2018 Oxford Open - Question Feedback

[Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook]

As with most of these things it would be great if people who played the set said which things about it they liked and disliked and then also pointed out issues with particular questions.
Did some categories seem too hard and some too easy? What were the good ideas and what were the bad ideas?

I don't think we tried to do too many revolutionary things and obviously a lot of the Britaniana will be purged by the time most Americans play it. The main innovation was that a serious effort was made to make a lot of the questions (at least the ones I edited) gender-neutral though the use of "this person" until their gender was revealed in the question. Did people notice this and is this a good idea. I certainly think it allowed me to write tossups on some women (Maria Theresa and Nancy Astor) in a less transparent way.

[Red Panda Cub]

Despite being pre-warned about the gender-neutral clueing I had forgotten about it on the day and did not notice it during play, so I guess that worked well.

[Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook]

Do people want to point out particular questions they had an issue with in a set category. Let's start with European history.

Tossups: Serbia [DJ] Gustavus Adolphus [DJ] Procopius [DJ] Toledo [AP] Khrushchev [FL] Council of Trent [AP] Hadrian [WZ] Maria Theresa [DJ] Communards [DJ] Emperor Frederick II [AP] Quisling [DJ] Lombards [DJ] François Mitterrand [MOC]

Bonuses: Innocent/III/Western Schism (I. VII) [AP) Gaius Gracchus/Lars Porsenna/Constantine [DJ]Maetternich/Wartburg/Students [FL] Galieni: Madagascar/Joffre/Marshall of France [DJ] Golden Liberty/Poland (partition of)/Stanislaw [AP] Cycling in italian poltics: Bartali/Communists/Prodi [DJ] Roxelana/Selim II/mosques [DJ] Jospeh Scaliger: St. Bartholemew''s Day/Manilius/Julius Caesar [DJ] Garibaldi/Mazzini/Orsini [FL] Greece: Colonels/Cyprus/Karamanlis [AP] St Boniface/baptism/Charles Martel [AP] Burgundy/Lorraine/Charles the Bold [AP] Vehme/Westphalia/death sentence [AP]

[Red Panda Cub]

Hakkapeliitta was dropped a bit early in the Gustavus Adolphus question, iirc. Likewise perhaps Toledo cut to the chase rather quickly by telling you its Arab connections. Khrushchev also seemed to give away the game with "this is a major world figure's wacky adventures in the US" quickly.

[krollo]

These things always seem to end up a bit negative, so I'll start by saying this was an immensely fun tournament. Of course, there was a bit of variation at times, but almost all the questions were perfectly well-written, with a lot of original ideas.

As regards specific issues I remember: the 'stationary points' dropped Rolle's theorem as the first substantive clue (and apparently didn't accept critical points), which seemed a little early to me. The inequalities bonus set similarly felt like it was aimed a smidge too low in terms of difficulty, and Euclid's algorithm was described a little misleadingly in the modular arithmetic bonuses (though being a mathmo I probably have a somewhat warped idea of what ought to be regular-minus). Enoch Powell went to a three-way buzzer race on the first clue, though given that it was between me, Oliver and Julian, it's probably just an unfortunate coincidence... The Spain lit TU seemed to be quite uncertain of its pronouns in the second sentence, which delayed me buzzing, but it might just be a misreading. (I feel the gamelan has been mentioned enough...)

Being historically incompetent, I don't have that much to say about the Euro history, I'm afraid, with the exception of Quisling. Great idea for a question, but I think in my room, by about two-thirds of the way through, everyone got to the point of "OK, this is a Norwegian politician in the early twentieth century, is it just...?" at which point it devolved into a game of chicken. I'm sure there are plenty of worthy Norwegians whom I know little of, but that was how it seemed to go in my room, at any rate.

But once again, these are a few tossups out of hundreds. And there were many more questions I remember thinking were great ideas - 'red, yellow and blue', David Garrick, South African music, methods for breathing underwater, Nancy Astor, and so on. I can't emphasise enough how good the tournament was overall.

[Æthelred the Unready Steady Cook]

Yeah, in hindsight the Khrushkev and Bush tossups were both a bit easy and there is probably more leeway possible with these things in the UK than I thought before the tournament. How hard did people find the rest of the US history for this tournament for Brits? (Kansas, Chicago, Viksburg, GHWBush, Conkling/Chief Justice/Lincoln, Teapot Dome)

I'm glad at least one person liked the flag tossup. Quizbowl needs more flags.

It seems one thing that people don't like is transparent tossups and I think this is one thing which is slightly tricky at this difficulty. Maybe a takeaway would be turning those tossups into countries and putting more clues which don't sound Norwegian. because those games of chicken aren't very fun.

I should probably have blocked people writing Enoch Powell TUs given the creepy fandom that exists in British Quizbowl.

What did people think of the British part of the FA distro? (Whiteread, Turner, Epstein, Tippett, Dorset, NHM, Leighton/Troy/Flaxman, Sudan/Calligraphy/Cotton, Salisbury Cathedral/Gothic/Ogive, Sam Taylor-Wood/Leibovitz/actors)

[cducklin]

Despite not troubling scorers quite enjoyed it,

Personally interesting to compare & contrast with the QLL Buzzer quiz I participated in September and felt I performed adequately but didn't enjoy as much. But that is the nature of the different questions posted in both quizzes.

Based upon that performance & fact that I've now completed studies , probably wouldn't compete in another one but wouldn't mind modding in future ones.

Will there be a link to the sets, all my fellow Civil Engineers keep asking me what the Beam tossup question was?

There may be some other observations I may want to give but not necessarily within the regard of the question sets which appears to be the primary discussion at the moment.

Regards

[Deepika Goes From Ranbir To Ranveer]

This set was fun! Most people I talked to had a good time playing it. Thanks to the writers!

Praises:

1) I liked the flags tossup, hearing "3 answers required" was amusing.
2) I thought the Caliban and Prospero tossup was good, and immensely gratifying after I had earlier negged the Friday tossup in the same pack with "Caliban"

Criticisms:

1) "Periphetes" should not be the opening clue of a Theseus tossup, that's too easy.
2) The distributions across packets was somewhat uneven. As an example, in some packets over 50% of the lit questions were on poetry, while others had no poetry questions (I think).
3) The "Krishna" tossup opened with a clue describing his defeat of Artishasura. No such character exists in Hindu mythology. I'm guessing the writers meant Arishta(sura).
4) The Age of Innocence tossup mentions May Mingott. I have neither read the novel nor watched the movie, but I believe her name is given as May Welland in the novel (her grandmother being Mrs. Mingott). A quick Google search suggests that she is called May Mingott in the movie.

[frasier]

Thanks for the feedback. Will definitely take those points on board, particularly the point about the distribution of lit tossups - this was partly the result of the Americanisation process. I didn't really think about the distribution of the lit too much when I wrote new questions, which will have led to slightly unbalanced sets. I will change this for any future iterations we have.