Name Changes

Dormant threads from the high school sections are preserved here.
Locked
User avatar
Stained Diviner
Auron
Posts: 5085
Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:08 am
Location: Chicagoland
Contact:

Name Changes

Post by Stained Diviner »

Is there a policy for the way answer lines should read for people who change names?

There are a few reasons why people's names change.

1) Marriage. If somebody changed their name through marriage and always used their married name from that point forward, is it always the case that both names should be acceptable, or does it only make sense to accept the name the person used when they did the actions described in the question? The same question applies to name changes due to a divorce. For example, Margaret Thatcher was Margaret Roberts until she got married in 1951. Her political career and everything she is famous for happened when she was Margaret Thatcher, so what is the proper way to handle an answer of Margaret Roberts if the question only describes events that took place after 1951?

2) Adoption. Bill Clinton's birth name was William Jefferson Blythe III. He took his stepfather's surname unofficially when he was 4 and officially when he was 15. So what happens if a question describes things Clinton did as an adult, and a person answers Blythe?

3) Pen Names. Charles Dickens went by "Boz" early in his career, including when he wrote Oliver Twist. If a question only describes works that were originally published as being by Charles Dickens, what should happen if a person answers Boz?

4) Regnal names. If a question is about Pope Francis, and everything in the question happened after 2013, what should happen if a person answers Bergoglio?

5) Gender identity changes.

6) Sometimes people just change their names. Reginald Dwight didn't like his name, so he became Elton John.

The main reason I ask is that if these alternative names are correct, then question writers should add notes to also accept the other names, even though it is unlikely that somebody is going to buzz in and say "Margaret Roberts".
Last edited by Stained Diviner on Sat Oct 30, 2021 4:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.
David Reinstein
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)
User avatar
jonpin
Auron
Posts: 2266
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2004 6:45 pm
Location: BCA NJ / WUSTL MO / Hackensack NJ

Re: Name Changes

Post by jonpin »

Current practice:
NAQT Correctness Guidelines wrote:The following are generally acceptable: surnames, family names, nicknames that are nearly universally known (e.g., LBJ but not Landslide Lyndon), pseudonyms, birth names, unmarried or married names, and regnal names.
PACE NSC rules wrote: If a person's family name changed over the course of his or her life (e.g. by marrying into a different family), any family name which that person had over the course of life is equally acceptable. If a person changed both given name(s) and family name(s) at once, given names and family names may not be mixed and matched across the name change.
Both seem to imply that any name that was genuinely and unambiguously used to refer to a person would be acceptable, which seems reasonable to me. Someone who answers "Hillary Rodham" has, to me, demonstrated clear knowledge of who is being asked about. To try to litigate any more specific rule would I think be a lot of words for little benefit and more headache.
Pseudonyms are a bit trickier. I've seen some Kierkegaard questions where the answerline is longer than the question to include a dozen pen names, and at some point it comes down to a matter of good sense. If a player gives an answer which is unambiguously correct and the packet writer hasn't included it, protests are free.
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
User avatar
Skepticism and Animal Feed
Auron
Posts: 3238
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 11:47 pm
Location: Arlington, VA

Re: Name Changes

Post by Skepticism and Animal Feed »

I would say that at some point there are not just diminishing returns to answerlines with lots of alternate answers, but actually negative returns. I don't think I'm the only person here to have run into the situation where an inexperienced moderator sees an answerline with 3-4 lines of alternate answers, is amused by this, and decides to read off all of the alternate answers to the teams. I imagine this would be especially likely in a situation like a list of Kierkegaard pseudonyms where some of them are quite ridiculous. It's a silly example, but it's very real and this kind of stuff does meaningfully delay games and tournaments in the aggregate.

At some point you gotta rely on the protest system to vindicate players who go in with "Earl Hughenden of Hughenden" for Benjamin Disraeli and the like.
Bruce
Harvard '10 / UChicago '07 / Roycemore School '04
ACF Member emeritus
My guide to using Wikipedia as a question source
User avatar
ValenciaQBowl
Auron
Posts: 2558
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2004 2:25 pm
Location: Orlando, Florida

Re: Name Changes

Post by ValenciaQBowl »

I understand the player pool for community college quiz bowl is very different from high school and university pools, so when writing Delta Burke I often don't include a lot of alternate acceptable name answers, as the likelihood of any of our players giving one of those is so low that the time cost for me to research to add all possible other acceptable names is too high. For instance, I'm not going to put in "accept William Jefferson Blythe III" for a toss-up on Bill Clinton, as literally no CC player ever is going to give that.

However, I try hard to include original foreign-language names for answers like "Coffee with Milk" politics since so many of our players are international students who will understandably give answers to such questions in their native tongue.

I'm all for writers and editors making a good-faith effort to include all possible alternate answers, but I'd say that in some cases giving an answer like
"Boz" on a toss-up that hasn't mentioned anything after 1836 (?) or so is mostly going to be a little showboating. It's one thing if the question is clearly asking about a pseudonym, and I don't have a problem with a person answering Boz and getting the points, but no academics in the field of Dickens studies is going to be generally referring primarily to "Boz" in a contemporary essay on Oliver Twist.
Chris Borglum
Valencia College Grand Poobah
User avatar
Cheynem
Sin
Posts: 7220
Joined: Tue May 11, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Re: Name Changes

Post by Cheynem »

In most of the cases David describes, you should accept those other names, even if they may not be 100% accurate for the clues. I would accept Roberts, Blythe, Bergoglio, and Dwight for Thatcher, Clinton, Francis, and John. Pen names are trickier and are kind of a subjective thing. Obviously we're taking George Eliot for Mary Ann Evans, but "Boz" for Dickens doesn't seem acceptable for me (perhaps on a protest). Pen names to me are kind of like nicknames, which we tend to not just take on their own or prompt on in most cases (like "Ike" for Eisenhower). However, we also accept things like JFK, LBJ, and RFK. And most people would accept "Shaq" for Shaquille O'Neal. So it is tricky. But I tend to err on accepting the correct answers without also expecting people to think of every possible nickname or pen name (it doesn't take that much work though to find someone's birth name or "real" name).
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota

"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
Locked