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2016 NHBB Nats: Factual Errors

Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 6:40 pm
by TylerV
Factual errors are the worst kind of mistake we can make as a writing team, as such I wish that any mistakes you noticed be brought up specifically in this thread so they are sure to be noticed. This is also the place to discuss incomplete answerlines.

Re: Factual Errors

Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 6:50 pm
by Halved Xenon Stinging
In Round 5 of the US History Bee, the James Madison tossup mentions that "Paul Jennings purchased his freedom from this man". Daniel Webster was the one who bought Jennings' freedom (and Jennings worked for Webster to pay him off), so this clue doesn't really make any sense (I buzzed at this point and said Webster). I really really hope that this clue wasn't just copied from the 2012 Illinois Fall Tournament, which uses it as its first line.

Re: Factual Errors

Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 7:00 pm
by TylerV
Halved Xenon Stinging wrote:In Round 5 of the US History Bee, the James Madison tossup mentions that "Paul Jennings purchased his freedom from this man". Daniel Webster was the one who bought Jennings' freedom (and Jennings worked for Webster to pay him off), so this clue doesn't really make any sense (I buzzed at this point and said Webster). I really really hope that this clue wasn't just copied from the 2012 Illinois Fall Tournament, which uses it as its first line.
I apologize that this clue was misleading to the point of causing an "incorrect" buzz. Although I didn't write the question I will give the writer the benefit of the doubt and assume that this was worded in such a way to avoid pointing to Dolly Madison and ended up mistakenly pointing to Webster.

Re: Factual Errors

Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 6:05 am
by Bosa of York
I think the tossup on Queen Anne's War described it as a theatre of the 30 Years War, rather than the War of the Spanish Succession.

Re: Factual Errors

Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 9:13 am
by yeah viv talk nah
I didn't encounter this error personally since it was in a lightning round that I didn't read, but other readers have told me that there was a part that referred to Genghis and Kublai sharing the "family name" "Khan", which is (to quote one of my friends) like saying Alfred the Great and Henry VIII shared the "family name" "King".

Also, the tossup on Aethelred II the Unready required the number II as part of an answer (i.e. you couldn't accept "Aethelred the Unready"). This seemed pretty harsh to me, since he is quite commonly referred to by simply his epithet.

Re: Factual Errors

Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 10:18 am
by Nate714
crash bandicoot wrote:I didn't encounter this error personally since it was in a lightning round that I didn't read, but other readers have told me that there was a part that referred to Genghis and Kublai sharing the "family name" "Khan", which is (to quote one of my friends) like saying Alfred the Great and Henry VIII shared the "family name" "King".

Also, the tossup on Aethelred II the Unready required the number II as part of an answer (i.e. you couldn't accept "Aethelred the Unready"). This seemed pretty harsh to me, since he is quite commonly referred to by simply his epithet.
When I said Aethelred The Unready the reader accepted it. Maybe this was a room by room thing where some readers accepted it and some didn't. Either way it is pretty harsh if someone wasn't prompted for just saying Aethelred The Unready.

Re: Factual Errors

Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 11:02 am
by gustavadolf
My teammate got negged for saying "Ethelred the Unready" (he couldn't pull the correct number). This seems pretty silly to me, since I've never heard him called anything but Ethelred the Unready.

Re: Factual Errors

Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 12:00 pm
by Nate714
Also, on the question about the Labour Party (I believe round 6 of bee), I remember specifically it saying that "This party was in an alliance with David Steel's Liberals" I Immediately buzzed in (due to my sorta-prolific knowledge of British Politics) and said "Social Democratic Party", in which I was wrong. The lead in clue should've been changed to "Coalition" not "Alliance" because David Steel's Liberals entered in an alliance with the SDP (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDP%E2%80 ... l_Alliance ). This could've confused many during the reading of the question.

Re: Factual Errors

Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 2:37 pm
by Irreligion in Bangladesh
Aethelred's underlining was definitely wrong; it, Queen Anne's War, and Paul Jennings' complicated freedom story slipped past me. (Aethelred's been underlined correctly in whichever of C, B, and A sets asked for him; I don't know how it got past me this time. Thanks to the moderators who weren't stymied by that!)

The Labour Party tossup from Bee Round 6 leads in with "This party entered a 1977 coalition with David Steel's party." and doesn't use 'alliance' at any point.

Re: Factual Errors

Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 3:18 pm
by Nate714
Irreligion in Bangladesh wrote:Aethelred's underlining was definitely wrong; it, Queen Anne's War, and Paul Jennings' complicated freedom story slipped past me. (Aethelred's been underlined correctly in whichever of C, B, and A sets asked for him; I don't know how it got past me this time. Thanks to the moderators who weren't stymied by that!)

The Labour Party tossup from Bee Round 6 leads in with "This party entered a 1977 coalition with David Steel's party." and doesn't use 'alliance' at any point.
Must've remembered wrong. Sorry about the confusion!