The Quizbowl Resource Center

dtaylor4

Off topic: (If you don't mind me asking) Why didn't Barrington attend this year? Logistical reasons? On that note, why did it seem like no particularly good IL team (Daniel Wright, Thurgood Marshall, etc.) attended? Friday was the IESA State Series in downtown Peoria, which Daniel Wright won in AA....

dtaylor4

You still see it in much older NAQT packets, but there was also the 15/5 bonus in the same style as the 10/5 Bruce described. I also remember the 5/10/20/30 where you got points based on the number of parts you got right.

dtaylor4

Major ups to Jeff Hill, Harry White, Dan Goff, and everyone else behind the scenes that handles the tech side of the forums and the TDB. Gone are the days that people had to find independent webspace to upload and host those glorious HTML files generated by SQBS. I know of people like Andrew Hart wh...

dtaylor4

With the NEDs, usually a crimping tool is usually all that is necessary. When I bought my own buzzers (two Andersons with handheld triggers), I did something that every team should do when buying a system: buy spare parts . This way, if a buzzer does go down mid-tournament, it takes five minutes to ...

dtaylor4

From my experience in Iowa (I lived for just over a year about 20 minutes E of Ames), ISU and Drake put on 2-3 tournaments total a year. There have been occasional NAQT tournaments much further west, and Bettendorf has hosted things. If you want some more information, drop me a line and I can help w...

dtaylor4

How on earth does the 3-way tiebreaker work? I can come up with no possible way in which Carterville gets put third in pool 1 of Class A. Per IHSA rules, you throw out the game against the common opponent, and only look at scores between teams in the circle of death. Carterville had 350 Urbana U-Hi...

dtaylor4

Myth has a belonging in the question distribution, but it is very debatable on where it should be placed. While I guess having it in lit is acceptable and reasonable, it seems like it should just have it's own category, much like religion. Grant it, there is no press to do so, but it makes sense. M...

dtaylor4

6 am wakeup times? You clearly have never been on a Central IL team going to any tournament ever. Fixed; I wish I could get up at 6am for tournaments not in Springfield (besides Masonic State). On the way to tournaments, I would sleep in the car if not driving. Get a good breakfast, and a filling b...

dtaylor4

Does anybody remember the bonus series on "something-something short stories by Clark"? Is that trash lit? The Bret Harte bonus? That's regular lit, and a completely acceptable bonus topic - just unbelievably, ridiculously hard. Outcasts of Poker Flat/character from Outcasts of Poker Flat...

dtaylor4

I didn't feel like making a new thread but an unrelated question about buzzers: Is it legal to hold down the button while the system is locked out to immediately activate the buzzer when it is cleared? I did this at NHBB bee to some avail (obviously I didn't win though). Apparently on some systems ...

dtaylor4

After having a conversation with Dr. Prince after the tournament, one thing I am going to recommend is that the tiebreakers/replacements be completely re-worked. This year, each pack had a set of 5 tossups and 4 teamwork questions as replacements in each of the 8 rounds. This adds up to 40/32 for ea...

dtaylor4

Overall, I gathered that all had a positive experience, and the questions went over well, with 1-2 quibbles. I was one of the people who expressed some quibbles to Donald, but I want to stress that on the whole, this was a very good set. The questions were challenging enough to differentiate betwee...

dtaylor4

A:
1) Newman Central Catholic
2) Carterville
3) Litchfield
4) Cumberland (Toledo)

AA:
1) IMSA
2) Fremd
3) Stevenson
4) Auburn

Overall, I gathered that all had a positive experience, and the questions went over well, with 1-2 quibbles.

dtaylor4

Another thing to note when it comes to large roster sizes is that constantly switching out players can be really aggravating for score- and statkeepers. Yeah...coaches/teams do not care about this side effect. Trust me, I'm from Illinois (the state that has mastered the art of hockey-style line cha...

dtaylor4

With regards to stats, they were done 5-10 minutes after the final. Jonah is in the process of getting the raw SQBS due to my copy/paste error. Every single game is in, including the R7 tiebreakers.

dtaylor4

Following on from last year, I will once again be entering into SQBS all scoresheets (including rebounds) sent to Dale. Last year, two sectionals did not submit, hopefully that is rectified this year. Once they are done, I will send the raw files to all parties who would like them. If you are one of...

dtaylor4

Last year, Wong did significant legwork in gathering data regarding the teams, and he and I spent hours tweaking the brackets for balance and geographic diversity. I don't think I ever released the brackets, and do not recall public (or private) requests for them. As Noah said, I personally think th...

dtaylor4

Okay, another question: suppose somebody runs a tournament on an unpowermarked housewrite and decides, for whatever reason, that they want to implement "old NSC-style" powers, in which you receive power for a correct answer at any point before "For 10 points" is read. I have lit...

dtaylor4

Mr. Scogan wrote:Are you referring to Solon's tournament? If so, it wasn't necessarily power-marked. They just declared the first three lines were powers.

If you add powers when there aren't any, it's power-marked, whether you actually edit the documents or not.

dtaylor4

Captain Sinico wrote:
dtaylor4 wrote:Suggestion (via Joe Nutter/Rob Carson):

6x6 (5) + TB (1) + 6x6 parallel (5) + TB (1) + finals (1) is 13 packets. Seed for the parallel based on PPB.
I guess I'm getting old, but what's parallel? That looks good if it's fair.

M

Two pools of 6x6, cross-over finals.

dtaylor4

Suggestion (via Joe Nutter/Rob Carson):

6x6 (5) + TB (1) + 6x6 parallel (5) + TB (1) + finals (1) is 13 packets. Seed for the parallel based on PPB.

It shouldn't be too much of a delay, and keep in mind who's doing stats.

dtaylor4

Create more sectionals until you have 8 teams in each or write more questions. That's how much of an improvement it was -- it was so significantly better as to suggest such outlandish things in the hopes of positive change. There might be more feasible options, but I'm too busy banging my head agai...

dtaylor4

Below is my opinion on the set after seeing it played live. I am not going to talk about David's stuff in detail, as I cannot look at the raw questions at this point. In my areas, there were a couple of questions where the difficulty was a bit higher than where I feel it should be (the Conrad tossup...

dtaylor4

I much, much, MUCH prefer the full round robin schedule we had this year to the 2 pools of 5 schedule we had last year and the 2 pools of 6 schedule that IMSA had while I was there; the tiebreaking rules aren't right, but it just felt like a better day of quizbowl for everyone involved. The 2 throu...

dtaylor4

Glenwood results:

1. Springfield (270-240, sweeping the last 4 TUs)
2. Macomb
3. Glenwood
4. Lincoln

I have been made aware of an in accuracy in the R+J bonus. That's all on me.

dtaylor4

As a reminder, please refrain from discussing question specifics until it is established that all events are done. Given the nature of the Sectionals, some will obviously be done before others.

dtaylor4

Two or more pieces of related information of different types, such as author/book, president/organization, or actor/role, but not two authors, three books, etc., may be given and treated as one answer. If any part contains the answer being sought, and the items are correctly related, the answer sha...

dtaylor4

Okay, I seem to understand what you're saying. But with that, who's to say that an answer with absurd extraneous information isn't part of a larger thought process? If someone buzzes in on an e.e. cummings tossup and says "Hamlet by e.e. cummings," they'd be correct by your logic. But som...

dtaylor4

Is it though? Yes. I don't recall the NSC rule off the top of my head, but neither the NAQT rule nor the ACF Rule suggest that the blitz must correlate with the clue being read or a clue in the tossup at all. [Such a reading would require every moderator to have knowledge of every clue in the quest...

dtaylor4

There were some issues with the entering of stats during the tournament (though by tournament end, they were complete through R5.

I can't speak for Jay, but he did say that he would get to them sometime this week.

EDIT: I have it on good authority that they will be posted in relatively short order.

dtaylor4

If a person buzzes in early on a "Divine Comedy" tossup, where the only clue given is on Purgatorio, and they answer "Inferno," they are wrong. We can all agree on that. However, later in that same tossup, a clue about Inferno may come up, and they might buzz and say "Infer...

dtaylor4

Quick results (18 teams):

1: Carbondale A (Zetterman solo)
2: Litchfield A
3: Riverton A
4: Greenville A
5: Mt. Vernon
6: Carbondale B (three freshmen)

The nasty weather kept a lot of teams from coming, but the tournament overall went well.

dtaylor4

So…. aren't you saying that blitzing should be outlawed because, once the pronoun is specified, answering "Shakespeare" is extra information that isn't correct? EDIT: I mean blitzing with "Hamlet by Shakespeare", not just "Shakespeare". To my knowledge, extraneous rele...

dtaylor4

Jackson simply does not have the support he needs to beat the top teams. The question is, seeing how far they are behind other teams, will he and his teammates step it up? I don't know if you can say he isn't able to beat top teams, given that he just beat IMSA and DCC. Consistency is an issue, but...

dtaylor4

Springfield I have no clue if what they did on Saturday is sustainable but Jackson "Snackson" Myers breaking 100 ppg and carrying the team to close victories against both IMSA teams and DCC is enough to warrant at least a temporary placement here. Jackson simply does not have the support ...

dtaylor4

Re: managing expenses, many financial institutions allow you to download account data to various programs (quickbooks, whatever the MS program is), which should make the task dramatically easier.

dtaylor4

So, I talked to our organizations guy, and he told me that clubs at my school just go to a bank and set up their own account. Is this actually normal? We would be dissolved if we even considered doing this. Why is that? Huge potential for squirreling away funds for non-club purposes. I see that the...

dtaylor4

Even something as simple as differentiating between "I need more information" in regnal number-type cases and "can you be more specific" on siege of Aqaba-type cases could help, I think. With the regnal numbers, the fact that an answer is prompted unambiguously points towards wh...

dtaylor4

Every team plays each other once. 3 rounds in one night is OK.

dtaylor4

A local conference I work with is growing to 10 teams, and as of yet I am unable to come up with a reasonable schedule. If someone has a schedule template they are willing to share, I will be very grateful. Right now, the 9-team league takes place over 4 Tuesday nights (they also do a Saturday RR to...

dtaylor4

Stats are up. Only match scores are available, though. Nothing else. http://www.naqt.com/stats/tournament-teams.jsp?tournament_id=4997&playoffs=1 They've done this since the beginning. They wanted to do SQBS but couldn't get it done this year. Perhaps next year. Surely for a tournament of this ...

dtaylor4

I know I'm spoiled because I do expect tournaments to have each team scheduled to play without byes and in a format where a winner or at least a top two can be determined by rounds 8-10 or so. This speaks less about my pickiness and complaints, and more to the tournament planning abilities of Coach...

dtaylor4

Personally, powers make quiz bowl much more fun and rewarding, as the goal is not just to get the most wins, but also to power the most questions. A team that powers more questions does not necessarily win. Powers are cool if they are there, but their absence does not necessarily cheapen the set. I...

dtaylor4

I didn't vote in the poll since I'm not playing, but I'd be willing to read on the 25th. 31st, no go.

dtaylor4

Grams's Go-Go Boots wrote:That's not the short story, though.

This.

Point to where the story is published with that title, then it can be accepted as a title. Until then, it is by definition not a title.

dtaylor4

Apologies if this has come up before. So this was inspired by a protest at our East of Eden tournament where I ruled that "Prufrock" was not promptable for "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." I stand by that ruling on the basis that that was a partial title and that the curre...

dtaylor4

Fred, Jonah,

I've sent you zip files with the tournaments I have.

dtaylor4

(some ridiculous percentage of my playing career's stats vanished when Donald Taylor graduated) Before netfiles (my old repository) vanished, I was able to pull down everything I uploaded to it. Here are the tournaments I have files on: UIUC Earlybird 2007 UIUC Earlybird 2009 ACF Nationals 2009/10 ...

dtaylor4

One thing I've seen a number of TDs (even experienced ones) screw up is distributing moderators among prelim and playoff brackets. Novice TDs should consult those who know the crew of readers best, as incorrect placement can make a tournament drag longer than it should.

dtaylor4

For those rating Springfield so highly: keep in mind that Adkins will not be coaching next year, and at this point I have not heard a specific name tagged as a replacement. He will still be running their tournaments and such, but will not be actively involved with the team itself.

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