On Repeats There has been a lot of bemoaning the fact that some questions are "repeats'. I edited a tournament where 4 perfectly good Richard Feynman questions were submitted, leading me to conclude Feynman was about 0.25% of human knowledge, (as well as three RSA questions.) What should be done (kill 3 of them, kill all 4 of them, let them stand)? There are several problems which should be disentangled: Issue 0: Identical Questions (Plagiarism, data management problem, or cut and paste error) Clearly this is a mistake that must be eliminated. While learning in a tournament is a good thing, (a) learning facts rather than question phrasing would seem more important, and (b) learning of this sort shouldn't really be rewarded until the next tournament. Issue 1: Repeated Clues Even non-identical questions on the same topic may repeat clues. At a minimum, the duplicate clues should be stricken for reason (b) above. Issue 2: Repeated Answers Repeated answers however may have distinct clues. Numerous people, places, and things are important enough to be able to write non-repetitive questions about them. By forewarning players that you have eliminated repeated answers from the tournament, you are in fact making getting other answers easier ... it's a Dutch lens-grinder, but they asked Spinoza earlier, only 6 left. Obviously question-writers shouldn't insert repeated answers into their rounds, on the likelihood it wouldn't be a "balanced" pack, but if a repeat answer appears in a subsequent pack, why must the editor replace it? -- dml
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