The Quizbowl Resource Center

vcuEvan

grapesmoker wrote:I'm interested in teammates for this. I read news.

You're already signed up to play with my team... what did you think you were signing up to play?

vcuEvan

Look, all of these opinions are obviously incredibly subjective because we have no way of disentangling team and individual performance. You're doing something really simple like looking at two statlines and picking the one that's higher, and not really considering the context of the opposition or ...

vcuEvan

Packets will be written by Tommy Casalaspi, Matt Bollinger, Will Nediger, Rob Carson, Auroni Gupta, John Lawrence, Jerry Vinokurov, and me. Please write 21 tossups (keeping Tommy's distribution in mind), powermark them, and send them to Jacob Reed. His email address can be found by clicking the emai...

vcuEvan

A couple of things: if the other team knew what the Reesor Siding lumberjack strike of 1963 was, presumably they would have buzzed on it. Most likely, they would have no idea and if "general strike" was accepted by the moderator, the question would have passed without incident during game...

vcuEvan

Hmm, I thought somebody would have posted by now...I guess I'll jump in with the first comment. These parts of the set were all very high quality. The literature was written pretty much according to the principles you've laid out elsewhere, and it was probably better than any other tournament this ...

vcuEvan

I thought the "newsreels" tossup was a little unclear. The Starship Troopers clue is a propaganda news film, which is different than a literal newsreel as seen in Citizen Kane. I think this may have been confusing for people (and I negged it in playtesting with answer about "celebrat...

vcuEvan

These strike me as unpersuasive. The first point is obviously not an argument at all, just a statement of preference. The second point is the most interesting and worthy of discussion; two questions in response to it being: (a) Is it actually true that people have more knowledge of or interest in a...

vcuEvan

But I think it is a bad idea for ACF to consider adopting this policy. The difficulty is that opera and ballet are disproportionately easier to write than are questions on instrumental music, because they give you extra-musical content to latch onto. If you allow those genres to count as part of th...

vcuEvan

I think there are some problems with the 20/20 ACF distribution and I'd like to come up with a viable proposal for a reformed version before the end of this year. I have a few principles that I'd like to see reflected in a new distribution: continued bifurcation of the Fall/Regionals distribution wi...

vcuEvan

For major categories, let's say that social science includes something like Psychology, Economics, Anthropology, Sociology, Linguistics, Political Science, and "Other" (everything I've forgotten that's totally important). On the other hand, if we have the 3/3 Fine Arts distribution split ...

vcuEvan

For major categories, let's say that social science includes something like Psychology, Economics, Anthropology, Sociology, Linguistics, Political Science, and "Other" (everything I've forgotten that's totally important). On the other hand, if we have the 3/3 Fine Arts distribution split ...

vcuEvan

For major categories, let's say that social science includes something like Psychology, Economics, Anthropology, Sociology, Linguistics, Political Science, and "Other" (everything I've forgotten that's totally important). On the other hand, if we have the 3/3 Fine Arts distribution split ...

vcuEvan

Most of you noticed that there were more film tossups than usual. (5.5/16) This was no accident, and represents the place I think film should have in the other arts distribution. Thoughts?

vcuEvan

I thought the "newsreels" tossup was a little unclear. The Starship Troopers clue is a propaganda news film, which is different than a literal newsreel as seen in Citizen Kane. I think this may have been confusing for people (and I negged it in playtesting with answer about "celebrat...

vcuEvan

3) Strange questions: Stuff like cars and Santa Maria seemed to play very poorly. There was a lot of rather "cute" ideas that probably didn't work out too well in practice. I would include the tossups on Gaius Grachus and Newreels in this category as well. That said, I thought this tourna...

vcuEvan

Post them here.

vcuEvan

First let me acknowledge everyone involved with making this set. I thought the subject editors did an excellent job. Will Nediger and Carsten Gehring together edited half of this tournament and consistently put out high quality work in a very timely manner. Adam Silverman and Ashvin Srivatsa both ca...

vcuEvan

I sent out the packets to all the hosts except Rice (we'll send this out next week in case any problems with the set are discovered over the weekend). If you haven't received them, or if there's some problem, e-mail me.

vcuEvan

This mirror is dissolved.

vcuEvan

Is anyone who has not registered planning on playing this tournament? If we're still at this level of interest in a few days we'll cancel this mirror and have the affected teams go to WKU or play in the online mirror. UCF would not be required to write a packet.

vcuEvan

ACF Regionals playtesting is postponed. We'll be doing 4 packets next Sunday the 16th, and the last four packets Monday the 17th.

vcuEvan

So I submitted Berkeley D's packet yesterday though the post shows that only up to Berkeley C has submitted and has been updated today. Is that a typo, or did you not receive our packet for some reason? I received an e-mail from Nicholas Karas telling me there were only three Berkeley teams, and to...

vcuEvan

Reminder: play testing resumes tonight at 8 EST.

vcuEvan

quantumfootball wrote:My internet connection crashed tonight around the time that I was filling out Wright State's registration form, and so I just wanted to make sure that you got it.

Your registration was received.

vcuEvan

Remaining play-testing dates:

Monday, February 3, 8:00 PM EST
Sunday, February 9, 8:00 PM EST
Sunday, February 16, 8:00 PM EST

vcuEvan

Reminder: this starts in 30 minutes.

vcuEvan

willis1 wrote:I just wanted to see if you have recieved an optional packet from Florida B. The member in charge has been unresponsive about it.

The only Florida packet we have received is Florida A.

vcuEvan

I'll be playtesting four packets of ACF Regionals this Sunday (1/19) at 8 PM EST in IRC at #acfregionals. I'll be doing the full packets, alternating tossups and bonuses.

vcuEvan

adosreme wrote:Eligibility Question: One of the teams attending the Toronto site has a graduate student who finished his studies at the end of the fall term (Dec. 2013). Is he still eligible to play ACF regionals for his school?

Yes.

vcuEvan

I'd just like to verify whether the Colonel By A packet submission for the Jan. 4 deadline is a -$25 or a -$50 discount since they are a high school team. The discount marker in the first post just indicates what date the packet was submitted by. High school teams and teams writing optional packets...

vcuEvan

Reminder: Closely follow the formatting of the sample packet posted here. Remember, improperly formatted packets can incur up to a $30 penalty.

vcuEvan

Unless I have specifically told you otherwise, the -$50 deadline is over. Thanks everyone who submitted a packet. Everyone else has two weeks to make the next deadline.

vcuEvan

All of our money is controlled by the Center for Student Engagement and we have to submit forms 4-6 weeks in advance if we want to see any of that money. If you held a separate bank account how would they find out and punish you for it? Practically, is there anything other than punctilious rule fol...

vcuEvan

gamegeek2 wrote:Who's editing the various subjects for this tournament?

Will is editing lit, music, and painting. Carsten is editing history. Adam is editing bio and chem. Ashvin is editing physics and other science. Matt is editing RMP. I'm editing SS, other arts, and geo/CE/trash.

vcuEvan

I like this a lot. You do need support for substitutes before this can actually be used for tournaments, so I'd make that a priority. Maybe I'm missing it, but I think you also need a way to edit round number, school names, individual names, etc. This certainly isn't necessary, but given the way roo...

vcuEvan

I'm still having trouble finding a host in Florida or in Minnesota. If anyone wants to volunteer from these places, please email me or post here. Any team that can't attend a mirror in person because of travel distances is welcome to play the Skype mirror. The Florida mirror will be at the Universi...

vcuEvan

Personally, I'd be fine with musical theatre coming up more frequently, though George is right as to the main reason it doesn't come up more often than it does. This begs the larger question, though, of whether it really makes sense to define subjects as fine arts or pop culture/trash based on form...

vcuEvan

I'm still having trouble finding a host in Florida or in Minnesota. If anyone wants to volunteer from these places, please email me or post here. Any team that can't attend a mirror in person because of travel distances is welcome to play the Skype mirror.

vcuEvan

The University of Washington is now mirroring in the Pacific Northwest. This will also be a Skype mirror if there is interest.

vcuEvan

Is there any fee information for this? Are there still new team discounts for regionals? Also, what's the approach to packet-writing when you have no science knowledge? Do your best and let the editors fix it, or just accept that your packet won't be used? Information about tournament discounts can...

vcuEvan

Mirrors of ACF Regionals are now scheduled for Yale, UVA, Michigan, Western Kentucky, and the University of Missouri. I'm in the middle of talking to potential hosts in Florida, Canada, California, and the Pacific Northwest. (So if you'e still interested in hosting from one of those locations, plea...

vcuEvan

Cheynem wrote:Is this an ACF wide change for non Nationals tournaments?

No, this is just for Regionals this year.

vcuEvan

If you've already written this part of your packet don't worry about this, but please note that the 24/24 distribution in the first post has changed. Instead of 1/1 pop culture there is now 1/0 or 0/1 pop culture required, and the other 1/0 and 0/1 is of any academic category.

vcuEvan

Mirrors of ACF Regionals are now scheduled for Yale, UVA, Michigan, Western Kentucky, and the University of Missouri. I'm in the middle of talking to potential hosts in Florida, Canada, California, and the Pacific Northwest. (So if you'e still interested in hosting from one of those locations, pleas...

vcuEvan

I still need bids from this. I'd love to hear from all regions but there are particularly gaping holes in the South, Florida, Texas, California, the Pacific Northwest and Canada. Remember, if you host you get paid AND you don't have to write a packet!

vcuEvan

I'll have more to add when I'm not busy editing the questions we're discussing, but I do want to point out that the primary reason packets that don't get used aren't used, as far as this year goes, is that people are submitting questions that are way too hard for Fall. If you want your packet to sh...

vcuEvan

I disagree, and I will try to find some examples, but the chance of me having the time during the span Andrew announced this subforum would be open is pretty slim. It's a month. Are you saying you probably won't find any of these people in a month? It's two weeks with a possible extension to a mont...

vcuEvan

There is way, way too much venting and vituperation [in] here Did we not all just agree that this is a huge problem on these forums?? I see absolutely no reason why these sentiments/threads can't go somewhere else (IRC? Email?), because they aren't really contributing anything to the quizbowl commu...

vcuEvan

jonah wrote:I disagree, and I will try to find some examples, but the chance of me having the time during the span Andrew announced this subforum would be open is pretty slim.

It's a month. Are you saying you probably won't find any of these people in a month?

vcuEvan

There is way, way too much venting and vituperation [in] here Did we not all just agree that this is a huge problem on these forums?? I see absolutely no reason why these sentiments/threads can't go somewhere else (IRC? Email?), because they aren't really contributing anything to the quizbowl commu...

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