Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (RESCHEDULED to 6/24/23) (HS Regs Minus)

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Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (RESCHEDULED to 6/24/23) (HS Regs Minus)

Post by Metacarpal »

I am pleased to announce that the Brooklyn Bridge Battle Open Tournament for Middle and High Schoolers will be occurring on June 24th, 2023. The team cap is currently 24 teams. Registration is $40 per team - there is a mod discount of $15, and for every team besides the first team, you will only pay $25.

The tournament will be hosted on Buzzin.live and Discord. If you do not have a Discord account, please create one - the Discord server will be sent in a future email. https://www.discord.com/login (you may register using this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... sp=sf_link)

Please follow the NAQT Rules when playing the tournament (two hands up during bonuses, one hand up during tossups and the other on the buzzer, absolutely no cheating in any way). Although unnecessary, try making both hands visible during tossups.

The packet, a housewrite by me and several friends, will be using this distribution:

4/4 Literature
4/4 Science and Math
4/4 History
3/3 Geography
2/2 Fine Arts
1/1 RMPSS (religion, mythology, philosophy, social science)
1/1 Trash (sports, pop culture)
0.5/0.5 Current Events
0.5/0.5 General Knowledge

Registration will be carried out through sending a message/replying to this topic, and payment will be carried out through Venmo or Paypal(@arvind-narayanaswamy for Venmo). Staffers will be paid $20 to staff (please have a Venmo or Paypal account at the ready), and all remaining money will go to Rare Disease Renegades, a government-approved charity, and potentially several other charities. Please specify in your transaction that you are paying for the Brooklyn Bridge Battle tournament, and please specify your team name.

Thank you all so much!
Last edited by Metacarpal on Fri Mar 01, 2024 11:45 pm, edited 12 times in total.
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament

Post by jonpin »

Am I misreading this or are you announcing this tournament today to run one week from now?
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament

Post by x'x(-1)x'y »

I mean, if an elite university's quiz bowl club can announce an in-person tournament three weeks before an announced date, postpone the tournament due to lack of sign-ups, re-announce the tournament for four weeks later and then get seventeen teams to show, including two teams from halfway across the country, why not have students throw together an online tournament in a week?

(In all serious, Coach Pinyan, I'm hopeful these radically late announcements are still a consequence of a lack of stability in tournament schedules from the epidemic, and not a consequence of a generational difference in attitude toward expectations of how tournaments should be organized and communicated. Our own team announced and then rescheduled both of the tournaments we held this year. I guess the 2023-2024 season will tell the tale.)
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament

Post by Metacarpal »

Officially back with another announcement. We are making this tournament a farewell tournament for twelfth graders, though any middle schooler or high schooler may play. It will occur June 17th. You may all register in this chat. It will be entirely open.
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament

Post by Metacarpal »

Final announcement! You may register using this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... sp=sf_link
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (6/17/23)

Post by Isomorphism »

Hi Vidyut,

Do you have any information on subcategory distributions (such as chem, phys, bio, etc.)

Thanks
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (6/17/23) (HS Regs Minus)

Post by Metacarpal »

Current registrations:
Team ROT A
Team ROT B
Team ROT C
Team ROT D
Team ROT Qwiz
mrrp
Church of Christ, Scientist!
Gus Uncle's Pakistani Fried Chicken
Stevenson
Across the Eagleverse
ipsa and the goon squad
Midas and the Golden Vulch (i also vulch a lot)
Last edited by Metacarpal on Sat Jun 17, 2023 7:33 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (6/17/23) (HS Regs Minus)

Post by Joshua Li »

Please sign up, this tourney seems really fun and it would help charities in need
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (RESCHEDULED to 6/24/23) (HS Regs Minus)

Post by Metacarpal »

Please have your teams donate what they can to charities - we will donate what remains after paying staffers to St.Jude's. The price is $40 for one team and $25 for subsequent teams.
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (RESCHEDULED to 6/24/23) (HS Regs Minus)

Post by powerneg »

Is there a writing and editing team behind the scenes that isn't just you and your friends?

From what it seems, this set is being written by players who have little to no experience writing sets for tournaments.
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (RESCHEDULED to 6/24/23) (HS Regs Minus)

Post by Metacarpal »

Like I said, I will post sample questions later.
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (RESCHEDULED to 6/24/23) (HS Regs Minus)

Post by powerneg »

It’s been two weeks since you promised “sample questions later”, and there hasn’t been a sample packet posted.
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (RESCHEDULED to 6/24/23) (HS Regs Minus)

Post by Metacarpal »

sample questions for big three categories out now!

The title character of this work tells this story to ‘every stranger that arrived at Mr. Doolittle’s hotel’. Thunderstorms in the Catskills are imagined to be Henry Hudson’s crew playing nine-pins, according to the end of this story. The title character of this story is surprised to see a picture of (*) George Washington in place of a portrait of King George III. For 10 points, a man sleeps for 20 years in what Washington Irving work?
Answer: Rip Van Winkle <Literature>

The vitelline membrane surrounds these objects in some organisms. The structure which contains these objects can become a corpus luteum or disintegrate in a process known as atresia. Once follicles become insensitive to FSH, these objects can no longer be produced, causing (*) menopause. The cells that are produced in the ovaries are, for 10 points, what female reproductive cells which can be fertilized by sperm?
Answer: egg (accept ova or ovum) <Science>

London's Cannon Street Station was the site of a steelyard this group owned. The Kalmar Union was founded to oppose this organization. Bergen contains the only remaining kontor established by this organization. (*) Lubeck, known as the 'queen' of this organization, was a major port and the primary city of this organization. For 10 points, name this medieval trade organization located along the Baltic and North Seas.
Answer: Hanseatic League (or Hansa) <History>
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (RESCHEDULED to 6/24/23) (HS Regs Minus)

Post by Tridwoxi »

Hi Vidyut,

Firstly, thank you for running this tournament! It can be daunting to host these events, and your dedication is admirable. It is especially commendable that you're doing this to support a charitable cause.

That said, you shouldn't make minor changes to other people's work and present it as your own; this is known as plagiarism. Specifically, the literature and science sample tossups appear to be cut from surface-level rearrangements of tossups from 2022 Reinstein:
2022 Reinstein Packet 1 Question 2 wrote: The end of this short story refers to a “common wish of all hen-pecked husbands” and states that the title character tells this story to “every stranger that arrived at Mr. Doolittle’s hotel”. The end of this story also states that whenever there is a thunderstorm in the Catskills, people imagine it is Henry Hudson playing nine-pins. Earlier in this story, the title character is surprised to see a picture of George Washington where there used to be a picture of King George III. For 10 points, name this story written by Washington Irving about a man who sleeps for 20 years.
ANSWER: “Rip Van Winkle”
2022 Reinstein Packet 3 Question 12 wrote: For some organisms, this cell is surrounded by the vitelline membrane, and in other organisms it is surrounded by the zona pellucida. The nucleus of this cell is the germinal vesicle. This cell is the largest human cell. The structure holding this cell either goes through a disintegration process called atresia or turns into a corpus luteum. Like hair, these cells originate from follicles, which release this cell in response to the luteinizing hormone. For 10 points, name this cell that is released from the ovaries and can be fertilized by sperm.
ANSWER: egg cell or eggs or ovum or ova or oocyte(s)
The Packet Archive states the posted questions are "copyright [of] the writers and tournament hosts [and] it is illegal to make money from the use or sale of these questions without the explicit permission of the owners," so unfortunately, it may not be possible to pay your moderators.

If you choose to proceed with the tournament, I recommend one of
  • Writing original questions for the entire set, such as your original tossup for history. This is challenging, but with your capabilities, I believe you can do it.
  • Notifying players that the tournament is unoriginal as to maintain transparency, and seeking permission from the original authors to reuse their work.
Best of luck with the tournament!
Darryl Wang
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (RESCHEDULED to 6/24/23) (HS Regs Minus)

Post by Metacarpal »

To clarify, I used clues from Wikipedia and looked up clues on qbreader. I did not take any questions directly.
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (RESCHEDULED to 6/24/23) (HS Regs Minus)

Post by joshxu »

Thanks to everyone who played, staffed, or organized this tournament! I commend the writers' determination to undertake the difficult task of writing a tournament from scratch, especially for their commitment to writing original questions after concerns were raised about potential plagiarism. The immense competitiveness of the top bracket resulted in a thrilling ending—I hope all teams involved are satisfied with our resolution!

That being said, I do wish to relate a critique of this tournament, from the perspective of a moderator and writer. I don't mean to bash the organizers of this event or to discourage their continued involvement in tournament hosting or writing. As someone with no housewrite writing experience before this tournament, I'm not in any position to do that! Rather, I hope this critique encourages their future involvement in organizing quiz bowl events by identifying areas of potential improvement. Because all of these points serve as teachable moments for anybody interested in running a tournament, I especially hope that anybody else reading this can learn from this critique and improve their own events. I consider that the recent spike in quiz bowl activity among middle schoolers is great for the development of quiz bowl nationwide. But it's easy for many avid quiz bowl enthusiasts, especially middle schoolers who perhaps frequent these forums, to make the same mistakes as this tournament. I therefore hope this critique does not serve to reduce anyone's enthusiasm for quiz bowl, but rather to improve it.

I was first made aware of this tournament from some high school friends of mine. Since I was open, I offered to staff this tournament to give their team a discount. The set was not yet complete the day before the tournament, so I offered to help write and edit any questions to ensure it could proceed as scheduled. My question submissions were included in the final packet. From my experience staffing and writing for this tournament, I point out these issues, roughly in order of importance and potential for teachable lessons in the future:

1. Although a team in the tournament indicated that they were registering me as a staffer, none of the organizers reached out to me about the tournament. I've been told that another external staffer told the organizers they could staff, but they similarly failed to receive any follow-up. Both of us had to personally reach out to the organizers to obtain access to the tournament Discord. This would be less important if there was an abundance of staffers, but that was not the case. Having sufficient staffers is necessary for a tournament to even run, so you definitely want to keep track of them! More generally, it's a good courtesy to external staffers to make sure they're well informed of their duties ahead of time. Many are volunteering their own time, so it should not also be their responsibility to have to figure out logistics on their own.

2. This follows from point 1—but as a staffer, I did not receive any information about the status of packets, the time of the staffer meeting, instructions about rules and scorekeeping, etc. until about 4:30 AM Pacific Time the day of the tournament—2.5 hours before it started. Obviously this issue is exacerbated by the time zone difference meaning I didn't see any of the announcements until waking up at my anticipated call time—but it's not good to be waiting until the day of the tournament to be releasing this information anyway. This is all information that could have been made available the night before, or even earlier. Again, keeping your moderators well informed is just a common courtesy, especially for volunteer mods, and especially for those who are getting up early to staff your tournament. It does make our work easier, at little/no cost to the organizers.

3. Shifting gears slightly to the execution of the set itself. I joined the tournament Discord on Friday morning to see that one of the organizers was considering rescheduling the whole tournament, while other organizers were publicly opposing that. It was evident to everyone in the server that the question set was not yet completed. Since I was already committed to staffing the tournament, I offered my services in helping with writing and editing. My offer was accepted, and I sent a few questions that were used in the tournament. However, despite offering multiple times to edit existing questions, I was not given access to the set to do any editing. I was especially confused by this since the whole set had been distributed to several middle schoolers not involved in the tournament in any way—was it just to check for plagiarism?—but not to an official writer for the set itself! It should be self-evident that having questions unwritten and unedited the day before (and the day of!) the tournament is not ideal. This situation could have been avoided had the organizers been willing to accept help from people offering it. Writing a whole set is not easy, and there is no shame in seeking outside help! People are more than willing to help. Having never been involved in set production myself, I'm not qualified to say much more on this topic. But I will note that the only reason this point isn't higher on this list is that an easy alternative exists—mirroring an existing question set. There were available question sets at a comparable difficulty to this tournament's target, whose editors I'm sure would have been happy to allow a summer open be hosted on.

4. Building off of 3, this set desperately needed editing, especially the bonuses that fluctuated wildly in difficulty. There seemed to be a clear bonus difficulty increase from the first few rounds to the last few rounds. Many easy parts could have been converted to medium parts. Many medium parts could have been converted to hard parts. Many hard parts were way too hard and niche to be coming up at any level of quiz bowl. This issue can be fixed really easily just by having one external editor—delete the impossible hard part and write a genuinely easy part in its place—and it's not like people didn't offer to do it. This point isn't higher on this list because I don't anticipate this set being mirrored again. But I do think there's a teachable principle here:
So You Want to Write a Tournament thread wrote:The head editor should be keeping an eye on all of the written and edited questions to ensure they are meeting difficulty standards as they are being edited. This should be done throughout the process, rather than at the end. Particularly with high school housewrites, it is common to overshoot difficulty, as the average high school writer is significantly better at quizbowl than the average high school player, and newer writers do not want to put “easy” clues early in their questions.
I strongly suspect that the prevalence of overly difficult bonuses in this set was due to the phenomenon described by Eric Mukherjee in his guide for writing a tournament. If you're writing a tournament at a difficulty level below that which you're typically comfortable playing in—then your questions should feel easy to you. Regs-minus questions, including bonus hard parts in one's strong categories, should generally look easy for writers of question sets. As Dr. Mukherjee states in his guide, having an editor is immensely helpful for catching this stuff.

5. A few smaller points about the logistics during the tournament itself. Protest resolution was a mess. There were multiple protests where different officials were giving completely opposite resolutions for the same protest. I think the issue is twofold: one side is the nonexistence of a clear protest committee (which can be, and often is, just a single person); the other is the importance of making correct rulings on protests. For all quiz bowl tournaments, having a protest committee resolve all protests and relay resolutions helps to make things much easier for impacted moderators and players. It would determine who should resolve which protests and when, and what teams and moderators should do during the resolution process. I had the fortune of moderating a game that came down to four protests, but because of the absence of clear directions I ended up having to dismiss both teams to their next round and waiting until lunch to research everything myself, only to discover that one protest, that would have mooted the other three, could have been resolved instantaneously by a protest committee with access to the Internet. The existence of a protest committee would have made things smoother for me and especially for both teams in my room, who were left in suspense for 10 minutes just waiting for directions.

A point that should not be lost is the importance of making correct rulings on protests! Obviously, there is an issue when two officials are providing opposite resolutions—only one can be correct! From what I've heard from players, there was at least one protest in this tournament that was not resolved correctly—thankfully (I believe) it did not affect the result of the match or of playoff seeding. But many protests do impact the results of matches and playoff seeding, showing the importance of correct resolutions. In particular, a protest resolver should never automatically trust a player's claim that "my answer is also correct for the given clues in the question". Please verify that their answer actually is correct!

6. Finally, communication about the tournament format was very poor. It seemed that the TD's didn't agree on a format in advance—but this should have been the most basic task of the tournament; there are only so many ways to run a 14-team 9-packet tournament! For all tournaments, the tournament format should be made clear to all teams during the opening meeting, and only changed thereafter if affected teams agree or there are unforeseen circumstances. This is to ensure each team has adequate information it needs to determine how to strategize—e.g. you might play very differently in single elimination playoffs vs. round-robin playoffs with a win carried over from prelims.

Once again, I hope this critique doesn't come off as dismissive to the massive amount of effort that went into this tournament, or to the hard work of everyone who made it happen. The lesson from this tournament is not that enterprising quiz bowlers, especially middle schoolers, need to stay out of event organization. But it is always good to look at past flaws to inform how we can do things better in the future—not just for the organizers of this tournament, but for quiz bowl as a whole. Quiz bowl getting younger and younger is great for the growth of the game. So let us strive to channel our youthful zeal into making our events better, for the good of the game.

Thank you so much to the organizers of this tournament for letting me help staff and write, and I look forward to supporting you in your future quiz bowl endeavors!
Josh Xu

Santa Monica High School (Class of 2021, Captain, Team President)
UCLA (Class of 2025)
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (RESCHEDULED to 6/24/23) (HS Regs Minus)

Post by Stained Diviner »

Can I see the set?
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Re: Brooklyn Bridge Battle Tournament (RESCHEDULED to 6/24/23) (HS Regs Minus)

Post by Stained Diviner »

Vidyut shared the set with me. It does not have any questions plagiarized from me. My sense is that it does not have any plagiarized questions.
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Head Writer and Editor for Scobol Solo, Masonics, and IESA; TD for Scobol Solo and Reinstein Varsity; IHSSBCA Board Member; IHSSBCA Chair (2004-2014); PACE President (2016-2018)
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