Description acceptable
Before the game
During the game
"Description acceptable" is a warning occasionally appended to the beginning of tossups or the end of bonus parts, to indicate that the desired answer may not have a proper name and/or that the answer line allows some leniency with giving a more common generic answer rather than the proper name of the thing being asked about. This represents an exception to the general principle that things have names.
Questions that can only be answered with a description are sometimes given the warning "Description required" instead.
History
By convention an editor can expand an answerline to allow leniency in certain cases, such as accepting answers that are referenced in specific clues but may be too specific elsewhere. Historically this was used to allow descriptions for questions where such an answer was likely or necessary, increasing the ability of players to answer them; however, this also led to ambiguity as to whether a given question would reward them for an answer of this kind. In the early 2010s the "Description acceptable" warning became popular in collegiate sets as a way to indicate to players that they could give descriptions.[1] The adoption of the warning has helped broaden answerlines while reducing unnecessary confusion and has motivated writers to write more questions that take advantage of it.
Though some tossups at 2014 ICT had the label, NAQT has banned the use of "Description acceptable" in its question sets since 2014.[2]
Theory
The exact meaning of "Description acceptable" has been disputed. In particular, when an answer has no proper name at all, questions may utilize either "Description acceptable" or "Description required" - the question must be answered with the description, so it is technically "acceptable", but "required" is more explicit.[3] Rarely, questions will not include any instruction for such an answer, with the reasoning that the only correct answer is a description, so adding no warning places the onus on the player to know what kind of answer is required.
Like the lenient prompts that they evolved from, the inclusion of "Description acceptable" warnings is a choice that depends on if they are "necessary" and/or "useful", for some definition of those terms.
Descriptive answers
The basic criteria for whether a "Description acceptable" warning may be added is if there is at least one acceptable "descriptive answer". The existence of a conventional non-descriptive answer (a "name") further distinguishes between whether one may or must include the warning.
For answers that have a well-known proper name, no warning is necessary, as players are expected to provide the correct name. For answers with a proper name but a more commonly known description (e.g. "the boat from the beginning of Heart of Darkness" instead of "the Nellie") or for answers with no proper name, a warning is often expected.
There is also a considerable a range between things with exact published names and those with descriptive answers (e.g. "the finale of Pathetique"). In addition, descriptions span a range of precision as well, with many including a name (e.g. "the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan"). The ambiguity produced by the wide range of what counts as a "descriptive answer" leaves room for sloppy writing - this is a common criticism leveled at both "Description acceptable" questions and common links.
While it is worth thinking about answers that are unambiguous descriptions (and what criteria are used that to decide that), it is also useful to consider edge cases when formulating one's thoughts on what counts as a "descriptive answer":
- geographic regions: the American Northeast, Northeast India, Northeast China.
- parts of a larger work: opening number of a musical, fourth movement of Beethoven's 7th, the mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor
- something with a name in an unusual context: the Glorious Revolution clued only from economics
Note that these are not all typically (or even frequently) considered descriptive answers and are merely meant to be examples.
Gameplay considerations
Whether a "Description acceptable" warning is useful can be assessed by its gameplay implications. It is important to separate the issues with using descriptive answers from those coming from other problems like subset-superset as there is generally overlap.
Without the warning, players may not realize they have sufficient knowledge to answer a question if they only remember a description rather than a proper name; its presence serves to signal players that there is a deviation from typical acceptability rules. Advocates for always including the warning on tossups with descriptive answers argue that this is the most transparent option.
However, adding the warning is not strictly a positive. Like questions with unique pronouns it is possible to metagame questions that include the warning. Much like all metagaming this is generally a concern that is most significant at low difficulties but the decrease in the answerspace can be significant. The absence of a standardized definition of when the warning appears also means that players have to intuit what the editor intends by using it. If the impact of adding it is deemed to be negative (or even positive but small) an editor may opt to not include it.
References
- ↑ Re: ACF Nationals 2013 Discussion by theMoMA » Tue Apr 30, 2013 10:32 pm
- ↑ NAQT policy on "Description acceptable" by setht » Thu Jul 10, 2014 2:55 pm
- ↑ You're probably not using "Description acceptable" enough" by dni » Thu Jul 10, 2014 2:55 pm