The Quizbowl Resource Center

This is a sign-up thread. Writers in this thread pledge to write up to one half-packet (10/10) in subjects designated by the overseer, in installments as delineated below, and may offer to serve in one of the leadership roles in addition. Because we are taking a long time to produce a single tournament, I fully expect that everyone who signs up in this thread should be able to write 10/10 in the timely manner outlined below.

How Many Rounds is This Tournament
This tournament will be as long as is feasible given the number of writers. Since we are dealing with squirrely middle schoolers, I do not anticipate this tournament being more than ten total rounds: nine competition rounds of 20/20 and a packet of extra questions for replacements/tiebreakers/finals. If more than 20 people sign up then we will have less than 10/10 a person.

EDIT: Is This a National Championship Tournament
No. Right now we want to just get the idea of a well-written middle school set out to all the places that have never seen one, and provide an additional opportunity to play on good questions for places lucky enough to have one already. If this is successful (people write the tournament, people play the tournament, people like the tournament) then it may be possible to produce a regular-season set and a nationals set next year, but for now I'm convinced that we can only do a trial run.

What Distribution and Style are We Using
We will continue to debate the distribution and style of questions in this other thread. This thread is solely a sign-up thread.

Leadership Roles for This Tournament
Overseer: Is responsible for making sure that the tournament is done on schedule. The overseer will assign a half-packet of questions to each person who signs up in this thread. Since most people signing up in this thread can write on a variety of subjects, it is most likely that two or three people with complementary skills will be assigned a single packet between them. Will set up a Google Spreadsheet of answers so that writers do not write questions that are too hard or that are repeats. The only subsequent role for the overseer is to ensure that each person either has their questions in per the prescribed schedule or has contacted the chief editor to arrange when late questions are coming. We can have one overseer.

Chief Editor: Has final say over the content of each and every question in the set. We can have one chief editor.

Assistant Editors: Will assist the Chief Editor in editing the questions as they come in. Assistant Editors will be assigned subjects to edit by the Chief Editor. We can have anywhere between zero and three Assistant Editors depending on who wants to sign up.

Marketing Director: Will contact middle school circuits about the existence of the tournament and solicit hosts. Will attempt to find new places that do not have middle school circuits but may be interested in running the tournament. Will send the questions electronically to the host contact no later than the Monday before the tournament. We can have one Marketing Director and any number of people on his/her marketing team.

Board of Directors: The Board of Directors will consist of the Overseer, Chief Editor, and Marketing Director. Each position gets one vote on the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors makes all decisions by majority vote. The Board of Directors will vote only on issues directly relevant to the tournament that for any reason cannot or should not be voted on by the writers at large. In other words, I anticipate this to be completely useless but am instituting it in case an unforeseen situation occurs.

Timeline for this Tournament
The dates given in this timeline are the absolute latest such things should occur.

November 9: All leadership roles are filled. The distribution, style, and number of packets is finalized. A Google Spreadsheet is set up for answer selection. Teams of two to three people are assigned a packet between them with a suggested distribution of who writes what in that packet.

December 7: At a minimum, the first 3/3 of the assignment is e-mailed to both the overseer and the chief editor. The chief editor sends questions to the assistant editors for editing.

January 4: At a minimum, the second 3/3 of the assignment is e-mailed to both the overseer and the chief editor. The chief editor sends questions to the assistant editors for editing.

February 1: The remainder of the assignment is e-mailed to both the overseer and the chief editor. The chief editor sends questions to the assistant editors for editing.

February 15: The assistant editors report to the chief editor how many replacement questions need to be written to cover those that have been deleted due to repeat or difficulty issues or people not writing their assigned questions.

February 16: The Chief Editor issues an internal cry for those additional questions. Non-editors respond to this cry and claim the hopefully few questions that remain.

March 1: The packets are fully edited and compiled. The Marketing Director sends an electronic copy of the packets to March 6 hosts.

March 6: The tournament is available for hosting. Tournament hosts have the option to run this as a Saturday tournament or as a series of league matches (for instance, a series of weekly matches between schools in a school district).

June 12: The tournament hosting window closes.

June 14: The tournament is posted on any and all packet archives that request it.

Are We Making Money From This Tournament
No. The mirror fee for each team is $0. Hosts will decide whether or not they wish to charge teams to attend their tournament. In exchange, hosts will be required to send comments and complete stats to the Marketing Director.

What Happens If I Can't Write My Questions
I find it inconceivable that anyone who signs up for this endeavor cannot write 6-8 questions in a month. That said, I recognize that any question production model involving high school and college students necessarily must account for periods in which students are highly busy with other, more important things, or periods in which they simply procrastinate. The overseer will send a reminder e-mail out if your questions are not delivered at the deadline. This should be sufficient for all people to write their 6-8 questions over the next week. If they are not in by that time, you will be publicly shamed on hsquizbowl.org and the overseer will solicit someone to write the remainder of your questions.

I will sign up to write up to 10/10 per the timeline outlined above. I have no intention of serving as an editor or on the marketing team, as one of my issues in the past has been spreading myself too thin with multiple quizbowl-related commitments and I do not wish to take on another one at the present time. As I seem to be one of the driving forces behind this project, I am willing to serve as the overseer should no one else step up and offer their services in this role, but I will defer to anyone else who wants it.

I was happy overseeing the Fall Novice set and would be happy to oversee this set.

I will commit to being a regular writer. 10/10 seems more than doable.

I can definitely write, and, though I have no credentials, I feel I could serve as an assistant editor, primarily in literature and the visual arts. However, I will happily cede this role to someone more qualified than myself, should such a person wish to have it.

I'll write 10 questions and be an Assistant Editor. My best areas would be history, current events, or geography.

I'll write and edit. If no one clamors for it, I'll take the head job. If someone qualified really wants it, I'll be glad to relinquish and take on the final editing of academic lit, mythology, and Am History/Gov't.

I can edit science and math (both comp and noncomp). I would also be happy to look over lit (both types), visual arts, and US history, but I can't take principle responsibility for those categories.

I'll be willing to write any of math (comp and non-comp), literature, mythology, music, and visual arts.

I can write, probably more than 10/10, but I really wouldn't feel comfortable editing.

I will commit to writing 10/10 but not to editing or taking any type of leadership position.

I'm willing to contribute 10/10, preferably in science, math, current events, and/or fine arts.

If no one else steps forward, I think I could find a site to mirror this in central Illinois.

I'll sign up to write. I do not think I will have time to do significant content editing due to my HSAPQ and other commitments. However, I would like to enthusiastically volunteer to work on proofreading and on actively rewording all questions so that they make sense to the actual moderators and players of this tournament, rather than looking like the increasingly bizarre quizbowl-argot that people insist on using even when it makes no sense to do so.

I'm willing to write 10/10 literature over winter break. I'll keep away from the current event questions.

Huang wrote:I'm willing to write 10/10 literature over winter break. I'll keep away from the current event questions.

I hope your winter break starts before 12/7, or else the first third of your assignment will be late.

Crazy Andy Watkins wrote:

Huang wrote:I'm willing to write 10/10 literature over winter break. I'll keep away from the current event questions.

I hope your winter break starts before 12/7, or else the first third of your assignment will be late.

Oh right. I'll do those during Thanksgiving weekend then.

I will do more than 10/10 questions if it's okay. My best areas to write in are history, geography, trash, and fine arts

Pencil me in for 10/10 history and/or geography, contingent on IS #91A being in decent shape by the beginning of December. (I'll give as much warning as I can if it isn't.)

If no one takes it, I'll write however much juvenile lit/trash you need.

I have about 3-4 "packets" of middle-school level questions that I haven't used (I was planning to use them for a quiz bowl event for our school's Freshman Olympics next year, but this is a nobler cause). Would it be possible for me to send them to someone more experienced so that he/she could look over a couple of them and tell me how I can modify them to make them usable for this tournament? A lot of them are lightning-round style questions which I am willing to edit to make usable.

In terms of writing new questions, my strengths are sports/current events/geography/math.

Send them to me, I'll look them over tonight.

Count me in...religion, mythology, science and especially math.

I'd like to write 10/10 math theory and lit.

I'm willing to write 10/10 or more in pretty much any area except comp math or trash.

Admins:

Is there any chance we could get a separate subforum, much like the Fall Novice?

We could always write three-part bonuses and if, in the process, we discover that the middle school canon isn't deep enough or the hard parts are too difficult, they could be scaled down to two parts. This could lead to an undesirable amount of extra work, in which case it would probably be better to decide now. I think we're underestimating the available middle school canon. Some degree of expansion in the hard parts of the bonuses wouldn't be horrible. My vote would be for three-part bonuses with bouncebacks.

Stephen Colbert wrote:We could always write three-part bonuses and if, in the process, we discover that the middle school canon isn't deep enough or the hard parts are too difficult, they could be scaled down to two parts. This could lead to an undesirable amount of extra work, in which case it would probably be better to decide now. I think we're underestimating the available middle school canon. Some degree of expansion in the hard parts of the bonuses wouldn't be horrible. My vote would be for three-part bonuses with bouncebacks.

This.
Though I assume it'd be up to the TD's as to whether they did bouncebacks or not. Not doing bouncebacks in Illinois would draw surprised reactions from most MS coaches, since they're used to 3-5 part bonuses.

dtaylor4 wrote:Admins:

Is there any chance we could get a separate subforum, much like the Fall Novice?

Hey, yeah, this can happen. I'll set this up later today.

For maximum efficiency, please e-mail me a list of the usernames (not people!) that you want added to the subforum, and we can have it operational tonight.

Hey:

We're still looking for some people who can capably write low-level science. If you're willing to step up, lemme know.