Many good points, and as one of them little'uns and noobs to the circuit, I've already noticed a few things. First, there is a psychology to writing questions where you want to make the packet hard enough that teams aren't being handed points, but in trying to do that you end up with an extremely difficult packet. I made this mistake with the packet submitted to ACF fall. I wrote about half of it, and, conversing with Kelly this weekend, was informed that the packet was too hard. I personally didn't find it that hard in retrospect, but then, having written the packet, of course I wouldn't have. Another thing I've noticed is bonuses tend not to be very balanced. For instance, at COTKU in one round we got a bonus whose answers were the Colossus, Zeus at Olympia, and something else, basically a guaranteed 30 points to any team with half-decent knowledge on seven objects that every team should have half-decent knowledge on. Meanwhile, the other team got Communist dictators of Eastern Europe. They got 10 points, and that puppy was hard. When writing bonuses teams should make sure every team will get SOMETHING out of the bonus, otherwise the point of a bonus is defeated. Think Golden Rule when writing packets. If you were playing this packet, would you want to? Or would you want to hunt down the team that wrote it and slay them like the filthy beasts they are? Practice makes perfect. GT writes their own practice questions, so we all have experience churning out a full packet by ourselves. This is a good thing, players learn from each other and learn what's good and bad in a setting that won't get the team a black mark for poor packet writing. That is all. Stephen --- In quizbowl_at_y..., funkyorangebuzz216 <no_reply_at_y...> wrote: > I'm all for circuit expansion, but I agree with Ed here. I don't > find that graduates try to find obscurata and minutiae to insert into > their packets as much as undergraduates cannot tell either what > separates a bad question from a good one or whether or not a topic is > obscure to begin with. Using the packets from BRRR as an example, I > found that the teams which had dinosaurs writing tended to give me > more reasonable packets than most of the undergraduate teams. > It speaks volumes that Anthony de Jesus freelanced a packet which in > my estimation was somewhere around the average packet. That's > right. I'm not kidding. Anthony de Jesus freelanced a packet which > in my estimation was somewhere around the average packet. Once > again, so you realize that you're not on something (in fact, you > might want to print this out for posterity). Anthony > de Jesus freelanced a packet which in my estimation was somewhere > around the average/median difficulty. > > Aside from that little comment, I fear for what might happen if and > when the oldest players went away completely, leaving us with the > current undergrads. Consider the following three undergraduate > teams, whose BRRR packets were substandard IMO: > > - Team A's members were writing for the first time, and their packet > was full of non-standard-format tossups and bonuses because they > hadn't really played at all, for the most part. A representative was > very nice, even apologetic about its packet. The team went to work > and got it back to me in better shape, and had it come earlier, I > probably would have used it with a few tweaks. At least they know > what's expected of them in the future. > > - Team B's packet, which was written by players with some experience, > suffered not only from improperly structured tossups as have been > discussed by Raj and Ed (starting a TU on Krakow with "This city in > Southern Poland"), but also tossups with fewer than two uniquely > identifying clues. I gave a long explication of what was bad about 5 > of the 25 tossups that were submitted, and if I wanted to, I probably > could have categorized them all in this way. I was asked "Oh, but > they're not THAT bad, are they?" Eventually this team's contact > stopped fighting, but I wonder if he will ever think about what I > said about uniquely identifying clues, or if, since from my vantage > point, the tournaments to which he submitted questions didn't do as > much (if any) editing as I did (or had the luxury of not using his > questions), he and his teammates will continue to write the way that > they wrote, because obviously I was wrong if so many other editors > didn't find anything wrong. > > - Team C, whose writers I would venture to say were much more > experienced, ignored difficulty completely, and, to an extent, had > questions that suffered from the same sorts of problems that team B's > packet did. They also used the dreaded "it's not... but" > construction (We could argue about this again, but I noticed that > NAQT hasn't relied on it as much as it may have in the past, and > that's a good thing IMO; this goes in a separate thread) three times > in a manner that added no clues to their questions. I asked nicely > that, to help with my editing, they improve their questions a bit, > without penalty nonetheless, because I felt that they could do much > better. Their first response was "it looks fine to me." I > said, "Well, it's not, but I really can't explain now. I have lots > to put together and edit. I will tell you what I find wrong after > the tournament." After working on the packet quite a bit, I thought, > if they think it's good enough for them, it's fine as is. 7 of the > 12 teams playing scored 100 points or fewer on it; at least four of > them were playing against one another (so who was right here? Hmm). > Then when I explained what was wrong with certain questions, I was > told, "No, you're wrong, our questions are good because they're > original and because you write figure skating questions," and also to > take my head, put it in a toilet, and flush. I expect this team to > continue to write bad questions eternally unless some new player > decides to learn from someone else or give packet writing a go on his > or her own. > > While I'd like to think that the moral here is that if you submit > questions to a tournament and the head editor expresses to you that > something is wrong with your packet, in all likelihood, something is > wrong with your packet, that isn't the complete point here. Without > criticism, constructive or not, teams will go on writing bad or > patently obscure questions. Imagine these team members who I have > described, having not listened at all to whatever some head editor or > team elder had to say. Eventually they may become the new team > elders that younger players have to listen to (if they even say > anything) about writing questions. If these new team elders are the > only people that younger players listen to, they will probably not > achieve a packet written to the best of their abilities, or even to > 10% of their abilities, unless they are motivated to improve on their > own, and, as Roger Bhan said, the packet submission tournament will > go the way of the dinosaur. > > I've heard some appalling things about writing good questions from > undergrads today: one being that there is never a need to write good > questions unless one wants to impress a tournament director, and that > this must be true because that's what his more experienced teammates > said. I blame them for passing this on. Those existing dinosaurs > (and older undergraduates where dinosaurs are absent) do play an > integral role aside from being #1 scorers. They should guide. I > thank Matt Colvin and my elder teammates very much for being around > to tell me about pyramid structure and uniquely identifying clues, > and to provide criticism because without their guidance I would be > much worse off as both a player and a question writer. I also hope > that the younger players on my squad can thank me for listening to > what Evelyn and I have said to them about question writing (or > realize that we were right when everyone else at a submission > tournament tells them that their questions suck). > > In closing, I hope that next time, before we get into another round > of how graduate students may or may not be ruining the game, we think > for a moment about what we would lose by taking graduate students out > of the equation: a bulk of good question writers, possibly ACF > itself, and guidance. To sacrifice all of that to prevent a new team > from losing a game by 500 points is not at all worth it, and doesn't > necessarily prevent that from happening anyway. > > J-Kel > A senior and soon-to-be grad student
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