MUT Mirror 4/2 @ NGCSU

[Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant]

Ok, the basic logical problem with your metric, as you yourself admit, is that it rewards teams for winning close games and punishes them for winning easily.

The system is design to go against the normal competitive thinking. The idea is to promote a more cooperative spirit and improve sportsmanship.

This sounds suspiciously like the mentality behind those stories you hear about sports teams getting into trouble because they crushed their opponent, say, 5-90 in basketball.

[Touko Kettunen]

People have already mentioned before what I was going to say. PPB and PPG are better metrics to use at tiebreakers than that formula for reasons explicated above by Jerry and others (essentially, it's a terrible, terrible way to compare teams. Also, FIRST is based on a much different system than quizbowl). However, in terms of a full round robin, since every team has played each other, I think PPG should be used. I think PPG becomes more meaningful in full round robins because it factors in tossups and, since each team has played every other team besides itself, difference in skill of teams played does not become a factor (one of the reasons why PPB is used over PPG in other situations).

Also, isn't there a document telling people how to host a tournament (I found a powerpoint with headers and a couple words but that's not helpful)? Distributing it to tournament hosts might alleviate some of these problems. Either that or making sure that, in order to use a certain set, a host has to meet certain requirements; and if they do not meet these requirements, they will be blacklisted from hosting that tournament for x year(s).

[The Ununtiable Twine]

Ok, the basic logical problem with your metric, as you yourself admit, is that it rewards teams for winning close games and punishes them for winning easily.

The system is design to go against the normal competitive thinking. The idea is to promote a more cooperative spirit and improve sportsmanship.

This sounds suspiciously like the mentality behind those stories you hear about sports teams getting into trouble because they crushed their opponent, say, 5-90 in basketball.

You mean...this?
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=96794

I mean losing 90-5 in basketball is really bad, but this is truly wrong.

Edit: is joke!

[NGTech]

My equations are based on the design used by FIRST. FIRST has been using their statistic for 15 years to break ties and determine the winners of the preliminary rounds.

I'm not sure why this matters. I don't understand what relationship FIRST could possibly have to quizbowl.

I use the relationship because I am more familiar with FIRST. I believe it is a good comparison since in both you are trying to find the team that has done the best. The reason I created the statistic is the same reason FIRST created theirs, why should we reward a team the takes an overwhelming advantage of a new or inexperienced team. The whole point of competitions like this and FIRST is to have fun and hopefully learn something, at least that is how I feel.

The system is design to go against the normal competitive thinking. The idea is to promote a more cooperative spirit and improve sportsmanship.

The first sentence is certainly true. I'm not sure what the second sentence has to do with anything, or how sportsmanship enters into this.

The idea is to make teams more considerate of other teams and not take a large advantage of a lesser team. I feel sportsmanship comes into this due to the fact that Quiz Bowl is similar to a sport. The way I see sportsmanship is that each team should help the other, if you can answer every tossup then that is good for you, but it is far better (in my eyes) for you to not answer some to give the opposition a chance to learn.

[cchiego]

As the Tournament Director in question, I made the call to respect NCSU's commitment to attend. Because of this, I assumed that they might show up a round late. Or two rounds late. Or even at lunch time, if they had some serious issues. While this ended up not being the case, it was a decision made with respect to a team who had made a commitment to attend. I would have felt that it was in poor taste to exclude them in the event of their arrival. Perhaps this was not the best decision to make, but it was (to me) the right and sporting one.

1. Did you not consider, in your concern for quizbowl justice, that making extraordinary accommodations for a team that never bothered to show up or let you know that they wouldn't be showing up might be unfair to the teams who showed up on time? Unless the team notifies you, you should start your tournament when you said to start your tournament with the teams that showed up. It's their fault for not notifying you and not arriving on time. And most importantly, why did you not let the teams on byes get a chance to play each other? You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the point of quizbowl (e.g. not to determine some arcane "winner" via statistical wizardry, but to let teams play quizbowl).

2. This "statistic" you made up should have been, at the very least, shown to the teams attending beforehand with the explicit understanding that it would be used. Furthermore, this "statistic" is absurd, as was pointed out below by Jerry et. al. It punishes teams for winning by large margins and encourages them to make matches as close as possible by not answering to the best of their ability. That is fundamentally wrong. They can show "sportsmanship" through grace in defeat and humility in victory (where are you getting this idea that there's a sportsmanship deficit in quizbowl that needs correcting anyways?).

I hardly think I can be found at fault for this.

3. Your refusal to take responsibility for the flaws in this tournament is the most atrocious part of this whole fiasco. When you asked for advice before the tournament, the community obliged and stressed that the most important job of a tournament director is accepting responsibility. Instead of taking responsibility, you're passing the buck and lashing out at teams and individuals that provided you with competent advice. Forewarned and thoughtful innovation is fine; mistakes and mishaps are understandable; refusing to listen to feedback and imposing your own arbitrary rules on teams that paid good money for a quality tournament is unacceptable.

[grapesmoker]

I use the relationship because I am more familiar with FIRST. I believe it is a good comparison since in both you are trying to find the team that has done the best. The reason I created the statistic is the same reason FIRST created theirs, why should we reward a team the takes an overwhelming advantage of a new or inexperienced team. The whole point of competitions like this and FIRST is to have fun and hopefully learn something, at least that is how I feel.

Ok, but it's simply not the case that FIRST has anything at all to do with quizbowl. You are trying tofind the team that is the best. That means, the best, period. If a team ever has any advantage to do something other than to play its best game, which is what your metric incentivizes then we cannot possibly assume that they are "the best," since we cannot determine whether their performance was intended to be the best that they could do. This is such a basic part of the game that I seriously do not understand how we are even debating this.

The idea is to make teams more considerate of other teams and not take a large advantage of a lesser team. I feel sportsmanship comes into this due to the fact that Quiz Bowl is similar to a sport. The way I see sportsmanship is that each team should help the other, if you can answer every tossup then that is good for you, but it is far better (in my eyes) for you to not answer some to give the opposition a chance to learn.

Quizbowl doesn't work that way! You score as many points as you can against whomever is on the other team, because that's what you do. Because that's how you know what team is good and what team is not, by how they score. It is not "taking advantage" of anyone to do this, it is simply playing your best game. Once you are in the realm of "it is better that you don't answer this question because the other team might feel bad, and we're going to reward you for that," you are no longer really playing this game. Why even have teams? Why even have the whole tossup/bonus setup? Let's just herd some people into the rooms and lecture to them!

I find it pretty bizarre that despite almost unanimous opposition you seem unable to understand or accept that you basically kinda broke the game.

[jonpin]

I was about to post a rejoinder against the "quality rating" system, but then I realized I don't even know how it's used. When the Q-ratings for each game are added, which team is considered better, the team with the higher rating (more likely to have large-margin wins) or the team with the lower rating (more likely to have close wins)? Either answer leads to pathological behavior.

If a lower rating is preferred, the viciously unsportsmanlike result of not answering questions, whether they be tossups or bonuses, on things you know results in a benefit to your Q-rating.
If a higher rating is preferred, then you could have a situation where how Team X does on bonuses in their game against Team Y determines whether Team Y or Team Z is ranked higher. That's not good, because a team should be rated on what they themselves do as much as possible.

All the talk of sportsmanship implies that you're preferring a lower quality rating, which means there's also the dilemma of the fact that the function you're using is based solely on the ratio of scores. For instance, even if we assume the idea that "running up the score" in quizbowl is "unsportsmanlike", which of these three events on bonus #20 is more unsportsmanlike:
1. Leading 90-30, you thirty the bonus to end the game winning 120-30.
2. Leading 250-100, you thirty the bonus to end the game winning 280-100.
3. Leading 280-20, you thirty the bonus to end the game winning 310-20.

The answer, of course, is #1. Situation 1 moves your Q-score from 1.75 to 1.80. Situation 2 moves it from 1.71 to 1.74 (even though it's a higher margin of victory, the ratio is what matters). And situation 3 moves it from 1.933 to 1.939.

In regards to the no-show, yes it's their fault that they did not show up and since they didn't provide a contact number you couldn't reach them, but at some point you have to accept that they aren't coming. Assuming you sent out an emergency contact number to them, the onus is on them to alert you of any difficulties. I can't tell how long you waited for them before beginning the tournament, but since you started at 9:30, maybe you waited half an hour. If you then switched their bye to round one, you could start the tournament, giving actual team-vs-team games for all eight teams that showed up, and use the time during round one to (a) make a last-chance effort to contact the no-shows and (b) design an 8-team schedule (which takes almost no time at all) or scrounge up a house team to fill the slot (which could dissolve in the unlikely event the no-show arrives hours late with no warning).

That said, while tiebreakers to determine intermediate advancement or final placings is one thing, it should never ever ever be used to determine an overall champion, especially when there are packets remaining! Now, you may say, "but it was already 5:00" and I will say "all the more reason to move to an 8-team schedule (which runs two rounds shorter), or just run your tournament faster". Taking 7 1/2 hours to run 9 rounds, even if you allot an hour for lunch, means you took more than 40 minutes per match. It's quite possible that there's one moderator who is consistently the last one back; in that case, you have to try to find a replacement for him. If you can shorten each round by 3 minutes, you've created enough time for an additional round, which could've been used to actually determine the actual champion of your tournament via an actual game.

[Cheynem]

As an editor of this tournament, I would have enjoyed having some heads up regarding these rule changes.

[Ethnic history of the Vilnius region]

Anyway, this tournament had some good aspects that I'll mention later, but....

I also wish to comment regarding my "TD fiat" at the end of the tournament. To my knowledge, all parties who were taking issue with the scorekeeping system had been informed of the "quality" (which, after consultation amongst the North Georgia Team, will be renamed 'difficulty rating') system. This is not a weird statistic, nor is it an arcane one. It is something that is very grounded within mathematics and good sportsmanship (something I believe that we at North Georgia, as the Leadership Institute, should strive to promote within the Quiz Bowl Community).

I would like to assure people reading this forum that, at least from South Carolina's perspective, we had not been informed at all about the quality system prior to the tournament. I certainly don't remember hearing anything about it the morning of the tournament, though I think we possibly missed the morning meeting where there might have been an explanation. In any event, no teams received information about this system in e-mail correspondence or message board postings prior to the tournament. Also, Minnesota apparently wasn't informed either.

The tie-breaker system and scheduling was indeed unacceptable. The quality tie-breaker thing is simply not how things are done in the world of good quizbowl. I'm (maybe?) open to the idea that there might be alternative ways of breaking ties, but to me, breaking out the quality system or any new system the day of the tournament without consulting with the teams (and, better yet, the message board) prior to the tournament is not the way to do it. Instead of promoting good sportsmanship and a cooperative atmosphere, springing this totally novel system on everyone caused consternation for a substantial percentage of the tournament field.

It was also annoying that, when teams expressed their concern about the system, you basically wouldn't hear complaints or entertain more rounds (and leaving the rooms open for teams to unofficially scrimmage after the staff leaves is not "more rounds"). Also, even if you're serious about how the quality system is supposed to promote sportsmanship by causing good teams to purposefully shave points against teams they know they'll beat, well, no teams playing knew how the system worked, so its "sportsmanship"-promoting aspect didn't make a difference anyway.

Also, I heard several readers and scorekeepers discussing how early they were going to get to leave the tournament, and some of the staffers were talking about how much longer they needed to stay to get some sort of community service credit. Getting done with tournaments as early as possible is fine, but not when it involves failing to resolve tie-breakers properly. Remember, it's the teams that paid a lot of money to attend the tournament; if the staff have to stay longer to do it the right way, well, that's just getting the teams their money's worth.

Speaking of teams not getting their money's worth....

As the Tournament Director in question, I made the call to respect NCSU's commitment to attend. Because of this, I assumed that they might show up a round late. Or two rounds late. Or even at lunch time, if they had some serious issues. While this ended up not being the case, it was a decision made with respect to a team who had made a commitment to attend. I would have felt that it was in poor taste to exclude them in the event of their arrival. Perhaps this was not the best decision to make, but it was (to me) the right and sporting one.

Indeed, not counting the bye and the match against the NC State Chairpack, teams got a mere 7 rounds of play. That's not enough rounds at the college level. As TD, you have no obligation to accommodate teams who are substantially late and don't attempt to contact you about their lateness. It wouldn't have been poor taste at all to decide to boot them from the tournament. Believe me, I know how hard it is to schedule tournaments, and it stinks that, like, 3 or 4 teams pulled out a day or two before the tournament or didn't even bother to show. But schedule changes could have been made to give teams more rounds without teams having essentially 2 bye rounds.

The neg-five thing is a minor complaint and an apparent misunderstanding, but I would point out that, in at least 1 room, the readers and scorekeepers weren't aware of the lack of neg-fives for the first 4 rounds.

Anyway, that's the bad of this tournament. On the positive side, the staff was friendly, and other than the problems mentioned, things seemed to run pretty smooth. The breakfast in the morning was appreciated. My scorekeepers were great. I enjoyed reading for all of the teams. It was great to see UGA back, Tech was very good, and the high school team was great to watch (though they should be happy they weren't negs!).

I really hope NGSU holds more tournaments in the future. I appreciate the intent of the quality rating, but ultimately, good sportsmanship in quizbowl is what Chris Chiego expressed earlier: humility in victory and grace in defeat. A lack of sportsmanship is not a problem in quizbowl. In the future, I hope NGSU consults those with lots of experience in the quizbowl community about the norms of hosting; if you all have serious issues with the current way things are done in quizbowl, the best way is to fully discuss it on the message boards before setting a better mousetrap the morning of the tournament.

[Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant]

The idea is to make teams more considerate of other teams and not take a large advantage of a lesser team. I feel sportsmanship comes into this due to the fact that Quiz Bowl is similar to a sport. The way I see sportsmanship is that each team should help the other, if you can answer every tossup then that is good for you, but it is far better (in my eyes) for you to not answer some to give the opposition a chance to learn.

Suspicions confirmed. Weaker teams already do have "a chance to learn" in tournament situations: even if their opponent buzzes in early a lot, they're going to hear at least one clue on whatever the tossup's about. (edit: and then you get to hear their bonus) How is that not a chance for learning?

Outside of tournaments, teams do help other teams. We advertise packet archives, other study resources, and even this discussion forum all the time. There aren't any trade secrets or whatever.

[Horned Screamer]

It is fundamentally unsportsmanlike to demand teams not play well against weaker opponents. Why do you want to stifle and punish the best players if not because you don't like how good they are?

[REO Dragonwagon]

As an editor of this tournament, I would have enjoyed having some heads up regarding these rule changes.

I, too, would have appreciated some communication from NGCSU prior to the tournament. This tournament was primarily produced to give less-experienced undergraduates a chance to play a tournament in between Fall and regular difficulty in a restricted field - a real tournament, with real experiences of winning and losing, not one that attempts to "shield" less experienced or less talented teams from the supposed pain of huge losses.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

1. Did you not consider, in your concern for quizbowl justice, that making extraordinary accommodations for a team that never bothered to show up or let you know that they wouldn't be showing up might be unfair to the teams who showed up on time? Unless the team notifies you, you should start your tournament when you said to start your tournament with the teams that showed up. It's their fault for not notifying you and not arriving on time. And most importantly, why did you not let the teams on byes get a chance to play each other? You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the point of quizbowl (e.g. not to determine some arcane "winner" via statistical wizardry, but to let teams play quizbowl).

If NCSU had done the same thing when I was the TD, not only would I have went with the alternate schedule but I would have strongly considered not letting them play at any of my future tournaments. You simply have to get in contact with the TD to inform him/her that you are not coming.

Either that or making sure that, in order to use a certain set, a host has to meet certain requirements; and if they do not meet these requirements, they will be blacklisted from hosting that tournament for x year(s).

Most of the time, for small tournaments like this one, those requirements aren't hard to meet.

The idea is to make teams more considerate of other teams and not take a large advantage of a lesser team.

You do know that just about every one of us that is posting on this topic has had the score run up on us at one point or another, some more than others. What did we do about it? We got better. So now we're not supposed to score points in order to be sportsmanlike? The team that works harder will generally be capable of scoring more points. So you're saying that we shouldn't score those points? When we blew some of the younger teams in the region out earlier in the year, I was happy to see that they were very respectful and cheerful and looked forward to improving their games. I didn't see very many disgruntled faces. That means that they are genuinely interested in improving. That means that there is no problem whatsoever. He who takes it personally when he loses by 500 points is probably not interested in scoring enough points to be competitive at any rate and so he probably won't be interested in the future, either. Take your hits, go back to the drawing board, and improve. By not performing at our best, we're not able to set an example for what the other teams need to do to catch up with us. Instead they would catch up with what they thought was our best only to be blown out again, most likely. What does that accomplish?

I would like to assure people reading this forum that, at least from South Carolina's perspective, we had not been informed at all about the quality system prior to the tournament. I certainly don't remember hearing anything about it the morning of the tournament, though I think we possibly missed the morning meeting where there might have been an explanation. In any event, no teams received information about this system in e-mail correspondence or message board postings prior to the tournament. Also, Minnesota apparently wasn't informed either.

You probably didn't hear about it, then. If you would have heard such a thing, you would have found it to be very peculiar and wouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure Mike and the other editors would have liked to have had a heads-up on this Q-Factor thing, they might have been able to save you from the headache that you are enduring now.

It was also annoying that, when teams expressed their concern about the system, you basically wouldn't hear complaints or entertain more rounds (and leaving the rooms open for teams to unofficially scrimmage after the staff leaves is not "more rounds"). Also, even if you're serious about how the quality system is supposed to promote sportsmanship by causing good teams to purposefully shave points against teams they know they'll beat, well, no teams playing knew how the system worked, so its "sportsmanship"-promoting aspect didn't make a difference anyway.

Why is the tiebreaking system even an issue if you have more packets? You are basically awarding a higher placement to a team that was more "sportsmanlike" through out the day, even arbitrarily so. This definition of sportsmanship is highly arbitrary.

Also, I heard several readers and scorekeepers discussing how early they were going to get to leave the tournament, and some of the staffers were talking about how much longer they needed to stay to get some sort of community service credit. Getting done with tournaments as early as possible is fine, but not when it involves failing to resolve tie-breakers properly.

No! You stay until the tournament is finished, period. If you let your staff go when they could have stayed around and were needed, that's on you. Staff can leave early if there's enough staff to cover for them, but as the tournament was not completed, they should have stayed and finished. I understand that people want to go back to their normal lives, but it seems like some of the staff were there only out of obligation. Staffing should be seen as an enjoyable experience, and it normally is except for when you have to read biology questions...anyway, quizbowl tournaments like these can normally run to 5-6 pm, sometimes later, depending on how many matches are read and tiebreakers. Your moderators need to know this.

Indeed, not counting the bye and the match against the NC State Chairpack, teams got a mere 7 rounds of play. That's not enough rounds at the college level.

At least the round didn't count, then it would have been considered unsportsmanlike to run up the score against empty chairs. The empty chair does not neg, but is it out of fear of the opponents? I think not. I have been to a tournament in which the round counted before...

[mhayes]

The idea is to make teams more considerate of other teams and not take a large advantage of a lesser team. I feel sportsmanship comes into this due to the fact that Quiz Bowl is similar to a sport. The way I see sportsmanship is that each team should help the other, if you can answer every tossup then that is good for you, but it is far better (in my eyes) for you to not answer some to give the opposition a chance to learn.

You're assuming that teams who are NOT answering questions are NOT learning! This is a fallacious assumption. In fact, playing against great teams is a great way to learn and GET better.

You are doing MORE harm to all of the teams involved by deciding placement based on this statistic.

[Ethnic history of the Vilnius region]

One more thing I'd like to emphasize is the lack of communication with Minnesota. It's not really good form to run a tournament in such a radically different manner without mentioning it to the people who wrote your event. Part of the reason Minnesota wrote 14 rounds was give teams plenty of rounds to play and to break ties in the good quizbowl, non-statistical way if need be. Using the quality rating as a tie-breaker let 5 good rounds that Minnesota worked hard to produce go to waste.

[La Maga]

The idea is to make teams more considerate of other teams and not take a large advantage of a lesser team. I feel sportsmanship comes into this due to the fact that Quiz Bowl is similar to a sport. The way I see sportsmanship is that each team should help the other, if you can answer every tossup then that is good for you, but it is far better (in my eyes) for you to not answer some to give the opposition a chance to learn.

Weaker teams already do have "a chance to learn" in tournament situations: even if their opponent buzzes in early a lot, they're going to hear at least one clue on whatever the tossup's about. (edit: and then you get to hear their bonus) How is that not a chance for learning?

True. In my experience (and I've had a lot of brutal games against some great teams in which my team was completely destroyed), hearing a team buzz early on questions has allowed me to learn early clues and to look up how they relate to easier things I already know about the subject. If I had no idea what was going on, I wrote down the answer line to look it up later. This is what you would do if you are truly interested in getting better, and this measure of "sportsmanship" hinders that. In using this measure you are actually hurting players by not allowing them to truly view themselves in comparison to really good teams and to see what they have the potential to do. Because I want to be a better player, instead of feeling demoralized after a beatdown, I use the experience to my advantage to learn. By forcing good teams to go easy on their opponents, you're doing both teams a disservice.

[Gautam]

As an editor of MUT, I think I can speak for Minnesota Quizbowl when saying that we're not interested in doing business with NGCSU in the future if arbitrary metrics and rules are going to be implemented in mirrors of MUT or MO or whatever tournaments we produce.

There's exactly one rule to quizbowl: press button, get points, win game. Trying to make quizbowl more like another competition is completely unnecessary. There's absolutely no need to introduce perverse incentives (or disincentives) to affect "sportsmanlike" behavior in participants. If not-so-good teams get beat up by good teams, not-so-good teams get beat up by good teams. Changes in rules or metrics should in no way enhance the ranking of a not-so good team relative to that of a good team. The only way a team can enhance its ranking in a tournament is to have better knowledge of the topics covered by the tournament.

[Xfact115]

Some of this post may be redundant but I paid to play at this tournament so I might as well put in my two cents. First of all I'd like to at least thank everyone for their work in hosting the tournament which is never an easy activity. I would especially like to thank UGA for their sportsmanship in offering to play a final game against us and just switch trophies if needed. I also appreciate the involvement in this thread of individuals outside of the Southeast. Although this was a minor tournament bad quizbowl anywhere is bad quizbowl everywhere.

The lack of transparency during the announcing of results was unacceptable. This is certainly the only tournament I have been to where teams were not permitted to know why they were ranked where they were. The directors were very dismissive of any complaints, saying things like “we can discuss math later” and seemed downright smug about the results even though it was clear that at least three teams were flabbergasted by them. And there has still been no acknowledgment on their part of having done anything wrong. The rule about quality points not being disclosed before the tournament started is at least as befuddling as the rule itself. Apparently in the game against empty chairs we should have answered a single tossup, zeroed the bonus on purpose, and then let the rest of the questions go dead. We're very sorry if we made our invisible friends feel bad. I would say we should also have negged once to create the smallest margin possible but another arbitrary deviation from ACF rules would have prevented that.

As for blowouts, they are a not only a necessary part of the game but a helpful one. When I was a freshman USC regularly lost by 300 points or more to better teams in the region. But we didn't call them meanie heads for getting questions on us. Rather, we were impressed by the skill of better teams and worked hard to close the gap. Teams do not need to be coddled and surely don't want to. In fact, I can think of few things more insulting than a better team not buzzing to allow a worse team to get things. If I were on the losing side of such a game I would be humiliated and infuriated.

[eldermaas]

Weaker teams already do have "a chance to learn" in tournament situations: even if their opponent buzzes in early a lot, they're going to hear at least one clue on whatever the tossup's about. (edit: and then you get to hear their bonus) How is that not a chance for learning?

As for blowouts, they are not only a necessary part of the game but a helpful one. When I was a freshman USC regularly lost by 300 points or more to better teams in the region. But we didn't call them meanie heads for getting questions on us. Rather, we were impressed by the skill of better teams and worked hard to close the gap. Teams do not need to be coddled and surely don't want to.

As the coach for the team that placed last in this tournament (having been beaten 510-20, 500-100, and 430-80 by three of the top four teams), I concur. While a little disheartened, on the way home we talked about ways to improve in future tournaments, and many of my previous suggestions to the team (more frequent practices, writing questions, independent research and reading of previous tournament questions/answers) started to make more sense. Were these games closer, we might not know how much we need to improve, being led to believe that we were holding our own with other teams.

[Matt Weiner]

Just to give everyone a little preview of where this is gonna go, in light of another ongoing thread: The almost cartoonishly polite and genteel Eric Douglass will be castigated for his "incivility" because he disagreed with the way that some idiots did things; all the other people who posted constructive, well-reasoned criticism of this tournament with an eye towards its future improvement will be mocked in private by the NGCSU people, likely using sexual or political innuendos of various kinds; and absolutely nothing will change.

[North_GA_ATeam]

I’ll address this message in broad, general terms rather than using my previous message of quoting other commenters because of the length of time between this and my previous message.

As I’ve said before, I apologize for how this turned out. I apologize for the mistakes that were made in the general, executive decisions. While I have been accused of not taking responsibility, I find this completely unfair and inane. The only thing I did not take responsibility for in my previous post was having not received contact information for NCSU.

That being said, I take full responsibility for all mistakes made at the MUT Mirror @ NGCSU. I still felt that my decision to wait on NCSU was civil and appropriate; however, I now realize that this is not the sort of activity that QuizBowl is promoting. In the future, should this happen while I am TD, I’ll make sure to work around teams not showing up.

As for the lacking negs, I believe we have settled this portion of the discussion.

As for adding extra rounds, I understand that those scrimmages did not count as extra rounds. As pointed out before, I opened the entire packet to all teams who wished to stay for those that we did not use during the competition.

As for the scoring system, I did not realize this would cause quite the stir (or even one-tenth the stir) that it has caused. This was used in a previous tournament hosted by NGCSU without any pause. I apologize for having caused this distress. We at NGCSU certainly do not wish to lose the use of MN’s packets. Nor do we wish to alienate any local or regional collegiate teams. This statistic will not be used in the near future to determine any ranking until it has been better proven and tested. As such, we shall continue poking around with this stat unofficially. I believe that our Technical Adviser will be making a separate post under Quiz Bowl Theory regarding this difficulty rating system.


As a final note, I am personally offended by Matt’s post. I thank Eric for his input and his disagreement; in fact, I thank everyone for their input and their disagreement. Perhaps there will be mockery of some of the people on this website, but I can guarantee that it will not come from me. Nor do I have any reason to call into question any detail regarding yours or anyone else’s sexual or political philosophy. I’m honestly not interested in those.

In conclusion: we at North Georgia are a new team. I myself am (and have made it clear that I am) relatively new to the administrative side of Quiz Bowl. However, we are attempting to learn. As said previously, I welcome the criticism, and I certainly welcome the praise.

I have the promise of two more experienced players (one an alum and one our previous President) who will be guiding future tournaments.

[Cheynem]

One last point:

Did you ever consult with Minnesota editors about allowing graduate students to play this tournament? (From my understanding, "Elliott" from VSU is Elliott Rountree pursuing a masters degree, if this is wrong, then I apologize). As an editor, I never heard anything about it, although I guess it's possible that the news just never reached me.

[Frater Taciturnus]

One last point:

Did you ever consult with Minnesota editors about allowing graduate students to play this tournament? (From my understanding, "Elliott" from VSU is Elliott Rountree pursuing a masters degree, if this is wrong, then I apologize). As an editor, I never heard anything about it, although I guess it's possible that the news just never reached me.

That is what the like 3rd or 4th line in the first post of the thread says happened, and I remember the announcement of this being predicated on someone from minnesota signing off on that.

[Cheynem]

Yeah, I saw it in the original post but I thought it was more like "we'll address it if any grad students want to play." Again, maybe someone from Minnesota was contacted.

[Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant]

I can totally understand (and concur with) allowing novice grad students to play, but the longtime coach of a nationally-ranked team? Really? I mean, that doesn't necessarily make you a good player, but still...


Edit: [Looks at stats] Dang, and I was all pleased that Valdosta had started play real quizbowl. So much for that.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

I can totally understand (and concur with) allowing novice grad students to play, but the longtime coach of a nationally-ranked team? Really? I mean, that doesn't necessarily make you a good player, but still...

Had we been able to make the trip, I would have probably made myself available to play the tournament, but only if necessary. I would have probably been insistent on modifying the schedule, though. The question in the case of my playing, in this case, wouldn't have been over eligibility (if the schedule would not have been modified) but in the spirit of not having the teams to play against an empty chair, and not having their coefficients of sportsmanship raised or lowered depending on how they did against empty chairs.

Law for new TDs: Always listen to experienced TDs.

[Aaron Carney]

To begin I'm curious of the thought process behind some of these response's. It seems as if some people are reacting defensively as if NGCSU is attempting to replace "commonly" used methods popular with most other schools for all quiz bowl tournaments. Where as in reality they are attempting to create a unique solitary experience when teams visit NGCSU tournaments.

In theory the speculations on how teams will skate off points could be true, in reality it would likely work a bit differently. As the tournaments hosted by NGCSU is catering to new to middle aged teams the likelihood of a team having a 300 point lead is already more unlikely. A team that knows they have an advantage in points (being aware of the secondary scoring system) would more likely use the strategy of waiting longer than they normally would allowing the other team to have a chance to answer the question. However only a team confident in their advantage would be confident in deploying such a strategy. I have seen rounds in which the dominant side switched halfway through and a difference of 150+ was surpassed. What this means is experience teams, or those equipped with savants when competing against baby teams, when visiting NGCSU, would allow those teams to answer a few more questions and gain confidence, especially seeing as they are already aware they are going to win. There's also the opportunity for highly populated teams to sub in less experience players into the mix and not worry about losing the primary way for tournament victory which is winning the round. This handicap does not prevent people from doing better it gives new or weak teams an added chance to get experience and confidence at answering questions. If this version of the rules were used everywhere then yes it would be bad for new and weak teams, but within an isolated event it is very beneficial. Teams that want to do better will train harder regardless of the score difference (unless your implying you wouldn't have trained at all if your team was above average)

For those of you who think the point of Quiz Bowl is to win seriously need to get a psychological evaluation. I'm serious, the point of Quiz Bowl is to enjoy yourself while forming a social network with other intelligent people. If you are being paid based on how much you win, the purpose is to win. If your job or lifestyle depends on it, the purpose is to win. If you have condition that demands you collect trophies, the purpose is to win. If your social life depends on your ability to brag about how many tournaments you've won, the purpose is to win. Otherwise it's much more likely what I said, or simply one of the two. Given there are some exceptions, like picking up dates...

...well-reasoned criticism of this tournament with an eye towards its future improvement will be mocked in private by the NGCSU people, likely using sexual or political innuendos of various kinds; and absolutely nothing will change.

How insulting. I haven't seen that done since middle-school and my early days of high-school and had forgotten that it happened within certain crowds at other stages within people lives. I will however mock people in their logic, or lack there of, as I find it very amusing when people are unable to connect the dots or have some form of bias preventing them from being able to see the larger picture.

[Cheynem]

I was hoping Matt Weiner would be incorrect, but once again he was right. This is ridiculous nonsense, patently absurd and insulting to the editors of the set, teams in attendance, the members of your own team who seem to be trying to be courteous, and small children.

[Gonzagapuma1]

For those of you who think the point of Quiz Bowl is to win seriously need to get a psychological evaluation. I'm serious, the point of Quiz Bowl is to enjoy yourself while forming a social network with other intelligent people. If you are being paid based on how much you win, the purpose is to win. If your job or lifestyle depends on it, the purpose is to win. If you have condition that demands you collect trophies, the purpose is to win. If your social life depends on your ability to brag about how many tournaments you've won, the purpose is to win. Otherwise it's much more likely what I said, or simply one of the two. Given there are some exceptions, like picking up dates...

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.

Also, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEkWH8DB7b0.

[Tanay]

A team that knows they have an advantage in points (being aware of the secondary scoring system) would more likely use the strategy of waiting longer than they normally would allowing the other team to have a chance to answer the question. However only a team confident in their advantage would be confident in deploying such a strategy. I have seen rounds in which the dominant side switched halfway through and a difference of 150+ was surpassed. What this means is experience teams, or those equipped with savants when competing against baby teams, when visiting NGCSU, would allow those teams to answer a few more questions and gain confidence, especially seeing as they are already aware they are going to win.

If anything, this is even more disingenuous with regards to promoting sportsmanship and guiding teams of lower skill levels in the right direction. When I get an answer right, I want to know that I got it right because I knew more than the other team about the topic in focus, and not that I was gifted the tossup by the other team. This is true whether I am winning or losing by 30 or 300. The result of the scoring method seen here is that although weaker teams might answer more tossups, they leave the tournament without a clear idea of their weaknesses and strengths.

A team that knows they have an advantage in points (being aware of the secondary scoring system)

The latter part of this phrase did not happen. There is literally no evidence that this secondary scoring method encouraged teams to be more "sportsmanlike" by whichever suspect paradigm we are using to evaluate that.

[RealHermEdwards]

For those of you who think the point of Quiz Bowl is to win seriously need to get a psychological evaluation. I'm serious, the point of Quiz Bowl is to enjoy yourself while forming a social network with other intelligent people. If you are being paid based on how much you win, the purpose is to win. If your job or lifestyle depends on it, the purpose is to win. If you have condition that demands you collect trophies, the purpose is to win. If your social life depends on your ability to brag about how many tournaments you've won, the purpose is to win. Otherwise it's much more likely what I said, or simply one of the two. Given there are some exceptions, like picking up dates...

For my previous discourse on this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMk5sMHj58I

[The Ununtiable Twine]

The latter part of this phrase did not happen. There is literally no evidence that this secondary scoring method encouraged teams to be more "sportsmanlike" by whichever suspect paradigm we are using to evaluate that.

Evidence? What's that?

Edit: Herm, whomever you may be, thanks for the laugh.

[Bartleby]

To begin I'm curious of the thought process behind some of these response's. It seems as if some people are reacting defensively as if NGCSU is attempting to replace "commonly" used methods popular with most other schools for all quiz bowl tournaments. Where as in reality they are attempting to create a unique solitary experience when teams visit NGCSU tournaments.

I would like to point out that this point is highly problematic. The point of mirroring a tournament is to give people who would not otherwise have an opportunity to play it to do so, as if they were at the main tournament site. For instance, I do not have the financial ability to make my way to UPenn, but I do have the ability to make it to Hamilton, and so I played at their mirror of Penn Bowl Trash a few weeks ago. Furthermore (and as has been mentioned), modifying a tournament that someone else has written in order to create a "unique solitary experience" without first notifying the writers that you will be doing so is incredibly disrespectful. Thankfully, other NGCSU members seem to appreciate the problems with what transpired, but I would suggest that if you want to create a "unique solitary experience" that you write your own tournament, which you can modify as you see fit, and teams can play as they see fit.

[Gautam]

Where as in reality they are attempting to create a unique solitary experience when teams visit NGCSU tournaments.

I disagree. There are literally 10+ other mirrors of MUT, and any of the teams in attendance could have chosen to attend any of the sites mirroring MUT (finances permitting.) A critical component of the "unique solitary experience," the set of questions being played, would have been invariant across all mirror sites save minor grammar fixes we made after the earliest mirrors. If the tournament director were choosing to create a unique experience, he/NGCSU should have written their own set of questions instead of making a joke out of all the hard work Minnesota put in produce the tournament.

For the last four years we have written MUT with one important goal in mind: to provide the quizbowl community a good tournament in the spring that is calibrated to the "undergraduate" difficulty level. We are doing literally all we can to ensure that new and young teams can have an introductory experience and more developed teams can be challenged. We as editors can only evaluate whether we achieved the goal when the rules and metrics across all sites are the same. I request this site's TD and those of any future tournaments stop imputing arbitrary notions of experience-value, fairness-ratings or other such nonsense to tournaments.

EDIT: In retrospect this was a little harsh. I failed to see that the Christopher from NGCSU apologized for what happened. My point, however, still stands.

[Unicolored Jay]

For those of you who think the point of Quiz Bowl is to win seriously need to get a psychological evaluation. I'm serious, the point of Quiz Bowl is to enjoy yourself while forming a social network with other intelligent people. If you are being paid based on how much you win, the purpose is to win. If your job or lifestyle depends on it, the purpose is to win. If you have condition that demands you collect trophies, the purpose is to win. If your social life depends on your ability to brag about how many tournaments you've won, the purpose is to win.

I disagree with this. Yes, there is a social aspect that I like and one of the reasons I play quizbowl is because I think it's fun, but winning, especially at state/regional/national levels is something worth achieving. Bragging about it would not be very modest of someone, but remove this whole aspect of winning, and there's almost no reason to hold a tournament, or even study for quizbowl at all.

[mhayes]

For those of you who think the point of Quiz Bowl is to win seriously need to get a psychological evaluation.

First, the vast majority of people who post here will NOT share your opinion on the purposes of quiz bowl. Just because we have different opinions, it doesn't mean that we need a "psychological evaluation". Seriously.

Secondly, if the people at NG were so intent over expressing their own unique philosophies regarding quiz bowl, then fine. They could have done so by writing a tournament in-house, and not by making a mockery out of the work that was put in by the folks at Minnesota.

I'm serious, the point of Quiz Bowl is to enjoy yourself while forming a social network with other intelligent people.

And this only happens at NGCSU tournaments that use absurd methods to rank teams?

...well-reasoned criticism of this tournament with an eye towards its future improvement will be mocked in private by the NGCSU people, likely using sexual or political innuendos of various kinds; and absolutely nothing will change.



How insulting. I haven't seen that done since middle-school and my early days of high-school and had forgotten that it happened within certain crowds at other stages within people lives. I will however mock people in their logic, or lack there of, as I find it very amusing when people are unable to connect the dots or have some form of bias preventing them from being able to see the larger picture.

It's even more insulting that you would presume to lecture people here over what should constitute good quiz bowl. Having a different opinion is one thing, but it seems that you are focused on defending all the negative aspects of this tournament.

[grapesmoker]

For those of you who think the point of Quiz Bowl is to win seriously need to get a psychological evaluation.

That took longer than I expected but not so long as I'd hoped. Welcome to the reason why your team never wins anything and never will.

[Habitat_Against_Humanity]

For those of you who think the point of Quiz Bowl is to win seriously need to get a psychological evaluation.

Normally I'm the type to let people who say stupid things wallow in their own filthy ignorance, but I find this pretty damn offensive.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

For those of you who think the point of Quiz Bowl is to lose seriously need to get a psychological evaluation.

Fixed.

[North_GA_ATeam]

For those of you who think the point of Quiz Bowl is to win seriously need to get a psychological evaluation.

That took longer than I expected but not so long as I'd hoped. Welcome to the reason why your team never wins anything and never will.

I had resolved myself to leave this thread alone. And, apart from this parting word on the matter, I think I shall. I've come to the conclusion that any discussion on this forum will not result in any progress in either side better understanding the other. Apologies have been issued--sincere apologies. And lessons have been learned on my part.

However, I could hardly leave your comment alone. While I do not completely agree with Aaron, I do believe that the sole purpose of Quiz Bowl is not to win. If the purpose was solely to win, then no one less than one-hundred percent certain of their abilities would compete. Winning is an aspect; to some people, it's a somewhat large aspect. But to some of us (myself most assuredly included), winning is not the main aspect. The main aspect to people like myself and, presumably, Aaron (though I do not wish to speak for him) is to have fun and to learn new, interesting things.

If it helps you to feel better about yourself to point out North Georgia's win/loss record, please go ahead. However, I have no qualms with our current standing in having competed in (and lost in) merely one competition. I also feel no qualms about the possibility of never winning a tournament. I personally play Quiz Bowl in order to have fun.

I do agree with Habitat Against Humanity in saying that it is offensive; however I will not allow myself to fall prey to a misunderstanding of an idiom and, as such, be offended by it.

[Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant]

For those of you who think the point of Quiz Bowl is to win seriously need to get a psychological evaluation. I'm serious, the point of Quiz Bowl is to enjoy yourself while forming a social network with other intelligent people. If you are being paid based on how much you win, the purpose is to win. If your job or lifestyle depends on it, the purpose is to win. If you have condition that demands you collect trophies, the purpose is to win. If your social life depends on your ability to brag about how many tournaments you've won, the purpose is to win. Otherwise it's much more likely what I said, or simply one of the two. Given there are some exceptions, like picking up dates...

False dichotomy is false. I, not exactly a great player, personally do not care all that much about winning anything anytime soon. Furthermore, from what everybody's saying, the team from Saturday that I had a hand in building should have gotten fourth, not third. You don't see me arguing about that. And somehow this indicates lack of sportsmanship?

For that matter, people in quizbowl have worked decades to make the game as fair as possible: pyramidal questions, unique clues, constant-value bonuses, rebracketted playoffs, transparency in decision-making, tournaments for all difficulty levels. These are done to ensure both that teams have a good time and to determine what teams are better. There's really no point in determining final standings, or any statistics at all, if you're going to implement rules intended to cripple teams' performance.

Not to mention that, as I understand, the teams didn't know about the whole quality rating until after the fact. How were they supposed to know that they were supposed to play in a non-natural way to accommodate the way you'd be looking at stats? There's the problem: you're trying to make gameplay fit the way you'll be analysing stats, instead of making the stats useful for analysing gameplay.

[mhayes]

While I do not completely agree with Aaron, I do believe that the sole purpose of Quiz Bowl is not to win. If the purpose was solely to win, then no one less than one-hundred percent certain of their abilities would compete. Winning is an aspect; to some people, it's a somewhat large aspect. But to some of us (myself most assuredly included), winning is not the main aspect.

But you shouldn't *penalize* teams who don't share this mentality. Your metric did exactly that.

The main aspect to people like myself and, presumably, Aaron (though I do not wish to speak for him) is to have fun and to learn new, interesting things.

In no way does this conflict with your first assertion.

Once again: You can ALWAYS learn new and interesting things in quiz bowl, regardless if your are a good team or a bad team! That is the POINT of quiz bowl: to learn!

Whether or not you believe so, your philosophy is as follows:

"The team with the most knowledge should NOT be rewarded."

This stands against everything good quiz bowl is supposed to be. If you truly want to foster an environment that encourages learning, then for the love of god, 1) take the advice in this thread to heart, and 2) reevaluate what good quiz bowl should mean to you.

[Touko Kettunen]

For those of you who think the point of Quiz Bowl is to win seriously need to get a psychological evaluation.

That took longer than I expected but not so long as I'd hoped. Welcome to the reason why your team never wins anything and never will.

I had resolved myself to leave this thread alone. And, apart from this parting word on the matter, I think I shall. I've come to the conclusion that any discussion on this forum will not result in any progress in either side better understanding the other. Apologies have been issued--sincere apologies. And lessons have been learned on my part.

However, I could hardly leave your comment alone. While I do not completely agree with Aaron, I do believe that the sole purpose of Quiz Bowl is not to win. If the purpose was solely to win, then no one less than one-hundred percent certain of their abilities would compete. Winning is an aspect; to some people, it's a somewhat large aspect. But to some of us (myself most assuredly included), winning is not the main aspect. The main aspect to people like myself and, presumably, Aaron (though I do not wish to speak for him) is to have fun and to learn new, interesting things.

If it helps you to feel better about yourself to point out North Georgia's win/loss record, please go ahead. However, I have no qualms with our current standing in having competed in (and lost in) merely one competition. I also feel no qualms about the possibility of never winning a tournament. I personally play Quiz Bowl in order to have fun.

I do agree with Habitat Against Humanity in saying that it is offensive; however I will not allow myself to fall prey to a misunderstanding of an idiom and, as such, be offended by it.

Idiomatic or not, it's still insulting (the reasons the idiom was made was to insult after all). It's insulting to those who strive to learn to get better, to everyone who takes the game seriously, to those who just want to learn. No one here is arguing that the only aspect of quizbowl is winning. We're just saying that winning is a part of quizbowl because it's a competition. One of the aspects of competition is to win. I don't think anyone plays quizbowl 100% just to win. After all, there are hundreds of other less knowledge-intensive, more well-known competitions where someone could do that. The primary goals of quizbowl two things: to provide an entertaining to of learning and to allow learners to compete to demonstrate their knowledge of important facts. The social and fun aspects of quizbowl is a wonderful byproduct of the game, but I don't believe them to be the primary things quizbowl should focus on. Else, we'd have tournaments where stuff like dancing occupies a major time slot.

[grapesmoker]

I had resolved myself to leave this thread alone. And, apart from this parting word on the matter, I think I shall. I've come to the conclusion that any discussion on this forum will not result in any progress in either side better understanding the other. Apologies have been issued--sincere apologies. And lessons have been learned on my part.

Of course. God forbid you should make use of literally decades of collective experience embodied in the people who post on this forum. Sorry your faulty stats don't do what you think they do; I guess the only reasonable option is to pick up your buzzer and go home! Although I suppose that given the increasing wrongness of your posts as time progresses, that may actually be a wise move on your part.

I do believe that the sole purpose of Quiz Bowl is not to win.

That sentence doesn't mean what you think it means.

If the purpose was solely to win, then no one less than one-hundred percent certain of their abilities would compete.

The purpose of playing professional basketball is not solely to win. If it were, then no one would play in the NBA except those who were certain to win!

Do you not see how absurd that is? Your conclusion does not follow from your premises. Everyone plays to win. They also play to learn, and quizbowl is certainly also a fun social activity, but when we play games, we play them to win.

Winning is an aspect; to some people, it's a somewhat large aspect. But to some of us (myself most assuredly included), winning is not the main aspect. The main aspect to people like myself and, presumably, Aaron (though I do not wish to speak for him) is to have fun and to learn new, interesting things.

The goals of learning and winning are not at odds with each other. In fact, they are rather complementary: the more you learn, the more you win. Because that's how this game works.

If it helps you to feel better about yourself to point out North Georgia's win/loss record, please go ahead. However, I have no qualms with our current standing in having competed in (and lost in) merely one competition. I also feel no qualms about the possibility of never winning a tournament. I personally play Quiz Bowl in order to have fun.

I don't need to point out your record to feel good about myself; what I have achieved speaks for itself. What I do want is for you to stop pitching your tent in the "bad quizbowl = fun" camp, because that camp has been razed and the ground salted so nothing can grow there (pardon my mixed metaphors).

I do agree with Habitat Against Humanity in saying that it is offensive; however I will not allow myself to fall prey to a misunderstanding of an idiom and, as such, be offended by it.

I assure you I do not "misunderstand" that idiom in any way. I merely cite it as an indicative attitude of teams like yours; since you can't get better by actually learning and actually winning games, you just paint people who do get better as anti-fun or call them mentally ill or whatever. It's a bad rhetorical trick that only works on really dumb people, and we're not really dumb people so it's not going to work on us.

You're wrong about pretty much everything, and people in this thread have been more than gracious towards your wrongitude. I don't know what else to say except for the fact that literally no one seems to be convinced by anything you say. You are isolated and should rethink your position; better yet, you should ask yourself why pretty much everyone else holds a position that is in direct opposition to yours. That would be a smarter thing than reinventing the buzzer or rehashing 10-year old arguments about "fun" in quizbowl that no one believes.

[Aaron Carney]

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.

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. 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.

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.

As a mass response to several others. I'm sure most everyone is aware of the treatise on how nothing but the most basic argument can be proven.

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.

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).

Winning a tournament is a great reason to participate in quiz bowl. That is neither the purpose nor point.

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.

Yes, I intend to insult people who have intelligence but refuse to use it or become so wrapped up in themselves or something that they insist on being narrow minded. 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.

[NGTech]

As requested I used the 2010 ACF Nationals to test the stat we used. To test only the stat I did no sorting based on W-L.

As such the statistic was able to predict the Preliminary outcome to and overall accuracy of 71%. This is better than the calculated values for other tie breakers, and this is the stat ranking the field not breaking ties.

I believe that the stat that has been created has a great potential. I will also admit that it will need continued work to reach perfection. It is based in a stat I learned from FIRST, but has use in college football and basketball, the NFL, Chess, and various other competitions. Each of these use it to varying weights.

And now for a brief comment. This comment is my personal opinion.
To the comments on winning. I come originally from a FIRST team before quizbowl. While on that team I learned the values that I use now which contains not valuing winning as the major goal. While on a FIRST team I aided opposing teams to the point of scoring for them and helping with repairs that let them beat my team, but in FIRST helping is more important than winning. I found this to be very fun as all teams try their hardest to be the best, but it never came at the expense of hurting another team. As such the highest honors in FIRST are not to teams who win, but to teams that help and show the best attitude.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

You two are sitting by each other, aren't you? Now that I have pointed that out, let me go read your posts.

[marnold]

Those are goals, aspects, objectives of the military, not the objective or point.

Never change "MUT Mirror 4/2 @ NGCSU" thread - never change.

[Gonzagapuma1]

Lots of stuff.

Get over yourself.

[mhayes]

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

Yeah, I guess it's easier to ignore constructive criticism than to actually use it, right?

The only one who is "looking to argue" is YOU. You received lots of good advice in this thread, but instead of heeding the advice and using it to better yourselves and your tournaments, you choose to defend everything that was wrong with your tournament and you have the audacity to condemn people when they point out the flaws with your events; I can say with confidence that these same people probably have MUCH more experience than you do in running tournaments. Also people will continue to argue with you as long as you continue to defend your screw ups. If you were expecting people to "see the light" of your infinite wisdom, you were sorely mistaken.

Aaron Carney wrote:
First, I was responding in defense of the use of quality points and then explaining the purpose of quizbowl.

a) You are not going to convince ANYONE here that your quality points system is a good one. It's bad.
b) Once again, you have an OPINION on the purpose of quiz bowl. You are stating this as though it is a fact, when it is just your (fallacious) OPINION. People here will take exception to this.

Aaron Carney wrote:
Analyze and evaluate...and go enjoy a dictionary or get a psych eval, I'm still hoping no one here needs one.

Get over yourself. You clearly don't know anything about the people on these forums and their experience with quiz bowl. You're making yourself look like a condescending jackass.

Aaron Carney wrote:
Winning a tournament is a great reason to participate in quiz bowl. That is neither the purpose nor point.

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.

Yes, I intend to insult people who have intelligence but refuse to use it or become so wrapped up in themselves or something that they insist on being narrow minded. 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.

As for the rest of your post, I have no idea what you're saying.