Directed Prompts

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The King's Flight to the Scots
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Directed Prompts

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

Following my post in the Nats discussion, I wanted us to talk about some guidelines for when prompts should include additional instructions. Directed prompts, e.g. asking "In what country?" for a buzz on a tossup on "Chinese Muslims," have proven to be a positive development, and I've gotten over most of my misgivings about them. I do think, though, that since they're here to stay, they should be used more consistently. There are also a couple ways I think they can be misused.

My first attempt at a standard for directed prompts would be the following: a player direction should be added to a prompt when there's ambiguity as to what extra information the question requires. For example, let's say a player buzzed on the aforementioned tossup with "Muslims" and received a prompt. In this case, from the player's perspective, there are several possible answers the question might be looking for, including "Uyghurs," "Hui people," "Muslim women," et cetera. The direction serves to disambiguate the prompt so that the player doesn't have to read the writer's mind. When the only possible direction would be "Can you be more specific," including that explicitly is unnecessary. No need for a direction on a tossup on John Quincy Adams.

Common use cases for directed prompts might include:

  • When a prompt is asking the player to be less specific
  • Compound or 'Description acceptable' answerlines
  • Common-links where a different answer fits some of the clues
  • Myth questions on gods who are sometimes conflated
  • Science stuff

Please add more examples that I've missed, of which I'm sure there are many. As an old, though, I feel obligated to warn against potential misuse of directed prompts. I'd like to propose the following guideline: a directed prompt should not be the only way to figure out what kind of answer the question is looking for. If a question would be completely opaque without directed prompts, the editor should not cover over that issue with them; a "note to players" preceding the tossup is much preferable. For an example of what I mean, let's consider a hypothetical tossup on "blue dragons." A player might recognize that a clue applies to "dragons," but not know that the dragon being described is blue. There is no way for this player to know, before buzzing, that they have insufficient information to answer the question. On the directed prompt, then, they will neg. In cases like these, it would be preferable to start the question with a note indicating the question is asking for both an animal and a color.

This is most of what I've been considering; please discuss!
Matt Bollinger
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Re: Directed Prompts

Post by Here Comes Rusev Day »

Matt has a good springboard here on some of the concerns I would imagine most people would have. I am also wondering when you have a case of tossup where, while there is a directed prompt of some ort, it is still somewhat unclear as to what it is asking.

For example we have this tossup from ACF Nationals 2019:

The third essay of the Kuzari argues that this corpus is necessary because of an accompanying text's lack of accents. This
body of work is contrasted with that counterpart, the “she-bi-khtav.” Portions of this body of work called the baraita are
recorded in the citations of the Amoraim. Anan ben David was a founder of a movement that rejects the validity of this
body of work. The authority of this set of beliefs was the chief point of dispute between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and
was rejected by the Karaites. Judah the Prince was credited with the first collection and publication of this body of work,
which was analyzed in sets of commentary popularly named for Jerusalem and Babylon, each containing Gemara. This
collective term refers to laws, statutes, and interpretations that were passed down for generations before being gathered in
the Mishnah. For 10 points, what body of work is contrasted with the Written Torah?
ANSWER: Oral Torah [prompt on Torah; prompt on Talmud or Mishnah or Gemara before respective mentions with
“what set of beliefs was collected in that?”; prompt on interpretation of the Torah or synonyms; generously prompt on
things said/written by rabbis; accept Oral Law or Torah she-be-al peh]

Now, I think buzzing in early on this before the "this collective term" would lead one to say any of the promptable answers, which is correct and they should be prompted. Though I do wonder if the directed prompt of "what set of beliefs is that?" is clear on its own and wouldn't further confuse the player. Perhaps there is something I am missing here but if given that directed prompt, I would respond by saying that was the Torah. Question here is that what do we do about directed prompts which may not be clear or could lead a player further astray.
Zach Foster
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ryanrosenberg
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Re: Directed Prompts

Post by ryanrosenberg »

I'm confused, "Torah" is promptable -- would you not then say Oral Torah? If not, what is your understanding of the difference between the oral and written Torah?
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Re: Directed Prompts

Post by Here Comes Rusev Day »

ryanrosenberg wrote: Sat Apr 16, 2022 12:36 pm I'm confused, "Torah" is promptable -- would you not then say Oral Torah? If not, what is your understanding of the difference between the oral and written Torah?
I wouldn't immediately go to "Oral Torah" if I was told "what set of beliefs is that collected in?" Because that directed prompt wouldn't lead me to think it's asking for how it was delivered, instead, just asking me "what is the name of the collection." My understanding is that the Oral Torah is the set of beliefs not recorded by the Written Torah, but I realize that the answer is obviously more than just that if going into detail.
Zach Foster
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ryanrosenberg
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Re: Directed Prompts

Post by ryanrosenberg »

Here Comes Rusev Day wrote: Sat Apr 16, 2022 12:59 pm
ryanrosenberg wrote: Sat Apr 16, 2022 12:36 pm I'm confused, "Torah" is promptable -- would you not then say Oral Torah? If not, what is your understanding of the difference between the oral and written Torah?
I wouldn't immediately go to "Oral Torah" if I was told "what set of beliefs is that collected in?" Because that directed prompt wouldn't lead me to think it's asking for how it was delivered, instead, just asking me "what is the name of the collection." My understanding is that the Oral Torah is the set of beliefs not recorded by the Written Torah, but I realize that the answer is obviously more than just that if going into detail.
The directed prompt is "what set of beliefs is collected in that?", not "what set of beliefs is that collected in?" (so asking for the subset, not the superset).
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Mike Bentley
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Re: Directed Prompts

Post by Mike Bentley »

I'm having a hard time finding an actual example (my search for "by asking" and equivalents on aseemsDB doesn't get many results) but I'm almost positive I've seen directed prompts that basically give you free points by prompting on a somewhat generic answer and then giving an instruction that the question has been hiding.

Maybe the best example is something like Matt's "Chinese Muslims" where the question writer is trying to hide the fact that you need to give a specific bit of information because it makes the question too guessable. A prompt on "Muslims" that asked "In what most populous Asian country?" would be pretty dumb and I don't think anyone is quite doing that. But there are examples where the prompt gives you the pronoun the rest of the question has been saving for the giveaway at any point in your buzz. That seems non-ideal. They're just not coming to mind right now.
Mike Bentley
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