> 2) Why did NAQT remove the question writer's numbers from some > Invitational Series sets and the SCT set? The original reason that writer numbers were included was in the belief that it would assist in protest resolution if we could immediately know who had written the question so we could seek his or her advice. In practice, I don't know if we have ever done this, and the creation of so many NAQT invitationals and the extension of the amount of writing done by NAQT contractors has made it ever more unlikely in theory. So, we have no reason for including it. On the other hand, the ownership of NAQT writer numbers became one of our worst-kept secrets and we found a significant amount personalized blame, much of it rude, and some of it downright insulting, directed at specific NAQT writers on the basis of their ostensible responsibility for certain questions. We did not want our members, editors, and contract writers subjected to that, particularly since it was never counterbalanced by an equivalent, or even near- equivalent, amount of praise for good questions. Why "ostensible"? Every question that appears in an NAQT packet is seen by at least three editors, usually a playtest group, and occasionally our entire difficulty check panel. That is not to say that bad questions never get through or that every member of NAQT thinks every question we send out is great, but that, as a team, we are prepared to collectively accept accolade and raspberry alike for our work and we expect them to be thus directed. -- R. Robert Hentzel President and Chief Technical Officer, National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC
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