I think it's a mistake to combine the issues of question distribution and quality. Pointless current events, just like other pointless questions (including poorly-written Nernst and Kleist questions), don't have much of a place in the game. If current events were included in other categories as per Kelly's post, it's a simple matter to say "no more than 2 (or 4 or 7 or whatever) CE per pack." The hypothetical problem of people writing 8 pointless CE science questions to fill a science distribution is not a problem of top- level distribution, it is a problem of subdistribution and (mostly) quality. --Nate --- In quizbowl_at_y..., ponyisi <no_reply_at_y...> wrote: > ... > > since there is already room for current events in a > > completely academic distribution. Any current events worth asking > > about would almost certainly fit into one of the academic > categories > > (history, science, law, etc.), > ... > > Not a good thing to allow current events questions into "standard" > categories. I hate to think if packets were written with the science > distribution composed entirely from articles on CNN.com. (Case in > point: the sudden epidemic of "Quaoar" questions.) The point that > "worthwhile" current events questions are ones that will be reasonable > to ask in a few years is well taken, but I think removing a separate > category for current events is likely to just shift a constant number > of stupid and badly-aging questions around, except that now people > will run around going "you should keep up with your field better!" > > At any rate (and I know there are many schools of thought on this, but > this is my personal opinion) relevancy in the grand scheme of things > is in the eye of the beholder. If we have to sit through innumerable > Nernst and Kleist questions, we might as well have a question about > the king of Swaziland and his tenth wife. > > Peter
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