I SPEAK ONLY FOR MYSELF, but a lot here is well worth discussing. > --Why do tossups need to be longer than two lines, anyway? Why indeed? Serious question. RESOLVED: Tossups are too long. Quick and dirty intuitive evidence of this -- how many of you have met someone knew, told them you did quiz bowl, and been asked for a sample question? Happens a lot, right? And when someone asks you what a typical question is like, do you really pull some six-sentence behemoth out of your vast memory banks? > --What's so great about tossup/bonus format, anyway? A better question to ask is, why is tossup/bonus format so great that college quiz teams almost never stray from it? I agree with nearly everyone else that it's the best format... but to the point of exclusivity? [Two relatively uncontroversial rhetorical questions snipped.] > --Why do we need to determine the champion based on who wins the > most games, anyway? Another premise well worth strong disagreement. Perhaps the 2003 Detroit Red Wings really ought to have been declared NHL champions based on their regular season performance, rather than the travesty of seeing them swept in the playoffs by a clearly inferior team. Or perhaps not. > --Why do people need to play more than 10 games in a day, anyway? Here again, in fact they do not. Depending on the question content, playing more than ten games in one day can get... tedious... > --Why should anyone make sure they have enough spare time to edit a > tournament before announcing one, anyway? Given the editing standards that the circuit has currently set for itself, exactly how much "spare time" is this? Past a certain point, as much as it may be a labor of love, you'd probably be better off going out and grabbing a part-time job. > --Why should the standard of tournament quality be some sort of > objective measure of how well the questions rewarded knowledge, Not to be annoying, but here are you using the word knowledge as shorthand for "knowledge plus recall plus anticipation plus guts plus [whatever else is a useful skill in the game of quiz-bowl]"? This probably splits hairs but a better formulation might be, "some sort of objective measure of how well the questions rewarded good quiz- bowl skills." [...] > Is it time to spell out the answers to the above questions Yes, in fact. Knock yourself out. > and presume > that all posters agree with them unless they are prepared to > explain, in a sensible manner, why they don't? Seems a little presumptious, but you'll do this anyway so why not? Perhaps you could explain, in a sensible manner, why everything you believe is obviously correct is, in fact, obviously correct.
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