What this all boils down to is the fact that everyone involved in this process is human. About the only way you could ELIMINATE repeats altogether would be to take all the packets, stick them in a hella long word document, and search for every answer or common link between tossups, and with 280 tossups and more bonuses, this would take the greater part of forever to achieve, and I don't know about you guys, but if I had to do it I'd probably end up with a big bald spot on the front of my head and some hair in my hands. We're all fallible, that's just how it goes. I have an anecdote for this: My high school (Parkview in Lilburn, GA if you really want to know) holds an annual JV tournament, and my senior year I wrote every single worksheet and probably 75-85% at least of the tournament myself, with contributions by the coach and some of the other players to fill in the holes I left in subject matter. We proofread every question and bonus and worksheet, and one little error slipped through. On a worksheet which was (unfortunately) used in a playoff round, the answer key was incorrect, I had written down Hindu Kush as the answer to Khyber Pass, an honest mistake. A team in the playoffs lost by ten points, and screamed bloody murder that the answer on the worksheet was wrong. However, as per standard rules in Georgia, worksheets are nonprotestable and, for an obvious reason, the answer key isn't given out until after the tournament, but the moderator, a dear friend of mine, gave them the answer key. For the rest of the year that team referred to me as "Khyber Pass" because I made one minor mistake that cost them the match. Honestly, they should have slaughtered the team they were playing, and considering the number of opportunities to gain 10 points in the round I can't be held solely accountable for that error. However, to this day, every once in a while I will be reminded of an error I made over a year ago that cost one JV team a quarterfinals match in a single elimination tournament. That worksheet had been checked by four people, including our resident geography guy, who could probably school 99% of college players in geography his sophomore year of high school, and we missed it. Things move on. Let's hold back the criticism of Kelly until we've developed a plausible and flawless algorithm for editting packets. Since I've just become a lightning rod for criticism myself, I would ask you to please refrain from comments about my mama, questions about my intelligence or family lineage, and pointing out that there are no women at Georgia Tech. Stephen --- In quizbowl_at_y..., ratatosk22 <no_reply_at_y...> wrote: > Kelly wrote, regarding constructive criticism: > > > In closing, I'd like to say something about constructive criticism. > > To me this implies that the one doing to criticism provide at least > > an idea of how these problems should be fixed. I would encourage > all > > of you reading this to return to the above 5 sections, and ask, > what > > could I have done to improve the situation, and if you have any > > possible solutions, please let me know, as I am planning to do this > > again next year. To me, the criticisms in Mr. Fine's post were > > directed at things were the result of unavoidable human > imperfection > > or things that could only be changed by creating greater problems. > > Any posts or emails proposing constructive solutions will be read > > with great interest by me. > > > > That's fair enough, and I admit I did miscount the number of packets - > - it was 15. > > I thought I did provide some constructive criticism, but I missed > some points, so here is what I meant to write: > > 1. On "recycled subject matter," look at the packets. Eliminate one > or two of the references to Poe, for example, and replace them with a > couple famous, gettable authors missing from the set, such as > Faulkner or Hemingway. > > 2. On bonus parts, eliminate really obscure answers, and attempt to > create an easy-medium-hard difficulty spectrum. I'm sorry Seth, but > we spent about ten minutes in my 400 level European art history > course on Mengs, so he is hardly ACF Fall material. > > 3. On the use of five editor packets out of 15, I'll take your word > that the submissions were poor, but I know that in my experience > editing for the Terrapin, I kept at least part of every packet (some > from less experienced schools) that I received by five days before > the tournament, save one, and in that case, I would have created a > 17th packet by combining it with a packet I received from Mike Usher, > were a 17th packet necessary. I think one or two more packets should > be created next time, given the number of submissions received. I > also suggest combining packets from schools; were the submissions so > poor that you could not have saved at least a third of each packet, > and then wrote a few filler questions where needed? > > 4. Pyramid structure is a matter of opinion, so I'll withdraw there. > > 5. On errors... I'm glad you sent the packets out the Sunday before > this weekend, which makes sense. Why was I able to find five easily > correctable factual/structural errors off the bat, then? Stating > that Paz was a South American author, I agree, is not a big deal. > Eliminating a bonus part without replacing it is another matter; I'd > have to believe someone would have caught that within 5-6 days. So I > guess a more careful reading of the questions is necessary. > > -Adam
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