Alternate answers

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eygotem
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Alternate answers

Post by eygotem »

The recent discussion on name changes in answer lines has gotten me thinking about alternate answers in general, including questions on non-persons. Besides people's pseudonyms and former names, many other things can also fill up very long answer lines. Here is an egregious example from a (relatively) recent set:
2020 CALISTO wrote:A multiplicative term that corrects the magnetic moment of this particle is called the Landé g-factor. In one technique, these particles are fired through an ultrathin sample to form an image. Phonon-created lattice distortions cause these particles to form composite bosons called Cooper pairs. One of these particles will be ejected from a material if the energy of an incident photon is greater than the (*) work function. Tauons and muons are more massive counterparts of these charged leptons. These particles are ejected from metals in the photoelectric effect. For 10 points, name these negatively charged subatomic particles which make up atoms with protons and neutrons.
ANSWER: electrons [accept electron magnetic moment or electron magnetic dipole moment or electron microscopy or electron microscope or transmission electron microscopy or transmission electron microscope or scanning transmission electron microscopy or scanning transmission electron microscope or high-resolution transmission electron microscopy or high-resolution transmission electron microscope; prompt on leptons or fermions; prompt on TEM imaging or STEM imaging or HRTEM imaging or HREM imaging or the photoelectric effect with "what particle is involved in that process?"] {electron is underlined in each alternate answer}
I do understand the desire to accommodate every potential answer. Having a short, but technically sufficient answer line such as "electrons [prompt on leptons or fermions]" might cause issues with less experienced mods receiving answers like "Is this a transition electron microscope?" It doesn't seem ideal to expect every moderator to know the rules around saying extra words in one's answer.

On the other hand, having such a long of an answer line has the potential to distract the moderator, causing delays. It would also force them to spend longer searching through the answer line when a player gives one of the alternate answers. (Ironically, the above tossup does not have instructions for answers of "e-minus" – but moderators wouldn't know that until they read the entire thing.) Another factor that shouldn't be overlooked is the extra time and effort it takes for editors to craft such long answer lines.

Prompt instructions for indirect references like "TEM" are another issue. At what point do we just rule the player incorrect for answering to a completely different indicator? Should players who weren't paying attention and reflexively say "TEM" on a familiar clue be rewarded with a second chance? What happens when players give an incorrect answer but protest that they "should have been prompted" with an expectation of tangential answers having a directed prompt?

I think we as a community should establish some sort of norm with regards to these things. There should obviously be a balance between answer lines' conciseness and readability, and their accommodation of alternate answers, but (to me at least) it's hard to tell currently as a writer or editor what the best practice is.
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Cheynem
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Re: Alternate answers

Post by Cheynem »

Would something like "accept any answer mentioning _electron_" work?
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eygotem
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Re: Alternate answers

Post by eygotem »

Cheynem wrote: Wed Nov 03, 2021 3:10 pm Would something like "accept any answer mentioning _electron_" work?
That could work, though it would need "do not accept or prompt on" for "electron neutrino(s)" and other answers like that (if there are any).
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matthewspatrick
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Re: Alternate answers

Post by matthewspatrick »

2020 CALISTO wrote:A multiplicative term that corrects the magnetic moment of this particle is called the Landé g-factor. In one technique, these particles are fired through an ultrathin sample to form an image. Phonon-created lattice distortions cause these particles to form composite bosons called Cooper pairs. One of these particles will be ejected from a material if the energy of an incident photon is greater than the (*) work function. Tauons and muons are more massive counterparts of these charged leptons. These particles are ejected from metals in the photoelectric effect. For 10 points, name these negatively charged subatomic particles which make up atoms with protons and neutrons.
ANSWER: electrons [accept electron magnetic moment or electron magnetic dipole moment or electron microscopy or electron microscope or transmission electron microscopy or transmission electron microscope or scanning transmission electron microscopy or scanning transmission electron microscope or high-resolution transmission electron microscopy or high-resolution transmission electron microscope; prompt on leptons or fermions; prompt on TEM imaging or STEM imaging or HRTEM imaging or HREM imaging or the photoelectric effect with "what particle is involved in that process?"] {electron is underlined in each alternate answer}
Dumb question: why on earth do we need such a complicated answer line when we know by world eleven of this 105-word tossup that the answer is a particle?

Alternate answer completeness is a good thing, but the complexity in the answer line here does not seem to be delivering any actual value in return for the burden it's putting on the mods.
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Krik? Krik?! KRIIIIK!!!
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Re: Alternate answers

Post by Krik? Krik?! KRIIIIK!!! »

I think there's a good middle ground here. On one hand, I think it's the responsibility of the writer/editor of a question to make it as clear as possible what the question wants and to make that as easy as possible for the mods to interpret. With that being said, I think it's also fair to ask "Is someone really going to answer with X? Is it worth the space to have in the set at the cost of a potential protest at its exclusion?"

There's a lot of situations where I think having longer answer lines is necessary. Specifically, this comes up a lot with more wordly content in which translation is a big deal. Some ideas off the top of my head include:
-Native American tribes frequently have more than one name to refer to themselves or by which they are commonly referred
-Religious terms in a non-English liturgical language may have multiple interpretations or different ways that this is said. Someone of a religion that's being asked may give the term in the language they learned it in.
-Geographical sites important to native peoples often have different names for it in their languages.
-Certain quotes or names may be "lost in translation." For instance, I remember at Fall 2018, there was a bonus part which asked for the "Very Prominent Personage" from Gogol's "The Overcoat." The word Gogol used, значительное (znachitel'noye), could be translated as important, prominent, significant, or a multitude of other words I've seen in different translations.

So I think having these extended answerlines is very important to not only avoid protests, but to make quizbowl perhaps a little more accessible for different cultures and people engaging with it.

With that being said, I think part of it also comes back to the questions themselves. It's one thing to have a long answerline due to translations, but its another thing to have a long answerline due to wanting a long answer. For instance, what if a question wanted an answer of "The Embarassing Picture of Ganon from the Christmas Party." Will people say exactly that answer? Will they rephrase it in some different way? Will they use different verbiage? Is it possible to rewrite with only clues about the Christmas Party photo I wish was gone and have just "Ganon" as the answerline (cluing this person)? These are all important questions to ask amongst editors and playtesters to find the right fit for the question and to avoid a complicated answerline.
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