Absurd DAFT Discussion

Dormant threads from the high school sections are preserved here.
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Dan-Don
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Absurd DAFT Discussion

Post by Dan-Don »

BGSO wrote:I have just been informed that this tournament has been granted Platinum certification by PACE
pace-nsc.org wrote:Platinum-certified tournaments are affiliated tournaments which offer all teams at least nine games; use varsity-level questions deemed “excellent” by the PACE Certification Committee; have at least four teams in attendance likely to finish in the top half of the NSC; do not use single-elimination playoffs; present a field that is diverse in terms of geography, talent and/or regular presence on the circuit; and report their statistics in SQBS or TAFT format shortly after the tournament.
Doesn't "excellent" imply that a set has pyramidal questions on normal answer space that are factually correct and written in the English language?
Dan Donohue, Saint Viator ('10), Northwestern ('14), NAQT
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Re: UIUC ABT Earlybird (10/23/2010)

Post by Huang »

Dan-Don wrote:
BGSO wrote:I have just been informed that this tournament has been granted Platinum certification by PACE
pace-nsc.org wrote:Platinum-certified tournaments are affiliated tournaments which offer all teams at least nine games; use varsity-level questions deemed “excellent” by the PACE Certification Committee; have at least four teams in attendance likely to finish in the top half of the NSC; do not use single-elimination playoffs; present a field that is diverse in terms of geography, talent and/or regular presence on the circuit; and report their statistics in SQBS or TAFT format shortly after the tournament.
Doesn't "excellent" imply that a set has pyramidal questions on normal answer space that are factually correct and written in the English language?
So a week has passed since this tournament, and surprise, surprise, I received zero suggestions or corrections from the great Dan Donahue, or Jonah Greenthal for that matter (in contrast to at least two others who have e-mailed me their concerns). I can understand if you guys have been a bit busy this week due to midterms or whatever, but repeatedly asserting opinions regarding the quality of a tournament set with no supporting evidence seems quite petty, and more importantly, unhelpful to future hosts mirroring this set. If you considered any of the tossups to not be pyramidal, then please e-mail them to me. If you considered any answers in any of the bonuses to be too hard, then please e-mail them to me. I have already corrected many factual errors regarding nationalities, as those were the main complaints I received. Other than that, I've received zero complaints regarding egregiously incorrect clues. As for the set supposedly not being written in English, I'm willing to concede that grammar was sacrificed in some parts of set in order to preserve a pyramidal structure due to a lack of creativity on my part. Now, if you're just waiting to gain yourself popularity points among your Illinois brethren by insisting on only posting criticism once the set is cleared, instead of providing specific constructive criticism of the set, then I'm afraid I will be unable to accommodate your wishes until at least January of next year.
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Re: UIUC ABT Earlybird (10/23/2010)

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Could Illinois people be any worse behaved towards Sandy, a minor who clearly is on the side of good quizbowl and who has already done more work towards trying to make quizbowl better than 99.9% of high school quizbowlers ever with all his writing? I don't question for a minute that the Dunbar set has real flaws, but it was produced in such good faith that I find it abhorrent for all of you to be publicly dragging this set through the mud on the board and on facebook, and I would bet good money that this set was still better written by a laughably wide margin than anything a question company that is not HSAPQ or NAQT writes.
Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
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Re: UIUC ABT Earlybird (10/23/2010)

Post by AKKOLADE »

Dan-Don wrote:
BGSO wrote:I have just been informed that this tournament has been granted Platinum certification by PACE
pace-nsc.org wrote:Platinum-certified tournaments are affiliated tournaments which offer all teams at least nine games; use varsity-level questions deemed “excellent” by the PACE Certification Committee; have at least four teams in attendance likely to finish in the top half of the NSC; do not use single-elimination playoffs; present a field that is diverse in terms of geography, talent and/or regular presence on the circuit; and report their statistics in SQBS or TAFT format shortly after the tournament.
Doesn't "excellent" imply that a set has pyramidal questions on normal answer space that are factually correct and written in the English language?
Normal answer space: not necessarily. If I'm recalling correctly, we've given gold & platinum to tournaments run on SCT before, which is not representative of a normal high school set.

Factually correct & grammatical issues: It's been awhile since I read the first two rounds of this tournament, which I did as part of the certification committee; I do not recall any amazing factual inaccuracies, at least above & beyond normal tidbit errors.

Also, grammatical issues in a quiz bowl set?! Well, I never! I just browsed through round one again, and didn't find any major problems with it.

And even if there were lots of grammatical issues, let's not act like this is something that only DAFT did; I sat down with a single round of a IS set a few weeks ago and found about 10 grammatical issues with it. Few of these were major things. You don't see me screaming about how no one should ever use IS-96.

I read through the first two rounds of this and thought they were representative of a pretty good tournament. I probably would not run it in West Virginia, due to it being of an above average difficulty and WV quiz bowl teams not being sufficiently good for that kind of tournament, but I see no issue with it being run somewhere with a good number of good teams.

Might I suggest that rather than launch into hysterics in a public forum about how terrible the set was, which does not seem to be a true statement from what I have personally seen in this set, that college students actually be mature and inform the high schoolers who put this set together of any errors they saw via email? I find it pretty sad that this apparently has not happened.

DAFT was a very flawed set last year. It also appears that this year's version was vastly improved over last's.
Fred Morlan
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former PACE member, president, etc.
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Re: UIUC ABT Earlybird (10/23/2010)

Post by Dan-Don »

Huang wrote:
Dan-Don wrote:
BGSO wrote:I have just been informed that this tournament has been granted Platinum certification by PACE
pace-nsc.org wrote:Platinum-certified tournaments are affiliated tournaments which offer all teams at least nine games; use varsity-level questions deemed “excellent” by the PACE Certification Committee; have at least four teams in attendance likely to finish in the top half of the NSC; do not use single-elimination playoffs; present a field that is diverse in terms of geography, talent and/or regular presence on the circuit; and report their statistics in SQBS or TAFT format shortly after the tournament.
Doesn't "excellent" imply that a set has pyramidal questions on normal answer space that are factually correct and written in the English language?
So a week has passed since this tournament, and surprise, surprise, I received zero suggestions or corrections from the great Dan Donahue, or Jonah Greenthal for that matter (in contrast to at least two others who have e-mailed me their concerns). I can understand if you guys have been a bit busy this week due to midterms or whatever, but repeatedly asserting opinions regarding the quality of a tournament set with no supporting evidence seems quite petty, and more importantly, unhelpful to future hosts mirroring this set. If you considered any of the tossups to not be pyramidal, then please e-mail them to me. If you considered any answers in any of the bonuses to be too hard, then please e-mail them to me. I have already corrected many factual errors regarding nationalities, as those were the main complaints I received. Other than that, I've received zero complaints regarding egregiously incorrect clues. As for the set supposedly not being written in English, I'm willing to concede that grammar was sacrificed in some parts of set in order to preserve a pyramidal structure due to a lack of creativity on my part. Now, if you're just waiting to gain yourself popularity points among your Illinois brethren by insisting on only posting criticism once the set is cleared, instead of providing specific constructive criticism of the set, then I'm afraid I will be unable to accommodate your wishes until at least January of next year.
First of all, I'd appreciate if you'd spell my name correctly since it can be seen in the post right above yours. This blatant disregard for facts and grammar is astounding. Secondly, there have been repeated requests for the establishment of a private discussion forum. Why don't you email Fred and ask for this to be established? Surely, I thought when deciding not to email you, that a forum wherein members of the community can put ours heads together and collectively critique the set on which you worked so hard would be far more productive and rewarding for you, no? A post by Trygve Meade (who, if I remember corrrectly, produced some of the best questions in this set along with George, Kirun, and Idrees...sorry if I forgot someone) from Mon. January 25, 2010 clearly states that HSQB admins would expand the establishment of private discussion forums to the high school section if demand and resources were present. Finally, pointing out a few major issues via email is fine, yes, but I am not going to, in effect, fix your set for you when I could be spending my time writing questions for producers of quality sets.
Dan Donohue, Saint Viator ('10), Northwestern ('14), NAQT
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Re: UIUC ABT Earlybird (10/23/2010)

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Finally, pointing out a few major issues via email is fine, yes, but I am not going to, in effect, fix your set for you when I could be spending my time writing questions for producers of quality sets.
When I hosted a tournament on IS-80A I sent NAQT a huge email detailing tons of problems I found with the set. When I mirrored GSAC last year I went through every round detailing exactly what I felt needed to be fixed to make it better and more playable so that the editors had some guidance on exactly where to start fixing things. Whining on the boards and then REFUSING TO ACTUALLY GIVE A ... HIGH SCHOOLER THE HELP HE CLEARLY NEEDS IF HE WANTS TO BECOME A BETTER EDITOR because you can't take 30 minutes out of your precious time to invest in someone else's growth in the quizbowl circuit, and also invest in making quizbowl a better experience for all the future teams playing this set is exactly why I have no patience for you right now, and I certainly hope the rest of the boards are going to not give you the time of day either as long as you continue to behave like this.

User was warned for cursing in the high school section
Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
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"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White
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Re: UIUC ABT Earlybird (10/23/2010)

Post by Stained Diviner »

People of Illinois:
Stop being jerks for a few seconds. Listen to Fred and Charlie.

My apologies for telling people how to post. Whatever will be, will be.
David Reinstein
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Re: UIUC ABT Earlybird (10/23/2010)

Post by Huang »

blatant disregard for facts
Ugh, okay? So since I misspelled your name, I must also be guilty of including serious factual errors in the DAFT set! Right.
grammar
Really? Wow. If you noticed, I clearly stated that I would not be surprised if there were minor grammatical errors. See Fred's post if you need more evidence for why your understanding of this issue is flawed.
Secondly, there have been repeated requests for the establishment of a private discussion forum. Why don't you email Fred and ask for this to be established? Surely, I thought when deciding not to email you, that a forum wherein members of the community can put ours heads together and collectively critique the set on which you worked so hard would be far more productive and rewarding for you, no?"
Honestly, I had no idea private forums were now allowed for high school sets. If this is true, Fred can by all means create one. E-mail simply is the fastest way to reach me, besides a phone call, which is obviously an absurd communication option.
Trygve Meade (who, if I remember corrrectly, produced some of the best questions in this set along with George, Kirun, and Idrees...sorry if I forgot someone)
I'll just say this: Kirun would agree with me that his questions were inadequate, given he admitted that he wrote them within a span of 5 minutes. I did everything I could to salvage them and make them at least pyramidal when editing. But thanks for clearly showing your bias! Also, for the record, Dan Humphrey had the exact opposite critique of the tournament after their mirror.
Finally, pointing out a few major issues via email is fine, yes, but I am not going to, in effect, fix your set for you when I could be spending my time writing questions for producers of quality sets.
So if there are actually major issues, e-mail them. I'm in no way ever expecting you, or Jonah, to edit anyone else's set. But I guess you're entitled to your exaggerated claims.
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Re: UIUC ABT Earlybird (10/23/2010)

Post by Dan-Don »

Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It wrote:
Finally, pointing out a few major issues via email is fine, yes, but I am not going to, in effect, fix your set for you when I could be spending my time writing questions for producers of quality sets.
When I hosted a tournament on IS-80A I sent NAQT a huge email detailing tons of problems I found with the set. When I mirrored GSAC last year I went through every round detailing exactly what I felt needed to be fixed to make it better and more playable so that the editors had some guidance on exactly where to start fixing things. Whining on the boards and then REFUSING TO ACTUALLY GIVE A ... HIGH SCHOOLER THE HELP HE CLEARLY NEEDS IF HE WANTS TO BECOME A BETTER EDITOR because you can't take 30 minutes out of your precious time to invest in someone else's growth in the quizbowl circuit, and also invest in making quizbowl a better experience for all the future teams playing this set is exactly why I have no patience for you right now, and I certainly hope the rest of the boards are going to not give you the time of day either as long as you continue to behave like this.
Well since this has caused Charlie Dees to swear at me in the high school section, I will go ahead and promise to produce a detailed, constructive critique if a private discussion forum is made. That's all I'm asking for. I'm not going to send a private email about problems because I don't want to waste my time proposing changes that other quizbowlers might think are unnecessary or incorrect or that have already been made.

User was banned for three days for not following the basic rules of polite conversation.
Last edited by Dan-Don on Mon Nov 01, 2010 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: UIUC ABT Earlybird (10/23/2010)

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Could you be any more passive-aggressive right now?
Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs

"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White
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Re: UIUC ABT Earlybird (10/23/2010)

Post by Cheynem »

I have found Sandy to be receptive to constructive criticism in the past and sincere in his desire to create quality quizbowl. I don't always agree with his decisions and I think he has room to improve, but don't we all? I don't think [and disclaimer: I haven't seen it] that a good faith produced question set deserves the sort of snickering attacks that it has generated in this thread. I'm not pretending DAFT didn't need or needs improvement, but as Milton pleaded, "Let us therefore be more considerat builders, more wise in spirituall architecture, when great reformation is expected."
Mike Cheyne
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Re: Absurd DAFT Discussion

Post by Rufous-capped Thornbill »

EDIT: As this discussion has clearly taken a dive away from the actual set, I'll just e-mail what I had to Sandy.
Jarret Greene
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Re: Absurd DAFT Discussion

Post by AKKOLADE »

Okay, there is now a private discussion forum available to talk about DAFT. You can access this by going to "User Control Panel" -> "Usergroups" -> "Edit membership" -> click the radio button next to "DAFT Discussion", scroll down to the selection options at the bottom and make sure "join selected" is the option; click submit.

Your request will be approved by Sandy as soon as he can, and then you will be able to view the forum.
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Re: Absurd DAFT Discussion

Post by Huang »

If your username is Khanate, please identify yourself so I can approve you for the private forum.
Sandy
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