NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

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NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by GSymons »

Moravian College is hosting Sectionals for Region 4 on Saturday, February 5th, 2011. The tournament will take place in the Haupert Union Building on the North Campus of Moravian College- 1125 Monocacy for GPS folks.

FORMAT:
We will be playing timed twenty minute rounds on NAQT SCT packets.

ELIGIBILITY:
The tournament will probably be divided, as in the past, into two divisions with Division II designed for newer players. Please check the NAQT site regarding Division II eligibility rules: http://www.naqt.com/college/division-ii.html

PRICING STRUCTURE:
Team Discounts
Base fee = $120 for the first team from a school, $100 for every subsequent team


REGISTRATION:
The TD for NAQT SCT 2011 is Gretchen Symons ([email protected]).
If you are planning to come, please e-mail me with:
1) Your school's name
2) The number of teams you are bringing (and what division they will be competing in)
3) The number of buzzer systems you will be bringing.

Additionally, please fill out the online registration form at http://naqt.com/sct/hosts.jsp.

SCHEDULE:
Registration will be from 9:00-9:30 AM. We plan to have the first match start by 9:45 AM. Lunch will be on your own Saturday.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by Sima Guang Hater »

Penn will show up with one DI team and 0-1 DII teams.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by mastaloo »

Delaware will certainly bring one D1 team and possibly a second. Probably not though.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by MicroEStudent »

RIT should have 1 DI team and 1 DII team.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by DumbJaques »

Per the email sent out to teams this week, it looks like registration for this tournament is now running between 8:30 and 9:00 in the central lounge of the Union, with the team meeting starting at 9:10 and rounds starting around 9:30.

Interested parties are also invited to join me in a brief lunchtime excursion to the Sands, where I will celebrate their recently-obtained table game license by wagering Eric's indentured servitude as private physician to the bad guy at the end of Taken.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by MicroEStudent »

DumbJaques wrote:Per the email sent out to teams this week, it looks like registration for this tournament is now running between 8:30 and 9:00 in the central lounge of the Union, with the team meeting starting at 9:10 and rounds starting around 9:30.

Interested parties are also invited to join me in a brief lunchtime excursion to the Sands, where I will celebrate their recently-obtained table game license by wagering Eric's indentured servitude as private physician to the bad guy at the end of Taken.
I might be interested in joining you and wagering a small portion of money from New York's Excelsior program.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by Important Bird Area »

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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by nurgles_herald »

Lots of fun, looking forward to next year!
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by DumbJaques »

Since results seem not to actually be posted yet, I guess I'll note that Maryland A won DI after clearing the field in a double round-robin. Penn finished second. I believe Princeton won the UG title.

In DII, Montgomery College (Dan Puma, Dan Brezina) defeated GMU after both teams entered their last match with one loss and agreed to make it a one-game final, in the interest of getting home alive. MC won.

This tournament had a lot of problems somewhat offset by the fact that good moderators were brought along by a couple teams. These problems mostly reduce to the fact that NAQT chose to host this tournament at a site relatively inaccessible to absolutely everyone at an institution that had nothing at all resembling a quizbowl program. If Maryland hadn't brought along three moderators, one of whom added only days before the tournament and one of whom materialized the night before due to his flight being delayed unexpectedly, this tournament would quite literally have been impossible to run.

Simply put, deciding to host this tournament at Moravian was STUPID. There was no good reason to do it, and even though the Moravian folks did about as good a job as you'd expect anyone without any quizbowl experience to do, this tournament nearly failed catastrophically and was prevented from doing so by only the flukiest of circumstances. If NAQT wants to expand quizbowl by hosting events at ACUI-only schools that don't have teams or whatever, that's fine, but surely you can find places that aren't completely remote from the huge swathes of good moderators that occupy nearly every population center on the east coast. Really, you'd be hard pressed to even find a place a tournament site in our region that was more removed from good, experienced staffers.

I suspect this post won't be responded to by NAQT except by Jeff Hoppes, just as none of my emails to anyone in NAQT expressing my concerns about this tournament were ever returned or even acknowledged until I contacted Jeff directly. Whatever, I know NAQT doesn't care, just like I'm sure they don't care about whatever CBI asshole caused all sorts of problems at the NY SCT.

What I will beg NAQT to acknowledge is that, regardless of situations and intentions, tournaments as difficult to run as SCT need to have TOURNAMENT DIRECTORS who are experienced with standards of modern quizbowl. Not "NAQT advisers" who promise to bring along three moderators and bring along zero or allow belligerent CBI uberdicks to railroad inexperienced TDs. I cannot understand why this is a difficult concept for NAQT to grasp, but jesus christ, PUT THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW TO RUN TOURNAMENTS IN CHARGE OF RUNNING TOURNAMENTS. Implicit in this concept is not running events at locations that require absolutely every team/moderator in attendance to face potentially horrific driving conditions (not a one-time issue, as SCT is always held at the beginning of February) and which have absolutely no local staffing support.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by Mike Bentley »

To be fair, Moravian did provide most of the scorekeepers for the tournament from what I gathered, which is not insignificant in an NAQT tournament. I also don't think the site is so crazy out of the way as you make it out to be. It was less than 1.5 hours away for a lot of teams (e.g. Penn, Rutgers-Camden, Delaware) and a max of like 3.5 hours away for the southernmost teams in the region.

But yeah, the fact that the tournament barely had enough competent readers was troubling.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill »

I think part of the decision to host the SCT at Moravian (presumably this was ACUI's choice) was to cover Region 3 (Princeton, Rutgers, Delaware) as well. Last year the call was put out for someone to direct the Region 3's quiz bowl program starting... this spring, and info for the tourney was added to the region's site about 2-3 weeks ago. I imagine that next year a Region 3 SCT site will materialize at NJIT if it follows Region 2's pattern for this year, or Princeton if it doesn't (the former would be easier for NYC teams to attend, the latter would be virtually guaranteed to be well-staffed), presumably allowing Region 4 to put its site at Maryland again.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by DumbJaques »

As Mike correctly points out, the distance to Moravian wasn't really that bad at all - certainly not for us, as it was only about an hour over driving to Philly. The problem was that about an hour of that trip was off of major routes you can always expect to be clear Saturday morning (like 95), and because of weather conditions involved us wandering around the central PA countryside on a detour, which at one point nearly took out two of my moderators.

Those problems with the Moravian location aren't really the issue though - the issue is that hosting events at somewhat out of the way sites makes it infinitely more difficult to get good moderators. If this site had been in the vicinity of Philly, Delaware, or Princeton (or really anywhere in NJ, I'd think), I can't imagine we would have had the slightest problem amassing ample staff. I don't at all object to, as a region 3 team or whatever, attending an SCT in region 4 - we go to NJ, DE, and eastern PA all the time. If NAQT feels like picking a school with no quizbowl team in a certain area is going to be beneficial for the circuit (and that's really the case), I'm even on board with that, but all I'm saying is:

1) Choose a site you're sure you can staff (well), as opposed to a site which absolutely everybody could see was going to have serious staff-amassing issues, and
2) The person at the SCT site who knows how to run a tournament should probably be in charge, unequivocally, instead of just hanging around offering suggestions. We were fortunate enough to have our site populated by pretty much well-meaning and diligent Moravian ACUI people, but that clearly wasn't the case with at least one nearby site.*

I really think failing to do these two things led to a tournament in which 4 out of 7 moderators were brought by Maryland and Delaware. If Bill Tressler, Jeff Amoros, Jordan Boyd-Graber, and Mike Bentley hadn't happened to be free yesterday, this tournament would have ended in tears, and I do not mean the Jonathan Magin kind.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

How many other locations bid to host?
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by MicroEStudent »

I forgot to post earlier this weekend, but I'd like to thank Moravian for hosting the tournament. Most of the issues were not caused by them (they can't change geography, nor the weather). The only thing I would have preferred would have been to shorten lunch from an hour to 30 minutes as the cafeteria was steps away from the DI rooms or a 2 minute walk from the DII rooms, and the tournament was a bit behind.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill »

Crazy Andy Watkins wrote:How many other locations bid to host?
From what I remember, ALL of the regions had no alternate bids.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by jagluski »

Crazy Andy Watkins wrote:How many other locations bid to host?

There were no other bids in either region.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by TheHumanPaperweight »

Bentley Like Beckham wrote: It was less than 1.5 hours away for a lot of teams (e.g. Penn, Rutgers-Camden, Delaware) and a max of like 3.5 hours away for the southernmost teams in the region.
As the driver for the southernmost team in the region, I can report that our drive to the tournament was 5 hours on Friday night (we failed to clear the Washington metro area prior to rush hour, but from what I hear about Saturday morning's conditions, it was still the right move) and about 4:30 coming back due to some lingering slush/ice/water on the roads.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

jagluski wrote:
Crazy Andy Watkins wrote:How many other locations bid to host?

There were no other bids in either region.
Okay, so I'm going to conclude that Chris's characterization of the situation as "deciding" to host the tournament at Moravian is unfair. It's pretty difficult to have a bidding deadline where you just say "sorry, you WERE the only program to bid, but we think you're in a crappy location and too inexperienced and whatever, so we'll wait." I think that's a great argument for having a later bidding deadline, but not a great argument for--given this year's bidding deadline--that there was a fair or reasonable way for non-Moravian to host.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by Auroni »

Crazy Andy Watkins wrote:
jagluski wrote:
Crazy Andy Watkins wrote:How many other locations bid to host?

There were no other bids in either region.
Okay, so I'm going to conclude that Chris's characterization of the situation as "deciding" to host the tournament at Moravian is unfair. It's pretty difficult to have a bidding deadline where you just say "sorry, you WERE the only program to bid, but we think you're in a crappy location and too inexperienced and whatever, so we'll wait." I think that's a great argument for having a later bidding deadline, but not a great argument for--given this year's bidding deadline--that there was a fair or reasonable way for non-Moravian to host.
I think that Chris has went over this before (correct me if I am wrong, Chris), but this in no way excuses NAQT from picking a safer site to host SCT, one that is easier to travel to, one that has more local staffers, or one that has more circuit quizbowl experience. Even if the decision to host at Moravian was the only possible outcome of NAQT's bidding system, then it falls on NAQT to improve that system to find a safer location to host with fewer possible associated calamities. As far as I can tell, Chris has been fairly proactive in asking NAQT about this, from the very instance that this location was revealed to be an SCT site.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by Matt Weiner »

Yes, NAQT decided to use a clock, negotiate a certain arrangement with ACUI, and award ICT bids in a certain way. Every year we talk about how these things impact bids and host quality. Whether anything that happened in the last four months specifically could have changed the situation isn't the whole story.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by rhentzel »

DumbJaques wrote:I suspect this post won't be responded to by NAQT except by Jeff Hoppes, just as none of my emails to anyone in NAQT expressing my concerns about this tournament were ever returned or even acknowledged until I contacted Jeff directly. Whatever, I know NAQT doesn't care, just like I'm sure they don't care about whatever CBI asshole caused all sorts of problems at the NY SCT.
I'm always a sucker for these "nobody will respond" posts (or the more modern version, "nobody will respond but Jeff"). :-)

I clearly wasn't at this tournament, but I don't see the justification for its condemnation in what I've read online from attendees or heard from the tournament directors' reports.

As far as I can tell, the tournament would have had sufficient staff (including moderators) were it not for the bad weather; had everybody been there, I think there would not have been a problem accommodating the Maryland team's Friday-night request to switch one of its teams to Division I to avoid byes. As it is, I think any tournament director is well within her rights when faced with a lack of staff to decline such a change.

I also think that it's entirely reasonable for hosts, NAQT, and ACUI to consider the expected number of moderators that teams will bring when assessing their ability to staff a tournament; it's true that teams brought a significant fraction of the staffers, but I see that as a tribute to region's overall quiz bowl quality (and enthusiasm) rather than a failing on the part of Moravian. In fact, I might go so far as to say that Moravian should be commended for using team moderators (something NAQT has heavily emphasized that they should so) rather than insisting on giving their own (less experienced) people the more interesting and prestigious jobs.

NAQT and ACUI knew that staffing a site like Moravian would be more difficult, but our calculations back during the bid evaluation process suggested that it could be done. And it was. It is lucky that, given the weather, Mike Bentley became available. But in the absence of the weather the tournament would have had more moderators from Pittsburgh.

Overall, I'd say that working with Moravian and the Region 4 staff has been a very positive experience; they've been receptive to NAQT's suggestions, they came up with scorekeepers, they read the boards to stay abreast of comments about their tournament, and they ran an event that met NAQT's SCT criteria for reporting stats in spite of the weather.

It would be easy for me to say something like, "Well, we had to go with Moravian because nobody else bid," but I have no interest in doing that because it's not true. The site selection committee reserves the right to reject all bids in a region and go in search of more; we chose not to do that in this case because we believed that Moravian had enthusiastic folks from Region 4 and because we believed we could effectively staff it. I don't regret that decision. The decision was made before it became clear that we had no Region 3 host, but after that occurred, it was nice to have a site relatively close to those teams as well.

It's unfortunate that the weather caused problems, but I don't really see that that is an issue that can be blamed on the hosts (or the site selection process). Teams canceled at SCTs due to the weather across the country this year, and it's not clear that having the Region 4 event in a more major city would have been proof against that. Last year's Region 4 SCT was (originally) 15 miles from Washington, D.C., and it was snowed out entirely.

Finally, since it was brought up, I'd like to state for the record that NAQT cares very deeply about the quality of its sectionals; I'm pretty sure that, on an hours-invested-per-team-involved basis, we do more work planning, writing, and editing for Sectionals than for any other tournament that we produce. Sectionals (and the ICT) get a disproportionate amount of work relative to the number of teams participating (and the revenue generated) because we remain personally invested in seeing the country's most experienced and most sophisticated consumers of quiz bowl playing in our championship series.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by rhentzel »

rpond wrote:I think part of the decision to host the SCT at Moravian (presumably this was ACUI's choice) was to cover Region 3 (Princeton, Rutgers, Delaware) as well. Last year the call was put out for someone to direct the Region 3's quiz bowl program starting... this spring, and info for the tourney was added to the region's site about 2-3 weeks ago. I imagine that next year a Region 3 SCT site will materialize at NJIT if it follows Region 2's pattern for this year, or Princeton if it doesn't (the former would be easier for NYC teams to attend, the latter would be virtually guaranteed to be well-staffed), presumably allowing Region 4 to put its site at Maryland again.
The decision to bid to host at Moravian was the decision of the ACUI Region 4 leadership, not that of the ACUI national program team. In theory, an interested (ACUI member) school could approach that region's leadership team and say, "Let's submit a joint bid for 2012."

In addition, the decision to choose Moravian was made before it was known that a Region 3 site would not materialize. It's mere serendipity that it was relatively convenient for teams driving from Region 3.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by rhentzel »

DumbJaques wrote:I really think failing to do these two things led to a tournament in which 4 out of 7 moderators were brought by Maryland and Delaware. If Bill Tressler, Jeff Amoros, Jordan Boyd-Graber, and Mike Bentley hadn't happened to be free yesterday, this tournament would have ended in tears, and I do not mean the Jonathan Magin kind.
I think this is something on which we might just have to disagree. I see the fact that four of the seven moderators at Moravian were brought by teams (and thus selected to be experienced) as a good one. It shows an ACUI host willing to accept moderators from the outside (in place of its own people), which is something the circuit (and, I'll admit, NAQT at the outset of its strategic partnership) has been concerned about.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by Gonzagapuma1 »

Did someone lose the stats disk or are they going to be posted eventually?
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by Important Bird Area »

The stats will be posted on naqt.com, probably later tonight. In the meantime, I've put a copy up on scobo.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by Gonzagapuma1 »

Thanks.
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Re: NAQT SCT Region 3 and 4

Post by DumbJaques »

I'm quite happy R. took the time to respond to this thread; I'll do my best to explain my concerns more concretely:
As far as I can tell, the tournament would have had sufficient staff (including moderators) were it not for the bad weather; had everybody been there, I think there would not have been a problem accommodating the Maryland team's Friday-night request to switch one of its teams to Division I to avoid byes. As it is, I think any tournament director is well within her rights when faced with a lack of staff to decline such a change.
I do too, and don't think I mentioned anything about that in my post, though I do think it's a little silly for NAQT to insist on a "no scab teams ever, for any reason" policy that's distinct from pretty much every other event, which was what I was actually somewhat vexed by on Friday night.
I also think that it's entirely reasonable for hosts, NAQT, and ACUI to consider the expected number of moderators that teams will bring when assessing their ability to staff a tournament; it's true that teams brought a significant fraction of the staffers, but I see that as a tribute to region's overall quiz bowl quality (and enthusiasm) rather than a failing on the part of Moravian. In fact, I might go so far as to say that Moravian should be commended for using team moderators (something NAQT has heavily emphasized that they should so) rather than insisting on giving their own (less experienced) people the more interesting and prestigious jobs.

NAQT and ACUI knew that staffing a site like Moravian would be more difficult, but our calculations back during the bid evaluation process suggested that it could be done. And it was. It is lucky that, given the weather, Mike Bentley became available. But in the absence of the weather the tournament would have had more moderators from Pittsburgh.
I don't think this follows. For one thing, I certainly didn't note this problem as any sort of failing on the part of Moravian; in fact, I said just the opposite, and I too and pleased Moravian utilized the more experienced staffers as moderators. However, I find framing that as something that's particularly commendable to be a bit concerning, as it pretty much meets the bare minimum threshold of competence I'd demand from any tournament staff. If NAQT isn't confident an SCT host will use their best moderators to moderate, then I don't think we really need to be debating whether a site was a good hosting choice.

More importantly, these points do not particularly address what I brought up. For instance, you can say that a weather emergency is a fluke thing that shouldn't be taken into account, but I don't buy that; this was not really a "weather emergency" as we had last year. The problem wasn't the weather - I had no problem at all moving along 95 or around the DC/Baltimore/Wilmington/Philly metro areas. What teams found difficult was making there way to Moravian's rather remote location, and that's easily something you should factor in consistently when planning for a tournament that's always held in February.

I'm not sure what calculations you're referring to, but if you mean staffer planning, then I'd say there were in fact major errors on NAQT's side of things. Most of the original staff planned for the event seemed to be UPitt people - whether or not that constitutes a good moderating corps to begin with I couldn't speak to, but it seems like this tournament's location is what necessitated relying on Pitt area staffers (as opposed to Philly/DC area people), and as such the consequences of even moderate weather issues should have been predictable.

It would be easy for me to say something like, "Well, we had to go with Moravian because nobody else bid," but I have no interest in doing that because it's not true. The site selection committee reserves the right to reject all bids in a region and go in search of more; we chose not to do that in this case because we believed that Moravian had enthusiastic folks from Region 4 and because we believed we could effectively staff it. I don't regret that decision. The decision was made before it became clear that we had no Region 3 host, but after that occurred, it was nice to have a site relatively close to those teams as well.
I think that's fine, though it seems like some other sites demonstrated that the person making decisions like who'll staff in what capacity and everything needs to have the experience to prevent the CBI dude debacle in New York or all the best mods reading in DII or something like that. Again, I'm not inherently bothered by the choice of a site with no particular quizbowl program, nor do I think Moravian dropped the ball on stuff - it seems like most of your post tries to respond to that sentiment, and I don't believe it's one I really expressed.

What I am challenging is NAQT's assumption that Moravian would not have any staffing issues, and that such a tournament can just assume the 4 moderators brought by Maryland/Delaware will be on hand. I mean, that's probably a pretty safe assumption if the Region 3/4 SCT is going to be held in the DC area or even Philly/Wilmington, but for reasons I already brought up applying that logic in this situation is problematic. Even if it wasn't, in NAQT's position I think I would have, after choosing Moravian, have actually worked to make sure those moderators were secured. Nothing remotely like that happened, at least with regards to our staffers. The moderators we brought aren't even the people we most often rely on, because those people couldn't or didn't wish to drive out to Moravian. Jeff is almost never available for stuff like this. Jordan wasn't even on the roster until a few days before the tournament, and is generally even less available. Mike Bentley could not have been more last minute, and was only able to be picked up because Dan Puma happened to bring his van along; additionally, I'm pretty sure Dwight/Moravian had no idea whatsoever he was coming until we showed up.

The circumstances surrounding these staffers are the flukiest of flukes, no matter how you slice it. Sure, I guess you're arguing that the lack of staff that necessitated their presence to begin with was a fluke, but I don't at all think that's a sound argument - this tournament's location pretty much accounted for that problem, in a rather foreseeable way that I in fact brought up several months ago (among other concerns that, as you point out, were not realized).
Finally, since it was brought up, I'd like to state for the record that NAQT cares very deeply about the quality of its sectionals; I'm pretty sure that, on an hours-invested-per-team-involved basis, we do more work planning, writing, and editing for Sectionals than for any other tournament that we produce. Sectionals (and the ICT) get a disproportionate amount of work relative to the number of teams participating (and the revenue generated) because we remain personally invested in seeing the country's most experienced and most sophisticated consumers of quiz bowl playing in our championship series.
Well, I actually didn't bring that up, and do not personally hold the opinion that NAQT doesn't care about SCT or ICT. What I doubted NAQT cared about was responding to my post, or returning my earlier emails, or to responding appropriately to the atrocious behavior of that dude in New York. I'm not one of those people who just writes off NAQT as phoning it in with every college set, and in fact I thought this SCT was pretty good, just like the last couple of years.

I mean, I concluded that NAQT doesn't really care about the issues I brought up several months ago because nobody ever responded to them, including to multiple emails I sent expressing concern on behalf of the Maryland team. I don't think that's an unreasonable conclusion to draw, whether it's actually the case or not. I also think NAQT's lack of a formal "wow, we're really sorry this lunatic was allowed to staff/treat teams like that, he won't be doing that again" post regarding the CBI guy constitutes not caring enough about how big a problem that kind of thing actually is. Neither of those things makes me think NAQT doesn't care about Sectionals, though since I know you DO care, I plead with you to consider placing an experienced staffer in the actual TD position as the standard SCT policy going forward.

Actually, that's something I'd like to hear NAQT's position on: Why is it that situations like this result in Gretchen Symons being the TD and Dwight Kidder being the adviser? Why not the other way around, since one person knows how to TD and one person can advise the other on site-specific issues? I suspect it's because NAQT is concerned that some ACUI people might bristle at playing second fiddle for an event held at their school; if that's the case, I think NAQT should acknowledge it, and even more strongly, I think that policy should be promptly discarded as something that will inevitably cause problems. I'm happy to expand quizbowl, but people who would really get upset at something like that are not going to help us expand quizbowl anyway (and honestly, it doesn't seem to me like I'm more likely in the slightest to see Moravian on the circuit because of this SCT).
Chris Ray
OSU
University of Chicago, 2016
University of Maryland, 2014
ACF, PACE
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