New Tournament Calendar Available on the Quizbowl Wiki

[millionwaves]

Andrew Hart and I have created a central calendar that is intended to be used to post high school tournaments, starting with 2008. It's hosted on the new quizbowl wiki, and it's really easy to put your tournament up there. Once your tournament is over, you can put a link to your stats there, and perhaps a small write-up to let everyone know how it was for posterity.

We're hoping that everyone chooses to use it. If everyone does, we'll have a useful tool that people can use to make sure they're not scheduling things on the same day as other people in the same area without having to dig through this site's announcement threads. Also, when people are planning their team's tournaments, it'll help to have everything in one easy, convenient place. It really only can be good if the majority uses it, though, so please use it when you're running tournaments in addition to this site.

The calendar is intended to be sort of a national thing. I'm guessing most people already have local ones through their coaches association (I know Illinois has one like that), but having all of the tournaments on a calendar in a central location provides a number of advantages - not the least of which is that we'll be able to have a central place to go for results and things of the nature (as long as everyone uses it).

This is a link to the calendar itself.
There are instructions on that page that simply explain how to create your tournament's page for the calendar. It's really very easy to do and not very time consuming (so far, most people on the college version have just been copying and pasting the details from their hsqb announcement). Please choose to use it!

[First Chairman]

Thanks! Just moved it over to HS Tournament Announcements section.

[First Chairman]

General reminder for the 2008-09 tournaments: please use the qbwiki calendar!

If you also intend to be PACE-affiliated, please let me and Fred know. (Just as a warning, there may be a PACE-preferred status that may be conferred to programs who send a significant number of individuals to the Bootcamp...)

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

(Just as a warning, there may be a PACE-preferred status that may be conferred to programs who send a significant number of individuals to the Bootcamp...)

Are you effing kidding me?

[First Chairman]

We've always talked about a certification program. Bootcamp is the first major conversation to come up with the criteria of such a program. Just wondering why should we do this? Why shouldn't we do this?

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Because making some kind of "preferred" status contigent on attending your bootcamp seems patently absurd.

[Auks Ran Ova]

Because making some kind of "preferred" status contigent on attending your bootcamp seems patently absurd.

This is 100% true. I wish I could think of more to say, but it pretty much speaks for itself.

[evilmonkey]

We've always talked about a certification program. Bootcamp is the first major conversation to come up with the criteria of such a program. Just wondering why should we do this? Why shouldn't we do this?

Then you have people going just for the sake of getting the preferred status, rather than because they truly want to improve.

Also, this widens the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots"

[NoahMinkCHS]

Well it depends on what preferred status confers. If it is just a "PACE Seal of Approval" I think it's a great idea -- it's saying, hey, these people went to this Bootcamp and now (theoretically) know more than they used to about running tournaments; as such, this tournament should be of decent quality.

If PACE-Preferred has ramifications for Nationals bids, I would be less inclined to think of that as a good idea. But I wouldn't dismiss this whole idea out of hand like you guys have...

[Auks Ran Ova]

Well it depends on what preferred status confers. If it is just a "PACE Seal of Approval" I think it's a great idea -- it's saying, hey, these people went to this Bootcamp and now (theoretically) know more than they used to about running tournaments; as such, this tournament should be of decent quality.

If PACE-Preferred has ramifications for Nationals bids, I would be less inclined to think of that as a good idea. But I wouldn't dismiss this whole idea out of hand like you guys have...

I think our reactions were primarily based on interpreting it in the latter way, which the phrasing "PACE-preferred" seems to lend itself to. I would have many fewer objections to the former idea.

[Byko]

Well it depends on what preferred status confers. If it is just a "PACE Seal of Approval" I think it's a great idea -- it's saying, hey, these people went to this Bootcamp and now (theoretically) know more than they used to about running tournaments; as such, this tournament should be of decent quality.

If PACE-Preferred has ramifications for Nationals bids, I would be less inclined to think of that as a good idea. But I wouldn't dismiss this whole idea out of hand like you guys have...

I think our reactions were primarily based on interpreting it in the latter way, which the phrasing "PACE-preferred" seems to lend itself to. I would have many fewer objections to the former idea.

Note: These opinions are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of PACE. Thank you.

My impression of the term "PACE-Preferred" (and this is the first time I've heard the term) is much like the former description that Noah provides. I do think, that the following two could perhaps apply:

1. A PACE-Preferred tournament may provide more automatic qualifiers for nationals.
2. A PACE-Preferred tournament is not necessarily connected to people coming to Bootcamp. There are many tournaments I know about that use good pyramidal questions and are well-run, regardless of whether the person(s) in charge attend Bootcamp.

I think it's a very loaded term that can be interpreted incorrectly quite easily. And, from my understanding, there hasn't been detailed discussion about what it actually means or not, though your input would almost certainly be appreciated.

[First Chairman]

I apologize for jumping a lot of guns here. There hasn't been much discussion about this as a program though there has always been interest or concern about having "PACE-approved" tournaments. At least if there is a discussion on whether this would even be useful or how it could be implemented if useful... that's where I'd like to see some conversation.

[quizbowllee]

Unfortunately, there is no way I can attend a PACE Boot Camp. It's just not feasible based on distance and family commitments. However, I would like to think that a tournament hosted at Brindlee Mountain and run by yours truly would be deemed worthy of a PACE "seal of approval" without my physical attendance at said boot camp.

[First Chairman]

Understood...

A Special Discussion I'll open eventually is to cull some ideas of what you want to see with a competition that is somehow designated a PACE-certified event. Or you can start it now and then I'll split it off...

[theMoMA]

What I'd want to see: Questions of appropriate difficulty written by good writers, and tournaments run by experienced and competent TDs.

What I wouldn't want to see: Undue emphasis on a one-time event over the writer's body of work. It's really hard, especially for those of us not on the east coast, to justify spending a weekend and lots of travel money just to attend the bootcamp.