TELESCOP at NIU 10-30-2010

[TheDoctor]

Northern Illinois University will be mirroring SCOP's novice tournament as TELESCOP: "Tournament of Exciting Learning Experiences with the Scholastic Community Outreach Program" on 30 October 2010 (information on the packet can be found here). We will be playing in mACF format with bouncebacks, powers, and negs. Each team is guaranteed no fewer than seven games.

This is a novice level tournament. No player who attends this site may have played at any national tournament. Both varsity and fresh/soph teams are welcome; we may form separate varsity and fresh/soph divisions with demand.

Costs are as follows:

Basic entry fee: $50/team
Extra team discount: -$5/additional team (If your team has more than eight players, we highly suggest fielding a second team)
Buzzer discount: -$5/working buzzer (maximum 1/team)
SCOP team discount: -$20

Registration or questions: [email protected]

Edit: I got my grammar fixed by a mathematician!

[TheDoctor]

Current Field, updated 18 October 2010.

Belvidere North A
Belvidere North B
(Belvidere North C?)
King's Academy
Rockford Boylan A
Rockford Boylan B
Stillman Valley

[David Riley]

Regarding the initial post: This is a novice to8rnament, and it's entirely possible that a team could have a varsity player who wasn't able to attend a national tournament due to graduation, a regatta, etc. but is otherwise a seasoned player. Perhaps the eligibility should be tweaked somewhat?

[Boeing X-20, Please!]

Regarding the initial post: This is a novice to8rnament, and it's entirely possible that a team could have a varsity player who wasn't able to attend a national tournament due to graduation, a regatta, etc. but is otherwise a seasoned player. Perhaps the eligibility should be tweaked somewhat?

As well as the fact people can attend national tournaments and still be considered novices due to situations where other people can't be present, such as the "B" team for Loyola at HSNCT last year would have been unfairly not allowed to play in this due to their HSNCT participation because of 80% of the real A & B teams was graduating.

[Kwang the Ninja]

Luckily, since there's human beings in charge of running this tournament, they will be able to distinguish between "novice" and "seasoned" players. All these technicalities are kinda absurd, why would someone who is an elite player that just happened to miss both nationals want to play a super-easy tournament against inexperienced players?

[Cody]

Luckily, since there's human beings in charge of running this tournament, they will be able to distinguish between "novice" and "seasoned" players. All these technicalities are kinda absurd, why would someone who is an elite player that just happened to miss both nationals want to play a super-easy tournament against inexperienced players?

Ask Charles Hang.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Luckily, since there's human beings in charge of running this tournament, they will be able to distinguish between "novice" and "seasoned" players. All these technicalities are kinda absurd, why would someone who is an elite player that just happened to miss both nationals want to play a super-easy tournament against inexperienced players?

Ask Charles Hang.

This sort of thing was also done by a few people at the Fall Novice mirrors last fall. I'd like to make sure it doesn't really happen again next year.

[David Riley]

Andrew's point is why I brought this up.

[Irreligion in Bangladesh]

All good points - we've got potential Type I errors (someone better than novice who happened to miss nationals gets in to SCOP Novice) and Type II errors (someone novice gets shoehorned into nats and is not allowed in to SCOP Novice) here. Two notes on this. First, we set this as our criterion for the NIU site, but that doesn't mean it'll be the criterion for other sites. We encourage other mirroring sites to consider their audiences when establishing their novice criteria. Second, the way the geography is currently shaking out for Illinois SCOP novice sites, the only school who will attend both NIU SCOP Novice AND any sort of nationals is Auburn, and we're in good communication with them regarding this tournament (indeed, half of their A team is writing the set!) so there will be no issue with Type II errors for our site. By the same token, we chose this criteria because there really aren't any non-Auburn players in our geographic region we'd want to exclude, so Type I errors won't be an issue either. The only issue we might come across is members of Auburn C-and-below who may be better than novice; we'd talk with Coach Greene about that when October rolls around and she knows who is actually able to attend.

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

All good points - we've got potential Type I errors (someone better than novice who happened to miss nationals gets in to SCOP Novice) and Type II errors (someone novice gets shoehorned into nats and is not allowed in to SCOP Novice) here. Two notes on this. First, we set this as our criterion for the NIU site, but that doesn't mean it'll be the criterion for other sites. We encourage other mirroring sites to consider their audiences when establishing their novice criteria. Second, the way the geography is currently shaking out for Illinois SCOP novice sites, the only school who will attend both NIU SCOP Novice AND any sort of nationals is Auburn, and we're in good communication with them regarding this tournament (indeed, half of their A team is writing the set!) so there will be no issue with Type II errors for our site. By the same token, we chose this criteria because there really aren't any non-Auburn players in our geographic region we'd want to exclude, so Type I errors won't be an issue either. The only issue we might come across is members of Auburn C-and-below who may be better than novice; we'd talk with Coach Greene about that when October rolls around and she knows who is actually able to attend.

It seems to not be much of an issue in this case since NIU is in communication with Auburn, but in general, the way I tried to avoid Type II error with our Fall Novice set was to merely state that anyone who thought they merited an exception should contact me, preferably with stats to back up their claim. No one ended up doing this, but it seems to me like a fairly easy solution.

[jdeliverer]

It seems like you'd rather err on the side of letting more people play - if someone is too good for the field they should know it, and I don't think many people have enough of an ego that they'd play below their level just to feel good about themselves. It seems like a shame to cut anyone out who wants to play though.

[David Riley]

The players aren't generally the problem--it's unscrupulous coaches.

[at your pleasure]

A potential type II error did come up at our mirror. Two TJ C players who had been dragooned to play NSC asked to play on the ground that they hadn't themselves qualifed for NSC. Their stats weren't that impressive, so we let them play and they didn't destroy the field or anything like that so it seems to have been the right choice.

[Smuttynose Island]

A potential type II error did come up at our mirror. Two TJ C players who had been dragooned to play NSC asked to play on the ground that they hadn't themselves qualifed for NSC. Their stats weren't that impressive, so we let them play and they didn't destroy the field or anything like that so it seems to have been the right choice.

Just to clarify, they played on TJ C at Pace and played on TJ A at Whitman's mirror of Fall Novice.

[Dan-Don]

The thing I did for my mirror of the Fall Novice (that is, no Varsity A-Team starters) seemed pretty good. It prevented people who hadn't been to nats but were still really good (I'm thinking of Malis, Chametzky, Carbery, A Haseeb, Deveau) from playing and didn't punish players who maybe went to nats but weren't particularly skilled. The biggest issue with this schematic is that the elite programs (with the exception of Barrington, who surprised everyone) still took home the trophies, while the struggling programs (who don't have players who are skilled at canonical, pyramidal questions) left home pretty devastated and probably didn't gain much. So just something to think about.

[dtaylor4]

The thing I did for my mirror of the Fall Novice (that is, no Varsity A-Team starters) seemed pretty good. It prevented people who hadn't been to nats but were still really good (I'm thinking of Malis, Chametzky, Carbery, A Haseeb, Deveau) from playing and didn't punish players who maybe went to nats but weren't particularly skilled. The biggest issue with this schematic is that the elite programs (with the exception of Barrington, who surprised everyone) still took home the trophies, while the struggling programs (who don't have players who are skilled at canonical, pyramidal questions) left home pretty devastated and probably didn't gain much. So just something to think about.

On the other hand, the abbreviated mirror I ran featured noted new program Champaign Centennial at its first tournament ever. They got spanked by Chametzky et al, and look at the progress the program has made in the first year of existence.

[Dan-Don]

The thing I did for my mirror of the Fall Novice (that is, no Varsity A-Team starters) seemed pretty good. It prevented people who hadn't been to nats but were still really good (I'm thinking of Malis, Chametzky, Carbery, A Haseeb, Deveau) from playing and didn't punish players who maybe went to nats but weren't particularly skilled. The biggest issue with this schematic is that the elite programs (with the exception of Barrington, who surprised everyone) still took home the trophies, while the struggling programs (who don't have players who are skilled at canonical, pyramidal questions) left home pretty devastated and probably didn't gain much. So just something to think about.

On the other hand, the abbreviated mirror I ran featured noted new program Champaign Centennial at its first tournament ever. They got spanked by Chametzky et al, and look at the progress the program has made in the first year of existence.

That is very true also. This can probably be chalked up partly to your system and mostly to good coaching. We can't say for certain what would have happened had they gotten demolished by a whole tournament full of superstars and not just one.

I guess there really is no right answer to the question of eligibility rules for a novice set.

[TheDoctor]

Though there was some doubt, it looks like the NIU site will officially run. This is an open call for moderators willing to travel and read for free pizza.

[mr_basque]

Kristen,

I just want to make sure that you have me down for the NIU site. 3 teams - Belvidere North. And who should the check be made out to?

Thanks,
John

[Irreligion in Bangladesh]

Kristen,

I just want to make sure that you have me down for the NIU site. 3 teams - Belvidere North. And who should the check be made out to?

Thanks,
John

"Quiz Bowl Association". And yes, we have you down!

[TheDoctor]

E-mails are going out to coaches in five minutes.

[TheDoctor]

Thank you, everyone, for coming to the tournament! I was extremely impressed by the teams' performances and the players' sportsmanship and involvement, and by the moderators' skill and enthusiasm. The final standings are:

1. Belvidere North A
2. Boylan A
3. Stillman Valley
4. Boylan B
5. King's Academy
6. Belvidere North C
7. Belvidere North B
8. Boylan C

Congratulations to everyone, and to the top individual scorers:

1. Dylan Minarik, Belvidere North A
2. Ryan Burns, King's Academy
3. Nick Chelk, Boylan A
4. Conor Reiley, Belvidere North C
5. Alex Gonzalez, Belvidere North B and Hunter Winstead, Stillman Valley

Full statistics are available at: scobo.net.

Edit: Linky-linky fixy-fixy

[TheDoctor]

Closed thread is now up to discuss the questions.