Search found 394 matches

by Birdofredum Sawin
Mon Apr 09, 2018 3:54 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 1995 ACF Nationals program
Replies: 11
Views: 6595

Re: 1995 ACF Nationals program

I do not remember this brochure but am delighted to see it (my first ACF nationals!). Note that many of the "coaches" are actually just undergrad officers of the team (e.g. Chicago, Harvard, Maryland). Some schools had coaches (or "coaches") due to CBI but I wouldn't infer from t...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue May 02, 2017 6:13 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: The Barbarism of Monetization
Replies: 128
Views: 57249

Re: The Barbarism of Monetization

It seems more likely that other organizations have decided that it's not feasible or worthwhile or otherwise desirable to capture packet costs, and have given up on accounting for them at all, rather than pricing them into their tournament fees. For instance, Cody said upstream that VCU charges the...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue Oct 20, 2015 2:37 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Pronunciation Guides
Replies: 16
Views: 10255

Pronunciation Guides

This post is inspired by my having read at Penn Bowl on Saturday. But since it isn't specific to Penn Bowl, I figured I'd post it here. I think of myself as a decent enough moderator--I don't stumble over every other word, I know enough about most of the major foreign languages one encounters in the...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Wed Apr 22, 2015 8:19 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion
Replies: 227
Views: 110450

Re: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion

Well, Andrew, here's the thing...this tournament got created a lot differently than tournaments in 2007 got created (or at least a lot differently than I was creating tournaments back then). We had these packets in Google Docs and no less than 12 really knowledgeable ACF veterans commented on the q...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Wed Apr 22, 2015 6:45 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion
Replies: 227
Views: 110450

Re: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion

To be clear, I didn't play this set and haven't read it; I'm solely intervening in this conversation in response to expressions of Westbrookian thinking that transcend this particular set of questions. In addition to my prior remarks in this thread, which I stand by as general observations about Wes...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Wed Apr 22, 2015 12:36 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion
Replies: 227
Views: 110450

Re: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion

I'm amused by the trend this discussion has taken--insofar as it has become a discussion about crafting bonuses that properly differentiate between teams--because it is basically a carbon copy of the post-ACF nationals discussion we had six years ago. To quote from my irate post-tournament screeds w...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:54 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion
Replies: 227
Views: 110450

Re: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion

I'm not sure that Matt and I disagree, though I am fairly certain that Ryan and I disagree. To be clear, I'm not arguing that every question in a set--especially a high-level set like ICT or ACF nats--has to be on something highly canonical and definitely gettable. Invariably, there is going to be a...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:13 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion
Replies: 227
Views: 110450

Re: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion

But, it does agitate me a little when people keep citing - as a defense for that - the same 6 or 7 tossups. Unlike most editors today, I will throw in a small handful of tossups that are just way outside the usual difficulty. I'll "take a few shots," as I term it - and you don't really se...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Mon Apr 20, 2015 6:29 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion
Replies: 227
Views: 110450

Re: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion

Despite not having seen any of these questions, I will say that "bolding answerlines out of context and decreeing that they are, or are not, 'noticeably difficult'" is a meaningless exercise. "Second symphonies" could be easy or impossible, depending on the clues you decide to us...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Mon Apr 20, 2015 5:50 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion
Replies: 227
Views: 110450

Re: ACF Nationals 2015 Discussion

I haven't seen this set, and didn't write any of the questions being complained about; but I can't resist a discussion of what is "beyond the pale" in 20th-century American lit questions! If I'm reading this discussion correctly, the view being expressed is that a tossup on Hemingway's &qu...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Sat Apr 04, 2015 12:02 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Favorite Quizbowl Experiences
Replies: 77
Views: 68619

Re: Favorite Quizbowl Experiences

I can confirm that the ACF website photo was taken prior to a Michigan-Rochester match at 2005 ACF nationals--I believe I took the photo, in fact. In any event, it was taken before a match I read in the big auditorium at Northwestern.
by Birdofredum Sawin
Mon Mar 30, 2015 5:52 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2015 ICT: general discussion
Replies: 15
Views: 6480

Re: 2015 ICT: general discussion

Just to offer some further perspective on how this year's set was pieced together: This year, three writers--Matt Jackson, myself, and Ike--wrote at least 100 questions for D1 ICT. The three of us ended up writing 63% of the set. After us, the next largest contributor was Selene, who wrote 31 questi...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:22 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Praise Song Part II
Replies: 23
Views: 24396

Re: Praise Song Part II

By my quick count, three of the ten people participating in this thread before me had negative things to say about Matt, ranging from mild (Mike) to severe (Cody), so I don't think it's really accurate to say that I "walk[ed] into" a thread focused solely on the "good things" abo...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Wed Mar 11, 2015 1:26 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Praise Song Part II
Replies: 23
Views: 24396

Re: Praise Song Part II

Matt Weiner's ability to have ideas about what quiz bowl should do in a lot of areas of the game is one of the most impressive things about him. Even when I didn't agree with him, he at least had given his stance thought and had good reasoning behind it. I wasn't planning on wading into this praise...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Fri Feb 13, 2015 2:57 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta
Replies: 73
Views: 47005

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Much as I enjoy Cody's "argument by emphatic assertion," I don't see how you can just say that "it's not about dropping the ball" as if that's something that never happens. To take the example alluded to just now, my Stanford team did exactly that at ACF nats in 2009--i.e., we lo...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Fri Feb 13, 2015 2:39 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta
Replies: 73
Views: 47005

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

I didn't want to wade into this, but here goes anyway: As I understand it, the objection to NAQT's system is that it "unfairly penalizes" teams that dropped one or more games in the prelims to teams that did not do well enough to make the top bracket. However, there is a parallel objection...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Thu May 15, 2014 10:34 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

Muriel Axon wrote:
I need to know: Was he in a revolving chair, or did he actually get up and start spinning?
Let the annals of Penn Bowl reflect that he was standing at a podium.
by Birdofredum Sawin
Thu May 15, 2014 4:09 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

Inspired by Paul, here are my Penn Bowl memories. I played it my first two years at Virginia, but remember almost nothing about those tournaments. The '95 version, I believe, marked the emergence of Jeff Johnson onto the quizbowl stage. It also may have been the swan song for Ramesh from Maryland, t...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue May 06, 2014 5:25 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

Thank you both for insuring that these will be more readily accessible to future generations. Also the Lafer one really requires its annotation: According to Cleanth Brooks' "The Surly Wolverine" this may be the most hopeful of the various poems about famed quizbowl player Matt Lafer. He a...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue May 06, 2014 4:44 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

I have some more thoughts inspired by Zeke's latest contribution, but for now I just want to ask: Where are the poetic tributes to the ACF membership that Zeke and I wrote c. 2005? I was especially fond of my "You, Chris Romero" and Zeke's Thomas Hardy-inspired tribute to Matt Lafer; I wou...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Thu May 01, 2014 4:14 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

The 5-10-15 bonus was from a time when there was very little conscious thought about what bonuses were for and the same sort of "feels right to the layman, is totally wrong when you think about it" instincts that produced head-to-head tiebreakers also gave rise to the idea that certain an...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue Apr 29, 2014 11:10 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

I wanted to follow up on my earlier post about the "seriousness" with which certain people and teams (myself; Maryland) approached the game in the '90s by writing about the evolution of question writing. As I've suggested, a number of people in the '90s took the game very seriously, and di...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue Apr 29, 2014 10:44 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

The impression I get from reading this debate is that it was focused mainly on defending the legitimacy of College Bowl's rule, which settled on capping teams to a maximum of one graduate student and all players to six years of participation in official College Bowl events irrespective of their deg...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue Apr 29, 2014 1:50 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

Like Zeke, I was very interested by Matt's discussion of the "metagame." I think in broad strokes, he is quite correct, though his sense of the pre-2000 history is a bit off. (Unsurprisingly, since he wasn't around at the time!) What Matt describes is a culture in which people try to work ...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:44 am
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

The intersection of "people who attended the 1997 CBI forum" and "people who are currently active on this board" may be, in its entirety, "me." And I confess that I remember little about it, except that I was not abashed about expressing my contempt for the proceedings....
by Birdofredum Sawin
Mon Apr 28, 2014 11:20 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

One thing this thread is missing is a discussion of CBI, which I assume is just a vague rumor to the current generation of players. Jerry posted something sensible recently in which he remarked that contemporary discussions of "quizbowl philosophy" are sort of otiose, since all the real ba...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Mon Apr 28, 2014 3:46 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

Oh man, I completely forgot that Illinois tournament! No need for Subash to feel any retrospective self-reproach, as that was a delightful affair that produced what Mike Zarren used to trumpet as his all-time greatest quizbowl achievement: namely, correctly calling the coinflip that resulted in our ...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Fri Apr 25, 2014 12:37 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

Oh man, I remember that salsa! Also I accept Paul's correction--I distinctly remember that Zeke negged the last five tossups of one of the games at that CO, but that may not have been the final. I take for granted that I too negged up a storm at that tournament due to sheer rustiness. Really, the im...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Thu Apr 24, 2014 3:12 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

Now that we've done justice to Khon Hoc, perhaps it's time to extend these reminiscences into the current century. Here are a few more off-the-cuff recollections of the next chunk of quizbowl history. After 2000, I decided to scale back a bit--for the next year or so, I only played a few tournaments...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Mon Apr 21, 2014 5:44 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Literature paradigms
Replies: 9
Views: 4477

Re: Literature paradigms

I forgot a pretty obvious fifth type of literature tossup of which I am very fond--namely, the common-link tossup on a place, event, or whatnot given various literary clues about it. I.e., something like this tossup, which I wrote for ICT a few years back: This event is the subject of a "philos...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Mon Apr 21, 2014 6:33 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Literature paradigms
Replies: 9
Views: 4477

Literature paradigms

While the ACF nationals discussion thread continues to metastasize into an all-purpose clearinghouse about all sorts of hot-button issues in the game today, I wanted to take the occasion to start a separate thread on literature "paradigms," inspired by a post made by Ted in the former thre...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Sun Apr 20, 2014 9:30 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals congratulations, thanks, and discussion
Replies: 169
Views: 57282

Re: ACF Nationals congratulations, thanks, and discussion

Yes, I think people should be free to write on whatever things interest them. If other people also find those things interesting, then great--they'll be inspired to write similar questions in the same vein, and a trend (or even a sea change) will have been started. If other people don't find those ...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Sun Apr 20, 2014 6:29 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals congratulations, thanks, and discussion
Replies: 169
Views: 57282

Re: ACF Nationals congratulations, thanks, and discussion

You're a member of the community, and you are on record as having voiced opinions--hence, "vocal member of the community"! Although it's much less fun for me to have a reasonable exchange with someone who doesn't take umbrage at my remarks, I will grudgingly agree to continue the discussio...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Sun Apr 20, 2014 12:12 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals congratulations, thanks, and discussion
Replies: 169
Views: 57282

Re: ACF Nationals congratulations, thanks, and discussion

I'll interject with a (hopefully useful) distinction. I lump John's criticisms into two piles. The first is objective: "these questions objectively made mistakes that should be eliminated." The second is subjective: "these questions did not meet my subjective vision of what ideal mus...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Sat Apr 19, 2014 9:45 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals congratulations, thanks, and discussion
Replies: 169
Views: 57282

Re: ACF Nationals congratulations, thanks, and discussion

No, Jacob, my point is precisely that it's not superfluous for people to comment on areas on which they don't have specialist knowledge. What I'm decrying is this phenomenon where everyone acts like only the experts are able to act as any kind of authority on how questions should be written. That's...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Sat Apr 19, 2014 1:00 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals congratulations, thanks, and discussion
Replies: 169
Views: 57282

Re: ACF Nationals congratulations, thanks, and discussion

I approached it with the mentality of looking for clues I thought people would know rather than clues that I would be surprised if someone knew. This was a direct departure from Yaphe’s approach to writing on canonical topics for the ICT. This is obviously not pertinent to the discussion of ACF nat...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Thu Apr 17, 2014 12:35 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

I was going to proceed past the year 2000, but remembered that I hadn't said anything about one of the great institutions of late-20th-century quizbowl. Of course, I refer to Khon Hoc. More generally, I thought I'd offer a brief rundown of the history of summer masters tournaments--which, again, is ...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Wed Apr 16, 2014 2:52 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

Zeke's delightful post has inspired me to follow up with a few more specific reminiscences of my own. Some of these will have very little connection to the ostensible theme of this thread, but I figure nobody will mind. First, as Zeke correctly suggests, the 1996 ACF nationals was huge, and had a ve...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue Apr 15, 2014 12:06 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

I don't really want to disparage any teams of the earlier era. Instead, I'll say that I think that the 1996, 2001, and 2006 teams are generally weaker than the rest; the fact that a team may have finished in the finals of ACF nationals in those years should probably not be regarded as an indicator t...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Mon Apr 14, 2014 11:45 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

In the spirit of Matt's suggestion, then, I offer a few further thoughts. If we are using the hypothetical framework of "team that, if plucked out of their era with a time machine, would fare best in a hypothetical tournament on 2014 ACF nationals-type questions, assuming hypothetically that th...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Mon Apr 14, 2014 7:39 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg
Replies: 169
Views: 139103

Re: Quiz Bowl Survivor: 50 Buzz, 49 Neg

I do not care about the parameters of this voting exercise, especially since it is meaningless unless (as I have previously noted) you establish some sort of consensus as to the criteria for "greatest team of all time." As I think I have said elsewhere, it is completely unclear whether, by...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Sat Apr 05, 2014 2:03 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2014 ICT: general discussion
Replies: 75
Views: 17894

Re: 2014 ICT: general discussion

Having taken my rhetorical flamethrower to Marshall this past week, I want to try to extend an olive branch to John, lest I seem to have a vendetta against the entirety of the current Chicago team. I think this discussion got off on a bad footing, but has, from a pragmatic standpoint, settled down t...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Fri Apr 04, 2014 1:52 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: The Secret History of Shantanu, Chicago Quizbowl, and NAQT
Replies: 33
Views: 70102

Re: The Secret History of Shantanu, Chicago Quizbowl, and NA

If you don't want to be regarded as a "raving lunatic," it might be advisable to rave less, or at least to do so in a less loony manner. The basic underlying principle of your posts is that you appear to hold me personally responsible for not having conducted the kind of inquisition you pr...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Thu Apr 03, 2014 11:40 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: The Secret History of Shantanu, Chicago Quizbowl, and NAQT
Replies: 33
Views: 70102

Re: The Secret History of Shantanu, Chicago Quizbowl, and NA

I guess I shouldn't hold my breath until I get that "retraction and/or apology." And, since you are continuing to call me out, I will continue to respond to the parts of your posts that are directed personally to me. I understand that you and Shantanu, like Ahriman and Ormuzd, were locked ...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Thu Apr 03, 2014 7:02 pm
Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
Topic: The Secret History of Shantanu, Chicago Quizbowl, and NAQT
Replies: 33
Views: 70102

Re: The Secret History of Shantanu, Chicago Quizbowl, and NA

What most amuses me about Marshall's post is its description of the "place of self-knowledge" at which he has arrived. I didn't want to get dragged into this, but since Marshall has accused me of being personally responsible for a nefarious scheme of intimidation, I don't see how I can avo...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Wed Apr 02, 2014 2:51 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2014 ICT: specific questions
Replies: 72
Views: 14822

Re: 2014 ICT: specific questions

I wasn't involved in the writing or editing of this Windsor tossup, but the criticism of it does not make sense to me. Here is the tossup: During oral arguments in this case, Vicki Jackson claimed one respondent lacked Article III injury, and a comparison was made with "skim milk." It bega...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue Apr 01, 2014 8:34 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2014 ICT: general discussion
Replies: 75
Views: 17894

Re: 2014 ICT: general discussion

I don't see that it's worthwhile to get into a debate about whether I have misread your posts. Your posts are there; my responses are there; people can decide for themselves whether I've mischaracterized what you said. To be clear, I know nothing about your own academic pursuits, nor do I regard the...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue Apr 01, 2014 3:54 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2014 ICT: general discussion
Replies: 75
Views: 17894

Re: 2014 ICT: general discussion

It might be helpful to distinguish between what I would term "ideological" criticism of the ICT and what I would term "empirical" criticism. I'll pick a tossup at random to make the distinction more immediate. A response to this poem by {A. D. Hope} ends with the speaker saying s...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue Apr 01, 2014 12:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2014 ICT: general discussion
Replies: 75
Views: 17894

Re: 2014 ICT: general discussion

Just to be clear about where we stand, is your position: (A) You care about what the community thinks of your questions, and are willing to take those opinions into account, but you are simply unconvinced that Matt and I are an accurate representation of the community at large and think we are just...
by Birdofredum Sawin
Tue Apr 01, 2014 11:27 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2014 ICT: general discussion
Replies: 75
Views: 17894

Re: 2014 ICT: general discussion

To lay my cards on the table: I believe that main form of knowledge acquisition that literature tossups should reward is reading works of literature, and I think the best way to reward this is by writing lead-in and middle clues that draw upon plot events, snippets of dialogue, memorable moments, a...