I agree that Jerry, in retrospect, should have covered all bases by posting a Yahoo announcement, but your post creates the impression that you don't fault Mr. Coen equally for failing to cover all _his_ bases and check HSQB before making his announcement. Moreover, all the other factors of the situation point to an error of judgment in stepping on Jerry's toes. They've already been pointed out, but it bears repeating that: 1. The situation was pointed out in multiple polite private e-mails both by Jerry and at least one other concerned attendee of both tournaments. In both cases, they got apathetic replies from Mr. Coen, suggesting a clear lack of respect for Jerry's academic tournament. 2. Jerry's tournament was planned months in advance with substantial editing and writing requirements involved. Since Cancel Bowl is a "guerrilla tournament," or an informal gathering with zero pre-tournament preparation required, it follows that rescheduling Cancel Bowl would have posed far less difficulty. 3. Jerry's tournament featured at least two teams travelling a significant distance. One was forced to make last minute cancellations of flight and hotel plans. As Mr. Coen admitted, in contrast, Cancel Bowl was mostly a bunch of regulars getting together. Again, since rescheduling would have clearly been much less of a burden for Mr. Coen and his field than for Jerry et al, why was Mr. Coen so staunchly against rescheduling? I realize the overlap was minimal, but if we are still going to operate under the belief that trash is somehow part of quiz bowl, shouldn't he be willing to accomodate the possibility of allowing people to play both events even if it only one person wanted to do so (and Mr. Kwartler's post illustrated that multiple teams indeed found themselves in this position after all)? This is especially true since the circumstances of Cancel Bowl, as well as the principle of giving priority to the first date claimant mean that rescheduling the tournament would have incurred minimal hassle on himself and the field. The situation here is that Mr. Coen's actions have brought about an impasse that needs resolution. For the benefit of the circuit, one of two courses needs to be decided. Should we: 1. Continue the status quo of treating academic quiz bowl and trash as part of the same sphere, in which case there needs to be some sincere efforts to ensure that academic and trash events don't upend each other and force people who might want to do both to choose one or the other. If this is the desired approach, then I think Mr. Coen and other trash partisans need to take responsibility for the Cancel Bowl mistake and sincerely make future efforts into accomodating the interests of the circuit rather than sit here feigning righteous indignation against the people they slighted (stepping on Jerry's toes and refusing to budge was your initial attack on academic quiz bowl, guys, let's not try to be duplicitous and cloud the scenario to make it look like an unwarranted assault on trash, because you're not fooling anyone). 2. Gracefully let trash and academic quiz bowl go their separate ways. I'm not just talking about Cancel Bowl butting in on academic tournament schedules, I'm talking about the scenario of teams who ostensibly operate as academic competition teams, yet almost exclusively play trash, eschew academic packet submission tournaments to save money for TRASHionals and trash tournaments, and limit the ability of academically oriented players to participate and improve in academic competition because of a majority preference for trash. Likewise, I imagine there are similar scenarios that go vice versa and perhaps it would be better to make a clear differentiation between the two. Let the academic players have their own organizations and let the trash players set up their own clubs, and let anyone on the fence try both camps without having to be caught in the middle.
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