Sigh. Oh, well - this gives me something to do before the pool opens. --- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "darwins_bulldog1138" <darwins_bulldog1138_at_y...> wrote: > > 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? > > Both of these comments speak to a dangerous principle: that the > structure of quizbowl should be determined by people who do not like > or are not involved in quizbowl. The sports analogy fits that bill > somewhat as well. Why should preference be given to the wants of > people who find playing more games "tedious" over those who don't? > What does explaining the game to someone who's not involved have to do > with anything? Because people have jobs and travel commitments and papers. It's incorrect to say that you like quizbowl more than I do because you want to play fifteen rounds while I get tired after ten. Brevity is the soul of wit and the boon of quizbowl tournaments that don't feel like the Bataan Death March. > > As for the "six sentence behemoth", I can hardly think of a way to > write a tossup distinguishing between the top teams at ANY tournament > that is not somewhere in the neighborhood of six *lines.* I'm not sure > what sort of length you mean by "sentence"; if it's the many-claused > type of sentence that I prefer than that would indeed be too long. > Many-claused behemoths lead even longer, but there's no reason median length have to be six sentences. 1) Optional anecdote ("angry raisins"; 2)Hard clue; 3) Medium clue; 4) For ten points, easy clue. The "tossup distinguishing between the top teams ...." is a nonstarter. Work consistently demonstrates to me the ability to eliminate repetition to move down to the critical elements of a brief. Three-line tossups can have many more nuggets in them than six-liners. > I'm fully prepared to write lengthy explanations of the answers to all > the question I posed, if you really want me to, but I was hoping that > certain things were already understood. > This is an internet discussion group whose cohesion floats between that of the world government in The Road Warrior and a post-Taliban loya jirga. Unless the statement is "quizbowl has some value", I'd say that everyone else has the right to question every other statement. Hayden
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