A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

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A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by kdroge »

This is the announcement for a Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (or SCT, if you will), the main site of which will be held on Zoom July 31st 2021. This is a slightly above regular difficulty, slightly whimsical set with tossups and bonuses, with proceeds going to charity.

Overview / Genesis: A little less than a year ago I started writing some questions that I thought would just be part of a packet reading at some point, but as the pandemic dragged on the set sort of gained a life of its own. The set is a combination between stuff I like / am interested in, stuff I wanted to learn / read / write about, stuff I think is important / should be asked about, and ordinary quizbowl fare. Thus, this set is a closer to a normal quiz bowl set than a vanity set, but that being said it certainly reflects my interests and has more whimsy than a normal set would.

Difficulty: I have tried my best to write a set that is accessible to anyone who would be interested in playing a college regular difficulty quiz bowl event, while maintaining interest and challenge for veteran players. I'm calling this "slightly above regular difficulty." I have stuck to a hard rule of having no tossup answer lines and no middle bonus parts that are random Chicago Open-level hard things. There are a decent amount of common links and such, but answer lines are by and large gettable, and most draw from works / events / etc. that are in the canon. Those tossup answer lines that are harder are more likely to be deep cuts about notable stuff than something that few people will have heard of. Overall, I'll reiterate that I've tried very hard not to go overboard in terms of difficulty; if you're on the fence about playing this set because you think that it might be too hard, I encourage you to give it a try!

Format / Length: My goal is to write ten packets of 20/20, and as of July 13th the set is 95% complete with the remaining answer lines and topics selected. In other words, this tournament is for sure happening. Tossups are 500-525 characters in length (soft caps, but I think so far only one or two tossups are not in this range), which for reference is a bit longer than NAQT DI tossups; my goal was to have a length that allowed for the common links that I wanted to write and that would keep the pace moving for online play while having a bit of meat to tossups. Bonuses have thirty points available; as a throwback, a small number of bonuses (less than 10% of bonuses in total) will use the 30-20-10 and 5-10-20-30 formats.

Distribution: I am using a modified version of a standard quiz bowl distribution that cuts some science and adds some my choice. Here is the top level breakdown with notes on some of the trends specific to my interests, per packet:

4/4 Literature (1/1 anglo, 1/1 Euro/World, 2/2 any; varied by time period, place, and genre; there is more British literature and less super-contemporary literature than you would expect to find in a normal quiz bowl set of this difficulty; the genres of mystery and science-fiction are represented in this set)
4/4 History (1/1 American, 1/1 Euro, 1/1 World, 1/1 any; balanced by time period and place; there are a fair amount of questions on names, nicknames, surnames, etc.; military history and economic history are represented in this set, hopefully in a fresh and interesting way)
2/2 Science (I am no scientist, so this is written from the layman's perspective; there is some "real" science but also expect stuff like zoology, history of science, applications of science, popular science, connections between science and other academic topics, etc.; technically the breakdown is 1/1 bio/chem and 1/1 physics/other)
1/1 Belief (about half and half religion and myth, with some common links and overlap)
1/1 Thought (about half and half philosophy and social science)
2/2 Fine Arts (1/1 Visual, the other 1/1 is split about half and half between auditory and miscellaneous)
1/1 Modern World and Geography (about half and half of each, with some common links and overlap)
1/1 Popular Culture (movies, games, and television; some balance given to time period)
4/4 Mixed, General Knowledge, Other, My Choice (grab bag; there's a fair amount of additional literature and some additional history; questions spanning multiple topics are slotted here; there's some additional fine arts as well since 2/2 per packet was a bit low)

Entry Fees / Charity: To play this tournament, consider making a contribution to a charity related either to cancer, to food relief, or to pandemic relief. If none of these causes appeal to you, you can pick something else, but please choose something that is apolitical and non-controversial. Donate whatever you believe is appropriate for the event and what is within your means. If you're not able to contribute (or you don't want to), then I have absolutely no issue with people playing the tournament for free.

Sign-Up Sheet: Here is a link to a sign-up sheet for the tournament. Especially since there are bonuses, my intent is for this tournament to be played with teams of four (it is semi-serious, after all!), but I am open to adjusting depending on what people want and the field size. There is also a place to sign up as a free agent or to staff. I am looking for someone who has knowledge and/or experience of running a discord tournament to either set up the tournament bot for me or to walk me through how to do it- contact me if interested.

Tournament Date: Based on the results of the poll, this tournament will be held 7/31/2021.

For any questions or concerns about this tournament, feel free to PM me or email me at [email protected].

Edited with updated date of the tournament and with updated completion progress.
Last edited by kdroge on Mon Jul 19, 2021 12:41 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (Discord Summer/Fall 2021)

Post by dni »

The sign-up spreadsheet appears to be view only.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (Discord Summer/Fall 2021)

Post by kdroge »

dni wrote: Wed Jun 30, 2021 2:56 am The sign-up spreadsheet appears to be view only.
Fixed, sorry about that!
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (Discord Summer/Fall 2021)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

Could I ask when the date will be decided by?
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (Discord Summer/Fall 2021)

Post by kdroge »

The King's Flight to the Scots wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 10:47 am Could I ask when the date will be decided by?
I'm planning on deciding the date this evening (so for anyone who hasn't voted in the poll yet, get in your votes this afternoon).

Edit: Based on the results of the poll, the date for this tournament will be July 31st.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by VSCOelasticity »

Posting this so people see an unread post and hopefully check the tournament date. I could've missed the date decision since it was just edited in.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by Liarr »

This tournament seems like a great idea, and thank you for writing and organizing it! Would it be possible to hold the main site's games over Zoom and buzzin.live rather than Discord? Having played or staffed 3 Zoom tournaments and many Discord tournaments over the past year, I find that Zoom combined with buzzin.live has 3 important advantages over Discord in terms of playing experience.

First, it's much easier to feel connected with your teammates. When I play Discord tournaments, I mostly have my camera feed in an alternate tab so as not to slow down my computer, so even on bonuses I usually cannot see the faces of the people I'm conferring with. During the two Zoom tournaments I've played, I was able to have my teammates in view all the time without meaningfully interfering with my ability to hear and play the questions. Speaking of which...

Second, at every Discord tournament I've played, at some point (usually multiple points) the audio quality has gotten so bad that I am effectively locked out of buzzing on some tossups (or just some of their clues). Alternatively, I've been forced to leave and rejoin voice channels in the middle of tossups either because I suddenly couldn't hear anything at all or because the Discord app crashed. Meanwhile, I have played two Zoom tournaments so far (D2 ICT and the Canadian HSNCT open mirror) and experienced a total of 1 clue I was locked out of buzzing on (because a moderator began reading while the other team was still chatting about their bonus). Zoom's audio quality is much better than Discord's, and using it would increase the likelihood of each player getting to hear all of your questions.

Third, buzzin.live makes it much easier to monitor for cheating. On Discord I can raise one hand in front of my webcam during tossups, but in the tournaments I played with Zoom and buzzin.live, I had both my hands and the screen I was using to buzz visible for pretty much the entire time I was playing (this is easily achievable by buzzing with your phone and tilting the screen towards your webcam).

Overall, I think this tournament will be a better playing experience if it is held over Zoom and buzzin.live rather than Discord, and I hope you will consider making that change.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by kdroge »

Liarr wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 6:36 pm Overall, I think this tournament will be a better playing experience if it is held over Zoom and buzzin.live rather than Discord, and I hope you will consider making that change.
You make a lot of good points regarding the different platforms. It always sucks when technology / equipment issues / lag / internet / etc. adversely impact the experience of a quiz bowl tournament. If I remember correctly, there was a thread a while back in which people outlined some of the advantages and disadvantages of Zoom versus Discord, and there was no definitive consensus reached; the issue (again, if I recall correctly) is that people have had a wide range of different experiences- both positive and negative- using the different platforms. Objectively, I'm the wrong person to be asking which of the platforms is "better" or "worse."

For the purposes of this tournament, I have gone with Discord mainly because it seems like a lot of the comparable open tournaments / side events that I've played or read at over the past couple years have used Discord, and Discord has been anywhere from adequate to excellent as a platform for those tournaments. If players are having issues with cameras or lag during the tournament, that's something that I'd be more willing to be flexible with for this tournament than at a tournament like HSNCT or a similar national championship. One issue with Zoom specifically for this tournament is that it seems like the free plan places time limits on group calls; a university or an organization such as NAQT might be able to afford Zoom fees but that's not something that I really want to mess with.

I was already leaning towards using buzzin.live for this tournament, in no small part because of the reasons you outlined. So, for now I'm going to stick with Discord + buzzin.live.

On a sort of unrelated update, I can confirm that the tournament will in fact have ten packets, and is 95% written as of right now.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by Liarr »

kdroge wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 2:15 pm
Liarr wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 6:36 pm Overall, I think this tournament will be a better playing experience if it is held over Zoom and buzzin.live rather than Discord, and I hope you will consider making that change.
You make a lot of good points regarding the different platforms. It always sucks when technology / equipment issues / lag / internet / etc. adversely impact the experience of a quiz bowl tournament. If I remember correctly, there was a thread a while back in which people outlined some of the advantages and disadvantages of Zoom versus Discord, and there was no definitive consensus reached; the issue (again, if I recall correctly) is that people have had a wide range of different experiences- both positive and negative- using the different platforms. Objectively, I'm the wrong person to be asking which of the platforms is "better" or "worse."

For the purposes of this tournament, I have gone with Discord mainly because it seems like a lot of the comparable open tournaments / side events that I've played or read at over the past couple years have used Discord, and Discord has been anywhere from adequate to excellent as a platform for those tournaments. If players are having issues with cameras or lag during the tournament, that's something that I'd be more willing to be flexible with for this tournament than at a tournament like HSNCT or a similar national championship. One issue with Zoom specifically for this tournament is that it seems like the free plan places time limits on group calls; a university or an organization such as NAQT might be able to afford Zoom fees but that's not something that I really want to mess with.

I was already leaning towards using buzzin.live for this tournament, in no small part because of the reasons you outlined. So, for now I'm going to stick with Discord + buzzin.live.

On a sort of unrelated update, I can confirm that the tournament will in fact have ten packets, and is 95% written as of right now.
Thank you for this detailed response, and for the adoption of buzzin.live. However, I do still think that I can address some of your concerns about using Zoom for this tournament. For very large tournaments like ICT and HSNCT, NAQT created many Zoom rooms, one for each game going on simultaneously. Naturally, this would be prohibitively difficult for you. The much smaller (8 or 9 team) Canadian ICT and HSNCT mirrors that were run in the past two months required only one (premium) Zoom room for the entire tournament, with the 4 games happening at any one time taking place in breakout rooms. A schedule was posted in a Discord server that was used for organization and communication, so (with the right Zoom permissions) the players could just assign themselves to their own games. All that this setup requires is one staffer with a premium Zoom account. You do not have to be an institution or a university to make this work.

I believe the last forum thread to discuss the relative merits of Zoom and Discord was this one: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=24639, "Online Quiz Bowl Can Be Improved", from November 2020. I think it is worth rereading; many strong points were made regarding the usefulness of Zoom for online tournaments, and as far as I can tell the only person in that thread to actually advocate for Discord over Zoom was Will Alston, who since then has modified that position, saying in a Quizbowl Discord post on April 18, 2021 that "I would still prefer Discord for playtesting tournaments or any event where quick, immediate feedback is the most valuable thing you can get", "However, Zoom's reliability is better for regular season events". I don't think the lesson from that thread should be that no consensus was reached. Rather, the fact that these strategies for improving online quizbowl were being set out in November, well before any major tournament had used Zoom+buzzin.live, should show that frustration with Discord tournaments and the means to do something about it have been around for a while. I think that whatever community consensus exists over this issue shifted well toward the side of Zoom after the success of ICT, and subsequent Canadian mirrors of Zoom tournaments have proven that this format is not just for large quizbowl organizations, but a viable option for regular tournaments like this one.

Your willingness to be flexible if players have camera issues is appreciated, but personally I would rather not play an online tournament than play one with my camera off, even if it were to improve my audio quality.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by Smuttynose Island »

Just throwing my support behind a Zoom tournament.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by kdroge »

Liarr wrote: Sun Jul 18, 2021 2:12 pm I think that whatever community consensus exists over this issue shifted well toward the side of Zoom after the success of ICT, and subsequent Canadian mirrors of Zoom tournaments have proven that this format is not just for large quizbowl organizations, but a viable option for regular tournaments like this one.
You've made a pretty convincing argument- clearly I was unaware about how the consensus on this issue had shifted, and exactly what would be required in terms of premium Zoom accounts in order to host an event of this scale. We'll use Zoom + Buzzin.live for the event instead of Discord.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by Cheynem »

Thank you!
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by Mike Bentley »

Are we going to have enough staff to run this tournament? I only see one person signed up right now. I'd be happy to pay an entry fee apart from the donations to help attract staffers.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by kdroge »

Mike Bentley wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 11:24 am Are we going to have enough staff to run this tournament? I only see one person signed up right now. I'd be happy to pay an entry fee apart from the donations to help attract staffers.
Yeah, I've been thinking about this- I'll offer $25 to anyone willing to moderate for this tournament. I don't want to go back on letting people play the event for free, so there will be an optional fee to help cover logistical costs for teams playing the tournament, and I'll make up the difference out of pocket. I'd greatly appreciate anyone who could help staff.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by kdroge »

I just wanted to bump this to say that there are a couple more days to sign up for this tournament for anyone who is interested. On Wednesday evening, I'll assign the remaining free agents to teams and form new teams as needed, and I'll look to send out a logistics email either Wednesday night or Thursday morning.

I'm also still looking for staff for this tournament, which will be compensated $25 (and its helping out some good causes)!
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by kdroge »

I have closed the field at twelve teams, and a logistics email has been sent out to the teams registered to play this tournament.

Bumping this one more time to state that I'd be very appreciative if anyone would be willing to help sign up to staff this tournament- the event currently needs (at least) two more staff to run. As I stated before, there is a $25 payment for staffers, and it would be helping out some good causes.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by VSCOelasticity »

kdroge wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 2:32 pm Yeah, I've been thinking about this- I'll offer $25 to anyone willing to moderate for this tournament. I don't want to go back on letting people play the event for free, so there will be an optional fee to help cover logistical costs for teams playing the tournament, and I'll make up the difference out of pocket. I'd greatly appreciate anyone who could help staff.
What is your Venmo or Paypal account name for those who want to/are able to help with the staff costs? I didn't see it in the logistics e-mail.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by kdroge »

VSCOelasticity wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:28 pm What is your Venmo or Paypal account name for those who want to/are able to help with the staff costs? I didn't see it in the logistics e-mail.
My Venmo is @Kurtis-Droge (or I believe can just be found by searching Kurtis Droge), and my Paypal is linked to my email [email protected].

Eleven teams and six staffers are confirmed for tomorrow. One team dropped from the field last night, so there are currently four open spots for free agents. If anyone wants to play this tournament at the last minute, please email me and there should be space. If no one else signs on, I will move the four free agents that I recently assigned to empty spots to form a free agents team, as I think that having a few teams of three is better than having a bye/scrimmage round.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by kdroge »

A big thanks to everyone who played and staffed the tournament! Ten rounds were played, and Como Pizza Para Chocolate (Mott Bollinger, Rob Carson, Alex Damisch, and Andrew Wang) and Team 4 (Natan Holtzman, Tracy Mirkin, Tim Morrison, and Vishwa Shanmugam) finished the upper bracket of the playoffs at 4-1. Como Pizza had 383 PPG in the playoffs compared to 366 PPG in the playoffs for Team 4, so Como Pizza are declared the champions and Team 4 are the runners up.

Stats for the tournament are up.

I'm probably going to gauge interest in a second reading of the set at some future date, so I'm not going to post the questions yet, but anyone who played the tournament is welcome to email me for a copy of the set.
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Re: A Semi-Serious Charity Tournament (7/31/2021)

Post by Good Goblin Housekeeping »

this set is an absolute blast
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