I have truly enjoyed being tournament director for Penn Bowls 10 and 11. Unfortunately, a problem that has been around for the last few years has not been resolved. Quite simply, the problem is this: to take the questions we receive and make them into the questions used the last two years takes an incredible amount of time. I would estimate it took well over 100 hours--perhaps 200--for PB11, and most of that was by me alone. [Largely because much of the work had to be done over the Christmas break, and because after editing close to 10,000 questions over the years, it would take a relatively inexperienced editor much longer.] Most distressingly, a disturbingly large amount of that time was spent on two things: * Correcting typos and factual errors. [One particularly memorable tossup from PB11 contained no fewer than four separate factual errors.] * Shortening questions for the clock. [In some cases, this meant trimming 30-50 words from individual questions.] * Performing question triage: on average, about 1/3 of the questions we receive would have to be completely rewritten to be useable, and some packets are almost completely unusable. While I will still be around a while longer, I will have more commitments in the future than I have before. And while my teammates could certainly take up at least some of the slack, the PADT next year will be as young as it has ever been (about 3/4 of the players next year will be freshmen and sophomores). This poses a particular problem in that most younger players don't have enough experience to determine if a clue or question is inappropriately easy or inappropriately hard. I do believe that a tournament like Penn Bowl--even with the existence of TRASHionals and the ICT--still serves a purpose: a tournament where anyone who wants to compete can do so. But the ~status quo~ *has* to change next year. In other words, what I'm saying is this: the ~status quo~ *has* to change next year. My question is this: what should be done? I can think of a number of solutions, some of which can be done together, and some more drastic than others: [1] Enforcing higher standards on packet submissions. Unfortunately, I see no good (or fair) way of doing this; if anyone does, I would be glad to hear of it. [2] Significantly reduce the amount of editing done on each packet. [The net result of this WYSIWYG (What You Submit Is What You Get) approach would be both reduced entry fees and, I suspect, increased shame on the part of question writers.] [3] Making Penn Bowl an untimed tournament. This would alleviate the necessity of editing for style, and it would cut down on the *number* of questions required of each team, but let me state right now that the length limits would *NOT* be altered. [One of the reasons is that Penn requires us to have a security guard on site for the duration of the event.] [4] Finding another team, or teams, with experience editing tournaments, willing to help out in return for a share of the net proceeds. [5] Similar to (4), except hiring experienced freelance editors. [6] Reduce the field to the size of a typical tournament, which would alleviate the pressure of coming up with 20+ rounds' worth of questions. [We prepared as many questions for PB11 as NAQT did for the SCT.] [7] Not run Penn Bowl this year, or perhaps stop running Penn Bowl altogether. [We could run a HS tournament or two with far less effort and make about the same amount of money; a number of coaches have asked me why we don't.] If you have any input at all on this matter (whether it's a recommendation of one of the above, or another suggestion that I may not yet have considered), please feel free to e-mail me at <samer_at_...> or <pennbowl_at_...>. I want to do what's best for the circuit as a whole on this issue, but to do that, I need to know what people on the circuit want. :-) I hope to hear from many of you over the coming days and weeks. --STI
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