Thanks to everyone for their constructive comments. Some responses: 1) Moderation - The moderators did a good job in my view. Some were better/faster/smoother than others. That is the nature of the beast. Everyone should remember that although some money changes hands, invitational quizbowl is essentially an all volunteer organization. The moderators and TDs are unpaid, doing this in their spare time. Moderators and scorekeepers were generally supposed to rotate. Appreciation is appreciated. Constant bickering, bitching, and bemoaning (see the ACF debate - not Deep Bench) does not encourage people to stick with it. 2) Organization - Hindsight is 20/20. With some planning some byes could have been eliminated by moving Grinnell or USD to a different bracket. however that was unknown until the start of Saturday morning due to lack of communication and changes of plans. (I thought they might want to split up and play both brackets). The playing the same team twice was a natural product of trying to avoid forcing another bye on the double bye on blind rounds (excluding the forfeit). See Satiation below 3) Satiation - I have always been of the view that the principle of non-satiation holds in quizbowl, the more the better. We'll take 16 singles rounds to be the limit in the future. Four hours in a row does not seem too long to me, but okay. 4) Lunch breaks. In my ideal world, the idea was to be done an hour earlier (c. 2pm), and then go home or take a break and come back for TRASH at 5pm, rather than a 1 hour break, which is inevitably 90 minutes for the slowest team. As you may have noted, the food options near the building were limited. We had hoped to have a food permit until the day of the tournament we found out no. So sorry no pizza. (But we fed you knowledge) 5) Editing. Despite the deadline, very few packs were in by the due date. Some alternative answers were missed. One or two pronouns led people astray that were missed in playtesting. For that I take full responsibility. However all protests brought to my attention were resolved and reflected in the final scores (though of course none affected the outcome). 6. Vowels and consonents. This is fairly standard that the vowels can be schwa-ed or otherwise butchered unless they are necessary to differentiate (Monet, Manet, Melvin Belli, F. Lee Bailey). How does one pronounce those foreign words? Listen to an Indian vs. a Cockney speak English, its barely the same language, the game must be flexible for all. 7. Linked tossups/bonuses. I think this is such an obvious improvement, I will impose it whenever I have the opportunity. It greatly improves the aesthetics of the game, and others should experiment with it. Clearly how close the TU and Bonus should be linked is an area for debate, but the concept of linking is the way G-d intended it. 8. Lies. This was the real experiment. There was on average 1 per pack. There were some non-standard lead-ins which were in fact true. I don't think this should necessarily become widespread, but I don't know that it shouldn't be repeated either. Thus far the votes are mixed. I'd be interested in hearing the outcome of playing it in practice. If I hear that scientists discovered another constellation in someone else's pack however, I will know its been plagiarized. 9. Questions will shortly be posted to qbtrade. You can investigate the lies yourself. More members are welcome <a href=http://groups.yahoo.com/group/qbtrade target=new>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/qbtrade</a> We currently have 7 tournaments up with a few more to go. So for the price of one tournament you get at least 7. -- dml
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