind and on my plate right now. I'll start with this:

I did not intend to denigrate the quizbowl circuit as a whole when I contrasted the mission of TRASHionals with that of most standard one-day invitationals, both academic and trash tournaments alike. Most invitationals, mostly by reason of necessity, are utilitarian and spartan affairs; they consist of teams who arrive Saturday morning (perhaps they stayed over Friday night, though in the Mid-Atlantic region, many tournaments are close enough that most attendees didn't even do that,) play as many rounds as time and available packet supply allow, and generally leave immediately after the round-robin ends. If there's a final at all, it's played in an empty room. I certainly did not intend to imply that there was anything wrong with these events, and indeed the circuit of these tournaments, even more than organizations like NAQT or ACF, is in many ways the lifeblood of TRASH; it's our gateway for new players and, hopefully, new staffers and writers. (In fact, the above is a decent description of nearly all TRASH regionals tournaments.)

But that has not been what TRASHionals has been about. For one thing, teams don't, with few exceptions, generally come from across the country to play at a regular invitational like the ones described above, whether we are talking about academic or trash events. My experience has told me that it takes something more to bring this many teams together. I think we'd drive away at least as many people as we'd attract if we made TRASHionals look more like a standard-issue quizbowl invitational.

We have sought to make our TRASHionals events just that, events. Our main goals have been, from what I can gather, twofold:
1. Bringing all the best teams we can get coming together to fight for supremacy playing on the best questions of which we can conceive with the fairest and most comprehensive format possible.
2. Providing an entertaining and enjoyable experience for all teams and others who attend, including a chance for quiz bowl players who may not see each other any other time of year to catch up, and perhaps square off in a trash round or two.

To that end, we have long provided teams with 16 or so rounds in order to produce the fairest and most rigorous process for awarding the TRASHionals title belt we can provide, and in order for them to get their entry fee's worth of questions to play on.
That means as many of the top contenders playing as many of the other top contenders as possible. From what I can tell, people are usually happy with the format/schedule aspects of TRASHionals. Most of the complaints I can recall, and certainly there have been plenty of them, about the events tended to revolve around question content or distribution.

I staffed TRASHionals last year and have played at over a half-dozen others. Some of them I drove to; others I came and went by airplane. I have heard a lot of complaints about TRASHionals but I never heard "I would rather this tournament were 13 rounds and one day" before.

And, yes, in drawing a schedule I have to account for the fact that trash rounds take longer. You can argue all you want that they don't "have to." I've been a lot of trash tournaments. Some were submission, others were central sourced. Some had good questions, others not so much. Some were shortstaffed, others were not. Some had a lot of good moderators, some didn't. Some had experienced directors, others didn't. Sometimes they ran roughly on the schedule the TD prescribed, and sometimes they wound up a country mile behind. But none of them were as quick per round as even untimed academic tournaments tend to be. Now maybe this TRASHionals will set a new record for its quick pace, but I don't see how it would be reasonable or responsible for me to simply assume this is going to happen. Even if everything else about the tournament goes absolutely dead solid perfect, with no AWOL moderators, no packet mixups, no buzzer system failures, no teams failing to show up after lunch, no locked door incidents, even 13 trash rounds in one day is a lot. To illustrate the point, I've been doing the stats summaries from TRASH regionals for two years; the first of those years, we provided hosts with 16 packets to use and even though several of them were on Saturday (there are obvious time constraints on all-day Sunday events) and had large enough fields to justify 14 or even 15 games, not one of them had the general field go past Round 11. So we only wrote 14 packets for this past regionals set, and no region played more than 11 non-finals games. Is there an example of a trash tournament that got through even 14 rounds (and I'm not even including finals rounds) in one day out there? If there is, I don't know of it.

And to an extent I have to build other contingencies into the mix, well, I don't think that's some sort of admission that I'm an incompetent TD. I've run too many of these things to use a rosy best-case scenario as my tournament plan. Of course I'm not *planning* on starting the thing late, but nor am I going to, if I can help it, create a situation where we're one snafu or two removed from running rounds into the wee hours of the morning.

At the same time, we are at some level a business catering to customers. If teams would *really* rather have a bare bones (cutting out all theme rounds, scaling back the awards and prizes, probably even pushing for a shorter lunch and generally rushing things as much as possible), one day affair that wraps up on Saturday, or if the required security costs make our traditional preferred formats prohibitively expensive, we'll have to cut back to the one day. I think we'll lose something along the way though.
Last edited by answerguy on Wed Feb 11, 2009 12:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by gregpweinstein »

I wholeheartedly agree with you. This will be my first TRASHionals and i expect it to be different from the other trash tournaments i have been to. And for the amount of money and time I will devote to this, I would expect and warrant a whole big event, not some slimmed down sham of what a tournament is supposed to be. So i fully endorse the weekend event with as many rounds as possible and other fun-themed events to make this tournament what it should be, TRASHionals. One packed day of rounds, playoffs, finals, awards and whatever just would not cut it, so put me down for a player wanting the full weekend event.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

cvdwightw wrote:If TRASHionals has had a set format for the past nine years, and no one has complained, why was it not announced that "we're doing it the same way that we have done it the past nine years" rather than giving an ill-founded explanation for why the tournament would be held over two days?
I did list Saturday and Sunday as the days that this tournament was going to happen in the field announcement. When first asked about it, I noted that the format I was planning on using was essentially the same one it has used without incident for a number of years. (I wasn't sure about the number so I didn't specify the number of years.) I took care to point out that it had been at least an unwritten rule that TRASHionals always wrapped by 2:00 Sunday afternoon. I'm not sure why or how, but somehow someone found this simple post offensive.
cvdwightw wrote:2. I am under the assumption that TRASHionals has a set field size, and is not a packet submission tournament. Therefore, TRASH should be able to dictate the exact number of rounds played, instead of a nebulous "it's 14 to 16 rounds" commitment. Saying "it's dependent on field size," when TRASH clearly expects a certain field size, implies that someone is not confident in TRASH's ability to fill out the field.
We weren't able to fill the field last year and ended up with a total of 22 teams when all was said and done. Some of that was the relative inaccessibility of the tournament location, which is less of an issue this year. Some of that was that we couldn't secure a host until late, which unfortunately proved an issue again this year. We also had an inordinately large number of late drops, which hopefully doesn't strike again. I just mentioned what this year's field target was. If we can't find 36 teams, either with these invites or future ones, we'll just have to make do with fewer. I don't understand why this is so alarming.
cvdwightw wrote:4. Despite Regionals having happened three months ago, TRASH was unable to plug statistics into its magical formula to determine at-large bids until a week ago. Furthermore, they appear to have only recently realized that hosts did not do their duty and report contact information to TRASH. I can guarantee that if, for example, SCT West was even a week late in reporting stats and contact information to NAQT, someone from NAQT would be all over that host. Apparently it doesn't work that way in TRASH.
Regionals hosts have been late in reporting stats (more a problem in 2007 than this past batch of regionals, incidentally the regional at UCI was the biggest offender in that category) and contact information. I'm not happy about that but that's how it went. I'd like to do better next year. As it happens I had the bid info ready for a while, but it didn't seem to make much sense to release it without a TRASHionals host.

cvdwightw wrote:5. Such things as TOURNAMENT FEES have not been announced. In other words, TRASH expects teams to accept or decline bids without telling them how much it is likely to cost them.
I addressed this in an earlier post. We're discussing this with the host in light of the already-discussed security requirements. The entry fee is unlikely to be so much larger than last year's (it was a range of $80-140 then, depending on applicable discounts) as to constitute a large share of total tournament expenses (compared with travel costs and such) for most attending teams. And I said upfront in the announcement that teams were free to say they needed that information before they made any decision about attending.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by Captain Sinico »

Okay, well, my issue is this. My team, at least, is going to play on the questions; that's what we want. No offense intended, but we could have more fun at home (and may yet do so.) I see that I'm not along among potential attendees in thinking this, so you're mistaken if your premise is that your field now doesn't consist of at least some of such people.
More fundamentally, I don't see why you can't have the kind of tournament you want and run it in a single day. All of my logistical experience suggests that you ought to be able to.

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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by drpork24 »

Tim Young-

We at the Pirahna Club had participated in 5 of the last 6 TRASH Regionals and have qualified for the Trashionals all 5 times. We have been able to attend 3 of those. You may remember us as the Old Geezers of Trivia - 2 guys in our 50's, a young guy, who just hit 40 and a kid of 25 to shoot at those annoying video game questions. We may be older, but we have improved all the way to 8-9 (2 of us in the Playoff Top 14), 2 years ago at Maryland.

However we had to skip the Regionals this year (again at Maryland) due to 1) our young guy was best man at a wedding, 2) our alternate for him died (cancer is quick) and 3) I was in Rome in free digs that were only available at that time. Therefore we were not able to secure our 6th straight Trashionals berth. Hey, we missed Chatanooga last year - Can we use that unused qualification this year?

We do come from the Philadelphia area (Allentown, West Chester, Wilmington, and a Philadelphia Center City Law Office). We would be happy to play in the Trashionals as an at-large, Affirmative Action for Geezers Group. The date looks OK for all of us, and it stands to reason that some of your other qualified teams will not travel all the way East.

If you can find a place for us in the field, we promise:

1) None of us will embarass ourselves or anyone else by wearing our baseball caps backward.

2) We won't be exposed as Ringers, since we have no chance of winning.

3) You (may) need the dues. We still have enough money in our brokerage accounts to pay.

4) None of us will eat more than 3 donut holes before the contest.

5) Being close, we could possibly help with buzzer systems, moderators, or theme packets.

Please let me know if we can play. I realize that you will probably need to put off a final decision until all invites are answered, but let us know your thoughts, so we can get an idea whether to keep that weekend open, rotate the tires, get anything ready.

Thanks,

Dr. Pork
Captain - Pirahna Club

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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by cdcarter »

Can you promise to have showered?
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

cdcarter wrote:Can you promise to have showered?
I can't speak for this team, but I can promise that I'll shower at some point shortly before the TRASHionals opening meeting.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

Field Update:
Currently 29 of our 36 bids are reserved:

From the Northeast Region:
Boston College (2 teams); Brandeis Alumni Team; BC Alumni et al.; NYU A

From the Canada Region:
American Bacon (Rochester); Wacky Deli Yeah! (Rochester), Minus Five (Univ. of Toronto)

From the Mid-Atlantic Region:
Maryland; Deportivo Juan Valdez; College Park Retirement Castle; Dans You Can Believe In; Evil League of Evil (Princeton); Silver Screen Test All-Stars; Flying Space Pimps (Delaware); Clusterpitt (Pitt A)

From the Southeast Region:
Berry College; Chuck & Kilby Watch a Porno; Year of Living Johnny Dangerously

From the Great Lakes Region:
Stone Cold Peter Austin; Luminaries of Illinois QB; Grinnell & Rom

From the Southwest Region:
Insert Bill O'Reilly Joke Here; Liga de Justia (Oklahoma); Alcoholics Synonymous; Big 12 Coaches Gone Wild (Okla State)

From the Rocky Mountain region:
Arizona State "Pedroia"; Left Handed Belladonnas; Tia and the TRASHmen

From the West Coast region:
Stanford

From the Pacific Northwest region:
CUBE

Teams we are still waiting to hear from:
NE: Four Horsemen
CAN: Bears, Beats, et. al. (McMaster)
SW: Kiss My Anthia (UT-Dallas)
RM: Love Bubbas
WC: Team Bravo (UC-Irvine)

Teams who have declined their bids:
Host Schools: Colorado, Washington, Tulsa
Teams: THEM; Tufts; Car Ramrod; Arizona State "Kinsler"; The We Nobody Knows; Oklahoma Gladiators

Teams whose bids expired:
Host Schools: Toronto, Illinois, Berkeley, Arizona State
Teams: Lysistrata & The Well Hungarians; Loose Geniuses; Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kodos (LSU)
Last edited by answerguy on Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:31 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

The following four teams have been added to the TRASHionals XII field and have received bids:

Northeast: Boston College B
Mid-Atlantic: Evil League of Evil (Princeton); Silver Screen Test All-Stars
Southeast: Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kodos (LSU)
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

The following six teams have been added to the TRASHionals XII bid list:
Northeast: Four Horsemen (BU)
Mid-Atlantic: Flying Space Pimps (Delaware)
Southwest: Big 12 Coaches Gone Wild (OSU); Oklahoma Gladiators (OU)
Rocky Mountain: Loose Geniuses
West Coast: Stanford
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

The following pair of teams has now been added to the list of teams receiving a bid to TRASHionals XII:

Canada Region: Minus Five (U. Toronto)
Rocky Mountain Region: The We Nobody Knows
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

The following team has been added to the list of teams receiving a bid to TRASHionals XII:

Rocky Mountain Region: Love Bubbas
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Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

Post by answerguy »

The following three teams have been extended invitations to TRASHionals XII:

Canada Region: Bears, Beets, et al. (McMaster)
Southwest Region: Kiss My Anthia (UT-Dallas)
West Coast Region: Team Bravo (UC-Irvine)
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