Some disturbing themes have been running through recent threads. I wanted to take a minute as a member of the community to make some points no one else seems to be making in the name of common sense. If you agree with them, speak up. You have as much right to be here as the loudmouths. 1.) There is no "correct order of finish" for a tournament. If there were, we could just mail the trophies to the teams and save everyone the airfare and hotel costs. We play the games because the unexpected happens. If the breaks don't go your way one weekend, it's not because you were screwed by the tournament director, screwed by the format, or screwed by the bracketing. Shut up and do better next time. Otherwise, you look like an idiot or a sore loser, or both. 2.) No one manner of acquisition of knowledge is "better" or "more legitimate" than others. If you know a clue about a Pulitzer Prize winning novel because of its reference on Friends, it's not any less legit than if you read seven critical essays about the work. As long as I buzz in correctly before you, well, that's all that matters. Deal with it, you got beat. 3.) When you run a tournament, keep your customers informed as to what's going on. That's just common courtesy, and it's why you're there. Players will be less likely to bitch on the Yahoo board if they know there's a good reason they're waiting around. 4.) The elite players and ACF fundamentalists do not hold the monopoly on "correct opinions" as to what makes quiz bowl fun or fair. I daresay most people here couldn't care less about Italo Spazo or whoever the hell you guys were talking about last week. If you don't like what's being said, speak up, even if you don't get 50 PPG or play for Maryland or Chicago. If you let the tyrannical minority who seem to do most of the posting here shout you down, expect to see a lot more questions on art historians of the fifteenth century or some other irrelevant bullshit. Most of us have sat back and let these dickwads go unchallenged because it's just not worth it to mess with them. This is the result. 5.) Instead of ripping tournaments into shreds in public because you'll look cool, why not -- concept! -- make some critiques in private? Not everyone needs to hear your latest theory about how a tournament was unfair or why Swiss pairs are God or why the Penn Bowl question sucked or anything else. Figure out who can fix things next year. Tell them, politely, what you'd like fixed. Lather, rinse, repeat. No one sets out to run a bad tournament. Accusing them of doing that makes you look like an ignorant chumpmonkey. Thank you for your time. A Voice of the Silent Majority
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