> OK in the interest of forthrightness, I've responded to each of these three questions in a separate e-mail to faciliate tracking and responding. > 1) The one thing I've never understood is why the S value formula > MUST be kept secret. What does NAQT lose by declining to answer > that question? It seems that an organization like this would want > things to be as transparent as possible, or at the very least, a > clearly articulated, valid reason for a lack of transparency. On > that theme... Because NAQT wants to look at factors besides pure bonus conversion when creating statistical comparators, we have been led to use a series of S-value formulas that are potentially manipulatable either by teams themselves or by hosts who could adopt a non-standard format in the hopes of maximizing the number of bids originating from their Sectional. The overriding reason that we keep the system secret is to prevent teams and hosts from trying this. It's a trusim that obscurity is not security, but that is usually followed up by the observation that rigorously tested, practicable methods exist for doing the same thing. In this case, NAQT does not have an alternative system available that accomplishes what we want to accomplish. I will make this offer though: Should any member of the community come up with an accurate, efficient way to objectively compare teams from different Sectionals that is not susceptible to manipulation by any party, we would strongly consider adopting it. -- R. Robert Hentzel President and Chief Technical Officer, National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC
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