TJNAT 2020 Online (10/10/20) (HS-Closed)

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TJNAT 2020 Online (10/10/20) (HS-Closed)

Post by SwedenSour »

The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is pleased to announce the Thomas Jefferson Novice Academic Tournament (TJNAT) on October 10th, 2020. THIS TOURNAMENT WILL BE HOSTED ONLINE - SEE BELOW.

QUESTION SET:
The tournament will be using IS-193A, a question set produced by NAQT. This will be a good opportunity for new teams to play introductory-level questions.

TJNAT's current field cap is 36, but this may be increased depending on staffer availability. We will be limiting registrations to a maximum of 3 teams per school. Please sign up by 10/3/2020. Teams will be limited to at most 6 people, so schools planning to bring more than 6 students should register another team. During the rounds, up to 4 students are permitted to play at any given time, and up to 2 students can sub out at halftime. Teams may have fewer than 4 people. Teams dropping out after 10/6/2020 will still be responsible for the entirety of the fee, though exceptions may be granted in extreme situations.

ELIGIBILITY:
All students on a team must be from the same school (no “open” or “chimera” teams allowed). Only teams based in Virginia, DC, and Maryland may attend TJNAT, as has traditionally been the case. If you are not from these states but would like to play (i.e. PA, WV, NC, DE), please email us at [email protected] - we may grant exceptions.

Any player who has more than two years of high school pyramidal Quizbowl experience or has attained greater than 25 PPG at a high school national tournament (HSNCT, PACE NSC) is not eligible. Any player part of a school who is in their first year of playing pyramidal, non-VHSL quizbowl is automatically eligible and able to redeem a new school registration discount. We ask that experienced teams use discretion when creating rosters, and we reserve the right to request rosters in order to check eligibility as well as decide whether players count as novices (considering the absence of national tournaments).

Please contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions about eligibility!

Rules against cheating and misconduct will be strictly enforced at this tournament. We reserve the right to remove anyone suspected of cheating or misconduct from the tournament. We will also notify coaches and relevant quizbowl organizations about any such acts. If you suspect anyone of cheating, please contact a TD.

We do not tolerate any form of misconduct. If you are threatened or feel in any way unsafe at this tournament, please reach out to a TD or staffer and fill out this quizbowl misconduct form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... Q/viewform.

LOGISTICS:
Due to the current health crisis, this tournament will be conducted entirely online through Discord. After payment is received, we will send the link to the Discord server. All players/coaches should join the Discord server at least a day before the tournament. The first round will start at 9AM EDT, but participants should aim to be on the server by 8:45. Teams will not be required to congregate to play. Cameras will also be strongly encouraged to minimize cheating at this tournament. More logistics will be emailed out to teams as the tournament date approaches.

FEES:
Registration fees per team:
$70 for schools that regularly participate in pyramidal quizbowl
$45 for schools that are new to pyramidal quizbowl

DISCOUNTS:
-$10 per each competent staffer (staffer discounts may run out if many staffers sign up)

Minimum registration fees:
$50 for schools that regularly participate in pyramidal quizbowl
$25 for schools that are new to pyramidal quizbowl

The method by which fees will be collected will be emailed to you upon registration. Please send one payment per school. When making your payment, please note your school’s name and “Registration Fee." Please turn in your payment at least three days before tournament day.

SIGN UP HERE:
https://www.naqt.com/go/register/11825

Please direct any questions to the Thomas Jefferson Quizbowl officers at [email protected]. We hope to see you in October!
EDIT: Added logistical information, edited payment information
Last edited by SwedenSour on Fri Sep 25, 2020 3:02 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: TJNAT 2020 Online (10/10/20) (HS-Closed)

Post by SwedenSour »

The field cap of 24 teams has been reached - however, please continue signing up via our NAQT link. Registrants will be added to the waitlist automatically, and if there are enough teams interested in playing, we will increase the field cap.
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Re: TJNAT 2020 Online (10/10/20) (HS-Closed)

Post by SwedenSour »

We have raised the field cap to 30 teams. If there is enough interest to raise the field cap further, we may do so.
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Re: TJNAT 2020 Online (10/10/20) (HS-Closed)

Post by SwedenSour »

The field cap has been raised to 36 teams. We may continue to raise the field cap in the near future depending on interest and staffer availability.
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Re: TJNAT 2020 Online (10/10/20) (HS-Closed)

Post by SwedenSour »

Thanks to everyone who made TJNAT possible today, and thanks to everyone who participated! Congrats to Burleigh Manor A and Centennial A for earning first and second place respectively. We hope everyone enjoyed the tournament!

Addressing rumors that have been flying around:
At TJNAT today, a parent of a player was found to have bought the set we used to play TJNAT previously studying it over the summer. We ended up kicking the player from the tournament, and plan to do so in our final statistics report. We want to make it very clear that the player did not do this intentionally, nor was this a premediated attempt to cheat by anyone involved. Please don't go hound people for something they didn't intentionally do - we're just trying to put information out that would help answer some suspicions we're hearing.
We also experienced many other players cheating at this tournament (while not having access to the set), but as many were in elementary or middle school or were attending their very first tournament, we will not reveal names. We will be notifying their respective coaches of this, and leave them to pass judgement as they see fit.
Please reach out to us at [email protected] or on Discord if you have questions.
Last edited by SwedenSour on Sat Oct 17, 2020 12:21 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: TJNAT 2020 Online (10/10/20) (HS-Closed)

Post by yellow7206 »

Very sad to hear about the cheating. I fear this whole season will be tainted with warranted and unwarranted suspicion.

Thank you to TJ for running the tournament. Our school had a very good experience.
Eugene Huang, King of 109
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Langley HS, 1989
Longfellow MS, 1985
Spring Hill Elem. 1983
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Re: TJNAT 2020 Online (10/10/20) (HS-Closed)

Post by CabbageHugs »

I enjoyed moderating and I think things could have gone worse for our first online tournament of the year. Many props to TD's and officers.
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Re: TJNAT 2020 Online (10/10/20) (HS-Closed)

Post by eseifte1 »

We, the coaches of Centennial High School and Burleigh Manor Middle School, discovered as the tournament proceeded that NAQT had sold this packet IS 193A to at least one parent in our community over the summer. We know of 2 students who had access and we are investigating with NAQT if this happened with any of our other students.
This is unacceptable, and the students involved should have had the courage to admit their prior exposure to the questions.
We, the community of the Centennial High School and Burleigh Manor Middle School are asking now for TJ to expunge our victories yesterday for all 3 of our high school and all 3 of our middle school teams. We do not believe that Centennial Lane Elementary was involved in any way.
We as a community apologize to all the teams affected by this incident.
Eric and Sara Seifter
Anne-Marie Lanz
John Heslin
Eric Seifter Coach, Centennial High School It's Academic
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Re: TJNAT 2020 Online (10/10/20) (HS-Closed)

Post by Important Bird Area »

NAQT would like to apologize to the quiz bowl community, and particularly to the teams who played Saturday's tournament hosted by Thomas Jefferson, for our part in the security violation that disrupted that event. This was an avoidable error in NAQT operations that directly compromised the integrity of Saturday's competition.

We've posted a statement in the other thread about NAQT's security practices and potential future changes to our policies about practice material sales and discussion.

We would like to express our thanks to the coaches, Eric Seifter, Sara Seifter, and John Heslin of Centennial and Anne-Marie Lanz of Burleigh Manor, for reporting the situation, and to the tournament staff at Thomas Jefferson for responding in a timely and professional manner.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
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Re: TJNAT 2020 Online (10/10/20) (HS-Closed)

Post by SwedenSour »

We're excited to announce that we have category statistics! Do note, however, that it was the TJ Officers, not NAQT, that categorized these questions - thus, a question might not be categorized in the way you'd expect. 
This was only possible through TJ Scoresheets. Once the categories were assigned, it was extremely easy to export a complete category statistics report, not to mention SQBS files for easy statistics reporting. Please check out Kevin's forum post for more information and the sheets themselves, and we'd be happy to help you use them for your own tournaments!
Joshua Lian
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Re: TJNAT 2020 Online (10/10/20) (HS-Closed)

Post by setht »

eseifte1 wrote: Sun Oct 11, 2020 10:52 am We, the coaches of Centennial High School and Burleigh Manor Middle School, discovered as the tournament proceeded that NAQT had sold this packet IS 193A to at least one parent in our community over the summer. We know of 2 students who had access and we are investigating with NAQT if this happened with any of our other students.
We have checked all practice question sales of IS 193A, and affirm that no other players at TJNAT had prior access to the set due to purchasing it.
Seth Teitler
Formerly UC Berkeley and U. Chicago
President of NAQT
Emeritus member of ACF
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