National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

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theMoMA
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Re: National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

Post by theMoMA »

Standard-winged Nightjar wrote:This might not work for all sorts of reasons, but what about the monday after HSNCT (i.e. memorial day). I would think many of the players of this tournament might be in Atlanta helping out with HSNCT - for others, it would at least be an open day in the calendar. Just throwing that out there, since I see major league issues with both the Skype (question security? lag issues?) and 2014 retroactive (Stephen's point re eligibility) ways of resolving this. Even Sunday evening could work, say from 6pm-1am (would such a time frame really be more out of synch with most college students' schedules?) if people want to keep memorial day free. Thoughts?
I would guess most people have already booked flights, and that those flights probably have most people departing Sunday or early enough on Monday to preclude playing a tournament.

I think either of the following would be preferable: (1) no 2013 history bowl, with a rather large discount for affected teams in 2014, or (2) a quality event appended to a later summer tournament, so competitors have enough time to determine whether it's worth going, additional incentive (in the form of VCU Open) to attend, and ample opportunity to schedule travel. I understand that the former would be disappointing to many (including myself, because I will no longer be in school next year), but I'd much rather see a well-done 2014 event than a half-assed 2013 one, even if I don't get to play.
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Re: National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

Post by DumbJaques »

Although I've recently discovered Maryland wasn't officially registered for this event, I'd expressed our intention to play to Dave and had been very much looking forward to playing. I'm not, for the moment at least, going to get into the cancellation thing.

Re: Rescheduling - here are the options I'm hearing being pitched:

1) Skype Tournament
Please don't. I understand the appeal to technically allow full participation not too long after the fact, without having to deal with a whole new round of logistical organization, etc. But this is a fantastically terrible idea. Even if skypebowl had a track record, it would still be a very bad idea to hold a national championship tournament (for a major quizbowl organization) on Skype. It would damage the legitimacy of the title, NHBB, and probably also quizbowl in general (one of the worst things in the world that could happen to college quizbowl is for it to veer remotely toward pub trivia models of mass electronic competition).

But skype tournaments don't really have a track record, and nothing remotely on this kind of scale. Before anyone even thinks about hosting a meaningful event on skype (and I for one hope they don't), we'd better have run a bunch of perfect meaningless ones. Seriously, this sounds like a surefire way to compound one disaster with another.

2) No make-up event; everyone gets to keep their 2013 eligibility.
This similarly sounds like a strange, unrealistic idea that comes from a desire to make things right but will actually only delegitimize the entire enterprise. As Stephen astutely noted, even if this goes perfectly you're still effectively obliterating the 2014 College History Bowl, which will not actually be played by 2014 college teams. Matt, you've spent the last few years pushing for quizbowl to move toward the side of full, legitimate inter-scholastic competition; I hope you aren't really willing to jeopardize that, even in the face of guilt or the need to make up for the mistake. It's already happened, we can deal with it and move on, but we can't saddle future iterations of a tournament we want to grow by opening up eligibility rules.

I get that we're *probably* talking about just a few people. I get that those people include Charles Tian and David Seal, two of my personal favorite quizbowlers. I get that it's probably not the kind of thing that will have drastically reorder the results. It doesn't matter, we just can't do it without completely abandoning the integrity of the competition (or making it an open competition, which I don't think we want to do). What about people who graduate and go to another school next year? Would they be able to play for their old team, even if they were on the new one all year? No situation in quizbowl has that precedent that I'm aware of, and we really shouldn't be setting it.

3) Just cancel it.
Yeah, you might have to. It's better than the above two options. But hopefully not better than...

4) Reschedule for sometime in the future.

Yes, let's do this. Not HSNCT, which already had booked flights and travel plans and everything and is too close for many people to make new ones anyway. Reschedule this event to take place the Sunday after some open tournament in the Summer - Fall range. Make it precisely the 2013 Collegiate History Bowl championship, and hope as many teams can make it as possible. Put it in Chicago or DC and pretty much nowhere else. Is there a Sunday CO event? If that, Chicago is best. Otherwise I'd say go for DC. What events are on the horizon? Jerry's House of Pain? Ryan's House of Pain? Or, we can make this the main event, carve out a late summer date, and see if we can't scare up some side events to go along with it.

There are definitely drawbacks to the above. Some teams aren't going to come. Some people won't be able to make it even from the teams that do. That sucks, but it's also going to be true no matter what option we choose. It seems clear to me that this is by far the best choice - and, barring total cancellation, the only one that's really even workable.
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Re: National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

Post by Matt Weiner »

If this is paired with VCU Open at some unusual time (say, Friday during the day or evening), would that greatly affect a lot of people who can't get out of their summer employment and otherwise wanted to come?
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Re: National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Matt Weiner wrote:If this is paired with VCU Open at some unusual time (say, Friday during the day or evening), would that greatly affect a lot of people who can't get out of their summer employment and otherwise wanted to come?
I'd be perfectly fine with this.
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Re: National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

Post by Skepticism and Animal Feed »

Perhaps a survey of affected teams could be done, over Doodle or some other service? Weiner seems to have a list of affected persons already.
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Re: National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

Post by gyre and gimble »

Matt Weiner wrote:If this is paired with VCU Open at some unusual time (say, Friday during the day or evening), would that greatly affect a lot of people who can't get out of their summer employment and otherwise wanted to come?
Harvard wouldn't come.
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Re: National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

Post by Demonic Leftovers »

So as one of the people affected by this I'll say that I don't have any strong preferences as to what to do. If it's appended to VCU Open I might make it, but I'm not sure if I'll be available then. The eligibility exemption for 2014 doesn't really help me, as I doubt I'll be available to play it then (and wouldn't likely know until shortly before hand) and, quite frankly, probably would be so bad as to not be worthy of being on UVA's team. CO Sunday already has history doubles and CO Trash so that is out.
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Re: National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

Post by Sam »

Matt Weiner wrote:If this is paired with VCU Open at some unusual time (say, Friday during the day or evening), would that greatly affect a lot of people who can't get out of their summer employment and otherwise wanted to come?
I personally like this idea the best, for the reasons Chris Ray outlined above. I think any final decision should be made only after surveying an at least quasi-official representative of the teams affected (such as those included in Matt Weiner's email), though, given there may be issues with things like school funding that usually aren't concerns with summer tournaments.

Also, is there any way this could be Sunday? I imagine more people would be able to make it if it fell then.
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Re: National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

Post by Great Bustard »

I certainly prefer the rescheduling option over a national title decided over Skype / pushing 2013 to 2014 which violates laws of calendrical common sense / this not happening. Conceivably possibly attached to some form of Jersey Shore Open (though I haven't yet considered what, if any exact form that would take, now that my family's house is swimming to Portugal). That said, my summer schedule is very iffy and will be so until at least about may 10. Appending it to VCU Open would be fine by me though, again, that may be hard for me to make personally (is there a date for that yet?). I suppose Saturday evening at HSNCT is probably a bad idea, though for people flying out Sunday, that would still work. If we can move the discussion to "when makes the most sense to reschedule this to within the calendar year 2013" that seems to me to be the best way forward.
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Re: National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

Post by ObsidianFoot »

After discussing this with Marshall, I do think that holding this event sometime in the summer is a good idea.
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Re: National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

Post by Charbroil »

Is there a projected date for the rescheduled version of this (and, presumably, VCU Open)?
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Re: National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

Post by Ringil »

Charbroil wrote:Is there a projected date for the rescheduled version of this (and, presumably, VCU Open)?
Has this been done yet?
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Re: National History Bowl - 2013 College Nationals: Sun. Apr. 14

Post by Matt Weiner »

This tournament will now be held on Sunday, August 4, at VCU. Due to odd summer policies on room reservation, it will run from 12 noon to 8 pm instead of the traditional quizbowl timeframe. We cannot guarantee access to the building before noon, but we will award a Sunday morning side event slot to anyone who wishes to run one outdoors if getting into the rooms early is not possible.

Things that will happen: a tournament in which only college teams composed of people eligible to play for those colleges in the 2012-2013 quizbowl year, which will award the title of College History Bowl champion.

Things that may happen: an open division (this is dependent on being able to adequately staff the college division) which will play separately; mirrors elsewhere (dependent mainly on interest; teams seeking to compete for the college championship must come to VCU, any mirrors that exist will be simple open tournaments).

The original announcement said that:
The cost is $310 for a team of 3 or 4, $225 for a team of 2, and $130 if you would like to play it solo. There's a $10 buzzer system discount, limit 2 per team. $35 discount for moderators on a first come, first served basis.
This is being changed as follows:
*The base cost for a college team is $240 regardless of how many people are on that team. You may then take $40 off or your entry fee for every person on your team for this tournament who was 1) present and/or resident in the Chicago metro area during ICT weekend and 2) is playing this tournament now. In other words, your discount for a full team that was planning to play the tournament in April and now is playing it in August is $160, and prorated discounts for teams partially composed of such people are also available.
*The base cost for an open team is $240 and no further discounts are available besides the standard buzzer discount, which is now $10 per system with no per-team limits (fully functional systems only).
*People who YOU ARE TRANSPORTING TO THE TOURNAMENT AT YOUR OWN COST, you being any portion of a college or open team playing the tournament, and are judged to be competent staffers by me, will earn a $20 discount if used as scorekeepers and a $50 discount if used as readers. I have no interest in compromising the quality of my tournament by using anything but the best readers available, so I will not intentionally move someone to a different role to save money. By the same token, do NOT try to claim someone who was showing up on their own dime to play the Saturday tournament as "your" staffer for a discount. This is a dishonest practice that needs to end.

I will copy this info to a new announcement and field any questions or comments there. I hope to see as many college teams as possible at the event.
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