--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, madelman1 <no_reply_at_y...> wrote: > Everything that I've said about why people don't play ACF is based on > my own observations from playing in ACF and ACF-style tournaments, > watching people play in ACF and ACF-style tournaments, and talking to > people about playing in ACF and ACF-style tournaments, and a majority > of the people that I have observed in that way do not particularly > like the format, the main reason being that they feel that the > questions are too hard and the answers too obscure. Are those people judging all of ACF based on ACF Nationals? Or do they have experience with ACF Fall as well, a tournament created specifically in response to complaints about ACF's difficulty. > You say that people likely > don't play because of anti-ACF rhetoric on the message boards, but I > have never, never met anyone who cites that as a reason for not > playing, and I would be interested in hearing if you have. No, I haven't, and that's not what I said. What I wrote was that ACF has at one point acquired a reputation for being difficult. Now, despite the fact that great effort has been put into making ACF more accessible across the board, that reputation unfortunately lingers. When one person in a public forum complains about how hard ACF is, I suspect that it only reinforces people's stereotype of the tournament. They are then more likely to not come just because they've heard that ACF is hard, and that's a bad thing. Lest you think I read minds, this is all conjecture, which I suspect has some merit. > I don't think you give quizbowl players enough credit; most of us are > fairly intelligent people who can make informed decisions on our > own. We don't just blindly listen to the first thing we see on these > boards. Did I malign your intelligence somewhere? I don't doubt that most quizbowlers are fairly intelligent people, but the fact remains that people make decisions based on secondary information, which can be of variable quality. If I heard that some movie really sucked from a trusted source, I probably wouldn't go see it. Likewise with tournament: if people continually perpetuate the stereotype that ACF is too hard, people won't play it. > Besides, there are more than enough people who defend ACF > when someone criticizes it (may I point out that right now there have > been four people saying that it isn't too hard and two saying that it > is), so I don't really understand why it is that people would only > listen to one side and not the other; it doesn't make sense. > Basically, I think more people make decisions on their own than you > think. To use my previous analogy, if you heard that a movie was just awful, would you shell out $7 to see it? Better yet, if you heard from someone with some 2000-2001 ACF experience that you're going to drive several hundred miles only to get pounded by Monster Team A and not answer more than 10 questions all tournament, would you go? Traveling to a tournament involves expenses and time while staying home doesn't. People just might choose to err on the side of caution. > Having said that, I would encourage anyone who has not played in an > ACF or ACF-style tournament before but is considering it, not to > listen to anyone on this board, positive or negative, when making > your decision. ACF does an excellent job of making their packets > available on their website; I would encourage you to check them out > and see if you think that the questions are for you. Many people > don't like them, but many other people do; you never know which camp > you'll fall into unless you try it. I wholeheartedly support this statement. What I'd like to point out additionally is that ACF exists in tiers of difficulty, with ACF Fall being statistically easier than NAQT SCT while ACF Nationals really is hard. Ideally, Regionals would fall in between; this year was atypical in its difficulty. Also, please remember that ACF, unlike NAQT, is run by current students with a lot of non-qb work to think about. People volunteer do this because they love the game and without any promise of remuneration or other compensation for their time. Therefore, you'll most likely only see 3 official ACF tournaments all year, and Fall is by far the most accessible of them all. ACF Nationals is not for everyone, and I don't expect everyone to play in it. If the field at Nats is the top 3rd of collegiate QB, that's probably the way it should be. But ACF Fall is a different story, as are all the mACF packet-submission tournaments being run year round, and I really encourage people to give them a try. Jerry
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