Despite the context, what follows is I think more a criticism of the quiz circuit itself than of any particular format. If anything, what I'm opposing is something I would have expected a certain flavor of canon partisan also to oppose. Andrew (or Subash? I'm confused) wrote: "Trends come and go, like deep interest in opera (which is being displaced by symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries at the moment) or Norse myth (which is still strong, but losing ground to Central and South American mythology). As people become interested in learning new things, the game shifts with them, which is what makes it enjoyable." What troubles me about this paragraph is the unstated assumption that a single group of people is (collectively) learning things, and that the game shifts with them. Rather, I imagine there exist a lot of people who already happen to know a lot about South American mythology or symphonic music or whatever our circuit's specialties happen to evolve to in any given season. I'm sure some of them might be very amused to see a particular question-writing strain enter or exit their domain. While the knowledge of those who happen to attend a particular set of quiz tournaments may suddenly lurch in a particular direction (not unlike the parents who know a lot about dinosaurs when their kids happen to be a certain age), it seems strange to suggest that this learning is taking place universally. I suppose many people assume that one can make an evaluation of how well-known or obscure it is based on how often it happens to come up in quiz bowl. Unfortunately, the circuit (or at least the set of people who write questions a lot) is still small enough that this can lead to weird distortions, where any particular person, place, or idea becomes over or underrepresented by fluke. Not that this is necessarily a PROBLEM in and of itself, but it's certainly not something that I'd point to as a priori positive. It's easy for someone to read a post like that and infer that quiz players believe the universe revolves around them. :-) Matt
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:44 AM EST EST