Fairness - Revision history

Kevin Wang at 19:36, 6 January 2022

2022-01-06T19:36:48Z

Kevin Wang at 19:35, 6 January 2022

2022-01-06T19:35:12Z

Chris Chiego at 07:10, 26 October 2021

2021-10-26T07:10:57Z

Chris Chiego at 07:08, 26 October 2021

2021-10-26T07:08:19Z

Chris Chiego at 07:07, 26 October 2021

2021-10-26T07:07:45Z

Chris Chiego: Undo revision 52653 by Chris Chiego (talk)

2021-10-26T07:05:27Z

Undo revision 52653 by Chris Chiego (talk)

Chris Chiego: Reverted edits by Chris Chiego (talk) to last revision by Kevin Wang

2021-10-26T07:04:56Z

Reverted edits by Chris Chiego (talk) to last revision by Kevin Wang

Chris Chiego at 07:04, 26 October 2021

2021-10-26T07:04:33Z

Kevin Wang at 17:23, 25 October 2021

2021-10-25T17:23:02Z

Kevin Wang at 17:36, 15 June 2021

2021-06-15T17:36:27Z

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 <onlyinclude>The concept of '''fairness''' is the idea that the two [[teams]] competing in a [[game]] of quizbowl should have equivalent opportunity to receive points and ultimately win. For a game to be fair, both the [[questions]] and the [[format]] must be fair.
-Fairness is a key tenet of "[[good quizbowl]]"; conversely, it is often absent in [[bad quizbowl]].</onlyinclude>
+Fairness is a key tenet of "[[good quizbowl]]"; conversely, it is often absent in "[[bad quizbowl]]".</onlyinclude>
 In a perfectly fair setting, the team which has more [[knowledge]] should always win the game, but this would require teams to play an infinite number of perfect questions to remove all variance. Thus, things are typically considered fair if there are no structural problems which produce unfairness.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 <onlyinclude>The concept of '''fairness''' is the idea that the two [[teams]] competing in a [[game]] of quizbowl should have equivalent opportunity to receive points and ultimately win. For a game to be fair, both the [[questions]] and the [[format]] must be fair.
-Fairness is a key tenet of [[good quizbowl]]; conversely, it is often absent in [[bad quizbowl]].</onlyinclude>
+Fairness is a key tenet of "[[good quizbowl]]"; conversely, it is often absent in [[bad quizbowl]].</onlyinclude>
 In a perfectly fair setting, the team which has more [[knowledge]] should always win the game, but this would require teams to play an infinite number of perfect questions to remove all variance. Thus, things are typically considered fair if there are no structural problems which produce unfairness.

@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 ===Tournament Formats===
-There is explicit unfairness in some [[bad quizbowl]] formats. [[College Bowl]] was infamous for playoff formats which disadvantaged particular teams. [[Single-elimination]] is often considered to be unfair, with [[double-elimination]] being the de facto standard for finals of sufficient size. Other tournaments have, in the past, done things like deliberately mis-seeded teams or grouped teams by arbitrary factors.
+There is explicit unfairness in some [[bad quizbowl]] formats. [[College Bowl]] was infamous for playoff formats which disadvantaged particular teams. [[Single-elimination]] is often considered to be unfair, with [[double-elimination]] being the de facto standard for finals of sufficient size. Other tournaments have, in the past, done things like deliberately mis-seed teams (such as putting all the A-teams in one prelim bracket and all the B-teams in another prelim bracket) or group teams by arbitrary factors (such as all the teams from one state in one bracket and all the teams from another state in another), which arbitrarily limits which teams can advance to the playoffs and/or finals.
 ==Things that are not inherently unfair==

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 In a perfectly fair setting, the team which has more [[knowledge]] should always win the game, but this would require teams to play an infinite number of perfect questions to remove all variance. Thus, things are typically considered fair if there are no structural problems which produce unfairness.
-==Sources of unfairness==
+==Potential Sources of Unfairness==
-===Unfair Tossup Questions===
 The standard for a fair [[tossup]] question is that it is well-written and [[pyramidal]] - this allows the maximum opportunity for a team with superior knowledge to [[buzz]] first and answer correctly. Conversely, an unfair question can be poorly written, apyramidal, or both. Things like factual errors, [[hoses]], and [[swerves]] are inherently unfair, because they disadvantage teams which know more.
-===Unfair Bonus Questions===
+===Bonus Questions===
 Before the standardization at 30 points, it was possible for different [[bonuses]] in a given round to be worth different amounts of points. A team could thus lose entirely because the bonuses they happened to receive were worth fewer points than the bonuses their opponent received.
@@ Line 17: / Line 18: @@
 Because it is not possible to write questions which are all exactly the same difficulty (and because it is not always clearly defined what any particular difficulty is), it is typically accepted that the questions in a [[set]] will take on some distribution in terms of difficulty, but that the goal should be to ensure they are on average similar in difficulty with limited variation from round to round. Enabling the Round Report option in [[SQBS]] or other [[quizbowl software]] when reporting statistics can be one way for editors and writers to get a better sense of the variation between rounds.
-===Unfair Match Formats===
+===Match Formats===
 Some may view certain match formats in which teams are presented with different questions such as during [[60 second]] rounds or [[fanfare]] rounds as potentially unfair, especially if certain rounds are much easier than others. The lack of the ability for each team to have the same opportunity to answer the same questions can be exacerbated during these rounds.
-===Unfair Tournament Formats===
+===Tournament Formats===
 There is explicit unfairness in some [[bad quizbowl]] formats. [[College Bowl]] was infamous for playoff formats which disadvantaged particular teams. [[Single-elimination]] is often considered to be unfair, with [[double-elimination]] being the de facto standard for finals of sufficient size. Other tournaments have, in the past, done things like deliberately mis-seeded teams or grouped teams by arbitrary factors.

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 Because it is not possible to write questions which are all exactly the same difficulty (and because it is not always clearly defined what any particular difficulty is), it is typically accepted that the questions in a [[set]] will take on some distribution in terms of difficulty, but that the goal should be to ensure they are on average similar in difficulty with limited variation from round to round. Enabling the Round Report option in [[SQBS]] or other [[quizbowl software]] when reporting statistics can be one way for editors and writers to get a better sense of the variation between rounds.
-==Sources of unfairness==
+===Unfair Tournament Formats===
 There is explicit unfairness in some [[bad quizbowl]] formats. [[College Bowl]] was infamous for playoff formats which disadvantaged particular teams. [[Single-elimination]] is often considered to be unfair, with [[double-elimination]] being the de facto standard for finals of sufficient size. Other tournaments have, in the past, done things like deliberately mis-seeded teams or grouped teams by arbitrary factors.

@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 ==Sources of unfairness==
-A major source of unfairness is [[difficulty variation]] between questions or between rounds, though it is rare that this is pronounced enough for an entire tournament to be considered unfair. This is especially pronounced when there are systematic variations in the difficulty of a specific [[category]] or specific rounds, but is also true when it affects random questions. Because there are a finite number of questions in a round of quizbowl and a finite number of rounds in a [[tournament]], teams which are affected by such variations will not be able to correct for the discrepancy. Because it is not possible to write questions which are all exactly the same difficulty, it is typically accepted that the questions in a [[set]] will take on some distribution.
+A major source of unfairness is [[difficulty variation]] between questions or between rounds, though it is rare that this is pronounced enough for an entire tournament to be considered unfair. This is especially pronounced when there are systematic variations in the difficulty of a specific [[category]] or specific rounds, but is also true when it affects random questions. Because there are a finite number of questions in a round of quizbowl and a finite number of rounds in a [[tournament]], teams which are affected by such variations will not be able to correct for the discrepancy. Because it is not possible to write questions which are all exactly the same difficulty (and because it is not defined what any particular difficulty is), it is typically accepted that the questions in a [[set]] will take on some distribution.
 The standard for a fair tossup is that it is well-written and [[pyramidal]] - this allows the maximum opportunity for a team with superior knowledge to [[buzz]] first and answer correctly. Conversely, an unfair question can be poorly written, apyramidal, or both. Things like factual errors, [[hoses]], and [[swerves]] are inherently unfair, because they disadvantage teams which know more.

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:36, 15 June 2021
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	<onlyinclude>The concept of '''fairness''' is the idea that the two [[teams]] competing in a [[game]] of quizbowl should have equivalent opportunity to receive points and ultimately win. For a game to be fair, both the [[questions]] and the [[format]] must be fair.</onlyinclude>	+	<onlyinclude>The concept of '''fairness''' is the idea that the two [[teams]] competing in a [[game]] of quizbowl should have equivalent opportunity to receive points and ultimately win. For a game to be fair, both the [[questions]] and the [[format]] must be fair.
		+
		+	Fairness is a key tenet of [[good quizbowl]]; conversely, it is often absent in [[bad quizbowl]].</onlyinclude>

	In a perfectly fair setting, the team which has more [[knowledge]] should always win the game, but this would require teams to play an infinite number of perfect questions to remove all variance. Thus, things are typically considered fair if there are no structural problems which produce unfairness.		In a perfectly fair setting, the team which has more [[knowledge]] should always win the game, but this would require teams to play an infinite number of perfect questions to remove all variance. Thus, things are typically considered fair if there are no structural problems which produce unfairness.