Protobowl...

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Greenwood_Satvik26
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Protobowl...

Post by Greenwood_Satvik26 »

Ah yes, the extremely controversial topic of Protobowl. There are some questions to be answered about Protobowl not just as a study tool, but other things.

1. How does Protobowl function as a study tool?
2. How do you feel about public lobbies? (we all know and hate the memorizers who answer on the first line of every question.)
3. How do you feel about the Protobowl chat?
4. How would you improve protobowl

My big issue with Protobowl is the lack of MS questions. I believe there are only 1218 MS questions while there are over 49,000 HS questions. I know the HS canon is much larger, but questions could still be added to MS. I was studying MS lit and memorized them because there are only 226 questions and a lot of them are the same answer with the question worded differently.

[img][<img src="blob:chrome-untrusted://media-app/325a116c-6442-4e53-b431-3ef4dde2c138" alt="Screenshot 2022-02-08 10.35.28 AM.png"/>/img]
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Re: Protobowl...

Post by meebles127 »

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Halinaxus
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Re: Protobowl...

Post by Halinaxus »

Greenwood_Satvik26 wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 12:36 pm
2. How do you feel about public lobbies? (we all know and hate the memorizers who answer on the first line of every question.)
Don't use them. Unfortunately, the number of bad actors out there is high enough that there is basically no redeeming factor to public lobbies. Use private lobbies and either play solo or only invite people you know.
Greenwood_Satvik26 wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 12:36 pm
3. How do you feel about the Protobowl chat?
See above. There's literally no need to ever use the chat unless you're playing with friends, in which case you can just use Discord.
Greenwood_Satvik26 wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 12:36 pm
4. How would you improve protobowl
Unfortunately, the creator of Protobowl has shown little to no interest in improving it, so it's likely going to stay the way it is for the forseeable future. Private Protobowl rooms are a fine way to solo practice, but if you find yourself running out of questions, you might consider using another of the many packet readers out there.

Edit: Fixed a typo
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gtag
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Re: Protobowl...

Post by gtag »

I believe there are only 1218 MS questions
To be fair, very few Middle School level housewrites exist, and NAQT questions are never publicly available.
I was studying MS lit and memorized them because there are only 226 questions and a lot of them are the same answer with the question worded differently.
Quiz Bowl at the MS level is sort of just like this. Stock answerlines exist.
4. How would you improve protobowl
Geoffrey Wu of Columbia made this, which has many aspects of Protobowl without the obvious issues.
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Re: Protobowl...

Post by Greenwood_Satvik26 »

Is your own private room good for studying at least?
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Re: Protobowl...

Post by eygotem »

Greenwood_Satvik26 wrote: Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:47 pm Is your own private room good for studying at least?
Yes
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Re: Protobowl...

Post by quizbowlchamp1 »

Greenwood_Satvik26 wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 12:36 pm
1. How does Protobowl function as a study tool?
2. How do you feel about public lobbies? (we all know and hate the memorizers who answer on the first line of every question.)
3. How do you feel about the Protobowl chat?
4. How would you improve protobowl


1. I think it is good as a study tool, but only because it's fun and it helps with memorization
2. I think they're pretty good. I understand your pain (even though I'm one of those memorizers)
3. Terrible. Only for sharing results. It's the reason they have distraction-free mode. It's just a disaster and distraction.
4. By adding more MS questions (being an MS player myself), getting rid of the chat, and adding more moderators to get rid of those people (you know who they are)
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Re: Protobowl...

Post by CPiGuy »

i am once again asking everyone who uses protobowl to use https://www.qbreader.org/ instead

it's got all the features of protobowl, plus better ones like "actually contains sets from within the last five years" (which is especially useful if you want to practice MS questions because that's like, probably more than half of all the good MS housewrites ever)
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Re: Protobowl...

Post by AKKOLADE »

CPiGuy wrote: Thu Oct 12, 2023 12:22 am i am once again asking everyone who uses protobowl to use https://www.qbreader.org/ instead

it's got all the features of protobowl, plus better ones like "actually contains sets from within the last five years" (which is especially useful if you want to practice MS questions because that's like, probably more than half of all the good MS housewrites ever)
I endorse this post.
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Re: Protobowl...

Post by quizbowlcaptain »

1. It's okay at best, I love using it for studying literature, but only on a private room.

2. They're below average, Chat is super annoying (you wonder why distraction free mode exists).

3. As I said, awful. If I was asked what the worst thing about quizbowl is, it's this and negging

4. Add more middle school questions, and get rid of the chat.
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Re: Protobowl...

Post by Vainglorious yet Victorious »

1. I don't use it as a study tool-I use QBReader
2. Public lobbies can rarely be an actual tool, but on the off times when "bad actors"/"memorizers" aren't in the room it can be fun to do an accountable, freely-running set of questions (presumably what was in mind when protobowl was created)
3. Terrible. As a rule of thumb, if something can be abused and frequently is, it will continue to be. Sadly, the protobowl chat is (usually) not nice or constructive, so it falls under this rule.
4. Add more questions so that it is a more viable study tool (which for me is its main use at this point)
Bottom line: I like protobowl, but I would, again, recommend QBReader.
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Re: Protobowl...

Post by PadraigF »

Alright so here is my take on this.

There is almost no valid reason to be using Protobowl.

According to the front page/pop up of their website, Protobowl "includes over 90,000 questions". According to Qbreader, they currently have 267 thousand questions (from 527 sets). Thus Qbreader has almost 3 times as many questions in their database then Protobowl.

I could go on for hours explaining why you should never be on Protobowl ever again but I think for anyone reading this, it is not their first time hearing about this matter. Also, I don't think protobowl has even added questions in like 5 years, and probably are never planning to again...
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Re: Protobowl...

Post by Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War »

I'm not a huge fan of protobowl, but there's one thing to be said about it that hasn't really been discussed (and which is the only reason I used/use it): The multiplayer rooms have a high usage and often get some pretty good players on them. I wish qbreader could supplant protobowl in this respect, since the question database is much better, but the public rooms are simply far less populated, or empty, up to this point.

We could change this if we made a concerted effort to use qbreader public rooms, and we should. But as of now, with protobowl, I can spontaneously practice on normal questions against a moderate number of random players, play for any duration of time I want, and practice gameplay in the lowest-stakes practice possible, over a larger number of tossups than any normal practice: playing more or less aggressively, modifying my playstyle based on my opponents' strangths/weaknesses, controlling the pace of the game, etc. That's not a replicable experience in any other setting other than tournaments (packet readings on major servers are rare, tend not to be on "normal" quiz bowl distributions/questions, and tend to be played by a much larger number of players at once, and better players, than protobowl).
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Re: Protobowl...

Post by quizzical1 »

Ah, the controversial topic about Protobowl.

The single most disgraced website, while to some, the most cherished.

The website that NAQT, IAC, PACE, and others have decided that you should not use, despite a staple of the quiz bowl. But it has alternatives.
And yet the alternatives are not perfect, so a stalemate has occured. I have heard about QBReader and all of that, but right now, Protobowl issues have to be addresed.
Greenwood_Satvik26 wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 12:36 pm
My big issue with Protobowl is the lack of MS questions. I believe there are only 1218 MS questions while there are over 49,000 HS questions. I know the HS canon is much larger, but questions could still be added to MS. I was studying MS lit and memorized them because there are only 226 questions and a lot of them are the same answer with the question worded differently.

The thing is, Satvik,that the devs of Protobowl made this way back when in the old days. It was exhibited at the MSNCT, I believe. It was meant to display AI strength, but it has molded into a study tool. The devs don't care about Protobowl, which has become a staple of quiz bowl studying. That is why. MS has a noticeable and infamous lack of questions, so high school is a final resort, and offline, it is even worse. MS current events is notorious in our school server, but scores no longer save and reset every single day, for no apparent reason. By the way, MS current events is only six questions. Six. Protobowl is incredibly useful but lacks in basic things. I have noted in another post about taking online packets, such as on hsquizbowl.org/db/questionsets/ and then reviewing questions on aseemsDB. These are consistently updates, unlike some random website, not calling out any names (hint: it's Protobowl). My strategy works, but overall, I don't recommend against Protobowl, but an alternative, as in the New Protobowl post I created. Thank you.
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