Re: Hosting fake tournaments on days that real tournaments have already claimed

mattweiner_vcu <*mattweiner_vcu_at_mattweiner_vcu.yahoo.invalid*> · Tue, 21 Mar 2006 23:38:26 -0000

--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "Sean Phillips" <allythin_at_...> wrote:
> OK this is where I start to take issue.  You of all people should 
> know to gaurd against the fallacy of hasty generalizations.  Since 
> when were "architects and players of trash tournaments" a separate 
> breed sworn to destroy "real tournaments"?

I'm asking if this is the case.

> The nature of these 
> three questions are so and laughibly condescending at best and 
> wholly ignorant of reality at worst that response to them directly 
> is virtually impossible.  The Cancel Bowl people screwed up.  BIG.  
> Do not impute the blame and public shaming they should justly 
> receive to the rest of us who play trash or run trash tournaments.  
> We are not our trash brother's keepers.

I'd like to believe that, but you can see the cascade of trash people
posting here to go crazy about "pissant forums" and my attitude toward
Sword Bowl and the price of jackfruit in Denpasar and all sorts of
other super-irrelevant things. Instead of being either apologetic or
wondering what a different trash tournament's actions have to do with
them, which seem like the only reasonable options here, some trash
people are cheering on the impolite behavior and getting defensive.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to ASK whether there is a
significant anti-academic agenda at work among SOME trash players,
given that this is not the first instance of an academic tournament
coming under direct assault from a cadre of people who turned out to
be entirely trash-exclusive players.

As far as impoliteness goes: Actions speak infinitely louder than
words. I could make a thousand flame posts to this board and it
wouldn't be as bad as the real harm that Cancel Bowl did in the real
world to Brown's tournament. Turning the politeness card around is
just defensiveness on the part of the Cancel Bowl supporters, who
thusfar have responded only with half-truths and indignance and have
not even offered so much as an apology. Some rudeness, that.

And please don't put any curses on me or academic quizbowl,
"September"! I don't know what we would do.