I still don't know where I stand on the use of
linked bonuses, but there are at least two issues that
need to be addressed if they are going to be used
again:
1) Wild disparity in how connected the bonus was to
the toss-up. Whether you think that they should be
closely connected or not, there needs to be some standard
across toss-ups and across packets. This was not done at
this tournament, possibly because of the novelty of
the practice.
2) What I found more egregious
was the use of (normally) non-giveaway clues as
give-aways, used because the give-away clues were answers to
the related bonus. The worst offender, to my mind,
was the question on Wim Wenders whose bonus contained
the answers "Buena Vista Social Club" and "Wings of
Desire". It is telling, I think, that in our game against
Stanford A, both teams sat blank-faced through the entire
question, and after I buzzed with the correct guess, the
people who knew about Wenders' work seemed upset. (If
the bonus was not so closely linked, this wouldn't
have happened. Perhaps something to keep in mind when
considering point 1?)
Juliana