Difference between revisions of "Playing under a pseudonym"

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(rewrote article to make it suck less and be accurate more)
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This term is pretty self-explanatory; the practice of '''playing under a pseudonym''' occurs when a team or individual player decides to register/play under a name which is not their own. This may include various mononyms, names of historical figures, or even mere [[in-jokes]]. Notable infamous examples of quizbowl pseudonyms include [[Basileus]].
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Sometimes teams play under pseudonyms in hopes of preventing schools from realizing they are violating school rules and/or in hopes of reducing or eliminating their school's liability for problems at tournaments at which they are improperly supervised. Occasionally the purpose is just to be "funny".
  
==Players playing under pseudonyms==
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In the early and mid-2000s, sometimes individual players played under pseudonyms to be "funny", to facilitate [[Basileus|cheating]], or for other reasons. Sometimes player pseudonyms were rotated among teammates within a tournament to render individual statistics irrelevant. Both of these practices have largely died out.
Players who use pseudonyms might do so for a number of reasons. They might think it's funny for a personal reason or, more rarely-- and perhaps more scandalously, might also be trying to hide their actual identity for more suspicious purposes...
 
 
 
Many players/coaches/etc. who oppose playing under pseudonyms don't like it because it can result in a lack of complete or even reliable summary of statistics for a player, as it is impossible to determine what the actual identity of a pseudonym-using player was based solely on their stats entry. Even if the team of the pseudonym-using player is known, it is still very hard to track their identity down. Thus, some consider it a hallmark of '''[[bad quizbowl]]'''.
 
 
 
==Teams playing under 'pseudonyms'==
 
Teams might do this for numerous reasons, including that the team might not be officially sponsored by the school they ostensibly represent. Teams that have done this include [[Hotchkiss]] (who currently play as "[[Team Coldhug]]"), [[Millburn]] (who have played as "Team Low Mountains"), and [[Whitney]] (who have played under the name "Goldenrod"). Unlike individual players, usually, for a team to play under a 'pseudonym' is generally '''not''' considered [[bad quizbowl]].
 
 
 
==Players playing under given name only==
 
Playing under one's first name only (or first name plus last initial) doesn't count as a pseudonym because it essentially constitutes a failure to properly sign up with complete information, ''not'' a deliberate attempt to hide one's name for a specific personal reason.
 
  
 
[[Category:Quizbowl lingo]]
 
[[Category:Quizbowl lingo]]
[[Category:Quizbowl Lore]]
 
 
[[Category:In-jokes]]
 
[[Category:In-jokes]]
 
[[Category:Bad quizbowl]]
 
[[Category:Bad quizbowl]]

Revision as of 19:09, 13 May 2019

Sometimes teams play under pseudonyms in hopes of preventing schools from realizing they are violating school rules and/or in hopes of reducing or eliminating their school's liability for problems at tournaments at which they are improperly supervised. Occasionally the purpose is just to be "funny".

In the early and mid-2000s, sometimes individual players played under pseudonyms to be "funny", to facilitate cheating, or for other reasons. Sometimes player pseudonyms were rotated among teammates within a tournament to render individual statistics irrelevant. Both of these practices have largely died out.