Aaron Carney wrote:This will likely be the last time I post in thread as I find it a moot point to argue with people only looking to argue, which is one of the ways some people swim in faulty logic.
Please do not mix what I say with an argument someone else is making. I am only one person.
Please read all of what I say and not skim over the first few sentences and maybe last few.
Please do not assume you know the definition to every word in your vocabulary, you do not use them all correctly.
I say this, and its a problem on many forums, people rush in and respond without putting much thought to what they have read. I apologize to some but there's a certain level of intelligence required to have a conversation with me as I assume a certain level mental activity to be able to analyze and evaluate information on the fly, or at least take time to process it all before responding.
I'm suited up. Try me.
First, I was responding in defense of the use of quality points and then explaining the purpose of quizbowl. I was not arguing for the use of quality points in the MUT or even arguing on behalf of my teams leadership.
So, you were "responding in defense of"--i.e. defending--your new stat. But you were not "arguing for [its] use." What on earth? More importantly, you're "explaining the purpose of quizbowl"... I assume you omitted "as I see it" or something like that, since the tremendous majority of the quizbowl community appears to disagree.
I will openly admit that they screwed up by not informing teams ahead of time that this system would be used to determine ties. I also admit that a mirror should be done with at least a very similar set of rules, at the time of the event I did not know this was a mirror and would have advised otherwise had I known. Do not assume that there are two sides to any argument or even that an argument is restricted to one, two or even three dimensions.
I am glad that you are conceding that you were wrong in the dimensions of the argument that don't have to do with quality points.
Second;
Putting aside the rest of your post, this is also incredibly wrong. The point of quizbowl is to know more than the other team, and therefore win. Is there a social aspect to it? Sure. But if the point is not to win, then why even keep score? I also have no idea what the last sentence means.
Analyze and evaluate...and go enjoy a dictionary or get a psych eval, I'm still hoping no one here needs one.
If you think that there is a point in engaging in the following process:
1) decide on a format based on which there will be determined a tournament winner, and indeed a winner of every game
2) decide on a tiebreaker statistic that attempts to measure how little a team tried to win, and rewards that team for its "sportsmanship"
then you need a psychological evaluation more than any who suggests that we might want to properly determine a winner. You've turned a debate about the merits of a tiebreaker into a referendum on "is competition good?" And, see, if this weren't quizbowl you would smack yourself in the head and say "yes, obviously college-age individuals will not be psychologically harmed by keeping score in a meaningful way when they get together to play basketball." But since this is quizbowl, and one element of quizbowl involves intellectual, rather than physical, pursuits, you have an angle: you can quietly assume that learning is socially isolating or something and suggest that an environment that encourages "trying to learn the most stuff" instead of "trying to learn the most stuff, and then lose narrowly" might actually be somehow awful for you. Try again.
RealHermEdwards is a prime example of not reading the middle sentences. Professional sports has very little parallelism to Quiz Bowl. Their jobs, income and livelihood depend on winning, the more they win, the better their off. We don't get paid to win. We don't get scholarships to win. Yes the purpose of professional basketball is to win. You are hired based on your ability to win the game. The owners increase their money based on their teams winning. One might however make the argument the purpose of professional basketball is to make money but I believe that would be classed as a result.
So, your argument is "if we got paid to win quizbowl, it might be justified to do something horrible like break ties in a meaningful fashion. Since we don't get paid, we should avoid the dread harm to our souls that would result." (With the scary implication that we ought so sacrifice our souls for $$$, which is totally out of keeping with the rest of your feel-good tone.
Now some of you are confused because you hurriedly assumed that purpose and point mean the same thing as goal or aspect. The purpose of the military is not to win battle's, the point of the military is not to win wars. Those are goals, aspects, objectives of the military, not the objective or point. The point and/or purpose of the military is to protect the nation (this is an example on the use of wording).
Okay, so now you're entering into nitpicking semantic lunacy. Having read this, I assume your response to my last objection will be "no, that wasn't my argument. That was my contention. My argument was flibberty gabber ding dong."
Yes, if we are debating or arguing then you should take note in the terminology and what it means. I find it ridiculously amusing that here at the forum for quiz bowl, that terminology which is an important part of being able to answer questions early on for power is not something many people are aware of or even attempt to use.
As someone who has powered many questions, I will tell you that failing to understand your bogus semantic distinctions between purpose, point, goal, and aspect has never actually gotten in my way.
It might have taken some serious analyzing and evaluating to have realized this as I sometimes use people's emotions so they see for themselves when they lass out.
What? Oh,
lash out. Right.