Ghetto Warz discussion

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Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by grapesmoker »

Stop copying questions out of Wikipedia!

P.S. Stop recycling your own questions from a year ago!
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by AKKOLADE »

Would it be cool if I recycled my questions from last year that were written out of Wikipedia?
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by grapesmoker »

leftsaidfred wrote:Would it be cool if I recycled my questions from last year that were written out of Wikipedia?
yeah brah that's awesome
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

So having looked through some of the packets, I've found a variety of tossups that were taken verbatim from one of last year's freely-available-online Ghetto Warz packets!

Don't do this! Ever!
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by grapesmoker »

Ukonvasara wrote:So having looked through some of the packets, I've found a variety of tossups that were taken verbatim from one of last year's freely-available-online Ghetto Warz packets!

Don't do this! Ever!
see post #1 itt
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

grapesmoker wrote:
Ukonvasara wrote:So having looked through some of the packets, I've found a variety of tossups that were taken verbatim from one of last year's freely-available-online Ghetto Warz packets!

Don't do this! Ever!
see post #1 itt
I added mine after I found more than one instance of it.
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by No Rules Westbrook »

Several of the questions from this year's Ghetto Warz were lifted directly out of last year's set. This is an inappropriate way to write a tournament.
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by Sima Guang Hater »

Not that this is a bad thing, but I love how all of the commentary are from people who didn't play the tournament.

In any case plagiarism is bad.
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by grapesmoker »

ToStrikeInfinitely wrote:Not that this is a bad thing, but I love how all of the commentary are from people who didn't play the tournament.
Well, if I had been responsible for this atrocity (insert pre-emptive ECSO joke here), I would be too embarrassed to show up in a thread discussing it, except possibly to beg forgiveness. I guess it speaks to the overall quality of most tournaments these days when I can't remember having seen a set this bad in some time.

The plagiarism thing is especially ridiculous. I mean, when you're literally copying half your clues straight out of Wikipedia, is it too much to ask for you not to recycle your own questions from a previous year? Like, do you think people won't notice or something? Not only is it just wrong, but it's also further evidence of the editing team's monumental laziness, not that we really needed it given the question quality.
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by NoahMinkCHS »

If I recall correctly, I think we played some Ghetto Warz packets at Moon Pie last year... and they were terrible then. I can only imagine what would possess someone to reuse questions that were known to be bad AND plagiarized.
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by Skepticism and Animal Feed »

ToStrikeInfinitely wrote:Not that this is a bad thing, but I love how all of the commentary are from people who didn't play the tournament.
What have we been doing on IRC, then?
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by cvdwightw »

As someone whose only involvement was performing minor quality control on UCI's packet (like explaining to people why certain topics are too hard for Ghetto Warz and random UCI professors that aren't Loftus or Ngugi probably shouldn't come up ever), I would be interested to hear whether the UCI packet was an improvement over previous years' UCI packets.

In other news, I spent most of Saturday trying to recover from a flu bug. Impromptu poll question: if I had gone to the tournament and thrown up in the middle of it, would the flu bug or question quality have been a better excuse?

This is especially sad because last year's Ghetto Warz was a significant improvement (from "absolutely terrible" to "mediocre") and I had hopes that Ghetto Warz might actually be good. Then I saw our packet and just hoped that the tournament didn't suck. Apparently it sucked worse than all previous Ghetto Warz, which is saying something.
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by csrjjsmp »

I wrote 5/3 for the Berkeley packet, but I didn't go to the tournament, or see the questions. Does anyone remember individual problem questions?
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by The Time Keeper »

This isn't as egregious as blatant plagiarism(!), but when you have a tossup whose answer is a person, please don't begin it by telling us where and when that person was born. That adds nothing to the question and in the rare few cases a person's birth date and place are very important/famous it becomes an instant giveaway.
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by rylltraka »

For those spouting off, the questions taken were taken from a previous year's packet which was not read at Ghetto Warz IV, as it was saved for a finals round which was not necessary.

My apologies for recycling questions, but my particular situation, having nine and a half packets at four in the morning (because of various deficiencies in contributions from other teams and members of my own) induced me to use those questions. Had I known it would come to that, I would never have allowed them to be posted; as it was, it caused no problems whatsoever in the tournament, which went smoothly and without incident.

As I have no intention of ever running a quiz bowl tournament in the future, and may never attend another event, it doesn't bother me if people thousands of miles away, who did not attend the tournament, criticize me. I hold your complaints in as much value as they are worth.

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(In response to your interest, Dwight, other than a few minor bits which were easily solved in editing, I thought UCI submitted an excellent packet, and I can't recall any complaints from play).
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by swwFCqb »

rylltraka wrote:For those spouting off, the questions taken were taken from a previous year's packet which was not read at Ghetto Warz IV, as it was saved for a finals round which was not necessary.
Well, this doesn't really matter if, in fact, those questions were posted online for all to see.
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by DumbJaques »

As I have no intention of ever running a quiz bowl tournament in the future, and may never attend another event, it doesn't bother me if people thousands of miles away, who did not attend the tournament, criticize me. I hold your complaints in as much value as they are worth.
. . . are you for real?
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by Maxwell Sniffingwell »

rylltraka wrote:As I have no intention of ever running a quiz bowl tournament in the future, and may never attend another event, it doesn't bother me if people thousands of miles away, who did not attend the tournament, criticize me. I hold your complaints in as much value as they are worth.
I'm pretty sure that I just lost all respect for...
rylltraka wrote:Mik Larsen
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You CAN'T post the questions before the tournament, EVER.
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by AKKOLADE »

rylltraka wrote:As I have no intention of ever running a quiz bowl tournament in the future, and may never attend another event, it doesn't bother me if people thousands of miles away, who did not attend the tournament, criticize me. I hold your complaints in as much value as they are worth.
I think it should bother you that people thousands of miles away are now less likely to agree to mirroring deals with your club which could help fund your team. I really don't think it's beneficial to yourself or the team that you represent to respond to valid criticism by just blowing it off.

Edit: Also, weren't you the TD for the Basileus tournament? Wouldn't that be pretty much the most obvious example of why repeating questions is bad, a lesson you experienced firsthand?
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by Maxwell Sniffingwell »

leftsaidfred wrote:Edit: Also, weren't you the TD for the Basileus tournament? Wouldn't that be pretty much the most obvious example of why repeating questions is bad, a lesson you experienced firsthand?
Seriously?
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by AKKOLADE »

cornfused wrote:
leftsaidfred wrote:Edit: Also, weren't you the TD for the Basileus tournament? Wouldn't that be pretty much the most obvious example of why repeating questions is bad, a lesson you experienced firsthand?
Seriously?
So says a player who attended that tournament (not Basileus).
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by Chico the Rainmaker »

cornfused wrote:
leftsaidfred wrote:Edit: Also, weren't you the TD for the Basileus tournament? Wouldn't that be pretty much the most obvious example of why repeating questions is bad, a lesson you experienced firsthand?
Seriously?
Yes.
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Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

Post by grapesmoker »

rylltraka wrote:For those spouting off, the questions taken were taken from a previous year's packet which was not read at Ghetto Warz IV, as it was saved for a finals round which was not necessary.

My apologies for recycling questions, but my particular situation, having nine and a half packets at four in the morning (because of various deficiencies in contributions from other teams and members of my own) induced me to use those questions. Had I known it would come to that, I would never have allowed them to be posted; as it was, it caused no problems whatsoever in the tournament, which went smoothly and without incident.

As I have no intention of ever running a quiz bowl tournament in the future, and may never attend another event, it doesn't bother me if people thousands of miles away, who did not attend the tournament, criticize me. I hold your complaints in as much value as they are worth.

Mik Larsen
TD

(In response to your interest, Dwight, other than a few minor bits which were easily solved in editing, I thought UCI submitted an excellent packet, and I can't recall any complaints from play).
Oh hey, thank you Mik Larsen for gracing us with your presence.

As other people have said, there's really no excuse from recycling last year's questions, given that they were available after the tournament. So what if the packet wasn't read? It was distributed; in this age of Internet, everyone should realize what this means.

But what's really choice here is your response, which makes it look like we falsely accused you of eating babies. Dude, you copied questions from a previous year's set and apparently didn't edit any of the stuff that came to you. I guess we should all be grateful that you're never editing another tournament (although there's no evidence you actually edited any other ones either). Also, you aren't exactly making it easy for your team to obtain the assistance they will sorely require in the future if they're ever going to run another event, although, if the rest of your teammates share your editing ethos, they'll probably just copy 1988 Terrapin anyway and hope no one notices.

Yeah, what a bunch of fools we are for caring about stuff like question quality and plagiarism. I guess you sure showed us all with your cool apathy. Good riddance.
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