Illinois Open (open to mirrors starting 11/13/2021)

Old college threads.
Locked
User avatar
Auroni
Auron
Posts: 3145
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:23 pm

Illinois Open (open to mirrors starting 11/13/2021)

Post by Auroni »

In keeping with tradition, I am delighted to revive a long dormant institution at a university I go to by posting a preliminary announcement for Illinois Open 2021, to be written and edited mainly by members of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Academic Buzzer Team, past, present, and future.

Difficulty

Like the recent Fall Open tournament, we are aiming for midway between ACF Regionals and ACF Nationals in difficulty, or 3.5 dots on the college quizbowl calendar. 7 of the tossups in each packet will be on an "idea for a question" that could be executed uncontroversially at ACF Fall, and 7 more tossups will be on an "an idea for a question" that would work just fine at ACF Regionals. For a tossup to be counted towards these quota, not only does its answerline have to be sufficiently easy, but it would need to have enough clues that could appear at tournaments of those difficulties. To illustrate what I mean with an example from my past work, consider the following tossup:
me, in (This) Tournament is a Crime wrote:An old man decides to save of two of these near-drowned people after having a portentous dream in which he had fought off a monkey trying to plunder a swallows’ nest. One of these characters instructs a beautiful woman to walk through a hole in a partition wall between two houses, pretending to be her own twin sister Honoria. Mercury disguises himself as one of these people named Sosia to help Jupiter have sex with Alcmena, in the play Amphitryon. One of these characters takes advantage of an incomplete (*) dowry paid by a Macedonian officer to secure Phoenicium for Simo’s lovesick son Calidorus. An elaborate ruse planned by one of these people named Palaestro finally defeats the braggart soldier Pyrgopolynices, the title character of Miles Gloriosus. For 10 points, Pseudolus is an example of what type of stock character in Plautus’s dramas, who usually outwits his master?
ANSWER: Plautine slaves [or servants]
This question isn't too hard to pick up at the very end, but buzzing at any point before that requires nontrivial knowledge about the plays of Plautus, and I don't think you could edit this down to any level of acceptable buzz distribution at Regionals (apart from maybe converting it to a straightforward tossup on Plautus), so as written it would not count as one of the 14 "tossups on easy or medium answers" per packet. I would, however, count the same tournament's tossup on Paradise Lost whose clues exclusively deal with it as a poem, because a tossup on the same answer would just need to calibrate its clues to play well at both ACF Fall and Regionals.

Eligibility

As the name suggests, this will be an open tournament, so anyone can play with anyone else.

Distribution (still preliminary, subject to change)

4/4 Literature

1.25/1.25 Long Fiction
1/1 Poetry
0.5/0.5 Short Fiction
0.75/0.75 Drama
0.5/0.5 Nonfiction/Criticism/Literary Culture/Misc.

Care will be taken to ensure an even subdistribution by geographical region and time period.

4/4 History

1/1 American
1/1 European, Post-Classical
1/1 World
1/1 Commonwealth/Ancient/International/Historiography/Archaeology/Misc.

4/4 Science

1/1 Biology
1/1 Chemistry
1/1 Physics
1/1 "Other Science" (Astronomy/Earth Science/Computer Science/Math/Engineering/Misc.)

3/3 Fine Arts

1/1 Painting and Sculpture
1/1 Classical Music, Opera, and Ballet
1/1 "Other Art" (Film/Architecture/Dance/Photography/Non-Western Music and Art Forms/etc.)

3.5/3.5 RM + Thought

1/1 Religion
0.5/0.5 Myths/Beliefs/Folktales
1/1 Philosophy
1/1 Social Science

1.5/1.5 Current Events, Geography, "Modern World", Multi-Category Questions/Other Academic

Editors

Mitch McCullar and I will be editing literature, Alex Fregeau will be editing history, Iain Carpenter and I will be editing science, Iain Carpenter will be editing arts, Brad MacLain will be editing philosophy, and I will be editing religion/mythology. We are still figuring out editing assignments for the rest, but this post will be updated once we do/if we are seeking collaborators.

Other Notes

We aim to produce 15 full packets (plus some tiebreakers) of tossups that are capped at 8 lines of non-answerline text (no more than 900 characters) and bonuses that are capped at 7 lines of non-answerline text (roughly 750 characters). This is especially imperative because we intend for the set to be played using bounceback bonuses to maximize the opportunities for engagement with the questions. Mirror sites are strongly encouraged, though not obligated, to run the tournament on bouncebacks.

Mirroring

To be figured out later.
Last edited by Auroni on Wed Oct 06, 2021 3:40 pm, edited 14 times in total.
Auroni Gupta (she/her)
User avatar
naan/steak-holding toll
Auron
Posts: 2515
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:53 pm
Location: New York, NY

Re: Illinois Open (Spring 2021)

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Excited to see the revival of this tournament and the continued efforts to experiment at the highest levels of the game.
Will Alston
Dartmouth College '16
Columbia Business School '21
User avatar
Auroni
Auron
Posts: 3145
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:23 pm

Re: Illinois Open (Spring 2021)

Post by Auroni »

Opening post edited with more details, since we have begun the process of putting this set together.
Auroni Gupta (she/her)
User avatar
Auroni
Auron
Posts: 3145
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:23 pm

Re: Illinois Open (3/6/21)

Post by Auroni »

We will make this set available for hosting starting on March 6th, 2021. We will monitor the SARS-CoV-2 situation to see if it is feasible to run this tournament in person at UIUC on this date.
Auroni Gupta (she/her)
User avatar
Auroni
Auron
Posts: 3145
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:23 pm

Re: Illinois Open (postponed to fall 2021)

Post by Auroni »

After speaking with the writing/editing team and several groups of people, we have decided to postpone this tournament to the fall, so that we can bring you a more polished/thoroughly head-edited set that could potentially be played in person. Look for a later announcement of a specific date by which the set will be available for mirrors.
Auroni Gupta (she/her)
User avatar
Auroni
Auron
Posts: 3145
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:23 pm

Re: Illinois Open (open to mirrors starting 11/13/2021)

Post by Auroni »

As an update, we will have this set ready to host starting November 13.
Auroni Gupta (she/her)
User avatar
Cheynem
Sin
Posts: 7222
Joined: Tue May 11, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Re: Illinois Open (open to mirrors starting 11/13/2021)

Post by Cheynem »

Obviously probably pretty TBD but would you guess that UIUC would host this tournament, then, around that time in November?
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota

"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
User avatar
Auroni
Auron
Posts: 3145
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:23 pm

Re: Illinois Open (open to mirrors starting 11/13/2021)

Post by Auroni »

That is the idea, although the campus has not opened event registrations for clubs yet, so we can't confirm a date for the main site.
Auroni Gupta (she/her)
User avatar
Auroni
Auron
Posts: 3145
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:23 pm

Re: Illinois Open (open to mirrors starting 11/13/2021)

Post by Auroni »

Slight distributional change: Social Science is now a full 1/1, with Other Academic being grouped in with the 1.5/1.5 geography/current events/modern world/multi-category distribution
Auroni Gupta (she/her)
User avatar
excessive dismemberment
Wakka
Posts: 104
Joined: Sat Apr 28, 2018 8:41 am

Re: Illinois Open (open to mirrors starting 11/13/2021)

Post by excessive dismemberment »

I recognize that it's pretty hard to schedule mirrors this semester due to covid , but with mirrors starting in around 5 weeks, do you know if other mirrors are getting scheduled (selfishly, a northeast mirror in particular)?
Rudra Ranganathan
University of Delaware
Brandeis University '23
University of Michigan '20
User avatar
Auroni
Auron
Posts: 3145
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:23 pm

Re: Illinois Open (open to mirrors starting 11/13/2021)

Post by Auroni »

Hi all,

Two weeks out from the tournament, only 70% of our set is written. At this point, we are seeking collaborators who can write significant numbers of questions, particularly in literature, science, and the "miscellaneous" categories, right away. If we don't make significant progress by mid-week then we will be forced to postpone our tournament, a scenario we'd like to avoid given that many teams have already arranged their travel and lodging for the main site. If you're interested, please get in touch with me.

Auroni
Auroni Gupta (she/her)
User avatar
Auroni
Auron
Posts: 3145
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:23 pm

Re: Illinois Open (open to mirrors starting 11/13/2021)

Post by Auroni »

At the time of writing, we're at 86.5% written (for a 13 packet version of the set), so I can confirm that we won't be postponing the first round of mirrors. Thank you very much to an array of people who have stepped up in the last few days.
Auroni Gupta (she/her)
User avatar
AGoodMan
Rikku
Posts: 372
Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2014 10:25 pm

Re: Illinois Open (open to mirrors starting 11/13/2021)

Post by AGoodMan »

excessive dismemberment wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 6:12 pm I recognize that it's pretty hard to schedule mirrors this semester due to covid , but with mirrors starting in around 5 weeks, do you know if other mirrors are getting scheduled (selfishly, a northeast mirror in particular)?
Wanted to bump this, as I wouldn't mind traveling to play this with friends, but it would be good to know when that might be.
Jon Suh
Wheaton Warrenville South High School '16
Harvard '20
User avatar
t-bar
Tidus
Posts: 671
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2009 4:12 pm

Re: Illinois Open (open to mirrors starting 11/13/2021)

Post by t-bar »

I'd also be interested in such a mirror, conditional on a workable date.
Stephen Eltinge
Then: TJ, MIT, Yale, PACE, NAQT
Now: ACF
User avatar
Auroni
Auron
Posts: 3145
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:23 pm

Re: Illinois Open (open to mirrors starting 11/13/2021)

Post by Auroni »

We will be holding an online mirror, to be announced in the future. We're also in the process of working out the details of a Northeast mirror at MIT next semester.
Auroni Gupta (she/her)
Locked