Online Events

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CometsCoach
Lulu
Posts: 65
Joined: Sun Feb 10, 2013 11:37 pm
Location: Clive, IA

Online Events

Post by CometsCoach »

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere - early feedback from my colleagues in Iowa indicate they feel that virtual tournaments are probably the way to go this fall, and with the recent upward tick in new COVID-19 cases in Iowa, I'm inclined to agree. So, I have a few questions and hope that those with some more recent experience either as TD/coach/player could give me some idea of what we're looking at here with tools, questions, possible format or/and rules changes, etc.

If this has been covered in another thread, send me in that direction, if you would be so kind.

Thanks everyone.
Jay Winter
Iowa Quiz Bowl League Founder & CEO
VP for Outreach, PACE
Mathematics Teacher & Quiz Bowl Head Coach, Waukee Northwest High School (IA)
Co-Owner of Quiz Bowl Systems/Slammer Systems
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jonpin
Auron
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Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2004 6:45 pm
Location: BCA NJ / WUSTL MO / Hackensack NJ

Re: Online Events

Post by jonpin »

There have been a few threads scattered throughout the forums, but I think most of the discussion there has been about organizing and running online tournaments, so it's good to have a thread about how it operates for players (and coaches), what they have to do in advance and on game-day, what the experience looks like, and how an online competition differs from one in person.

At this time, the two most common platforms for online quiz bowl tournaments are Discord and Zoom.

For Discord, anyone who would be "at" the tournament needs to create an account (free) if they don't already have one. Discord is used in a lot of online settings, so many students may already have an account if they've used any quiz bowl discussion servers, or other servers dedicated to video games, fandoms, or other socializing. It is worth noting that you will have a global user name to your account which will be visible to everyone on a server with you, but that you can change your handle (essentially a nametag) on each server.
In my experience, an individual tournament generally uses a single server. Anyone attending (players, coaches, staffers, and spectators if permitted) needs to connect to that server (generally by following a link and logging in) BEFORE the tournament, so that the TD can assign roles and permissions to each user. This will give students access to their team's chatroom, the text rooms where each of their rounds will take place, and the audio channels where rounds will be read (I haven't participated in any Discord tournaments operating via video, but in those cases, there presumably wouldn't be a separate text room). Users will be expected to change their handle to indicate their real name and affiliation (so for instance in tournament servers, I would make my handle "Jon Pinyan (Bergen coach)" or something similar); this is very easy to do.
For an individual game (using Discord audio), players from both teams go to the designated text chat room for the game (labeled "room 6 round 2" for instance), say something to confirm they are present, and then when the round is about to start, join the corresponding audio channel and confirm they can hear the moderator. In general, players will have their microphones off, so that there is no crosstalk. The moderator will read a question out loud, and players will type "buzz" and post it in the text channel to buzz in. The moderator will then recognize who buzzed in first (Important note: because of internet lag, it is possible that someone will see themselves first on their own screen, but the moderator will see someone different. For this reason, it is crucial that players wait to be recognized before giving an answer), and that person will answer, usually via text chat.
I have not participated in a tournament run via audio/text chat that used bonuses, so I'll let someone else discuss how those are handled in current practice.
Most rules of quiz bowl still apply in the same way, but the most notable differences tend to be (a) using tossups only, because bonuses are difficult to manage; (b) being a lot more generous with time controls.
Jon Pinyan
Coach, Bergen County Academies (NJ); former player for BCA (2000-03) and WUSTL (2003-07)
HSQB forum mod, PACE member
Stat director for: NSC '13-'15, '17; ACF '14, '17, '19; NHBB '13-'15; NASAT '11

"A [...] wizard who controls the weather" - Jerry Vinokurov
BenWeiner27
Wakka
Posts: 214
Joined: Mon Jun 19, 2017 9:30 pm
Location: Minneapolis, MN

Re: Online Events

Post by BenWeiner27 »

Here are a couple of threads that might be of use:
1. Mike Bentley's thread which goes over a lot of the basics and best practices for running online tournaments. This is a couple of years old, but the vast majority of information is still applicable to tournament's today.
2. A thread discussing Zoom and Discord tournaments including both applications' advantages and disadvantages.
3. My thread discussing tips and tricks I learned while TDing WOKE with the majority of the focus being on server splitting (since this was one of if not the first tournament to utilize the technique.
4. Nick Dai's guide to using Discord bots to monitor (and limit) misconduct which was posted in tandem with the ongoing discussions of harassment and misconduct going on in the collegiate discussion subforum.
5. Alejandro's bot for setting up Discord servers
6. Karan Gurazada's tournament management assistant bot for Discord tournaments

Lastly, there are several threads discussing the threat that cheating poses to these online events and how it should be dealt with that are also worth checking out.
Ben Weiner
Wayzata '20
Minnesota '24
VP of Tournament Direction, PACE
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