NAQT distribution change for 2011-12

Post by **Important Bird Area** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 4:48 pm

This is your thread to discuss "how should NAQT consider changing its distribution for next year's sets?"

2010-11 IS set distribution

2011 HSNCT distribution

jonah · Post by **jonah** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 4:56 pm

To save people a bit of time (I just figured this out for myself), the IS and HSNCT distributions are identical except that the IS computation tossups become noncomputational tossups in HSNCT, and HSNCT has slightly more fine arts than IS.

Also, a reminder that the IS and IS-A distributions are identical (up to rounding because of different numbers of packets).

Post by **Important Bird Area** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 5:02 pm

There are a small number of other minor changes (notably: HSNCT philosophy is broken down into subcategories, which seems silly for the 4/4 philosophy in an IS set).

One of the questions we're going to consider is "how closely should HSNCT's distribution conform to that found in IS sets?", so I wanted to post both of them and ask for advice.

Sniper, No Sniping! · Post by **Sniper, No Sniping!** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:01 pm

As much as I love the Pop Culture/Sports, I think this should probably set to 1/1 therefore probably letting there be more Fine Arts or Mythology, perhaps? EDIT: I'll apologize in advance if this isn't the type of discussion this thread was aiming for. EDIT 2: Where does Linguistics fall under? GK, perhaps? In an old IS set (maybe it was from this year) that we practiced on, there was a common link tossup on the letter "y" with language clues.

nadph · Post by **nadph** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:28 pm

CavsFan2k10 wrote:As much as I love the Pop Culture/Sports, I think this should probably set to 1/1 therefore probably letting there be more Fine Arts or Mythology, perhaps? EDIT: I'll apologize in advance if this isn't the type of discussion this thread was aiming for.

Especially in HSNCT, I think this is a good idea.

i never see pigeons in wheeling · Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:34 pm

And perhaps reduce the general knowledge distribution as well. I don't see a reason why NAQT should distinguish between "general" knowledge and other types of trash when making its distribution and should accordingly limit the trash distribution in its entirety.

Adventure Temple Trail · Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:00 pm

I'll use this thread to reiterate my argument that Mixed_Impure_Academic should be eliminated entirely as a category from NAQT tournaments. Every such tossup plays pretty badly when it shifts from academic to trash or vice versa, and the realization that an academic bonus is part trash (or that a trash bonus is part academic) is virtually always a letdown, especially in close matches. It results in ridiculous common links which shift from things Bruce Arthur wouldn't ask about at CO to the title of Borat at the drop of a hat (or, for an example at the IS-level (IS-94), a tossup on "ice" that shifts gears from the real-time strategy game Sins of a Solar Empire to the first line of One Hundred Years of Solitude,) and seems to invariably result in worse questions that no one would like as much as what's already available from mixed pure academic or pop culture.

Post by **Important Bird Area** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:01 pm

CavsFan2k10 wrote:As much as I love the Pop Culture/Sports, I think this should probably set to 1/1 therefore probably letting there be more Fine Arts or Mythology, perhaps? EDIT: I'll apologize in advance if this isn't the type of discussion this thread was aiming for. EDIT 2: Where does Linguistics fall under? GK, perhaps? In an old IS set (maybe it was from this year) that we practiced on, there was a common link tossup on the letter "y" with language clues.

Linguistics is under social science. Common links from language clues are probably GK.

Cheynem · Post by **Cheynem** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:12 pm

As long as you have trash, I really don't see a problem with mixed impure academic/trash, aside from the general complaint of "don't write them on stupid things." I can see the argument to get rid of trash or lower the number of mixed impure questions, but I see nothing wrong with them on principle.

Steeve Ho You Fat · Post by **Steeve Ho You Fat** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:29 pm

I think we need to separate IS sets from the HSNCT here. I firmly believe that trash has no place in academic quizbowl, and love playing sets that don't have it. That being said, NAQT is not going to remove or substantially reduce IS set trash, and I guess I can understand the argument that newer or less experienced teams might enjoy it. However, the HSNCT cannot bill itself as a legitimate national championship when it is full of trash questions. I lost a game at the HSNCT by 15 points with 10 in protest in which I zeroed a bonus on Bejeweled and couldn't pick up the last tossup on Space Oddity. I then lost another game in which my opponent powered a Motley Crue question, and another because I couldn't pick up a tossup in X Men Rouge. Really? The national championship is being decided by this? For more important examples, look at the finals, where LASA lost by 20 and zeroed a Marvin Gae bonus. Sure, you can make the argument "Oh, just get all the academic questions and you'll win anyway," but quizbowl isn't about getting all the academic questions, it's about getting more than your opponent. I think that games where one team can do that and still lose, at a national championship, should never happen. The NSC and NASAT sets weren't too much better than the HSNCT set, in my opinion, but the lack of trash made the results of close games more fair (with the obvious exception of the botched NSC protests).

Basically, what I'm saying is that you can leave IS sets alone, but the HSNCT would be infinitely improved by a lack of trash.

Sniper, No Sniping! · Post by **Sniper, No Sniping!** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:42 pm

The Motley Crue tossup was actually a common link about "The Devil" with mixed impure academics, FWIW.

Steeve Ho You Fat · Post by **Steeve Ho You Fat** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:49 pm

CavsFan2k10 wrote:The Motley Crue tossup was actually a common link about "The Devil" with mixed impure academics, FWIW.

Then include mixed impure in my previous post. If it's not academic, it shouldn't be deciding games at an academic national championship. Maybe the argument that new teams need trash to be lured in is right, but I don't think teams that have qualified, paid hundreds of dollars, and traveled to Atlanta need luring in.

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:24 pm

CavsFan2k10 wrote:The Motley Crue tossup was actually a common link about "The Devil" with mixed impure academics, FWIW.

No, it was all about pop songs that mention "the devil."

Khanate · Post by **Khanate** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 1:47 am

I'd like to see less noncomputational math and more of other science like Astronomy and Earth Science. Considering that math isn't even a science in itself (although that is debatable), I feel the distribution should shift more towards actual natural sciences. On the other side of things, I think that there should be some noncomp math bonuses as HSNCT.

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:03 am

CavsFan2k10 wrote:As much as I love the Pop Culture/Sports, I think this should probably set to 1/1 therefore probably letting there be more Fine Arts or Mythology, perhaps?

Yes. This is correct. To be specific, there should be more Painting and Composers/Works.

I don't have a strong opinion on whether or not Miscellaneous should continue to exist, but I'm sure there should be less of it. In addition to increasing Painting and Composers/Works, a significant decrease in Miscellaneous can be handled by increasing the major categories a little bit.

I'm unsure of why there is a mandate for CE_Social and CE_Misc, and I don't have examples of such questions, but my guess is that such things could be eliminated or decreased. I am in favor of keeping, and possibly increasing, the other Current Events subcategories, though the Lefty in me would prefer Business being changed to Business and Labor.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 11:40 am

I think the problem with CE_Business is that in practice it ends up being a category in which all of the tossups have the name of a company as an answer. Certainly this was the case in the HSNCT. Hopefully some more imagination can be injected into the current events distribution in the near future.

Angry Babies in Love · Wed Jun 22, 2011 11:51 am

Kyle wrote:I think the problem with CE_Business is that in practice it ends up being a category in which all of the tossups have the name of a company as an answer. Certainly this was the case in the HSNCT. Hopefully some more imagination can be injected into the current events distribution in the near future.

There could be tossups on quantitative easing, sub-prime mortgages, or really anything on the recent/current crisis. Those would have been interesting.

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:03 pm

Wurzel-Flummery wrote:
Kyle wrote:I think the problem with CE_Business is that in practice it ends up being a category in which all of the tossups have the name of a company as an answer. Certainly this was the case in the HSNCT. Hopefully some more imagination can be injected into the current events distribution in the near future.
There could be tossups on quantitative easing, sub-prime mortgages, or really anything on the recent/current crisis. Those would have been interesting.

It is difficult to write tossups on those topics without transparency problems. Those topics would be good for bonuses.

If this subcategory is along the lines of 1/1 or 2/2 for an entire set, then I don't think it's a big deal for the answers to be names of companies and business leaders.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 2:05 pm

Westwon wrote:If this subcategory is along the lines of 1/1 or 2/2 for an entire set, then I don't think it's a big deal for the answers to be names of companies and business leaders.

I think a little variety is good from time to time, since the current events that come up in NAQT sets tend to be fairly predictable, but I agree that there is nothing wrong in principle with questions about companies that have been in the news. But this post seems funny because you just recommended increasing the number of business current events questions four posts ago...

Mechanical Beasts · Post by **Mechanical Beasts** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 3:25 pm

Westwon wrote:I'm unsure of why there is a mandate for CE_Social and CE_Misc

Probably so that you can't fill a set of current events with a million tossups on politicians and states off politician clues. CE_Politics tends to overwhelm, given the opportunity, since such questions may be written particularly quickly, easily, and un-creatively. CE_Misc, like NAQT's misc science, just means "more of either Social or Business or Politics or Science" so a mandate for it is actually a mandate for flexibility between categories.

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 5:12 pm

Kyle wrote:
Westwon wrote:If this subcategory is along the lines of 1/1 or 2/2 for an entire set, then I don't think it's a big deal for the answers to be names of companies and business leaders.
I think a little variety is good from time to time, since the current events that come up in NAQT sets tend to be fairly predictable, but I agree that there is nothing wrong in principle with questions about companies that have been in the news. But this post seems funny because you just recommended increasing the number of business current events questions four posts ago...

It's currently 2/1 in IS and 2/2 in HSNCT for the entire sets. If you double those numbers, you still don't need much variety. If you triple or quadruple them, then it probably becomes necessary to ask some questions that are a combination of current events and economics, which you could do with or without a big increase.

As far as filling sets with politician questions and polity questions that name a lot of politicians, that's not necessarily a bad thing as long as the vast majority of questions talk about more than just elections/polls, and that just comes down to good question writing.

Black-throated Antshrike · Sat Jul 23, 2011 1:51 am

After checking the distribution of HSNCT if you combine the Trash, Current Events, and General Knowledge together you get 118 Tossups and 135 Bonuses. That comes out to being 18.2% for tossups and 20.83% for bonuses. So basically 20% of the tournament is not academic knowledge. This should definitely go down to no more than 1/1 of Trash/CE/GK per packet. You have subdivisions of the trash distributions that significantly outweigh aspects of the academic distribution, notably the mythology section. It is extremely irritating to play a tournament where every fifth questions is about something ridiculous. Also, can we please stop getting questions on 1980's movies and music, because your basically either going to 30 a bonus on it or zero it.

Post by **Important Bird Area** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 2:14 am

Current events is a legitimate academic subject; there's no need to lump it with pop culture and GK.

Sometime soon the bonus conversion stats for HSNCT will be available and I can go hunting for thirty-or-zero problems. Offhand, I don't see any particular reason why the pop culture of the 1980s would be more susceptible to this problem than other forms of pop culture.

Black-throated Antshrike · Sat Jul 23, 2011 2:56 am

bt_green_warbler wrote:Current events is a legitimate academic subject; there's no need to lump it with pop culture and GK.

Sometime soon the bonus conversion stats for HSNCT will be available and I can go hunting for thirty-or-zero problems. Offhand, I don't see any particular reason why the pop culture of the 1980s would be more susceptible to this problem than other forms of pop culture.

I personally just hate current events. It does have more merit than Trash/GK but I still think it is one of those things that needs to be scaled down a lot. I just feel that some knowledge you can gain by just looking at a newspaper headline isn't something that should readily by asked about.

In reference to the 1980's trash: I just remember at HSNCT our team would basically 30 or 0 a bonus on it. It's basically something you're going to know quite a bit about or none.

Steeve Ho You Fat · Post by **Steeve Ho You Fat** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 3:04 am

Actually read the article and you'll get it earlier, and learn stuff about what's happening in our country and the world. I do agree that trash needs to be accessible and have fewer tossups on things like Space Oddity that, at least as far as I know, most high schoolers wouldn't be familiar with. I guess the argument is that if your team has someone who's in to 80s stuff you'll 30 and if not 0, but I feel like that applies to all trash to some degree.

salmon of wisdom · Post by **salmon of wisdom** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 12:30 pm

What category do current even questions that have answer lines like "Nevada" or "Texas" fall into?

Post by **Important Bird Area** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 1:01 pm

Those might be classified as either "political current events" or "social current events" depending on the clues in the particular question.

Coldblueberry · Post by **Coldblueberry** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 12:48 pm

Wait, is something going to actually be done about Trash and Current Events reductions?

This sounds a lot more grumpy than I actually mean, but:
How come NAQT doesn't seem like it considers the opinions/trends of every other question provider when it comes to distribution?
Also, why the hate for World History and above average love for American History?

Down and out in Quintana Roo · Wed Aug 17, 2011 1:26 pm

Coldblueberry wrote:Wait, is something going to actually be done about Trash and Current Events reductions?

This sounds a lot more grumpy than I actually mean, but:
How come NAQT doesn't seem like it considers the opinions/trends of every other question provider when it comes to distribution?
Also, why the hate for World History and above average love for American History?

You obviously have no idea at all just how far NAQT has come even in the last few years, especially with Jeff answering every single question on this board but by e-mail and Facebook as well. He's been invaluable to this community.

Just because NAQT isn't doing something perfectly like you prefer doesn't mean you can say that it "doesn't seem like it considers" what other people say. That's just flat out wrong.

Post by **Important Bird Area** » Wed Aug 17, 2011 2:15 pm

Coldblueberry wrote:why the hate for World History and above average love for American History?

It is a very consistent trend in our conversion data that American history is easier to answer and easier to write. I doubt that we could substantially increase the amount of world history in our packets without either a drastic increase in difficulty or many more tossups with countries as answers (which are already somewhat unpopular).

How come NAQT doesn't seem like it considers the opinions/trends of every other question provider when it comes to distribution?

NAQT certainly does take into account opinion in the quizbowl community when setting our distribution; I think an examination of recent trends in NAQT distribution change will bear this out. Your question appears to blur the boundary between "NAQT should consider the opinions of its customers" (which is obviously good) and "NAQT's distribution should precisely follow the distributions established by NAQT's competitors" (which is unlikely to happen).

Coldblueberry · Post by **Coldblueberry** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 8:02 am

bt_green_warbler wrote:
Coldblueberry wrote:why the hate for World History and above average love for American History?
It is a very consistent trend in our conversion data that American history is easier to answer and easier to write. I doubt that we could substantially increase the amount of world history in our packets without either a drastic increase in difficulty or many more tossups with countries as answers (which are already somewhat unpopular).

How come NAQT doesn't seem like it considers the opinions/trends of every other question provider when it comes to distribution?
NAQT certainly does take into account opinion in the quizbowl community when setting our distribution; I think an examination of recent trends in NAQT distribution change will bear this out. Your question appears to blur the boundary between "NAQT should consider the opinions of its customers" (which is obviously good) and "NAQT's distribution should precisely follow the distributions established by NAQT's competitors" (which is unlikely to happen).

Pyramidal Quizbowl was probably created before I could even read, but I'm under the impression that ACF is, more or less, the "father" organization of good questions.
While college distributions should probably differ from high school ones, I'm pretty sure a reduced trash distribution is one area where they should meet.

It sounds like you were offended: I'm not talking about "conforming" to HSAPQ distribution...I'm talking about inheriting ACF distribution.

Golran · Post by **Golran** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 9:36 am

A quick glance shows me that ACF's first tournament was in 1999, while NAQT's was at least as early as 1996.

Tower Monarch · Post by **Tower Monarch** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 9:47 am

Golran wrote:A quick glance shows me that ACF's first tournament was in 1999, while NAQT's was at least as early as 1996.

Not that this really matters, but there are two "ACF" organizations that are related but different, and the earlier one has been running since about 1991. See this for more information.
None of this changes the fact that NAQT is under no requirement to conform to the modern ACF distribution just because they have shared history.

Coldblueberry · Post by **Coldblueberry** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 11:40 am

Tower Monarch wrote:
Golran wrote:A quick glance shows me that ACF's first tournament was in 1999, while NAQT's was at least as early as 1996.
Not that this really matters, but there are two "ACF" organizations that are related but different, and the earlier one has been running since about 1991. See this for more information.
None of this changes the fact that NAQT is under no requirement to conform to the modern ACF distribution just because they have shared history.

Golran wrote:A quick glance shows me that ACF's first tournament was in 1999, while NAQT's was at least as early as 1996.

I'm pretty sure i heard somewhere that NAQT started out with "bad" questions, as pyramidal had not been developed yet.

I don't really know much about any of this stuff and I'm not saying "just because someone else does this you have to do it too," but I'm not sure if complaints about mACF distribution for trash are that common.

Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) · Thu Aug 18, 2011 12:14 pm

Could people not just spew made up nonsense on the boards? Old NAQT sets were pyramidal, they just aren't very good by today's standards. They had tossups that were basically the same length from the get go.

Thu Aug 18, 2011 12:14 pm

NAQT has advocated pyramidal tossups since we produced our first sets in the fall of 1996. That being said, it is obviously true that many questions found in early NAQT sets do not meet the standards that today's players expect from their quizbowl.

cvdwightw · Post by **cvdwightw** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 12:59 pm

Coldblueberry wrote:I don't really know much about any of this stuff and I'm not saying "just because someone else does this you have to do it too," but I'm not sure if complaints about mACF distribution for trash are that common.

If you are actually saying what I think you're trying to say, then no, there is not some kind of community uproar about the amount of trash in NAQT. What you see is a bunch of dumb threads about trash on these boards, and considering that the regular posters on this board comprise somewhere less than 0.01% of all high school quizbowlers in the U.S., I don't think it's fair to say such complaints are "common."

NAQT needs to listen to the complaints of the top teams because those teams are the most committed teams, and no business in its right mind is going to alienate a hardcore fanbase. But at the same time, NAQT (being a for-profit business) needs to listen to the other 99.99% of quizbowlers, many of whom are used to playing on absolutely god-awful questions with a non-academic distribution twice as large and will freak out if they have to go cold turkey on trash questions.

These boards would be a much better place if people would stop assuming that dumb arguments repeated on the boards ad nauseum represent the actual viewpoints of the quizbowl populace.

Coldblueberry · Post by **Coldblueberry** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 2:38 pm

Not that I cited any dumb arguments, but whatever, everyone has their own opinion. The 0.7 and all those sub-extra distributions still bug me in an OCD way. Maybe that's what's pissing me off :)

Mechanical Beasts · Post by **Mechanical Beasts** » Thu Aug 18, 2011 9:25 pm

Coldblueberry wrote:Not that I cited any dumb arguments

No, to clarify the above posters: your arguments were dumb. You didn't cite anyone else's dumb arguments.

The 0.7 and all those sub-extra distributions still bug me in an OCD way. Maybe that's what's pissing me off :)

If you phrased "religion" and "mythology" and "philosophy" as separate categories, rather than as RMP, then all ACF tournaments would have decimal-point distributions. It's all in how you chop it: if you want to make an argument that certain types of chops make it more possible for more unfortunate rare packetizing occurrences to happen, then that'd be a valid argument--though NAQT's distribution is by no means substantially more vulnerable to that than the ACF distribution (where editors' common sense is the only thing keeping a history, a lit, a fine arts, a mythology, and a geo/ce from all being about Greece). But chopping distributions one way or another can produce the same packets: if you don't like NAQT packets, the error lies elsewhere.

Coldblueberry · Post by **Coldblueberry** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 10:46 pm

List of villages in West Virginia wrote: He's been invaluable to this community.

I wasn't making an ad hominem attack in my post.

List of villages in West Virginia wrote: You obviously have no idea at all just how far NAQT has come even in the last few years

I obviously haven't but you're saying this like it's something I SHOULD have an idea of. I haven't been involved for more than 2 years.
http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... 20&t=10120 is the only thing I could find regarding NAQT distribution and it clearly shows people objecting to the trash distribution. A frequent neighbor word: reduce.

Also, the reason for my ACTUAL POST:

"Question: .... IS-sets would tend a bit closer to HSAPQ/ACF than they do now?
We've thought about this, and it is one option on the table for the future."

Is there any reason why I should be bashed for asking about the "future" mentioned here?

List of villages in West Virginia wrote: Just because NAQT isn't doing something perfectly like you prefer doesn't mean you can say that it "doesn't seem like it considers" what other people say. That's just flat out wrong.

By doesn't seem, I mean doesn't seem, which means it's not apparent to me. Maybe it's apparent to you, but I didn't really see a change in trash resulting from last year's thread. Like I said above, I don't have access/cannot find something describing "how it was in the old days." Therefore, I only have the ability to discuss distribution changes on a year-to-year basis.

Mechanical Beasts wrote: No, to clarify the above posters: your arguments were dumb. You didn't cite anyone else's dumb arguments.

umad? Clearly, "How come, why, probably, I'm under the impression, more or less, I'm pretty sure i heard somewhere, I don't really know much about any of this stuff, I'm not sure, everyone has their own opinion" are the bases for a very strong and persuasive argument.

Original Post: "is something going to actually be done about Trash and Current Events reductions?"

Ok, we already answered "How come NAQT doesn't seem like it considers the opinions/trends of every other question provider when it comes to distribution?"
with "Justin is stupid because he didn't enter high school earlier and join the Quizbowl team earlier and lurk on the forums reading every thread earlier so that he could see how NAQT's distribution changed over a long period of time. We should criticize him because he made a strong assertion of: "I'm pretty sure i heard somewhere that NAQT started out with "bad" questions" and obviously did not consult his stash of '98 NAQT packets that he brought home to study over the summer."

All I wanted to know was whether or not there would be a change in commonly mentioned distribution such as trash. I apologize for that "actual" inserted into the question which may have made it seem slightly angry. Yeah, I do have repressed anger because of my experiences with almost losing or losing close matches with rivals because of trash tossups. I sincerely doubt that a 0.7 decrease in trash would drive away any teams thinking about attending NAQT tournaments.

Coldblueberry · Post by **Coldblueberry** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 10:56 pm

Sorry for double post but it would be really messy if I lumped erything together.

cvdwightw wrote:If you are actually saying what I think you're trying to say, then no, there is not some kind of community uproar about the amount of trash in NAQT. What you see is a bunch of dumb threads about trash on these boards, and considering that the regular posters on this board comprise somewhere less than 0.01% of all high school quizbowlers in the U.S., I don't think it's fair to say such complaints are "common."
NAQT (being a for-profit business) needs to listen to the other 99.99% of quizbowlers, many of whom are used to playing on absolutely god-awful questions with a non-academic distribution twice as large and will freak out if they have to go cold turkey on trash questions.
These boards would be a much better place if people would stop assuming that dumb arguments repeated on the boards ad nauseum represent the actual viewpoints of the quizbowl populace.

College Park Spyders wrote:I just want to point out that, in my experience, there are actually lots of teams that might not even be in the top 50% of active high schools that have expressed the opinion that they think less of NAQT because they ask so much popular culture. Say what you will about how it keeps teams in the game, but there are lots of teams that are not competitive who still expect the matches to have a more academic distribution, especially in regions that are not already using lots of NAQT's product. I don't buy that argument for keeping trash.

So...

P.S. I have to add that in my area, and probably others as well, there is NO trash distribution at all. Maybe you're talking about Questions Unlimited users, but I think they have much bigger problems to worry about than distribution.

Matt Weiner · Post by **Matt Weiner** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 11:23 pm

Hey maybe we could not jump all over a new player for asking questions/not being 100% in line with the amount of trash in NAQT, which is certainly a topic that reasonable people can disagree on.

ryanrosenberg · Post by **ryanrosenberg** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 11:32 pm

Ok, here's my two cents. I don't think there would be a dramatic reduction in NAQT's customer base if trash were eliminated. I think that people who want to do academic competition do it for academic competition, not to test their pop culture knowledge, and eliminating the trash won't drive away too many people. However, I like the trash distribution. Sure, it could be scaled down a bit (1/1 would probably be better), but from my (admittedly limited) experience, the trash has mostly been on things that are interesting in the realm of pop culture. Reducing the trash distribution would allow NAQT to limit the answer space of trash, making it more accessible, but also hopefully prompting writing on more globally important and relevant answer lines (the often tossed around "what will people care about 50 years from now").

Sniper, No Sniping! · Post by **Sniper, No Sniping!** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 1:09 am

Dripping Springs State Park wrote:Ok, here's my two cents. I don't think there would be a dramatic reduction in NAQT's customer base if trash were eliminated. I think that people who want to do academic competition do it for academic competition, not to test their pop culture knowledge, and eliminating the trash won't drive away too many people. However, I like the trash distribution. Sure, it could be scaled down a bit (1/1 would probably be better), but from my (admittedly limited) experience, the trash has mostly been on things that are interesting in the realm of pop culture.

I completely agree with what Ryan is saying here. Personally, I would feel indifferent if the trash was lowered in NAQT or kept the same, whether or not the same can be said for theoretical "we only play NAQT or no good quiz bowl at all" school in the middle of nowhere remains to be seen.
Now onto a few other things that I'm a little late to the party about that have yet to be addressed...

Coldblueberry wrote:Therefore, I only have the ability to discuss distribution changes on a year-to-year basis.

I'm curious, how exactly are you qualified to discuss if...

Coldblueberry wrote:I haven't been involved for more than 2 years.

Coldblueberry wrote:Yeah, I do have repressed anger because of my experiences with almost losing or losing close matches with rivals because of trash tossups.

All I've really gotten out of your posts (feel free to correct me if I screwed up here) is that you think NAQT should use ACF Distribution because how quiz bowl is played where you live is

Coldblueberry wrote: I have to add that in my area, and probably others as well, there is NO trash distribution at all. Maybe you're talking about Questions Unlimited users, but I think they have much bigger problems to worry about than distribution.

and the quotation that directly appears before this paragraph.

I don't know why NAQT has trash, it probably isn't imperative that they keep trash at all. I like trash, and I like to think that I'm one of the better trash players in my part of the state (particularly sports). With that being said, I'm sure they'd consider removing it from the distribution thanks to your ever so compelling arguments against it. I don't think trash needs to be eliminated just so you can stop "losing close matches with rivals because of trash tossups", or that NAQT as a product is more appealing to the teams that Charlie mentioned "[t]hat have expressed the opinion that they think less of NAQT because they ask so much popular culture.", because really, if I'm correct (which I'm usually not, mind you), NAQT is the most prevalent "good" quiz bowl vendor out there. I mean, who else produces enough sets that NAQT does? Who else hosts a National Tournament that a.) functions well and b.) has over 200+ of the nation's best teams? NAQT has come a long way in just a few years, not just question quality (see: tossups on authors with Biography clues in IS-50 compared to tossups on authors in IS-105) wise but for the development and spread of "good" high school quiz bowl, so I think most teams that care about quiz bowl would bite the bullet that theres going to be the occasional pop culture tossup at an NAQT event.

edit: I messed up the quoting codes.

User was banned for 1 day for continuing to tell another poster not to discuss the NAQT distribution after being told in-thread by a moderator to stop doing this --mgmt

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 11:35 am

If we're going to compare NAQT to bad quizbowl, which admittedly is an imperfect science because bad quizbowl varies from writer to writer and location to location, I think that generally NAQT has more questions that are explicitly pop culture. With bad quizbowl, what you tend to find are questions labeled Current Events that are about the Dallas Mavericks or Fine Arts that are about Twilight, but few if any questions that are labeled Pop Culture. (That's one of many problems with bad quizbowl.) While NAQT does have a lot of Pop Culture, one of the things that they have gotten better at over time is writing academic questions that reward academic knowledge. NAQT has also generally avoided some of the bad quizbowl categories that are not pop culture but lead to horrible questions. The end result is that even though NAQT has a large pop culture distribution, which I disagree with and believe they should decrease, they still end up being better than most of what is out there.

For the academic purists, there are better sets out there than NAQT (in addition to sets that are much worse). However, the decisions as to what sets get used are made by TDs, with some influence from what they see as the market for their tournament, and it's not a situation where each individual taste can be satisfied. Even if we disagree with certain NAQT policies, there is no denying that they get a lot of students playing on a lot of good questions.

Coldblueberry · Post by **Coldblueberry** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 2:54 pm

Leucippe and Clitophon wrote:If we're going to compare NAQT to bad quizbowl

Whoaa. I'm pretty sure everyone loves NAQT, including me. Everything I've discussed : really minor changes. We should definitely thank NAQT for expanding good quizbowl. However, if there's a small change that would be beneficial for many teams, why not advocate for it?

ryanrosenberg · Post by **ryanrosenberg** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 3:09 pm

Coldblueberry wrote:
Leucippe and Clitophon wrote:If we're going to compare NAQT to bad quizbowl
Whoaa. I'm pretty sure everyone loves NAQT, including me. Everything I've discussed : really minor changes. We should definitely thank NAQT for expanding good quizbowl. However, if there's a small change that would be beneficial for many teams, why not advocate for it?

Idea: survey. Rather than simply saying "the top teams want this" or "the silent majority wants this", why not distribute a survey for hosts to hand out? There could be a question about changing/eliminating the trash distribution, one about timed games, and maybe a couple short answer/any other comments sections. This would allow NAQT to actually get a sense of what teams and coaches think, rather than wild speculation on the boards.

Unless this already happens, which it certainly could without me knowing it.

Rufous-capped Thornbill · Sun Aug 21, 2011 3:24 pm

Dripping Springs State Park wrote:
Coldblueberry wrote:
Leucippe and Clitophon wrote:If we're going to compare NAQT to bad quizbowl
Whoaa. I'm pretty sure everyone loves NAQT, including me. Everything I've discussed : really minor changes. We should definitely thank NAQT for expanding good quizbowl. However, if there's a small change that would be beneficial for many teams, why not advocate for it?
Idea: survey. Rather than simply saying "the top teams want this" or "the silent majority wants this", why not distribute a survey for hosts to hand out? There could be a question about changing/eliminating the trash distribution, one about timed games, and maybe a couple short answer/any other comments sections. This would allow NAQT to actually get a sense of what teams and coaches think, rather than wild speculation on the boards.

Unless this already happens, which it certainly could without me knowing it.

Surveys are given at every HSNCT, but I don't know how reliable they can be, as every year I've attended HSNCT I've overheard teams comment about voting for a complete elimination of Literature, or whatever subject it is they are bad at.

EDIT: Grammar

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:59 pm

FYI, here's the 2010 survey. While Sports and Pop Culture headed the Lots Fewer category, Pop Culture headed the Lots More category. Since there wasn't a single category where a majority said either more or less (even adding both more and both less categories), it's pretty much impossible to argue that there is a strong desire from most students who attend HSNCT for significant change. Part of that is a reflection of the fact that most students do not get into many discussions of quizbowl theory or read this board.

Black-throated Antshrike · Mon Aug 22, 2011 12:03 am

NAQT.com wrote:[ 47.2% ] No computational math at all

Does this mean the computational bonuses will be taken out?