Editing, time management, and all that
Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 3:00 pm
There have been a number of unfortunately awful tournaments that have taken place within the last year which have been overseen by experienced editors. I myself have contributed to this problem with ECSO, but it seems clear at this point that this was not an isolated example but rather a data point in a recent trend. I want to have some discussion of why this has been a problem in recent months, and what we can do about it.
First, I think it's important to note that all of the editors in question are people who are well-known to be committed to good question writing. We constantly make that point in this forum, so it's not a case of our philosophy not being right. I think the problem is that the reality of producing a good set requires a lot of work that has nothing to do with the philosophy itself. Namely, it requires a good deal of time management and the ability to consistently produce or edit questions for several weeks on end. I can attest to the difficulty of doing this, having recently written almost 300 tossups and 100 bonuses for the two tournaments that I've been involved in so far, EFT and the singles event I ran at IO.
I think editors need to realize that this is hard work and you can't put it off until the last minute. Packets always require more work than you think they will, and a common problem with these last few events is that the editors seem not to have left themselves any time to work on the questions. A good question writer should easily be able to produce 5/5 per day, more when crunch time comes. That's one packet every week, if only one person is writing; it's more if you have collaborators. I think if you are putting together a packet-submission tournament, you need to start writing as soon as you make the announcement. Then, when it turns out that half the teams haven't submitted packets and the other half submitted unusable packets, you've at least got 3 or 4 house-written packets to fall back on.
The other concern that I have is that I think we may all be overextending ourselves. The editors in charge of these last few problematic events all come from the same small group, and I wonder if we're not all just being too ambitious. There's no reason that so many tournaments should have to come from such a limited number of editors, and if there isn't a tournament every weekend, I think I can live with that, and so can everyone else. Perhaps it would be better to limit ourselves in the interest of producing a better product.
The third issue I want to raise is that of collaborative tournaments. In days of yore, things like ACF Fall would edited by one person, usually someone like Kelly McKenzie or Raj Bhan. They set their own schedules and knew what they had to do to get the job done. Nowadays, things like ACF Fall are collaboratively edited, which is good because it brings in people with specific expertise who contribute to those areas of the distribution, but it also introduces elements of unpredictability into the process. The head editor cannot know the schedules and time committments of the other editors, and a repeated problem with these events has been editors just not doing the job that the rest of the team trusted them with. I think editing teams need to take a good look at who is contributing what and make sure that people who promise to deliver questions do in fact deliver them. If someone is repeatedly failing to meet deadlines, the person shouldn't be on the team. That's all there is to it. Keeping people like that on lends a false sense of security, because we all think "oh, they'll get it done" but they never do.
In summary:
1) Don't overcommit yourself and promise what you can't deliver.
2) Plan ahead for disaster, because that's what always happens.
3) Impose some discipline on editing teams and impose deadlines on team members. If people repeatedly fail to meet deadlines, they are off the team.
Seth, Ryan, and I will be working hard to avoid the mistakes outlined above while compiling the ACF Regionals set. I'm interested in any other suggestions that people might want to make with regards to these issues. It's an unfortunate trend and we really need to put an end to it.
First, I think it's important to note that all of the editors in question are people who are well-known to be committed to good question writing. We constantly make that point in this forum, so it's not a case of our philosophy not being right. I think the problem is that the reality of producing a good set requires a lot of work that has nothing to do with the philosophy itself. Namely, it requires a good deal of time management and the ability to consistently produce or edit questions for several weeks on end. I can attest to the difficulty of doing this, having recently written almost 300 tossups and 100 bonuses for the two tournaments that I've been involved in so far, EFT and the singles event I ran at IO.
I think editors need to realize that this is hard work and you can't put it off until the last minute. Packets always require more work than you think they will, and a common problem with these last few events is that the editors seem not to have left themselves any time to work on the questions. A good question writer should easily be able to produce 5/5 per day, more when crunch time comes. That's one packet every week, if only one person is writing; it's more if you have collaborators. I think if you are putting together a packet-submission tournament, you need to start writing as soon as you make the announcement. Then, when it turns out that half the teams haven't submitted packets and the other half submitted unusable packets, you've at least got 3 or 4 house-written packets to fall back on.
The other concern that I have is that I think we may all be overextending ourselves. The editors in charge of these last few problematic events all come from the same small group, and I wonder if we're not all just being too ambitious. There's no reason that so many tournaments should have to come from such a limited number of editors, and if there isn't a tournament every weekend, I think I can live with that, and so can everyone else. Perhaps it would be better to limit ourselves in the interest of producing a better product.
The third issue I want to raise is that of collaborative tournaments. In days of yore, things like ACF Fall would edited by one person, usually someone like Kelly McKenzie or Raj Bhan. They set their own schedules and knew what they had to do to get the job done. Nowadays, things like ACF Fall are collaboratively edited, which is good because it brings in people with specific expertise who contribute to those areas of the distribution, but it also introduces elements of unpredictability into the process. The head editor cannot know the schedules and time committments of the other editors, and a repeated problem with these events has been editors just not doing the job that the rest of the team trusted them with. I think editing teams need to take a good look at who is contributing what and make sure that people who promise to deliver questions do in fact deliver them. If someone is repeatedly failing to meet deadlines, the person shouldn't be on the team. That's all there is to it. Keeping people like that on lends a false sense of security, because we all think "oh, they'll get it done" but they never do.
In summary:
1) Don't overcommit yourself and promise what you can't deliver.
2) Plan ahead for disaster, because that's what always happens.
3) Impose some discipline on editing teams and impose deadlines on team members. If people repeatedly fail to meet deadlines, they are off the team.
Seth, Ryan, and I will be working hard to avoid the mistakes outlined above while compiling the ACF Regionals set. I'm interested in any other suggestions that people might want to make with regards to these issues. It's an unfortunate trend and we really need to put an end to it.