Andy -- nice post. "Events of tonight have brought to mind a disturbing thought for me"I'll say at the outset -- I'm not sure what these events are, since the recent posts on this board are few and non-combative. If you refer to another flame war on the mailing list ... well, I haven't been on that for eighteen months, and for exactly that reason. "We as a community -- and I include myself -- harbor some form of festering hatred. ACF people hate CBI people; CBI people hate circuit people; NAQT people dislike ACF's policies; ACF people think NAQT taints the game. (snippage) I know that 90% of the people who play this game play for fun and are friendly to everyone. It's to that goal that I strive; I still play for fun, and my ability to be friendly is at least my goal, if not the result. I wonder why others play. Some for the winning, some for the travel, whatever your reason, is it enough to make you angry?"Often it is. I've been saying for years that some people take quiz bowl WAY too seriously. It usually got me yelled at from all sides! On one hand, without people who took/take quiz bowl seriously, 'the community' would never have advanced beyond playing one Company tournament per year and maybe a few invitationals with bad questions. Various people over the past fifteen years have had the vision that things could be better, and worked to make it that way. Also, it is "just a game" -- but so are intercollegiate sports, and our favorite student-athletes, even those who have NO chance of making big bucks in the pros, take their competitions seriously, so why shouldn't we? I'm not innocent of this, and the reason I retired from tournament play is that I was too competitive and turned into a person I didn't like to be around if things weren't going well for my team. On the other hand, of course, Andy has a point that many people in this community get way too pissed off at (a) minor mistakes by tournament organizers, (b) mistakes by game officials, (c) preferences by tournament officials that differ from their own, etc. We need to remember that in 99.9% of cases, these things are not caused by malice directed towards a particular person or team. Quiz bowl by its nature attracts people who are somewhat eccentric in their interests and preferences. It also attracts people with strong, competitive personalities, who want to display what they know. When you combine these two things together, you can sometimes get conflicts among members of the community. It's almost inevitable -- doesn't make it right, and doesn't mean that grudges should be held, but it will happen. It is a strength of the quiz bowl community that we have several different formats. Through the years, the people I've yelled at the most are those I call Format Fundamentalists -- who defend their particular style of playing the game with religious fervor, who insinuate (or sometimes just come out and say) that if you're not doing it MY way, you're doing it wrong; that the other guy's favorite format isn't the ONE TRUE WAY and PURE PATH to enlightenment, and you might as well be sitting around weaving baskets. Despite my retirement, I still love being around QB. Sometimes two nights a week, I drive 40 minutes each way (uphill, both ways, in a foot of snow) to attend practices, because I enjoy the environment and all but a few of the people. I'll still show up at the occasional tournament as a moderator, because it's fun. "People need to stop being angry. People need to stop holding grudges for actions that occurred months ago. People need to stop playing solely to win, to the point where all else is a disappointment. In short, CHILL OUT!"Seconded. Just a few late-night thoughts from an old fart....Doug
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