*sigh* Well, all of the shots being taken here at my Sectional have inspired me to delurk and say a few words in its defense. Well, actually, this will be quite a few words (split over two posts), so my apologies in advance for its length. (I suppose I should introduce myself, for those of you who don't know me. Hi. I'm Paul Lujan; this is my 4th year of playing for Harvard, and I was the TD of the aforementioned Sectional, which is why I was a bit possessive up there. Sorry about that.) Now, Joon has already made the most important point: namely, that we had 5 people playing on these 3 teams. After all of our best efforts, we were able to get 19.5 people (counting people who were there for half the day as half-people) to help out. This is well short of 33. Even adding in those 5, we're still a bit short. [1] As far as I know, there was simply no way to avoid having some teams scorekeep. And frankly, I don't see why Andy Goss thinks that this is some huge burden. Maybe I'm just weird, but I don't mind scorekeeping in the least. Now, on to some more specific points. * Ahmed believes that the scorekeeping requirements lead to unreasonable delays in the tournament. While I apologize to Ahmed, I must say that his position was not representative -- he was the only moderator in the auxiliary Div I building (which, I might add, was right across the street -- it's not like it was four blocks away) which didn't have a permanent scorekeeper [2], and even this wouldn't have been necessary were it not for a last-minute cancellation; I did try my hardest to avoid that situation for precisely that reason. In my room, at least, it certainly didn't run any later than any typical timed tournament, and from what I heard, things were even better in the Div II building. * The issue of moderator quality is a tricky one, and I know that there were some complaints about some of the moderators. However, all of the inexperienced moderators were paired with experienced moderators [3], which is the best I can do. They had to read because either (a) the experienced moderators weren't capable of reading all 17 rounds, or (b) they had agreed to help because they wanted to moderate. (What am I supposed to do in the latter case, turn them away? I made sure they were trained as best I could.) Keep in mind that if you really want to have experienced moderators always reading, it's not simply a matter of finding 16 experienced moderators and 16 other people; it's a matter of finding 16 experienced moderators who can read all 17 rounds and 16 other people who are willing to only scorekeep. That simply wasn't possible. Anyway, my point here is that even if you added in our five players, you would still have rooms with an experienced moderator and an inexperienced one, and likely the latter would have to or want to read some rounds. It doesn't solve the problem. (to be continued...) [1] A disclaimer which I've buried in this footnote: It wasn't my decision in the first place to field three teams, but I am more than willing to defend this decision, as it was my call in the end that we were capable of running the tournament effectively even with these teams. [2] In the interests of accuracy, I should point out that one of the other rooms in that building was also without a scorekeeper. This was because one of our other members got himself trashed Friday night and didn't show up at all. On the other hand, Peter Freeman handled this so well I didn't even find out until lunchtime. [3] There is the exception of Stephanie and Lisa in the morning (which also wouldn't have been necessary except for that late cancellation -- see a pattern yet?), but I hadn't heard any complaints about that particular room. I could be wrong, though.
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