Fort Osage Novice Set (FONS)

The Fort Osage Novice Set (colloquially referred to as FONS) was a set marked for novices produced by Fort Osage High School beginning in 2015-2016 season.

Distribution

Each packet is 21/20, with one tossup serving as a tiebreaker, and was distributed as follows:

• 4/4 History/Social Studies
• 4/4 Literature
• 3/3 Science
• 3/3 Geography
• 2/2 Fine Arts
• 2/2 Religion/Mythology
• 1/1 Math/Computer Science
• 1/1 Current Events
• 1/1 Trash

One will note that this also adds up to 21 bonuses - to reach 20, one bonus from either literature or history/social studies was removed.

The 2018 iteration of the set (FONS IV) added an additional science tossup, raising the distribution to 22/(21 minus 1).

Reception

FONS is best known for its poor reception with the community. By the third iteration of the set, it had acquired a reputation for poor editing, an unorthodox distribution, overshooting its difficulty, and overall poor execution.

Josh Malecki, coach for Fort Osage, was the sole editor for the set and responsible for many of the unusual choices that the set had taken: the 3/3 geography distribution was chosen because "geography is something that EVERY kid has had by their Sophomore year" (a claim that Andrew Wang succinctly described as "extremely 'not true'"), and the lack of philosophy was because "[Malecki] would not touch Philosophy with a hundred foot pole". Despite continued criticism of the set's production, no additional editors were ever obtained and there were only marginal improvements in quality in each subsequent iteratios of the set.

Above: FONS III: packet 2, tossup 14

Perhaps the most infamous individual question from the set was one in FONS III whose answerline conflated the MoMA and the Met, two different art museums in New York City.

The Death of FONS

In 2019, FONS V was announced. It was the first iteration of the set to have a second editor, with Fort Osage player Aidan McWilliams sharing duties with Josh Malecki. Several outside parties were recruited as additional help in ensuring the quality of the set.

On July 20th, 2019 Malecki announced that FONS V would be shut down, issuing a final note on community criticism by linking the "It Just Doesn't Matter" speech from Meatballs. In response, Joe Feldman linked a clip of Amy's Baking Company and stated "screw you too. FONS won't be missed."