How can quizbowl support writers?

[Krik? Krik?! KRIIIIK!!!]

Writing is one of the most intensive jobs in quizbowl. Full sets can vary in size between 120 to 300 pages, entirely made up of facts from all across academia and subjects. The fact that many of these sets across all difficulties are produced each year with endless levels of creativity and ideas baked into the questions is a testament to the dedication, skill, and pride writers have in their work. I started to write as a way to study, but nowadays, I pretty much exclusively write or do logistics work because I find it much more rewarding.

But writing is difficult for many reasons. It's time intensive to write just one question, let alone come up with answerlines, difficulty, clue choice, and then wordsmithing for playability. Then, that question must be slotted in amongst a few hundred others and proofed or adjusted based on feng shui issues. And all of this is done for a pay far below its real value or even a minimum wage.

The more active writers, the better quizbowl is. More diverse viewpoints and sources and ideas appear, the burden on a small handful of people to write and edit many sets decreases, and the overall quality and quantity of sets increase. So what can quizbowl as a community and individuals do to support writers in meaningful ways? I'd like to discuss this more in this thread, but here are some basic ideas:

1. Compared to a decade ago, discourse on the forums has vastly dissipated and migrated elsewhere, mainly Discord. While these servers are more informal, there are dozens of these chatrooms where information is hard to search from and is often intermixed with day-to-day discussion. The forums are nice in sustaining and preserving more long-form conversations and resources.

However, the forums are decades old and many of the great threads of the past have been buried or lost in older generations. I think having a new, simple post that just links to all of these existing guides on how to write or a good discussion about questioning writing is essential: something like a table of contents. If something exists like it already, then it should be more widely shared and updated frequently.

2. Writer feedback programs like the PACE Mentorship Program or WORKSHOPs are great, and I think they should continue. But I also think there should be more informal ways of giving feedback, even on just a handful of questions that aren't tied to a set. I'd be willing to volunteer and look at people's questions if they'd like, but I'm curious if this could manifest itself into a Google Form where people could get feedback on anything (with the understanding that the questions would not be used for a set if they're being shared). This is a rough idea, so perhaps someone else has a better view of what this could look like.

3. We should praise questions more. And not just a sentence before a paragraph of criticisms, but more substantive "This is what I enjoyed about this question and why." I'm guilty of doing the former and want to give more positive feedback on questions more often.

I remember almost quitting quizbowl based on feedback I received from MCMT. I felt really hopeless and it wasn't until later that I got compliments about it that validated the effort in my eyes. I imagine a lot of other writers feel this way too. I want to hear feedback and make positive changes, but I think it helps to be more productive with how this is given.

I'd like to see some more thoughts on this and will likely develop some more thoughts. I'd be happy to help put together new resources or collect old ones in a place that's more accessible.

[Stained Diviner]

Thanks for getting this discussion started. I hope it goes somewhere.

The Best of the Best has a few good articles on writing, and it might be the best resource as of right now. This seems like an area where the QBWiki could be good, but as of now it does not have enough interesting content.

There used to be more forum posts about question writing, but we are now in a different era of quizbowl. One difference is that good questions are common, so there is not the need to explain to people what is wrong with question sets or how to move to an era where good questions are common. Another related difference is that question sets are often the product of many people working together, so a fair amount of feedback often takes place within the team putting a set together. The fact that we are in this era is major great news, but the minor downsides are less public discussion of improving as writers/editors and the fact that it is no longer heroic to put a good set together. It is a ton of work to put a good set together, but it is work that meets expectations rather than redefines them.

[db0wman]

1. Compared to a decade ago, discourse on the forums has vastly dissipated and migrated elsewhere, mainly Discord. While these servers are more informal, there are dozens of these chatrooms where information is hard to search from and is often intermixed with day-to-day discussion. The forums are nice in sustaining and preserving more long-form conversations and resources.

However, the forums are decades old and many of the great threads of the past have been buried or lost in older generations. I think having a new, simple post that just links to all of these existing guides on how to write or a good discussion about questioning writing is essential: something like a table of contents. If something exists like it already, then it should be more widely shared and updated frequently.

I personally found set discussion threads more helpful than guides when I wrote for quizbowl sets. It's unfortunate that a lot of these aren't public aside from the ACF ones.

[Carlos Be]

I'd say the most valuable resources for writers would be collections of good questions and back-and-forth discussions with other writers and editors. Through the former, writers develop an intuitive sense for what a good question looks like, and through the latter, writers reflect on what guides their intuition so that they may re-form it according to a better understanding of what questions ought to be.

Guides may be useful, especially for something very specific (e.g. "how to select quotes to clue from a literary work", "common mistakes by new writers"), but they are limited in that, inevitably, the guide-author will take for granted a number of assumptions about how questions ought to be written, and the new writer will not have an opportunity to voice their own perspective on that matter. The advantage of dialogue is that any of these assumptions could come up and be challenged (or affirmed), from which both interlocutors can learn.

But I also think there should be more informal ways of giving feedback, even on just a handful of questions that aren't tied to a set. I'd be willing to volunteer and look at people's questions if they'd like, but I'm curious if this could manifest itself into a Google Form where people could get feedback on anything (with the understanding that the questions would not be used for a set if they're being shared). This is a rough idea, so perhaps someone else has a better view of what this could look like.

I am not sure what the best way to do this would be, but I would say that however the feedback is given it is vital that there be opportunity for back-and-forth. A Google form I think would be inadequate because you would just get the first round of feedback but not really have space for clarifications or revisions (or at least it would be rather clunky to implement). Perhaps one could make a general playtesting discord (though there could be an issue of having too many people playtest — it would be bad to have much more than 3 or 4 people in a session, I think), or else just have a list of volunteers who are open to be requested to give feedback on certain categories.

[Sima Guang Hater]

Pay us more
Actually criticize our questions in a balanced way, and (for writers) actually listen to the criticism
Stop fucking out of your assignments

[db0wman]

Pay us more

The two main ways that money leaves the college qb community are 1) paying writers/editors/staffers and 2) transport & lodging for teams and staffers at national tournaments. The ways money enters the community are direct funding from universities and hosting high school tournaments. If you want more money to go to staffers, either more money needs to enter the community or the way that you do nationals needs to change.

[Krik? Krik?! KRIIIIK!!!]

Pay us more

The two main ways that money leaves the college qb community are 1) paying writers/editors/staffers and 2) transport & lodging for teams and staffers at national tournaments. The ways money enters the community are direct funding from universities and hosting high school tournaments. If you want more money to go to staffers, either more money needs to enter the community or the way that you do nationals needs to change.

In my experience as ACF's treasurer, the challenge comes from the fact that the entire year is building up to spend the majority of our income from a quizbowl year on Nationals housing, travel, food, etc. Winter has been an excellent boon and allowed us to pay writers more and give us more flexibility to pay for travel. But still far from perfect.

I've had some success with nonprofit donations this year, but nothing to reduce our reliance on tournament fees, which is the other issue: even to come close to accurate pay for the work that goes into writing would mean increasing our prices, which I think is more harmful to the community. Housewrites are typically run by individuals who also don't really have the capital to spend a few thousand dollars on appropriate pay for questions.

The next big era in quizbowl will begin when, as Dylan mentions, a new revenue stream is found. And I think that stream is grants - or partnerships/sponsorships. But those are hard to come by.

[Votre Kickstarter Est Nul]

3. We should praise questions more. And not just a sentence before a paragraph of criticisms, but more substantive "This is what I enjoyed about this question and why." I'm guilty of doing the former and want to give more positive feedback on questions more often.

I'd add to this that the way forward I would find most helpful and gratifying is not necessarily more praise, but rather a commitment to substantiating both positive and negative criticisms in ways that make them helpful. I fear I sometimes write about problems in an explanatory manner, but am much briefer in noting the good things, which, for the purpose of future writers, is probably unhelpful (what could "I thought the history here was clued-well" really do for a futture reader?). This definitely applies to the editors too (there are 100% questions I've edited/written where, if someone said "these clues were well chosen" or something else vague, I would not know what I actually did to give that impression).

But, and I say this without trying to deny that people have different relationships with criticism and praise, I think it's definitely important we not eschew the critical stuff in favor of the positive. When I was newer to things--and, probably, almost as much now--I assumed I was mediocre, and want(ed) criticism because it's the most direct route to improvement. This is also of course why substantive praise is helpful. This is also helpful for people hoping they're progressing in their skills, which can maybe help with what sometimes appears to be a lack of new editors at high difficulties or taking on head editorships (e.g. "oh, I used to use bad clue type X too often but I've realized from discourse it doesn't play like I wish it did.").

The thing I by far and away feel is most important is to try, at individual clubs, to foster an environment that is aware of what it takes to keep quizbowl operating and what the people who produce quizbowl questions would benefit from. I'm not saying all of the sudden every person on each team should start leaving forums posts, but things like carrying a notebook at tournaments (for both scoring and to jot notes) can be infectious. Same goes for, when discussing questions with team members at/after a tournament, mentioning that the editors would appreciate to hear all comments, no matter how positive, negative, short, or long (and no matter from who). This could also theoretically help with the balance of comments (I'm actually not sure whether Eric meant things are too positive or negative). People clearly don't post a ton, and there is occassionally mentioned a feeling that you need a long, in-depth post to post on the forums. It's wonderful when people have those, and it'd be a shame if there were none. But any individual commenter would feel less of a need to have multiple thought through positive comments to balance out a criticism if there are lots of comments to that effect already (and vice versa). Though I'm too washed to remember, I think it's probably not coincidental that I started leaving set feedback after SGI, my first collegiate writing experience, was well underway.

A last thing I'll say, perhaps as a corollary to Eric's "writers, listen" point, is that I think editors should feel compelled to almost always respond to people's posts. Even an "I loved these questions" post can merit a response, which can vary from "thanks!" to "thanks! I found X from source Y and was hoping people would also know that source/idea/fact from [something]." Especially in the age of no advanced stats--as most tournament discussions lie nowadays--the editors hold alot of the cards on how questions played or what the process was to craft a tossup. David Reinstein noted that tournaments nowadays are often less about an affirmative vision for better quizbowl, but rather about trying to hit the community's reasonably well-established high standard. It can thus be helpful for future writers and editors to understand what went into creating a good tossup, rather than strictly what is in bad tossups that they should avoid. There's also the second possibility, which is that person A comments on good/bad/okay question X, editor B responds, and a player C sees this exchange and sees they want to add to it. This would, at the very least, increase the chances of creating a dialogue. Almost all of the burden for creating good discussions does and should be on the players, but whenever possible, editors should try and contribute.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

Quizbowl can probably never adequately support writers. Writing is a ton of work, it pays very little, and there's no realistic prospect of it paying significantly more anytime soon. Writing probably fails any objective cost-benefit analysis and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

I think the motivation has to come from within. Writing, and especially writing at volume, is something you do because you love doing it. You do it because you love seeing people having fun at a tournament and thinking "they're only here today because of me", you do it because it brings you joy to share exciting new clues with people, you do it because you like the satisfaction of crafting an innovative or hard-to-write, easy-to-answer question. You might also like doing it because it makes you a better player or just because you yourself learn things from it.

When I was playing 15-ish years ago, there was this one player in my circuit who was very emotionally expressive. Seeing his eyes light up when he was listening to a good question I had written was all the currency I needed. (Likewise, seeing him throw an object because he disliked a question I had written was cause for self-reflection).

That's not to say there's nothing you can do to support writers on the margin. People who genuinely want to get better at something always crave constructive feedback. Make sure to not just rant about the one question you really hated but also to talk about what you liked about the 19 other questions in the packet that you did not hate. Supply reasons for why a particular question was good other than "it contained clues I knew". That kind of stuff.

[Stained Diviner]

This is far from a game changer, but it would be helpful if more set discussions were made public eventually. People who set up private discussions of sets before all the mirrors are played should post a public link to those discussions once the sets are posted. There currently are private forums for the 2020 CALISTO and 2020 WORKSHOP, and I don't know if there is any reason they are still private other than inertia. Also, it would help if the packet archive had a field for question discussion links that could be filled in when the questions are posted, thus making those discussions easier to find.

There is money that can be made by writing questions, but it involves supplying questions for a TV show or supplying questions for a major state high school or middle school organization tournament and then selling regular season questions and study materials to the same teams. Doing so means giving some control of quizbowl to non-quizbowl people and focusing on low-level questions, so it certainly is not for everybody. The only college organization worth considering is ACUI, and actually they are not worth considering. When it comes to the collegiate level or above, Bruce is correct.