VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

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VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Senator_Jay »

Hey everyone! Sorry for the long wait, I've been busy working 7 days a week and being sick the past few. However, McMaster will be hosting a VETO mirror for SW Ontario, and we're going to put the cap at about 14 teams (we have just enough rooms for that). I'm still awaiting room-bookedness confirmation, and if I don't get it by tonight I'll be heading back to the place to get that. Regardless, we will have the space. As well, any teams that may be flying in or driving from an extreme distance who want cheap accomodations, let me know; I can get you guys deals to stay cheaply in res at Mac. I'll send out more details soon!

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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by naturalistic phallacy »

When will this be?
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Senator_Jay »

It'll be July 18, a Saturday. I believe the pack submission deadline is July 2nd? But packets are to be edited by other teams, so if you're planning on entering, write a pack and find a team willing to swap with yours.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Camelopardalis »

Guelph should be able to send a team or two to the Mac site. I'll be playing at the Ottawa site, either with whoever from Guelph can make the trip north, or with Lisgar alumni.

EDIT: Missed above post about date.
Last edited by Camelopardalis on Thu Jun 04, 2009 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Broad-tailed Grassbird »

Can you provide some more info on this tournament? What is the difficulty level?
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by DumbJaques »

Can you provide some more info on this tournament? What is the difficulty level?
Surrealism.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

DumbJaques wrote:
Can you provide some more info on this tournament? What is the difficulty level?
Surrealism.
you have been given a pair of chopsticks and the head of elisha otis. for 6 points each:
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

Ukonvasara wrote: you have been given a pair of chopsticks and the head of elisha otis. for 6 points each:
1) spell VETO
2) build a mirror
3) build a compass; narrate driving directions to Iqaluit
4) chicken dance
5) this bonus is not thirty points
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by DumbJaques »

My favorite VETO bonus was a 15-5 masterpiece where you were given a lyric, and you had to identify the song for 5 points, or perform the song's titular action for 15 points. The first song was "Blow up the Outside World."
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

DumbJaques wrote:My favorite VETO bonus was a 15-5 masterpiece where you were given a lyric, and you had to identify the song for 5 points, or perform the song's titular action for 15 points. The first song was "Blow up the Outside World."
The second one was "Dig a Pony"! Apparently it was written as a protest against action bonuses.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Auroni »

will you be accepting freelance packets?
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by DumbJaques »

Upon thorough reflection, you could probably accomplish these bonuses by opening a window and blowing, balloon-style, and by eying someone's ponytail approvingly.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by grapesmoker »

My signature is an actually a real VETO question (edit: it might have been a question at the Ottawa Hybrid Tournament; not sure). Please make sure that future VETO questions are not like this. If you're interested in a freelance packet, let us know what the difficulty level is and I'll certainly try to write one.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by women, fire and dangerous things »

If good writers are going to be contributing freelance packets to this, I might actually play it.

It's good that some sort of editing practice is being instituted, but having teams edit each other's packets seems pointless. Having a central editing team would be ideal; I'd volunteer if I weren't already writing for HSAPQ and editing ACF Fall. But the most important, I think, is to come up with a set of packet guidelines for teams to follow (and not the inane ones on the VETO website which call for high doses of funn, multimedia bonuses, and tossups on Amor de Cosmos), or just teams which are submitting packets to read the guidelines on the ACF website or whatever.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Charbroil »

grapesmoker wrote:My signature is an actually a real VETO question
I have to admit, I'm really confused--was the question wrong (about the escaping to England in 1848 part) or is there some King of France I'm not getting?
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Terrible Shorts Depot »

Charbroil wrote:
grapesmoker wrote:My signature is an actually a real VETO question
I have to admit, I'm really confused--was the question wrong (about the escaping to England in 1848 part) or is there some King of France I'm not getting?
It's a terrible, no good, awful question with Jerry's name subbed in for the answer. What's not to get?
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Camelopardalis »

women, fire and dangerous things wrote:If good writers are going to be contributing freelance packets to this, I might actually play it.

It's good that some sort of editing practice is being instituted, but having teams edit each other's packets seems pointless. Having a central editing team would be ideal; I'd volunteer if I weren't already writing for HSAPQ and editing ACF Fall. But the most important, I think, is to come up with a set of packet guidelines for teams to follow (and not the inane ones on the VETO website which call for high doses of funn, multimedia bonuses, and tossups on Amor de Cosmos), or just teams which are submitting packets to read the guidelines on the ACF website or whatever.
Hey, Reach does exist beyond high school. :aaa:
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by grapesmoker »

Charbroil wrote:
grapesmoker wrote:My signature is an actually a real VETO question
I have to admit, I'm really confused--was the question wrong (about the escaping to England in 1848 part) or is there some King of France I'm not getting?
Umm... besides being a terrible question in general, it actually contains information referring to two distinct individuals.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by at your pleasure »

To be precise, Jerry's signature conflates Louis XVI(King of France from 1774-1789, then possibly, but not certainly, King of The French from 1789-1792) and Louis-Philippe(King of The French, reigned 1830-1848).
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Mike Bentley »

women, fire and dangerous things wrote:If good writers are going to be contributing freelance packets to this, I might actually play it.

It's good that some sort of editing practice is being instituted, but having teams edit each other's packets seems pointless. Having a central editing team would be ideal; I'd volunteer if I weren't already writing for HSAPQ and editing ACF Fall. But the most important, I think, is to come up with a set of packet guidelines for teams to follow (and not the inane ones on the VETO website which call for high doses of funn, multimedia bonuses, and tossups on Amor de Cosmos), or just teams which are submitting packets to read the guidelines on the ACF website or whatever.
For what it's worth I'm going to the Vancouver site and will be editing a packet.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Senator_Jay »

Wow, that's a lot of posts already, mostly about Jerry Vinokurov though. Well, we're capping at 14 teams, and it's entry through pack-submission; if anyone wants to write a freelance pack, by all means, but each of the attending teams should be writing their own 1 or 2 packets. As for content, there's a certain level of Canadian content, etc. If anyone wants the info forwarded to them about such details, feel free to email me at <[email protected]>, and I'll do my best to reply asap. Just let me know who you are and your QB affiliation, or else I'll junkify your email.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by DumbJaques »

If anyone wants the info forwarded to them about such details, feel free to email me at <[email protected]>, and I'll do my best to reply asap. Just let me know who you are and your QB affiliation, or else I'll junkify your email.
Uh, what? Are the details top secret or something? This just seems extraordinarily strange. Post them here dude, like every other tournament since the beginning of time.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Senator_Jay »

It would be cool if they were top secret, cause then I could probably make money off of selling the rules. Top secrets aside, I've only used this site once in the past, and don't often forumicize, so please forgive my lack of expertise. Here's the question-writing rules, as laid out by Peter McCorquodale:

Question Packets

Detailed question guidelines are on a separate web page, which includes a
section with useful links categorized by subject.
http://caql.org/events/veto09q.html

Rounds will be untimed, with 20 tossups played in each. But you will have to
write more than 20 tossups and 20 bonuses, because:
* if a game ends in a tie, you'll need extra questions to break it;
* if a question must be thrown out, for example because the moderator
reads the answer prematurely by mistake, then you'll need a replacement
for it;
* if a question asks about information that was repeated in a previous
VETO packet, you should also replace it, because it'll bore or irritate
the players who have just heard the same thing that day.

So your packet should include (at least):
* 24 tossups, each worth 10 points -- no 15-point "powers";
* 22 bonuses, each worth 30 points -- but no single-part, single-answer
questions.

Use the following subject distribution for both tossups and bonuses:

Science, Math, Technology 3 -- 4
History 3 -- 4
Literature 3 -- 4
Geography 2 -- 3
Current Events 2 -- 3
Fine Arts 1 -- 2
Religion, Philosophy, Mythology 1 -- 2
Social Science 1 -- 2
Popular Culture, Games, Sports 1 -- 2
General Knowledge 0 -- 3

Canadian content quota:
Of the first 20 tossups, at least 4 must refer to Canadian people, places,
things, events, and created works. The same goes for the first 20 bonuses.
But overall, don't exceed 50% Canadian content in your packet. Your Canadian
questions should also cover diverse subject areas and not be clustered in
Geography or Literature, etc.

Tossups should include at least two separate clues, preferably at least
four. Multiple-choice bonuses should be used sparingly, if at all, and
should provide at least four choices.

In order that we can keep to a reasonable schedule, questions must not be
too long:
* No tossup question, and no part of a bonus question, should be longer
than 6 lines if using a fixed-width font with 79 characters per line.
* No bonus question should ever require more than four separate team
conferrals.

To promote fun and variety, teams are encouraged to bring multimedia
questions (visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory). These tend to
work better as bonuses than as tossups. In Vancouver, cassette tape players
will be available for auditory questions in every room. Every packet must
contain at least one multimedia question: It can be as simple as presenting
a printout of a picture you found through http://images.google.com and
asking a few questions about the picture.

For our further amusement, we encourage rounds with hidden themes. In the
past four years, we've had:
* a packet in which every tossup answer was also the name of a school that
had participated in the SmartAsk TV game show;
* a packet in which every answer contained the name of an animal;
* a packet in which every answer contained the syllable "NI" (ending with
"the knights who say NI");
* a packet in which every tossup answer began with the letter T, and every
bonus had either answers beginning with the letter B or a theme that
began with the letter B;
* a packet in which every tossup answer had some connection to the number
two, and every bonus had some connection to the number three;
* a packet in which the answer to every tossup contained the number of the
tossup.

Aim for a difficulty level approximating that of Division I NAQT sectionals.

And do check out the detailed guidelines:
http://caql.org/events/veto09q.html
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by DumbJaques »

Tossups should include at least two separate clues
I found your problem!
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Camelopardalis »

Senator_Jay wrote: To promote fun and variety, teams are encouraged to bring multimedia
questions (visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory). These tend to
work better as bonuses than as tossups. In Vancouver, cassette tape players
will be available for auditory questions in every room. Every packet must
contain at least one multimedia question: It can be as simple as presenting
a printout of a picture you found through http://images.google.com and
asking a few questions about the picture.
What? Can I put my visual clues on Betamax?

Like, are we still using these rules? Cause I'm pretty sure these were written a long time ago, and since then we've come to the consensus that this stuff is no good. Call me Bill O'Reilly, but I don't like fun. Especially when it's not fun.
Senator_Jay wrote: For our further amusement, we encourage rounds with hidden themes. In the
past four years, we've had:
* a packet in which every tossup answer was also the name of a school that
had participated in the SmartAsk TV game show;
* a packet in which every answer contained the name of an animal;
* a packet in which every answer contained the syllable "NI" (ending with
"the knights who say NI");
* a packet in which every tossup answer began with the letter T, and every
bonus had either answers beginning with the letter B or a theme that
began with the letter B;
* a packet in which every tossup answer had some connection to the number
two, and every bonus had some connection to the number three;
* a packet in which the answer to every tossup contained the number of the
tossup.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't have fun when the team that watched the most SmartAsk gets the tossup instead of the team with more genuine knowledge about the topic.

This all just sounds like one big Reach for the Top tournament. I know these aren't your rules Jay, but is there some way that you can deem this stuff unacceptable?
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Senator_Jay »

Well Chris, I agree with you for the most part. Being technologically impaired, I'd like to limit the multimedia to preferably black-and-white photos or similarly simple paraphenalia, including use of the white board if necessary (we have white boards available!). As for themes; theme packets can be fun, but more so if they're like the "NI" pack; I remember playing that, and it seemed like a regular VETO pack until the theme was revealed at the last tossup. Otherwise, I've not found VETO to be very Reachish, so long as the questions are well-written. In response to an earlier post, the difficulty should be approx. Div 1 SCT (NAQT), and for this tournament, I repeat, there is a considerable portion of Canadian content! This is meant to be a fun meeting of trivialistos/as/es to break the general non-competitiveness of the summer. Also remember that the actual VETO tournament is being held and hosted in Vancouver, and there's another mirror in Ottawa, I don't think that variance across sites, intended or not, is out of the question.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by grapesmoker »

Hey, could I suggest that if you abandon your gimmicky-ass format and bring in a couple of competent editors, you might actually get some American teams that would enjoy playing a good quizbowl tournament while visiting Canada? I know that sounds awfully imperialistic of me, but the reason people are mocking this announcement is because VETO has been an irredeemable swamp of suckitude in years past, and we'd all be really excited if, just for once, it could look something like an actual quizbowl event and not some sort of horrible alternate reality that liquifies the brains of participants.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Mike Bentley »

Senator_Jay wrote:Also remember that the actual VETO tournament is being held and hosted in Vancouver, and there's another mirror in Ottawa, I don't think that variance across sites, intended or not, is out of the question.
Can you clarify what you mean by this? Are the same packets not going to be run at all the sites?
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by vetovian »

I just started another topic with more details about VETO (all three sites), here.
Bentley Like Beckham wrote:
Senator_Jay wrote:Also remember that the actual VETO tournament is being held and hosted in Vancouver, and there's another mirror in Ottawa, I don't think that variance across sites, intended or not, is out of the question.
Can you clarify what you mean by this? Are the same packets not going to be run at all the sites?
It has happened before that one or two questions in a packet will have two different versions, one to be played in Vancouver and the other to be played in Ontario.
Other than that, the way this works out with packet swaps is that at any one site, all of the packets written by teams at that site get used, but some of the packets written by teams at the other sites may or may not get used.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by vetovian »

Ukonvasara wrote: you have been given a pair of chopsticks and the head of elisha otis. for 6 points each:
Actually, a VETO bonus from 2007 was: given a pair of chopsticks and a box of Gobstoppers, pick up as many Gobstoppers as you can.
Senator_Jay wrote: It'll be July 18, a Saturday. I believe the pack submission deadline is July 2nd? But packets are to be edited by other teams, so if you're planning on entering, write a pack and find a team willing to swap with yours.
When you register your team, include the list of members who will be writing your packet. Teams that the VETO cabal deems to be relatively inexperienced at writing quiz bowl questions will be assigned an editor, and each such team should send its packet to its editor by July 5. Teams that don't get assigned an editor will have until the overall packet swap among teams at the three sites.
Chris G wrote: Like, are we still using these rules? Cause I'm pretty sure these were written a long time ago, and since then we've come to the consensus that this stuff is no good. Call me Bill O'Reilly, but I don't like fun. Especially when it's not fun.
Well, no, there is no such consensus. Seriously, what is it that makes all multimedia questions "no good"? I can understand complaints about the chopsticks question, because it doesn't test knowledge, but what about an auditory bonus that asks you to name a musical work from an excerpt, or a visual bonus that asks you to name something given a picture? Those kinds of questions test real knowledge in a form that most quiz bowl tournaments don't.
Chris G wrote: Maybe it's just me, but I don't have fun when the team that watched the most SmartAsk gets the tossup instead of the team with more genuine knowledge about the topic.
That was Andy's 2005 packet. I don't think anybody figured out the theme. In my experience at VETO, some players really enjoy packets with hidden themes. Of course, players might complain about some of the questions in such a packet, but I just haven't heard anyone complain about the theme itself.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Sir Thopas »

vetovian wrote:
Ukonvasara wrote: you have been given a pair of chopsticks and the head of elisha otis. for 6 points each:
Actually, a VETO bonus from 2007 was: given a pair of chopsticks and a box of Gobstoppers, pick up as many Gobstoppers as you can.
He knows. He is mocking you.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

vetovian wrote:
Chris G wrote: Like, are we still using these rules? Cause I'm pretty sure these were written a long time ago, and since then we've come to the consensus that this stuff is no good. Call me Bill O'Reilly, but I don't like fun. Especially when it's not fun.
Well, no, there is no such consensus. Seriously, what is it that makes all multimedia questions "no good"? I can understand complaints about the chopsticks question, because it doesn't test knowledge, but what about an auditory bonus that asks you to name a musical work from an excerpt, or a visual bonus that asks you to name something given a picture? Those kinds of questions test real knowledge in a form that most quiz bowl tournaments don't.
Okay, for the sake of argument I'll allow that testing one's ability to identify pieces by listening is a valuable advantage to multimedia questions. And if the requirement were one such question, I'd be tickled, though that would be ten points further out of my grasp. But let's look at some multimedia questions from past VETOs that have been lauded:
1) 2008, winner of the award "Best question on food from non-animal sources": an "edible bonus about flavours of crisps."
2) 2007, that Gobstopper bonus won the same award; in the same year the award for "Best music question" was withheld because "there was no question that Hanson thought merited a prize"

Just to list some questions straight up, let's look at packet one (only packet one!) of 2006. Measuring a brick, a mixed-genre 30-20-10 that plays part of the overture to L'italiana in algeri, a trash bonus that plays a clip from the movie version of Streetcar Named Desire, something involving a poster that involves flag identification (one bonus part), listening to part of a MacDonald speech, looking at a graph, looking at a picture of a trans-Canadian railroad or something, looking at "pictures of posters" of terrorist groups, looking at a fossil, looking at a map of Hokkaido, looking at a sculpture. That's just in packet one! And note that one bonus part of all of this involves listening to a piece of classical music and the rest is just weird shit. This comes as no surprise to the casually-mock-VETO crowd, but it apparently is news to you. Media questions are usually used for nonsense far more often than fine arts.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by at your pleasure »

Canadian content quota:
Of the first 20 tossups, at least 4 must refer to Canadian people, places,
things, events, and created works.
Do remind people to write about reasonably important canadian stuff and not random things justified soley because of their canadian-ness
Otherwise, I've not found VETO to be very Reachish, so long as the questions are well-written.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Rothlover »

How accessible is this from Buffalo for the sake of my curiousity?
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Camelopardalis »

Rothlover wrote:How accessible is this from Buffalo for the sake of my curiousity?
Probably just over an hour. I caught my train to the HSNCT from Buffalo and it was a really quick drive from St. Catharines. A lot of it depends on how long the lines are at the border.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Camelopardalis »

vetovian wrote:
Chris G wrote: Like, are we still using these rules? Cause I'm pretty sure these were written a long time ago, and since then we've come to the consensus that this stuff is no good. Call me Bill O'Reilly, but I don't like fun. Especially when it's not fun.
Well, no, there is no such consensus. Seriously, what is it that makes all multimedia questions "no good"? I can understand complaints about the chopsticks question, because it doesn't test knowledge, but what about an auditory bonus that asks you to name a musical work from an excerpt, or a visual bonus that asks you to name something given a picture? Those kinds of questions test real knowledge in a form that most quiz bowl tournaments don't.
Visual clues can be valuable, as can auditory clues, but it depends how they're used (identify the painter from these paintings, identify the process from this diagram, identify the song from the audio clip). If you want people to use them for valuable, knowledge-testing things only, then state so. I don't see any such stress on using them for only knowledge-testing questions that follow the practices of good quizbowl. And, as given in examples above, this has resulted in numerous instances of groan-illiciting, result-altering (poor) quizbowl.

Also, at first I thought the "gustatory, olfactory, tactile" thing was just a joke, and that no one would actually write anything with these in it. But similarly poor-planned bonuses have since been written. The CAQL website states this:
3. tactile
Bring something for players to handle, and ask questions about it. In 1999, Joel brought some leaves and asked the players to identify the trees they came from.
4. olfactory
Bring something for players to smell.
5. gustatory
Bring some food or drink and ask questions about it. (No alcohol, please.)
If you believe this is bad, then why is it still there? And if you believe it's valuable, then why not provide some form of justification for them?
vetovian wrote:
Chris G wrote: Maybe it's just me, but I don't have fun when the team that watched the most SmartAsk gets the tossup instead of the team with more genuine knowledge about the topic.
That was Andy's 2005 packet. I don't think anybody figured out the theme. In my experience at VETO, some players really enjoy packets with hidden themes. Of course, players might complain about some of the questions in such a packet, but I just haven't heard anyone complain about the theme itself.
But what if someone had figured out the relation? What if someone had deciphered the code of the "T" packet after two of the first three answers were "Mr. T" and the "t distribution test"? What if one team with more knowledge about each topic lost to a team with less knowledge about each topic, simply because someone figured out the connection? The former would have every right to be upset, and I doubt would "really enjoy" it. The groan that ensues after the theme is revealed is not equal to the value of running a legitimate tournament that produces legitimate results.

If this tournament is really just a chance for quizbowl players to get together, and, oh, play some quizbowl while they're at it, then there's possible justification for some of this funn. But if this is an attempt at a serious quizbowl tournament, then why include all this? Why not make this an opportunity for people to actually learn something to get better for the next quizbowl season?
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by vetovian »

everyday847 wrote:Okay, for the sake of argument I'll allow that testing one's ability to identify pieces by listening is a valuable advantage to multimedia questions. And if the requirement were one such question, I'd be tickled, though that would be ten points further out of my grasp.
OK, we agree in principle that some multimedia questions can improve the game.
everyday847 wrote:But let's look at some multimedia questions from past VETOs that have been lauded:
1) 2008, winner of the award "Best question on food from non-animal sources": an "edible bonus about flavours of crisps."
2) 2007, that Gobstopper bonus won the same award
Just because a question was the best one that fit some particular pre-announced criteria, that doesn't mean it was actually good. As for the crisps, I guess you had to be there.
everyday847 wrote:Just to list some questions straight up, let's look at packet one (only packet one!) of 2006. Measuring a brick, a mixed-genre 30-20-10 that plays part of the overture to L'italiana in algeri, a trash bonus that plays a clip from the movie version of Streetcar Named Desire, something involving a poster that involves flag identification (one bonus part), listening to part of a MacDonald speech, looking at a graph, looking at a picture of a trans-Canadian railroad or something, looking at "pictures of posters" of terrorist groups, looking at a fossil, looking at a map of Hokkaido, looking at a sculpture. That's just in packet one! And note that one bonus part of all of this involves listening to a piece of classical music and the rest is just weird shit. This comes as no surprise to the casually-mock-VETO crowd, but it apparently is news to you. Media questions are usually used for nonsense far more often than fine arts.
True, most of the multimedia bonuses in that packet weren't about fine arts. They also covered science, history, literature, geography, current events, popular culture, and general knowledge. Except for the one with the brick, I don't see that their answers were anything unusual for those categories in a quiz bowl tournament. The form was unusual for a quiz bowl tournament, but that was the point. What qualifies each one of them as "nonsense"? I am not getting this.
Chris G wrote:Visual clues can be valuable, as can auditory clues, but it depends how they're used (identify the painter from these paintings, identify the process from this diagram, identify the song from the audio clip). If you want people to use them for valuable, knowledge-testing things only, then state so. I don't see any such stress on using them for only knowledge-testing questions that follow the practices of good quizbowl. And, as given in examples above, this has resulted in numerous instances of groan-illiciting, result-altering (poor) quizbowl.
Yes, I know that there have been some bad multimedia questions. But the VETO guidelines for years have also included a separate section for each major category listing suggestions for kinds of multimedia questions that could test knowledge in that category.
Chris G wrote:Also, at first I thought the "gustatory, olfactory, tactile" thing was just a joke, and that no one would actually write anything with these in it. But similarly poor-planned bonuses have since been written. The CAQL website states this:
3. tactile
Bring something for players to handle, and ask questions about it. In 1999, Joel brought some leaves and asked the players to identify the trees they came from.
4. olfactory
Bring something for players to smell.
5. gustatory
Bring some food or drink and ask questions about it. (No alcohol, please.)
If you believe this is bad, then why is it still there? And if you believe it's valuable, then why not provide some form of justification for them?
I don't believe it's bad. I believe it's valuable, and the justification provided on that page is that these questions are fun to play on and fun to compose. You may think they're not, but that is the justification that's given.
Again, there's something I'm not understanding. Why is any bonus question that tests some sort of knowledge using tactile, olfactory, or gustatory means necessarily bad?
Chris G wrote:But what if someone had figured out the relation? What if someone had deciphered the code of the "T" packet after two of the first three answers were "Mr. T" and the "t distribution test"? What if one team with more knowledge about each topic lost to a team with less knowledge about each topic, simply because someone figured out the connection? The former would have every right to be upset, and I doubt would "really enjoy" it. The groan that ensues after the theme is revealed is not equal to the value of running a legitimate tournament that produces legitimate results.
Yes, when a packet has a hidden theme, sometimes one team figures out the theme and the other team doesn't. I lost a close VETO game once because that happened to me. If packets with hidden themes are "illegitimate" for a summer tournament like VETO, then when are they legitimate? Never?
Chris G wrote:If this tournament is really just a chance for quizbowl players to get together, and, oh, play some quizbowl while they're at it, then there's possible justification for some of this funn. But if this is an attempt at a serious quizbowl tournament, then why include all this? Why not make this an opportunity for people to actually learn something to get better for the next quizbowl season?
"Funn" is not mutually exclusive with an opportunity to learn something that might come up in the regular tournaments in the next season: a tournament can include both. I suppose that what I see of VETO and its players is very different from what is seen by people who play in Ontario, because for most of the regulars in Vancouver, it's the only quiz bowl tournament they play in all year.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

vetovian wrote:
everyday847 wrote:Just to list some questions straight up, let's look at packet one (only packet one!) of 2006. Measuring a brick, a mixed-genre 30-20-10 that plays part of the overture to L'italiana in algeri, a trash bonus that plays a clip from the movie version of Streetcar Named Desire, something involving a poster that involves flag identification (one bonus part), listening to part of a MacDonald speech, looking at a graph, looking at a picture of a trans-Canadian railroad or something, looking at "pictures of posters" of terrorist groups, looking at a fossil, looking at a map of Hokkaido, looking at a sculpture. That's just in packet one! And note that one bonus part of all of this involves listening to a piece of classical music and the rest is just weird shit. This comes as no surprise to the casually-mock-VETO crowd, but it apparently is news to you. Media questions are usually used for nonsense far more often than fine arts.
True, most of the multimedia bonuses in that packet weren't about fine arts. They also covered science, history, literature, geography, current events, popular culture, and general knowledge. Except for the one with the brick, I don't see that their answers were anything unusual for those categories in a quiz bowl tournament. The form was unusual for a quiz bowl tournament, but that was the point. What qualifies each one of them as "nonsense"? I am not getting this.
Um, I think that multimedia can be valuable when you're looking at fine arts. When you're looking at a picture that happens to have something to do with history, or happens to contain terrorists or an island, not so much. It's just gimmickry; it doesn't add educational or competitive value. Hence "weird shit."
vetovian wrote:
Chris G wrote:Also, at first I thought the "gustatory, olfactory, tactile" thing was just a joke, and that no one would actually write anything with these in it. But similarly poor-planned bonuses have since been written. The CAQL website states this:
3. tactile
Bring something for players to handle, and ask questions about it. In 1999, Joel brought some leaves and asked the players to identify the trees they came from.
4. olfactory
Bring something for players to smell.
5. gustatory
Bring some food or drink and ask questions about it. (No alcohol, please.)
If you believe this is bad, then why is it still there? And if you believe it's valuable, then why not provide some form of justification for them?
I don't believe it's bad. I believe it's valuable, and the justification provided on that page is that these questions are fun to play on and fun to compose. You may think they're not, but that is the justification that's given.
Again, there's something I'm not understanding. Why is any bonus question that tests some sort of knowledge using tactile, olfactory, or gustatory means necessarily bad?
If you manage to pull off a three-part bonus with a genuine easy, middle, and hard part that tested something important and academic that involved tasting something, then I will give you one hundred very real American dollars. But inevitably you will either be testing something unacademic, fail to have good bonus structure, fail to test something important, or multiple. Instead of proposing "hey, what if this totally wacky thing were to work? oh, of course it works! we can test academic knowledge in this zany way!" and then resting on nonexistent laurels, I want you to defend the academic merit of a past VETO gustatory bonus. Can you do it? And, if not, can you demonstrate that, though ten years of VETO have failed to produce an academically relevant eating bonus, someday it will succeed and do so at a rate justifying the inclusion of that question type?
vetovian wrote:Yes, when a packet has a hidden theme, sometimes one team figures out the theme and the other team doesn't. I lost a close VETO game once because that happened to me. If packets with hidden themes are "illegitimate" for a summer tournament like VETO, then when are they legitimate? Never?
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by vetovian »

everyday847 wrote:I think that multimedia can be valuable when you're looking at fine arts. When you're looking at a picture that happens to have something to do with history, or happens to contain terrorists or an island, not so much. It's just gimmickry; it doesn't add educational or competitive value.
You've given three particular examples from that packet. Let's compare with what we'd see in academic textbooks on those subjects:
  • A textbook on the history of Canadian railways is likely to include the same photograph that was in the packet. Reason: the photograph adds educational value to the textbook.
  • A textbook on the geography of Japan is likely to include a map of Hokkaido. Reason: the map adds educational value to the textbook.
  • A textbook on contemporary terrorist organizations is likely to include pictures of what's on the posters in the packet, if not pictures of actual posters by those organizations. Reason: those pictures add educational value to the textbook.
The educational value of having those pictures in visual bonuses is the same as that of having them in textbooks. And the competitive value is that some of the competing teams will be able to answer the questions about the pictures, and others will not -- as with any bonus question.
Or at any rate, that's what make sense to me.
everyday847 wrote:If you manage to pull off a three-part bonus with a genuine easy, middle, and hard part that tested something important and academic that involved tasting something, then I will give you one hundred very real American dollars. But inevitably you will either be testing something unacademic, fail to have good bonus structure, fail to test something important, or multiple. Instead of proposing "hey, what if this totally wacky thing were to work? oh, of course it works! we can test academic knowledge in this zany way!" and then resting on nonexistent laurels, I want you to defend the academic merit of a past VETO gustatory bonus. Can you do it? And, if not, can you demonstrate that, though ten years of VETO have failed to produce an academically relevant eating bonus, someday it will succeed and do so at a rate justifying the inclusion of that question type?
VETO hasn't actually had many gustatory questions. The ones that have come up would be classified as non-academic, such as last year's crisps. So there haven't been any that fit your criteria.
everyday847 wrote:* for games meant to be taken seriously
VETO announcements have said for years that we encourage packets with hidden themes, and we have had a bunch of them. If that alone is enough to disqualify VETO from being "taken seriously", then why would someone who's never been to VETO call for changes so that whoever judges these matters will take VETO seriously?
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Mike Bentley »

As someone who has written a few theme tournaments in my life, they tend to be more hassle than they're worth. You have to be very careful in choosing your theme or else you'll run out of answers mid-way and have to write on some pretty lame or hard topics. Plus, editing these packets is even more annoying. Overall, they're more effort than they're worth.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

Okay, I have substantive objections that I'll defer for the moment to make this larger point: the fact that I have not attended VETO in the past in no way lessens my ability to evaluate how well it preserves standards of good quizbowl. (It certainly doesn't increase them, either, and if you think my opinion about good quizbowl, based on what I've posted before, please attack it on legitimate grounds. Maybe I tend to construe good quizbowl too narrowly, or maybe I systematically make some sort of logical error.)

Feel free to make posts that insinuate "if you haven't attended VETO, you're not as qualified to judge it as certain others," as I believe the last part of your post does, since I don't know if they are explicitly against board rules, but they don't advance the argument as well as substantive attacks on my credibility.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by marnold »

Why should the circuit care if there's terrible quizbowl in another country? The argument for railing against atrocious domestic quizbowl is that it drains resources from the circuit's real tournaments, but that's obviously not true for VETO. I guess it sucks for the approximately two teams in Canada that seem to appreciate good quizbowl, but it's a strange testament to Andy Watkins's seemingly boundless stamina for posting on this forum that this thread even exists.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by OntarioQuizzer »

vetovian wrote:VETO announcements have said for years that we encourage packets with hidden themes, and we have had a bunch of them. If that alone is enough to disqualify VETO from being "taken seriously", then why would someone who's never been to VETO call for changes so that whoever judges these matters will take VETO seriously?
Well, for years, you have posted VETO announcements to this forum, which is ostensibly the forum for discussion of serious quiz bowl.

Posting here about the tournament, at least in my eyes, implies that you treat the tournament as a serious entity.

For years, the forum has told you "we can not take this tournament seriously. Here's why."

And yet, announcements regarding VETO continue to take place, despite only minor changes, and not the major changes that the very well-meaning people giving advice are strongly suggesting.

The way I see it, they want the Canadian circuit to thrive with good quiz bowl. They see VETO in its current form as three steps backwards every year. The quality of quiz bowl in Canada has increased at least threefold, if not more, since I began playing 6 years ago (Christ, has it been that long?), and it definitely feels like VETO is stuck in the year 2000.

You're more than welcome to keep holding a "fun" tournament every summer with a format that dredges up memories of a decade ago. Just don't expect me to personally support it anymore.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

marnold wrote:Why should the circuit care if there's terrible quizbowl in another country? The argument for railing against atrocious domestic quizbowl is that it drains resources from the circuit's real tournaments, but that's obviously not true for VETO. I guess it sucks for the approximately two teams in Canada that seem to appreciate good quizbowl, but it's a strange testament to Andy Watkins's seemingly boundless stamina for posting on this forum that this thread even exists.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by OntarioQuizzer »

marnold wrote:Why should the circuit care if there's terrible quizbowl in another country? The argument for railing against atrocious domestic quizbowl is that it drains resources from the circuit's real tournaments, but that's obviously not true for VETO. I guess it sucks for the approximately two teams in Canada that seem to appreciate good quizbowl, but it's a strange testament to Andy Watkins's seemingly boundless stamina for posting on this forum that this thread even exists.
Michael:

Because Canada is in North America. American teams have the capability to travel (reasonably) easily (WHTI notwithstanding) to Canada for tournaments, and vice versa. Eastern Canada just happens to be a circuit just like the West, the Northwest, the Northeast, or the South are all circuits. A healthy Canadian circuit that supports good quiz bowl will mean more good teams and better competition. And that can only be a good thing for quiz bowl.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by No Rules Westbrook »

This thread is endlessly amusing.

But, seriously Peter, stop being wilfully obtuse. Are you really serious in coming on this board once every blue moon and arguing that your idea of quizbowl, which looks like a reject from 1995, is just as valid as any other? Look, if you want to have some wacky contest called VETO every year with all sorts of nutty arbitrary rules, that's fine, more power to you - but don't come in here and try to defend it as good quizbowl - defend it as an (arguably) fun time people can have in Vancouver playing a nutty contest. Go look at discussions we've had umpteen times about how to write good questions - go look at discussions where people have explained why these gimmicks don't reward knowledge and create all sorts of problems (you'll have to look back a ways, though, cause like I said - we pretty much figured out that these things were bad a decade ago).

There are people who are offering to help turn VETO into something resembling good quizbowl. You should take them up on their offer - they want to see the Canadian circuit become viable - they want to see the growth of more players like Will Nediger who have taken the time to understand the basic principles of what makes for good quizbowl and what makes for bad quizbowl. Or, you can keep doing what you're doing - being content with being mocked by absolutely everyone here who knows about quizbowl, and then squealing "Gosh there must be something I'm not understanding!"
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Cheynem »

Andy Watkins IS the Sister Kenny of quiz bowl.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by naturalistic phallacy »

Cheynem wrote:Andy Watkins IS the Sister Wendy of quiz bowl.
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

tetragrammatology wrote:
Cheynem wrote:Sister Andy Watkins Explains Quizbowl For You
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Re: VETO 2009 SW ONTARIO MIRROR

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

Instead of Sister Wendy at the Norton Simon Museum, it's Sister Andy at the Hershey Factory.

"...see how there I've turned the Meiji Restoration into a middle part by using difficult clues. Now, Bonus sevente--KIT-KAT BARS OM NOM NOM HERE ARE SOME CHOPSTICKS TOO"
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