--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, Matt Weiner <darwins_bulldog1138_at_y...> wrote: > However, there are many non-arbitrary, > non-"tyrannical" reasons for having a strict > distribution of general categories. The fact is that > people usually take classes, have personal interests, > and otherwise acquire knowledge in one general group > at a time, which are very well represented by large > divisions such as "literature," "geography," etc. There are inter-disciplinary salient fronts for acquiring knowledge. Some people are assigned fictional works to read in history classes. Some classes--yes, even one I took in the religion department-- require current events knowledge and daily newspaper reading. Some people also acquire knowledge along other axes. I might, for example, desire knowledge of all things Chinese, and learn of that country's geography, history, literature, and philosophy while mostly ignoring such categories of knowledge with respect to Europe. > Literature players who don't know science, RMP players > who don't know current events, etc are very common. > The distribution exists to prevent players from being > able to dominate a game based on knowledge of a few > subjects. The specific numbers are open for change, > but without keeping most questions on a single topic, > how are we to avoid putting 1 tossup that rewards > knowledge of French literature in the Round 1 packet > and then 5 such tossups in the round 2 packet? If we > start rewarding the same category of knowledge > differently, then standings lose their meaning. The distributions (and there are more than one plausible distrbitions) exist because of people writing ten lit or ten history or ten "trash" tossups in one round. Distributions are not created (or at least should not be created) with an eye towards who specifically should win. Also, for the most part, this is a "team" game. While there are few individual players who know both science and literature well, there are a significant number of teams who know both (and a significant number who know little....you know who you are). > An occasional (1-2 per round) mixed-subject tossup, in > the "general knowledge" category, and closely watched > with an eye towards overall balance by the editor, is > not a problem. Allowing or encouraging such tossups to > be anything but rare will lead to severely unfair > tournaments. A tournament with an increase of multi-disciplinary questions is not necessarily unfair. Deviating from current accepted distributions is not inherently unfair (see Rice's idea of a science-less tournament). As always, it will depend upon the collective skills of the writers and editor(s). However, it would place an increased burden on editors because it increases the number of nodes of knowledge where repeated clues and answers can occur. Anthony
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