Theses on the Transitioning Quizbowl Community
Posted: Sun May 14, 2017 7:06 pm
In private conversations that I've had recently, many people have been remarking at how drastically the collegiate quizbowl landscape is going to change in the next year or two, and indeed how it has dramatically changed over the past few years in general. In particular, a large number of quizbowl's best players will no longer be eligible for titles next year, leaving the field wide open. To paraphrase an ill-timed John McCain comment: the fundamentals of college quizbowl are strong. But we need to recognize weaknesses and address them before they cause issues down the line.
I present the following Theses on the Transitioning Quizbowl Community:
1) The game is becoming more undergraduate-centric and dispersed in talent, despite the (natural) disproportionate representation of grad students among the best players
2) The average quality of questions is at an unprecedented high, but quizbowl is failing to produce enough up-and-coming writers to maintain this standard
3) NAQT must become better integrated with the collegiate quizbowl community
(this is the last part of this post that will remain even remotely cogent, the rest is sort of free-wheeling rambling meant to spark some discussion)
1) is much more a general observation, but I think it's an important one to make. This may be in part due to Nationals becoming easier, but average points per bonus values at this year's ICT and ACF Nationals were extremely healthy across the board, with far fewer teams scoring below 10 points per bonus this year than in, say, 2015. I think this represents an important overall demographic shift - more players are staying on after high school and working to improve, but fewer of these players are actively trying to become "super-players" (I will not attempt to rigorously define this term, but I think most folks know what I mean).
In general, I think the main takeaway of 1) is that Nationals can and should become somewhat easier, but not by too much. Also, there are more people playing and getting good, and this is awesome.
2) As Ike Jose remarked to me, basically everybody has a good amount of "real knowledge" now to the point where it's almost asinine to praise players for having it. This is becoming more and more reflected in the questions people are writing, which are not only doing a good job of rewarding this real knowledge, but also (increasingly) doing a better job of being less repetitive and exploring newer waters. Quizbowl is thus becoming more accessible to a wider audience insofar that you do not need to master an artificially constrained upper-level canon to succeed as much as before.
Unfortunately, fewer people are stepping up to bat as writers for major tournaments, and there were serious concerns about collegiate tournament "slots" in the past year not being filled because teams that have consistently produced tournaments previously did not do so this year (Minnesota on MUT due to heavy commitments, no sets from Chicago/Michigan aside from Auroni's work, etc.) In addition, those who have stepped up often lack the needed guidance to correct easy-to-make writing mistakes and produce sets of adequate quality, as exemplified by this year's ACF Fall, which fell far below the standards of the year's other tournaments despite being one of the year's marquee events.
Some possible takeaways:
- More tournaments should actively seek to mentor new writers and editors, as opposed to just bringing them in and throwing them at a task. This requires that "higher tier" editors be actively committed to both giving feedback and delegating effectively, as well as performing reviews in a timely manner. As always, an effective division of labor makes society as a whole more productive - eager new people gain experience in producing good questions and guidance on how to do so, and the experience of other people is brought to bear without having those people do a lot of grunt work on ten different questions.
- Optional packet-submission tournaments, with relaxed submission requirements (ala WAO) should be more of a thing. These allow people to write on areas that they prefer, without being slapped with having to write a subject they may possess no knowledge of whatsoever (particularly more difficult ones like chemistry or philosophy).
3) I think the urgency of point 3) has been demonstrated by the recent thread about packet distribution. However, working for NAQT has helped give me a limited amount of insight as to the major role NAQT plays in developing quality writers, many of whom are relatively "untapped" by the community producing mACF sets. The fact that NAQT's substantial infrastructure is relatively unused by the collegiate scene except for the production of three sets per year (one of which is only played by novices) reflects a serious missed opportunity. I would argue that this shortage occurs due to two main reasons
- Given NAQT's cost of production and the smaller "pool" of possible revenue from collegiate tournaments, it is not as economical for NAQT to produce collegiate sets
- The representatives of the collegiate community have shown disrespect or even disdain for NAQT's approach to quizbowl in multiple ways, ranging from packet trading to arguing that the format is inferior for asinine reasons (I will cop to falling into falling under these groupings several instances) and aggravating the first issue. This is not just limited to the "elder statesmen" of the collegiate community: some people make arguments implying that geography/current events are a subjects that can't be learned, arguments which hundreds of talented high school students demonstrate to be false every year!
Basically, as a business, NAQT needs reasons to be in the collegiate game and if those reasons aren't apparent, then they may not always be around. I don't think people want NAQT gone, and indeed having more NAQT sets at the college level would probably be a boon.
I don't mean this to be an absolution of NAQT of all sins - I do think there are a some ways in which their distribution is flawed, and the repeated insistence on running tournaments with a clock despite player opposition to the clock and serious logistical issues associated with it. But ever since a larger number of "looped-in" collegiate regulars have started producing a greater portion of NAQT questions (i.e. the people writing for NAQT aren't ignorant of the topics and standards of the rest of quizbowl), NAQT tournaments have consistently been some of the best each year. Just listen to recordings of the 2010 ICT, or even the 2012 ICT (there's a miscellaneous tossup on freaking humpback whales) and compare with the ICTs from the past three years! In addition, NAQT is able to consistently make small inroads into regions like the Rocky Mountains, which is something that a tournament like ACF Regionals really can't boast much about.
Also, a lot of people just prefer NAQT sets! I think there's a not-publicly-expressed tendency to sneer at teams that just show up for SCT, D2 ICT, and never really go above that, but I think trying to find ways to accommodate these teams and bring them into playing more tournaments is better than just giving up on them entirely.
Some takeaways:
- Regardless of whether NAQT changes its policies about collegiate tournaments, people should stop trading NAQT packets. Doing so helps bridge goodwill in a way that can only serve to improve. I will take this as an opportunity to publicly apologize for causing issues by passing the ICT set to the ACF Nationals editors; my intent was to make sure that teams who played D1 ICT did not have an unfair leg up over those that did not by hearing an early clues that "scooped" ACF questions.
- The clock really, really needs to be abolished. Other logistical constraints (such as, perhaps, paper packet requirements) should be minimized if possible, though this could be tricky.
- I think mirror fees for collegiate tournaments can/should be increased slightly for NAQT tournaments, as they have been for ACF tournaments, to reflect the greater resources required to produce an individual college question but also the relatively smaller market for college questions
- Expansion of the number of NAQT collegiate tournaments, if it can be accomplished in an economically profitable manner, would help pave the way for more people to make more money from quizbowl writing (justifying a greater time commitment) and help bring regular collegiate circuits to more regions of the country, and plug home of the "holes" in the collegiate circuit that came up this year. In particular, a fall NAQT set would be awesome to have and help solve the issue of "who is gonna write that second fall regular tournament" that comes up every year.
- Doing all of the above, forging tighter bonds, and building more trust in general, will help give momentum to the sorts of changes that "the community" (if I may) wants to see out of NAQT
I present the following Theses on the Transitioning Quizbowl Community:
1) The game is becoming more undergraduate-centric and dispersed in talent, despite the (natural) disproportionate representation of grad students among the best players
2) The average quality of questions is at an unprecedented high, but quizbowl is failing to produce enough up-and-coming writers to maintain this standard
3) NAQT must become better integrated with the collegiate quizbowl community
(this is the last part of this post that will remain even remotely cogent, the rest is sort of free-wheeling rambling meant to spark some discussion)
1) is much more a general observation, but I think it's an important one to make. This may be in part due to Nationals becoming easier, but average points per bonus values at this year's ICT and ACF Nationals were extremely healthy across the board, with far fewer teams scoring below 10 points per bonus this year than in, say, 2015. I think this represents an important overall demographic shift - more players are staying on after high school and working to improve, but fewer of these players are actively trying to become "super-players" (I will not attempt to rigorously define this term, but I think most folks know what I mean).
In general, I think the main takeaway of 1) is that Nationals can and should become somewhat easier, but not by too much. Also, there are more people playing and getting good, and this is awesome.
2) As Ike Jose remarked to me, basically everybody has a good amount of "real knowledge" now to the point where it's almost asinine to praise players for having it. This is becoming more and more reflected in the questions people are writing, which are not only doing a good job of rewarding this real knowledge, but also (increasingly) doing a better job of being less repetitive and exploring newer waters. Quizbowl is thus becoming more accessible to a wider audience insofar that you do not need to master an artificially constrained upper-level canon to succeed as much as before.
Unfortunately, fewer people are stepping up to bat as writers for major tournaments, and there were serious concerns about collegiate tournament "slots" in the past year not being filled because teams that have consistently produced tournaments previously did not do so this year (Minnesota on MUT due to heavy commitments, no sets from Chicago/Michigan aside from Auroni's work, etc.) In addition, those who have stepped up often lack the needed guidance to correct easy-to-make writing mistakes and produce sets of adequate quality, as exemplified by this year's ACF Fall, which fell far below the standards of the year's other tournaments despite being one of the year's marquee events.
Some possible takeaways:
- More tournaments should actively seek to mentor new writers and editors, as opposed to just bringing them in and throwing them at a task. This requires that "higher tier" editors be actively committed to both giving feedback and delegating effectively, as well as performing reviews in a timely manner. As always, an effective division of labor makes society as a whole more productive - eager new people gain experience in producing good questions and guidance on how to do so, and the experience of other people is brought to bear without having those people do a lot of grunt work on ten different questions.
- Optional packet-submission tournaments, with relaxed submission requirements (ala WAO) should be more of a thing. These allow people to write on areas that they prefer, without being slapped with having to write a subject they may possess no knowledge of whatsoever (particularly more difficult ones like chemistry or philosophy).
3) I think the urgency of point 3) has been demonstrated by the recent thread about packet distribution. However, working for NAQT has helped give me a limited amount of insight as to the major role NAQT plays in developing quality writers, many of whom are relatively "untapped" by the community producing mACF sets. The fact that NAQT's substantial infrastructure is relatively unused by the collegiate scene except for the production of three sets per year (one of which is only played by novices) reflects a serious missed opportunity. I would argue that this shortage occurs due to two main reasons
- Given NAQT's cost of production and the smaller "pool" of possible revenue from collegiate tournaments, it is not as economical for NAQT to produce collegiate sets
- The representatives of the collegiate community have shown disrespect or even disdain for NAQT's approach to quizbowl in multiple ways, ranging from packet trading to arguing that the format is inferior for asinine reasons (I will cop to falling into falling under these groupings several instances) and aggravating the first issue. This is not just limited to the "elder statesmen" of the collegiate community: some people make arguments implying that geography/current events are a subjects that can't be learned, arguments which hundreds of talented high school students demonstrate to be false every year!
Basically, as a business, NAQT needs reasons to be in the collegiate game and if those reasons aren't apparent, then they may not always be around. I don't think people want NAQT gone, and indeed having more NAQT sets at the college level would probably be a boon.
I don't mean this to be an absolution of NAQT of all sins - I do think there are a some ways in which their distribution is flawed, and the repeated insistence on running tournaments with a clock despite player opposition to the clock and serious logistical issues associated with it. But ever since a larger number of "looped-in" collegiate regulars have started producing a greater portion of NAQT questions (i.e. the people writing for NAQT aren't ignorant of the topics and standards of the rest of quizbowl), NAQT tournaments have consistently been some of the best each year. Just listen to recordings of the 2010 ICT, or even the 2012 ICT (there's a miscellaneous tossup on freaking humpback whales) and compare with the ICTs from the past three years! In addition, NAQT is able to consistently make small inroads into regions like the Rocky Mountains, which is something that a tournament like ACF Regionals really can't boast much about.
Also, a lot of people just prefer NAQT sets! I think there's a not-publicly-expressed tendency to sneer at teams that just show up for SCT, D2 ICT, and never really go above that, but I think trying to find ways to accommodate these teams and bring them into playing more tournaments is better than just giving up on them entirely.
Some takeaways:
- Regardless of whether NAQT changes its policies about collegiate tournaments, people should stop trading NAQT packets. Doing so helps bridge goodwill in a way that can only serve to improve. I will take this as an opportunity to publicly apologize for causing issues by passing the ICT set to the ACF Nationals editors; my intent was to make sure that teams who played D1 ICT did not have an unfair leg up over those that did not by hearing an early clues that "scooped" ACF questions.
- The clock really, really needs to be abolished. Other logistical constraints (such as, perhaps, paper packet requirements) should be minimized if possible, though this could be tricky.
- I think mirror fees for collegiate tournaments can/should be increased slightly for NAQT tournaments, as they have been for ACF tournaments, to reflect the greater resources required to produce an individual college question but also the relatively smaller market for college questions
- Expansion of the number of NAQT collegiate tournaments, if it can be accomplished in an economically profitable manner, would help pave the way for more people to make more money from quizbowl writing (justifying a greater time commitment) and help bring regular collegiate circuits to more regions of the country, and plug home of the "holes" in the collegiate circuit that came up this year. In particular, a fall NAQT set would be awesome to have and help solve the issue of "who is gonna write that second fall regular tournament" that comes up every year.
- Doing all of the above, forging tighter bonds, and building more trust in general, will help give momentum to the sorts of changes that "the community" (if I may) wants to see out of NAQT