How Do We Expand and Improve Our Writing Community?

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csa2125
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How Do We Expand and Improve Our Writing Community?

Post by csa2125 »

Sparked of course by the recent Discord panel discussing diversity and inclusion in quizbowl question creation, I spoke to some other community members about this issue, and realized it needs its own post so we can get more voices in on this topic.

I believe we should have a larger, more diverse writing and editing community for the health of the game and the quality of questions. How we can achieve this goal, I’m not an expert on. The need for more diverse voices and more prepared writers more generally suggests to me that we create a quizbowl writing community Discord or the like, alongside better writing resources, such that it is easier to get into and stay in the “writing community.”

Let me illustrate with an example:

There is some extent to which we cannot entirely erase the fact that, even with open calls, connections get you places in life and in quizbowl set production. If I want A to write for my tournament, but A doesn’t apply, A simply won’t be writing for the tournament. I can directly ask A, and A might join that way if something about the open call format prevents A from feeling qualified or needed as a writer. But if I don’t even know A would be available or a great writer, I won’t know to ask A in the first place. Further, if A actually isn’t qualified, then the feeling of being unqualified is right, and we shouldn’t pressure A to write when A doesn’t have the necessary skill set.

Three problems seem to be central to this, in my view:
1) If I want a member of group X to write for my set, and there are not many members of group X in quizbowl, it will hard to find someone who is from group X in quizbowl AND willing and prepared to write.

2) If I want A to write, and A wants to write, but A can’t develop the necessary skills such that A can write, we won’t have A as a writer.
Similarly, if A wants to develop as a writer, but can’t get the resources or experience to build A’s resume, A won’t develop as a writer.

3) If quizbowl writing is dominated by people of group Y and we want more X, there’s a feedback effect where the lack of X in quizbowl writing means that members of X feel excluded or don’t have other X community members to connect with, such that “there is not enough X in quizbowl this year in part because there wasn’t much X in quizbowl last year.”

A proposed solution, therefore, to all three problems to an extent, will involve increasing the representation of underrepresented groups in quizbowl. I’m not much of a recruiter generally, and don’t have the data on why certain groups are underrepresented in the first place, so I would love to hear from people who have more experience in this area.

But with the quizbowl writing community server proposal, I believe we can develop a better, closer, and more inviting community that isn’t based as much on “who knows who” as “who joins the server and expresses interest.” This should be fertile ground for more inclusivity, for the proper training to take place, for the proper resources to be created and distributed, and for a wider pool of voices to be selected by those set creators in need of writers or editors. However, we do not want to fall into the pitfall of the writing community server becomes its own insular, “who knows who” space where entry is difficult and exit is far more encouraged than we’d like. Getting people is important, but retaining them is arguably just as important.

This also would be more inclusive to new voices, to give their thoughts on “theoretical” discussions where the forum can often be intimidating, to have their questions critiqued, to find mentors and “writing community” friends, and to “pass it forward” as mentors, writers, and editors once they are equipped with the necessary skills and resources.

Thoughts on all these ideas and proposals, especially from voices who aren’t always foregrounded in these “big important forum discussions,” or are of the underrepresented groups of quizbowl especially to give their own perspective and ideas?
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Re: How Do We Expand and Improve Our Writing Community?

Post by women, fire and dangerous things »

The crossword constructing community has long had a similar problem with lack of diversity. The constructors of crosswords in mainstream venues are overwhelmingly white and male, and while there's still a long way to go, the community has made great strides in the last few years. And there are a lot of parallels between Quizbowl writing and crossword construction - most relevantly, both involve a balance between introducing diverse content while still maintaining playability/solvability.

There are also some major structural differences between the two communities that make the task of increasing diversity more difficult in the case of Quizbowl, but I think the parallels are still instructive. I help run a Facebook group called the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory whose goal is to help aspiring constructors from underrepresented groups get started, and it's made a significant difference in the few years it's been around. Clark's suggestion sounds like it's along the same lines, and I think it's a great idea; mentorship resources like WORKSHOP and the PACE mentorship program are very valuable, but I think it's also valuable to have a way to spread the work of mentorship across a larger group. While the community server itself could serve as a centralized hub for new writers to hone their craft, it could also, just as importantly, serve as a place to set up mentorship relationships that take place elsewhere.

In any case, my experience with the Collaboration Directory has given me some ideas about what kinds of setups/ground rules tend to work well for this kind of resource - if the community server ends up happening, I'd be happy to help with setup/administration/etc.
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Re: How Do We Expand and Improve Our Writing Community?

Post by csa2125 »

In consultation with other community members, I have decided to proceed with the creation of such a server. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or encouragement, please contact me here, on Facebook, or on Discord as soon as possible.

Accordingly, the following application for potential moderators and/or mentors has been created: https://forms.gle/vH1WK27wCtYsGtrG8.
We are especially looking for moderators and mentors from underrepresented groups in quizbowl.

Thank you all!
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Re: How Do We Expand and Improve Our Writing Community?

Post by Ike »

One thing to realize is that some of our past writers have incredibly racist / sexist attitudes that popped up in their writing. I am rather loathe to name specific people, but over the course of my quizbowl career, I've observed the following:

- In 2013, one writer declared that the world literature canon was "exhausted" and the only non-Anglophone, non-European writer who was worthy enough yet to be subject to a tossup was Amitav Ghosh.
- In 2014, an editor of a nationals-caliber tournament objected to having a tossup on a particular African-American work of literature because there was a high probability that both Nationals would feature a notable black player in the finals.
- In 2009, someone once told me that Katsushika Hokusai was a "useless" artist now that we have photography.

Since all of these attitudes come from what would we consider an "elite writer," they demonstrate a form of racism that was endemic to quizbowl writers at the time. I remember in 2009 being extremely offput by the attitude demonstrated by the writer; I cannot even begin to imagine how much aspiring writers without the name that I had would be offput by such an attitude. If you find a writer who exhibits this form of racism (even subconsciously,) they probably need to be talked to, to say the least.

And lastly as an extreme example -- one team in 2010 once bragged to me about how they submitted a bonus where the parts were a certain Joseph Conrad novel / a certain original title of an Agatha Christie novel / a certain Carl Van Vechten novel. To wit, this forced the player to say the n-word three times. Obviously that bonus in no form made it into a set. I don't know if anyone is still doing this kind of "edgy humor" but at this point, a zero tolerance policy for that should be adopted.

I may have more thoughts later.
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Re: How Do We Expand and Improve Our Writing Community?

Post by Mike Bentley »

women, fire and dangerous things wrote: Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:07 pm The crossword constructing community has long had a similar problem with lack of diversity. The constructors of crosswords in mainstream venues are overwhelmingly white and male, and while there's still a long way to go, the community has made great strides in the last few years. And there are a lot of parallels between Quizbowl writing and crossword construction - most relevantly, both involve a balance between introducing diverse content while still maintaining playability/solvability.

There are also some major structural differences between the two communities that make the task of increasing diversity more difficult in the case of Quizbowl, but I think the parallels are still instructive. I help run a Facebook group called the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory whose goal is to help aspiring constructors from underrepresented groups get started, and it's made a significant difference in the few years it's been around. Clark's suggestion sounds like it's along the same lines, and I think it's a great idea; mentorship resources like WORKSHOP and the PACE mentorship program are very valuable, but I think it's also valuable to have a way to spread the work of mentorship across a larger group. While the community server itself could serve as a centralized hub for new writers to hone their craft, it could also, just as importantly, serve as a place to set up mentorship relationships that take place elsewhere.

In any case, my experience with the Collaboration Directory has given me some ideas about what kinds of setups/ground rules tend to work well for this kind of resource - if the community server ends up happening, I'd be happy to help with setup/administration/etc.
One dynamic that seems a little different to me as an outsider to the crossword community is that I think there's a difference in the supply and demand between writers and "events" (tournaments in the case of quizbowl, crosswords being published for crosswords). My impression is that the overwhelming majority of crossword consumption happens at a handful of newspapers (New York Times and what have you) that have limited space since they only publish one puzzle a day / week. There is an indie crossword scene but the audience for this is a lot smaller.

With quizbowl, obviously, we're mostly confined to the equivalent of that indie scene.

There are some quizbowl events that are more prestigious than others. I'm not involved in the ACF editing discussions but I'm guessing there's some degree of competitiveness to them.

On the other hand, for many events just getting 1 editor for a category often comes down to personal appeals from the head editor. In other words, it's more or less open to any qualified person who wants to put in the work. And the writing bar is even lower, as almost no tournament has an upper limit on the number of writers. It's possible to get crowded out in a category if there's some prolific writer writing faster / more than you, but it's very much in your power to just produce more if you want to.

I recognize that one reason for the low application rate in open calls is due to what Susan mentions: people won't feel qualified and may not apply on their own without outreach / encouragement. It does take some degree of hubris to pitch yourself as an ACF Nationals editor for the first time. But the bar is much lower for most tournaments and in practice is often open to anyone who wants to put in the time to be a writer (I realize not everyone may have this time or an equal amount of it, but ultimately writing / editing takes a lot of time and there isn't really a way around this).

All of which to say is that for non-writers, the barrier for writing at elite quizbowl levels may be less than you think it is. Many editors will be happy to work with someone who is motivated and has done the initial work of coming to terms with the basics of question writing.
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Re: How Do We Expand and Improve Our Writing Community?

Post by Tejas »

I wanted to discuss the PACE mentorship program a bit further as a way to provide opportunities for writers. Victor Prieto started the program a few years ago as a way for newer writers to develop their skills and Ophir will be running it this upcoming year. One of the program's key components is a totally anonymous application process, where applicants are judged purely on the effort shown in their submission rather than on personal qualities, connections or reputation. Of course, being part of the program should help form some of those connections, as well as develop skill and confidence in writing abilities. Applications for the program are due tomorrow so I'd encourage anyone who is looking for a way to get more involved in writing and entering the quizbowl community to apply, or contact Ophir if you have any questions about the program.
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Re: How Do We Expand and Improve Our Writing Community?

Post by Ike »

A couple of people have reached out to me about this post, and I want to relay a particular incident that has stuck with me for a long time.

At an HSNCT, there was a bonus part on John Wayne (I think) which our teams failed to convert. I remarked “ugh, I hate trash” in this tournament. The moderator paused the clock, and berated me, saying “John Wayne isn’t trash; he’s an American cultural icon!”

Let me share a bit about my childhood: I was often turned off by media that depicted homosexuality in a bad light, or just reinforced traditional values of masculinity. I too always wondered why every Hollywood lead actor had to be white and male. Therefore, one of the reasons that NAQT’s trash distribution really put me off was precisely because it was not only filled with asking about white, male figures, but that if you played the question on in its terms, it took it for granted that in the player’s Background you accept them as “cultural icons.” In 2021, I can say that Red River is one of my favorite western movies, and that in some sense John Wayne does deserve to be remembered despite his terrible politics; but I think when you are writing questions for say high schoolers, its perhaps worth remembering that even if you’re an educated white, male, writer who is aware of the problematic politics of someone like John Wayne, writing a question probing his movies, and asking about small little details isn’t going to play the same: for the teenage version of me those movies were nigh unwatchable precisely because I was so questioning at the time. I think in so many of these trash questions (and to some extent academic questions,) the questions favored those whose Background was straight, white, male.

Our writing has improved to the point that even if we ask a question on say Edgar Allan Poe, we can cite--implicitly or explicitly, scholars whose views address Poe’s views on racism. That requires that you read the entirety of Poe’s corpus to make an informed thesis. I think quizbowl works in 2021 because you can read the entirety of Poe’s corpus to address his views on racism and enjoy Poe’s works despite its problematic aspects. I think the important part is figuring out what Background your question or question set assumes in its players, and writing appropriately. It is probably impossible to course correct entirely, but I think small changes can be made on all levels. I want to make it very clear here, I’m not calling for bowdlerization of the canon; I truly believe that much of my best growth has come out of intelligent writers forcing me to engage with dead white European authors in a new lens.

Just because we are more enlightened doesn’t mean there is still work to be done. In fact I would argue that we’ve barely scratched the surface. For example, its 2021, and Hollywood still has a very hard time casting Asian actors and actresses in lead roles. I can say that one of the reasons I got into JRPGs and other weeb content so much is because yeah, I just was sick of seeing Asians portrayed only in these dumbass side roles (like Cato in the Pink Panther). I’m not saying that tossing up anime every packet is the solution, but when you consider that a rather influential member of the community made it deeply uncomfortable to talk about anime etc. for so long, how about considering why so many of us loved anime in the first place next time?

So if you think that one solution is to limit your pop culture to what’s happened in the last five years, I would say that’s nowhere near good enough. So to NAQT or whoever else uses pop culture in their tournaments, how about putting editorship in the hands of someone who is not a straight, white, male? They probably are more keen on issues such as Hollywood’s inability to cast Asian actors, etc. And support them: if in playtesting they produce a question that is too hard, realize that the hardness of the question is probably a result of their background, and work in ways to keep the spirit of their question.

If you look at the last 10 years of who has edited Chicago Open, there have only been two non-straight, non-white head editors: me and Auroni Gupta. “Coincidentally,” those sets were the two hardest COs in the same time span. I cannot speak for Auroni, but I would wager that the difficulty of those sets was a result of our backgrounds being non-straight, non-white and for one of us, non-male. I do think that the alternate universe in which a straight, white, male Ike plays quizbowl also is an Ike with a more controlled sense of difficulty. Over the years, several of the most “difficulty uncontrolled” writers that I’ve encountered were definitely not straight, definitely not male, and definitely not white? And why is that? Well my guess is that since even before they played quizbowl, they engaged with material in a way that’s much different than the mass of quizbowlers. So yeah, I would argue that even things like “difficulty control” “playability” and “accessibility” while important, have often been spouted off by people who don’t realize that what they’re doing is reinforcing a straight, white, male background.
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Re: How Do We Expand and Improve Our Writing Community?

Post by caroline »

A few thoughts:

I have sometimes received criticism that my writing is too diverse; though what this actually means tends to vary, it usually means “your writing about members of minorities is too difficult.” (The jury still seems to be out on whether my writing about those of more privileged backgrounds is too difficult. My too-difficult question on X white man appears to exist in some sort of vacuum, where its overshooting of difficulty seems to have no relation to X’s demographics, but rather my own misjudgment of the available range of clues about X. However, if I write a too-difficult question on a woman, it must be because of my efforts to include more women as a whole in the canon rather than the aforementioned misjudgment or simply liking that specific woman too much. Sometimes I just write a lot of questions about women writers because I read a lot of books by women and editors often write about what they read.)

While I don’t think this criticism is inherently misogynistic / racist / etc, and typically comes from a place of good intentions and a desire to help improve my writing (and I genuinely appreciate that!), one must consider, both when making this criticism and reacting to it, the appropriate solution to fix this issue. I think often people (both the writer and receiver of the critique) have assumed this means “you simply need to write about fewer minorities.” While I don’t think that is true, I have written before on the topic of writing about minorities in a difficulty-appropriate fashion, so I will instead discuss the ways we have approached posing and reacting to this criticism.

Consider, for example, that you are a subject editor, and your writer has written a question about X very difficult person (let’s say that X has never come up before), who is a member of a minority. To be more specific, let’s say it’s a tossup in a 3-dot set, which is 2018 ACF Regionals difficulty. This scenario has probably happened to a fairly large amount of editors, especially if you work with newer writers with a poor sense of difficulty control.

Knowing X is far too difficult to be a tossup answerline, how do you approach this situation? Do you immediately tell them, “No, this can’t be a tossup,” and if so, do you make them write a new tossup on something difficulty-appropriate, or wait for someone else to write a new tossup, or write a new one yourself? Do you, without telling them, just delete the tossup? Do you try to edit the tossup yourself, without consulting them, into something more difficulty-appropriate, such as a common link which clues X? Do you offer feedback to this writer, and what sort of feedback?

Consider the same scenario again, but instead X is not a member of a minority. Do you react differently? Do you think differently of this? (Going back to my parenthetical note earlier: do you assume this is a misguided attempt to Write More Diversely, or do you simply think, as you likely would if X was a straight white American dude, “eh, they just don’t know the canon that well, whatever”?)

I ask these questions because while we frequently ponder the question of how to write more diverse question content, there has been less consideration of the interpersonal processes and collaborative effort required to actually ensure diverse content makes it into the packet. Editors have majorly reworked my questions (often removing much or all of the “diverse” content) or deleted them entirely, and I have also done the exact same to others as an editor myself*. I have been told many, many times that X clue, answerline, theme, whatever about a woman / person of color / etc. is too difficult, and thus that question idea (or fully written question) does not make it into the set. Sometimes I argue with them, and sometimes I don’t because they’re right or because I’m tired and I pick my battles. Sometimes editors have offered me solutions or compromises: we can put this as a leadin, replace these clues, so on and so forth. Sometimes they just say no and I don’t know what to do besides get rid of it, especially back when I was a less experienced writer who didn’t have the knowledge required to easily pivot to new ideas. Sometimes when I voice my self-doubt about whether something is too difficult, my editors have actually advocated for me (in private conversations, playtesting servers, discussion forums, etc.), which has been quite nice.

*Unless they have been incredibly unresponsive to feedback (in the sense that they are not replying to anything I say, not that they keep disagreeing with me), it is exceptionally rare for me to throw out a question by an inexperienced writer who I’m mentoring. Unfortunately, I have not always done the same for more experienced writers who I do not mentor so much as just make sure their questions are in good shape and vibe with the set. I have generally strived to offer all my writers as much feedback and time to make revisions as needed, but I do not manage my time perfectly and sometimes rewriting or replacing it myself is the only thing that works on a major deadline crunch, something I try to avoid whenever possible.

Now, a couple more thought exercises, involving variations on the same scenario:
1. Rather than being so difficult X has literally never come up before, it has instead come up a decent amount in the upper canon and has been clued many times at this level, but it has never been a tossup answerline at this level before. If you allowed this answerline, it would be in the top ~10% of hardest answerlines in the set. Do you still allow this? What if there’s already a preponderance of overly difficult answerlines?
2. Your set uses a system where writers can claim an answerline before actually writing it, so you are able to comment on their claims (and potentially tell them “don’t do this”) before they’ve expounded the effort to write an entire question. What do you comment?
3. The question is a bonus, rather than a tossup. I include this exercise because bonuses tend to have more flexibility in the possible range of answerlines and clues. After all (assuming standard collegiate set length limits), you only need 1-4 lines of clues per answerline in a bonus, rather than 7+ ones with the additional restriction of being pyramidal.
4. X is “trendy” in the sense it is a harder and more contemporary answerline (e.g. a work of contemporary literature, been on the news a lot recently, etc). It hasn’t come up much in quizbowl as a whole, but has been mentioned in many quizbowl sets in the last 1-2 years. Do you worry about its recent popularity affecting gameplay (and why)?
5. This question writer is not an inexperienced mentee, but instead a very experienced writer who has an excellent track record and strongly insists that this question is difficulty-appropriate.
6. This is a very hard set, let’s say ACF Nationals or CO, where it is far from unheard of to toss up things that have never come up before (but you still believe X is still too difficult).
7. The specific writer you are working with does this sort of thing regularly, i.e. it is a clear pattern that they don’t have a good grasp of difficulty or the quizbowl canon.

We could also consider this problem from the angle of many different relationships with regard to the feedback-offerer and feedback-giver (assuming that you are actually giving feedback and didn’t just delete the question):
- Instead of a subject editor talking to their writer relationship, you are instead a subject editor who is looking at the questions in another subject, which are under the jurisdiction of another subject editor.
- You are a writer talking to another writer or editor—for example, if they playtested a question on you.
- And finally, circling back to where I began this from: you are a player who is offering feedback on a set.

I will leave those scenarios there to be considered, but I will talk a bit more on two of the previous numbered scenarios: #5 and #7. With regard to #5, my general experience is that more experienced writers are often more willing to advocate for themselves and their choices, offer a detailed and well-articulated rationale for why they have tossed up something so difficult, etc., because they are more confident that they are a good writer who knows what they’re doing and has a grasp of the canon. The assumption they have those qualities is not an assumption you should make of any writers, but especially not more inexperienced ones, who may not have the confidence required for that level of self-advocacy and thus aren’t willing to explain to you why they deemed their hypothetical X worth tossing up (or don’t know how to articulate it well).

Maybe X is actually really important, or has been overdue to be introduced into the canon for years, or the writer is writing from their non-straight / non-male / etc. background, whatever. You’ll never know if you make assumptions about the writer’s motivation in asking about this and are not willing to give their ideas a chance (in some other, more difficulty-appropriate form). In my case, it has led me to internalize that many of my interests and life experiences as a bisexual Chinese person (who usually presents as extremely feminine) are inherently too difficult or not worth asking about, something I am constantly working to unlearn now that I find myself in editorship positions with more authority (or even as a writer with other editors with similar values and concerns).

With regard to #7, I am of the personal view that someone who has the interest to try include more diverse content in sets (especially one coming from a minority background) should be encouraged to do so, even if they don’t appear to have their writing technicals (such as difficulty calibration) down yet. Offer them advice on how to better understand how to write difficulty-appropriate questions; do not view their inclination for diverse content as a weakness or idiosyncrasy you have to put up with. (A disclaimer that I haven’t followed all the advice I’ve laid out in this post—teaching other writers has been a learning process, and I’ve made my share of mistakes in helping both myself and others grow as writers and editors.)

I will end with two thoughts I’ve been considering a lot recently:
1. We often talk about “accessibility” in sets. Accessible to who? There is no “average” quizbowl player when it comes to demographics; knowledge is a spectrum of many dimensions, not a linear scale, and what may be incredibly easy knowledge for one demographic may be quite difficult for another.
2. Part of difficulty-appropriate writing is having a grasp of what your audience knows. Quizbowlers often fall into certain demographics: male, white or Asian, middle/upper-class, educated, etc., and quizbowl writing thus caters to those demographics. How are we to change these demographics if we are not willing to change the things you have to know? How can you expect, for example, more women to play quizbowl if we are not willing to demand that women take up more space in our canon of knowledge? I am not suggesting all sets, beginning from tomorrow, should have a perfect gender balance without any regard for the canon As It Is, but that we should start writing toward there (the As It Should Be, and as it could be).
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