Open Call for Editors Penn Bowl 2022

Elaborate on the merits of specific tournaments or have general theoretical discussion here.
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applesalter
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Open Call for Editors Penn Bowl 2022

Post by applesalter »

This is an open call for editors for Penn Bowl 2022, which will be played in late October. The head editor will be Taylor Harvey and the set coordinators will be Talia Coopersmith and Alex Moon. This set will be jointly written with the University of Florida.

We are looking for editors in the following subjects: European History, Other History, Biology, Chemistry, Other Fine Arts, Belief (Religion), Belief (Myth), Philosophy, and Social Science.

Expectations:

There will be 12 packets of Penn Bowl, with the 13th being tiebreaker questions. Editing 1/1 means a total of 13/13. Please note that Penn Bowl editors are expected to do the bulk of the writing for their categories (although writers from Penn and UF will also contribute).

Application Process:

If you are interested in these positions, please fill out this formhttps://forms.gle/i2Qp4Kta8w611E748 by Sunday, 2/20. Please submit at least 1/1 (one tossup one bonus) that are a similar difficulty to past Penn Bowl questions as part of your application. If you have any questions, you can reach us at [email protected]. We look forward to reading your applications!
Talia Coopersmith (they/them)
University of Pennsylvania '24
President 2022-2023
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Cody
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Re: Open Call for Editors Penn Bowl 2022

Post by Cody »

The only field sizes that can guarantee 10 games in 10 rounds (reserving two packets for finals) are 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 18, and 24 teams. 5 of 9 2021 Penn Bowl mirrors (including the main site) would not have been able to run with 12 packets. Collegiate sets require an absolute minimum of 13 packets to accommodate common field sizes and even then that is insufficient for field sizes of 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 17, and 21 – all of which are common field sizes and require 14 packets.

I would recommend all collegiate sets produce 14 packets + tiebreakers (which need not be a full packet of 20/20).
Cody Voight, VCU ’14.
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Mike Bentley
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Re: Open Call for Editors Penn Bowl 2022

Post by Mike Bentley »

Conversely, I think 14 packets is a big waste of time and effort. Maybe 5% of your teams are going to be playing packet 13 and 14. For regular season events, quizbowl should just adapt to fewer rounds and possibly slightly unfair finals formats. I'd rather play more tournaments than waste a bunch of questions in this way.
Mike Bentley
Treasurer, Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence
Adviser, Quizbowl Team at University of Washington
University of Maryland, Class of 2008
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Cody
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Re: Open Call for Editors Penn Bowl 2022

Post by Cody »

Mike Bentley wrote: Thu Feb 17, 2022 2:28 pm Conversely, I think 14 packets is a big waste of time and effort. Maybe 5% of your teams are going to be playing packet 13 and 14. For regular season events, quizbowl should just adapt to fewer rounds and possibly slightly unfair finals formats. I'd rather play more tournaments than waste a bunch of questions in this way.
Unless you completely abandon ACF-style finals and tiebreakers / replacements, this will always happen to the last couple of packets no matter how many rounds of play you guarantee. Regular-season events are incredibly important because they are the backbone of the quizbowl circuit, and teams pay a lot of money and travel a long way to participate in them. Something like 75% of collegiate teams will only play regular-sesson events, and they deserve to have their time and money valued.

Also, going from 14.5 packets (14 packets + 10/10 tiebreakers & replacements) to 13 reduces the number of questions by only 10%. That isn't nothing, but it's certainly not a "big waste of time and effort". Collegiate sets producing fewer than 14 packets is quite rare, even those experimenting with the distribution (e.g. FLopen still produced 14 packets of 22/22).
Cody Voight, VCU ’14.
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everdiso
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Re: Open Call for Editors Penn Bowl 2022

Post by everdiso »

I'm happy to see another tournament choose to write 12 packets rather than 14 or 15. I basically agree with what Mike said: writers already do too much work for usually little pay to be writing 2 or 3 extra packets that almost never get played in tournaments (I've never played more than 12 games in a non-national tournament, and I imagine that's true for the large majority of quizbowlers who aren't constantly playing deep into playoffs and finals).

This also brings to mind something Chris Sims always says: writing an extra 3 packets that won't actually get played at tournaments can mess up subdistributions. If you're really good at Japanese literature, or Latin American history, or Renaissance art, it's very frustrating to play a tournament that has basically none of it because it wound up in the last 4 packets that weren't played. Of course, this could theoretically be helped by better packetising, but as a matter of practice it happens enough that I think it's worth considering.
Paul Kasiński
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Re: Open Call for Editors Penn Bowl 2022

Post by Cody »

everdiso wrote: Fri Feb 18, 2022 3:08 am I'm happy to see another tournament choose to write 12 packets rather than 14 or 15. I basically agree with what Mike said: writers already do too much work for usually little pay to be writing 2 or 3 extra packets that almost never get played in tournaments (I've never played more than 12 games in a non-national tournament, and I imagine that's true for the large majority of quizbowlers who aren't constantly playing deep into playoffs and finals).

This also brings to mind something Chris Sims always says: writing an extra 3 packets that won't actually get played at tournaments can mess up subdistributions. If you're really good at Japanese literature, or Latin American history, or Renaissance art, it's very frustrating to play a tournament that has basically none of it because it wound up in the last 4 packets that weren't played. Of course, this could theoretically be helped by better packetising, but as a matter of practice it happens enough that I think it's worth considering.
that's because two packets are reserved for finals (which can be ACF-style finals or e.g. a three-team tie that requires two packets to break). by design, they do not have to be used that often, but they are still extremely important for determining the winner of the tournament! (I have personally staffed a 27-team regular-season event that was 13 rounds + 2 finals games were played. and in 2019, Swarthmore had to use a 13-round format + 2 finals games and could've used 3 except Virginia won the first game of the advantaged final.)

since the finals packets are often explicitly labeled (including the last 5+ Penn Bowls) and distributed around, this is not a common problem with housewrites. given the finite amount of category space, someone will always be able to complain about being left out.

on SCT weekend, the following sites used 13 packets:
2022 NAQT DII SCT West (online)
2022 NAQT DII SCT at Virginia
2022 NAQT DI SCT at Virginia

the following would've needed 13 packets if someone hasn't cleared the field or taken the first game of an advantaged final
2022 NAQT DII SCT at MIT
2022 NAQT DII SCT at Cornell

absent a complete abandonment of fair tournament scheduling practices, including sacrificing the core principle that one loss does not eliminate you from winning a tournament, there is no way to avoid this situation. but there is no reason to do so: the status quo works quite well because it is the outcome of a long period of experimentation with tournament and packet formats.
Cody Voight, VCU ’14.
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meebles127
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Re: Open Call for Editors Penn Bowl 2022

Post by meebles127 »

Cody wrote: Fri Feb 18, 2022 9:49 am
everdiso wrote: Fri Feb 18, 2022 3:08 am I'm happy to see another tournament choose to write 12 packets rather than 14 or 15. I basically agree with what Mike said: writers already do too much work for usually little pay to be writing 2 or 3 extra packets that almost never get played in tournaments (I've never played more than 12 games in a non-national tournament, and I imagine that's true for the large majority of quizbowlers who aren't constantly playing deep into playoffs and finals).

This also brings to mind something Chris Sims always says: writing an extra 3 packets that won't actually get played at tournaments can mess up subdistributions. If you're really good at Japanese literature, or Latin American history, or Renaissance art, it's very frustrating to play a tournament that has basically none of it because it wound up in the last 4 packets that weren't played. Of course, this could theoretically be helped by better packetising, but as a matter of practice it happens enough that I think it's worth considering.
that's because two packets are reserved for finals (which can be ACF-style finals or e.g. a three-team tie that requires two packets to break). by design, they do not have to be used that often, but they are still extremely important for determining the winner of the tournament! (I have personally staffed a 27-team regular-season event that was 13 rounds + 2 finals games were played. and in 2019, Swarthmore had to use a 13-round format + 2 finals games and could've used 3 except Virginia won the first game of the advantaged final.)

since the finals packets are often explicitly labeled (including the last 5+ Penn Bowls) and distributed around, this is not a common problem with housewrites. given the finite amount of category space, someone will always be able to complain about being left out.

on SCT weekend, the following sites used 13 packets:
2022 NAQT DII SCT West (online)
2022 NAQT DII SCT at Virginia
2022 NAQT DI SCT at Virginia

the following would've needed 13 packets if someone hasn't cleared the field or taken the first game of an advantaged final
2022 NAQT DII SCT at MIT
2022 NAQT DII SCT at Cornell

absent a complete abandonment of fair tournament scheduling practices, including sacrificing the core principle that one loss does not eliminate you from winning a tournament, there is no way to avoid this situation. but there is no reason to do so: the status quo works quite well.
I'll take the time to note that both of our SCT fields could have resulted in the need for 15 packets but did not due to literally 1 cycle in the DII field. (the DI field could've as well, but would've taken more complicated energy for that to happen).
Em Gunter
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Tournament Director, 2023 Chicago Open
Assistant Tournament Director, 2022 and 2023 ACF Nationals

Author of: My Guide to High School Outreach and So You Want to Buy a Buzzer System

"That's got to be one of the most useful skills anyone has ever gotten from quizbowl." -John Lawrence
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Arabidopsis failiana
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Re: Open Call for Editors Penn Bowl 2022

Post by Arabidopsis failiana »

As someone who drove 5 hours to play Penn Bowl in October, which was one protest away from needing a 13th packet to decide a winner, my opinion is that 12 packets is not sufficient for a tournament at this difficulty level.
Mark Bailey
T.C. Williams High School class of 2019
applesalter
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Re: Open Call for Editors Penn Bowl 2022

Post by applesalter »

Hello, in response to the feedback we have received on our set length (in addition to internal discussion), we have decided to increase the set of Penn Bowl 2022 to 14 full packets with a 15th for tie breakers.
Last edited by applesalter on Sun Jun 12, 2022 9:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Talia Coopersmith (they/them)
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President 2022-2023
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Re: Open Call for Editors Penn Bowl 2022

Post by kidgib »

We'll be closing the application at 11:59 pm tomorrow, 2/20. Feel free to reach out to [email protected] if you have any questions.
Alex Moon
Georgetown Day School '20
University of Pennsylvania '24
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