--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "Matt Weiner" <darwins_bulldog1138_at_y...> wrote: > > Oh, and to everyone who has bitched about Mr. Knapp posting here: I > > have had involvement in hosting, directing,writing for, and playing > > in current/recent quizbowl tournaments; do I have your permission to > > post to the board? Or is my ppg total too low for my opinions about > > the fact that ACF-style tournaments have become inaccessible to most > > players to be taken as anything other than whining? > > Well, no, but that's a nice straw man. See, you made some coherent points > that had something to do with quizbowl, and while I and others may not agree > with them, indeed may be able to prove conclusively that you are incorrect, > that's what this board is for. Mr. Knapp's posts about Ken Jennings were not > needed because the latter's Jeopardy achievements have already been well > noted here, and further uninformed rambling about them as a pretext for the > usual "confuse them with nonsense" style of Mr. Knapp's posts is of no real > worth to anybody. That, and not the substance of his posts (whatever it may > be), is why we do not wish to see him posting three or more times a day. And > by we, I refer to people who are not in charge of this board anyway, and > thus have no power to prevent posts from you, or Mr. Knapp, or, regretably, > the morons who spam us with advertisements for game show conventions. In any > case, as we can't do anything about it, whining that we are preventing you > from posting is somewhat paranoid and indicative that you have no real > argument to make. > > Now, if you are really looking for an answer to the points you raised, and I > doubt you are, then I urge you to look at the performance of the median team > on ACF Fall questions. Saying that the ACF Nationals field is self- selecting > and that the questions are not great for bad teams proves nothing, because > all national tournaments are like that. The NAQT ICT is not something a bad > team would choose to do if their goal was scoring a lot of points, nor is it > a tournament that Token Bad School B would do well on. That doesn't mean > other NAQT tournaments with different goals from a national are too hard, > and that same line of reasoning goes for ACF. > > Of course, looking at it from the above consistent, statistical perspective > is only one method. Alternatively, we could continue pretending that this is > 1994, we are posting on Usenet, and the toughness of ACF questions is still > a topic with any life in it. To get us in the mood, I will put on my Spin > Doctors records and watch the final episode of Clarissa Explains it All > while considering whether to vote for Newt Gingrich. Perhaps Mr. O'Neal, who > at this point may actually still be playing the game, can come along and > shriek "FORMAT WAR" until we all leave out of disgust, or perhaps that is > only his reaction to the pointing out of flaws in CBI, which, as this is > 1994, more than 5 legitimate contenders from the real quizbowl circuit play. > I expect all of those fans, who will no doubt be along to this thread > shortly, to be oddly silent with their caterwauling when the subject is > pointless potshots at ACF. As I buy some flannel shirts to fit in with the > new grunge trend, I can reflect on how the "silent majority" hates questions > that test academic knowledge, and on how, as this is 1994, the concept of > the logical fallacy has not yet been invented. As I make a mental note to > check out this new Pulp Fiction movie that the critics seem to love, I will > also ignore the fact that the median score of the largest ACF Fall > tournament in 2003-2004 was 360 points per 1000 available, while the median > score of the NAQT Sectionals events held in the same region was 284 points > per 1000 available. After all, as it is 1994 and quizbowl discussion must > consist of polarized irrational stereotypes shrieking insults at each other. > Statistics have no place here, on the screen of my 286 IBM Compatible on > which I have reserved a block of time in the university computer lab. Oh, if > only it were not 1994, and I could somehow access the Information > Superhighway from the comfort of my own home! Thus, since these numbers are > not available, I have in no way proven that NAQT Sectionals, a tournament > which almost no one would accuse of being too hard, was actually 127% as > difficult as ACF Fall, a tournament which, despite being sought out just > yesterday for use in a high school singles event, is still lambasted as far > too difficult by a bunch of people whose opinions are, as it is 1994 and we > have no method of resolving this, equally valid as mine. Perhaps some day in > the distant future we will have a better method of communicating than > rampant lies posted over Usenet. Perhaps some sort of "electronic mail" or > "bulletin board" system on a "web"--worldwide in scope!--which would span > "sites" on which we could post "facts" and "data" and "logically constructed > arguments" instead of simply regurgitating what the cool kids of Usenet like > to say now, in 1994. However, since it is 1994 and we do not have such nice > things, I can only concede your absolutely original and productive > allegation that academic quizbowl is too challenging for the people who > enjoy challenging questions about academic topics in a quizbowl setting. I > will also concede, as I collect the latest slap-bracelets, that ACF is > clearly run by an ivory tower elite, which in no way accepts new blood every > year from a variety of teams, and is thus far inferior to other formats, > which I cannot accuse of being run by people who no longer participate in > the circuit and in many cases refuse to identify themselves, because > obviously such behavior is not elitist, and obviously such behavior does not > exist here in the idyllic world of 1994 quizbowl. > > Defeated, I sign off, and await for the propogation of my Usenet posting > through the network of 14K modems. --M.W. That's all well and good, Matt, but I wasn't actually arguing that ACF questions are too hard; I was arguing that most quizbowl teams do not play ACF anymore, one major reason being that they find it too obscure. Whether or not the questions really are too hard is besides the point; it's people's perceptions of the questions that is important, and people seem to think that they're too hard, causing them not to go to the tournaments. At ACF Regionals this year, I was able to find results for six Regions (I was unable to find anything for the one that was supposed to be held at UT-Austin; I don't know whether or not it was actually held, but I doubt that including it would change things much). In those six regions, a total of 49 teams from 31 different schools participated. On the Maize Pages, I counted a total of 106 schools that had been confirmed as active since May 2003, meaning that they are actively looking to be contacted about upcoming tournaments. As I am sure you can tell since you're a fairly intelligent young man, 31 schools is much less than 106, so much so that it can easily be said that most schools did not play in the ACF Regionals. By comparison, 219 teams from 136 unique schools participated in NAQT SCT. That's not a coincidence, Matt. There are plenty of college teams in the country that want to play quizbowl, and they have decided that ACF is not a format that they are interested in. Now why is that, Matt? Is it, in fact, a massive conspiracy against ACF? Probably not. Is it the fact that no one knows about ACF? Certainly not. Or is it that many people don't enjoy playing in ACF tournaments? This seems like a strong possibility. The fact is, Matt, that most people do not play ACF. You can make all of the smart-ass comments you want about it being the same argument that was being made ten years ago, but it doesn't change the fact that one national organization draws more than four times as many teams to its regional tournaments than the other. That's why your statistics about how NAQT is equally as hard as ACF are not valid; the sample that you are using to determine that is vastly different. Because NAQT has so many more teams, many of which aren't nearly as talented as most of the teams that showed up for ACF, the average scores at NAQT are lower than they were at ACF. I would wager, though, that the teams that finished between about 50 and 100 ppg at NAQT SCT would have finished with a much, much lower score at ACF Regionals; however, since none of those teams would touch an ACF tournament with a ten foot pole, we'll never know. And let me state this again: I have no problem with ACF itself. I think that the editors do a wonderful job and that they've tried to make their questions accessible to more teams in the past. My problem is with people like you, Matt, who can't just play and enjoy a format like ACF without pretending that it's God's gift to quizbowl, and trying to erroneously prove that its difficulty level is appropriate for the majority of quizbowl players; it's not. It's a format that appeals to a small, but vocal group of players, and that's great, but it doesn't appeal to most people, and for many, the reason is that the answers used are too damn obscure. Actually, here's one more statistic for you: 11 of the 49 (or approximately 22%) teams that attended ACF Regionals averaged 100 ppg or less, whereas only 34 of the 219 (or approximately 16%) that attended NAQT SCT did, this in spite of a field with weaker teams. Oh, and you might want to look at the main page of this board sometime. It cleary says, "Home to discussions about Quizbowl and other games requiring knowledge and speed of recall." Last time I checked, Jeopardy! falls under that description, so please stop wasting all of our time by making sure to post your objections every time someone deigns to mention a game show.
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