Contrary to what others may claim, I don't think it is at all presumptuous to say that the primary purpose of such a forum as Yahoo is to provide a way for active tournament players, editors, and hosts to network in order to improve their own experiences being involved with the game. Advertising for and reflecting upon tournaments, discussing gameplay-related theory (yes, this includes format wars, at least when the comments are substantiated with evidence), and soliciting for advice in developing a club should be universally clear examples of what constitutes relevant QB discussion. While game show discussion and clubhouse-style banter may be desirable to some, and can be mildly entertaining in moderation, it can quickly get to the point where it becomes a major distraction from the aforementioned relevant topics at hand. In the case of Ken Jennings and his impressive Jeopardy run, for instance, his being on the show and compiling his famous win streak are newsworthy, but when people start posting frequent updates and commentary on the show, it gets redundant and overshadows legitimate QB discourse (e.g. summer tournament information and the question recently posted by the incoming college freshman). Now even I understand it would be unrealistic to advocate banning all game show/clubhouse chat on the board, because I don't speak for everyone involved in the game who does also contribute to the QB circuit through it. But that notion brings me to the issue of how active involvement in the game is a sort of prerequisite for one's posts to have any merit. One's knowledge and experience of the game, and the effort one puts into it (not PPG!) may affect one's authority on certain specific QB topics, but by and large being an active player or editor is not an unreasonable metric for why other circuit members should take one's posts seriously. That's why, disagree though I may, I'm more interested in hearing the critiques of ACF made by someone like Adelman who does have experience playing and running tournaments and thus does have a stake in how the circuit evolves and how his comments can affect it, as opposed to someone like Knapp, who plays a non-standard tournament 3 years ago, decides to quit playing right there, and lurks on the board posting non sequiturs for his personal amusement. No offense, but there really should not be any objection to the statement this board is supposed to accommodate QB players looking for information and discussion of the game, not Mr. Knapp's desire for personal validation nor spammers who don't care about the state of the circuit at all and just want a few more views for their cheesy game show/trivia website. It's one thing to let near-spam clog up the board, fill inboxes, and ensure that keeping track with recent discussions and announcements and finding older posts in the future will be a lot harder, but to tell QB players trying to engage in QB circuit discussion on the Yahoo QB group to shut up or go elsewhere for the sake of interests like the latter two mentioned is nothing short of absurd. Really, if you must repeatedly tell everyone about your love of game shows or other off topic interests, there's two established QB boards with forum sections specifically for that purpose ( at www.hsquizbowl.org and www.collegebowl.org), that are set up in ways so that actual QB discussion and announcements don't get disrupted and people like me don't complain about excessive off-topic posting. Before I finish, I'll add a few quick thoughts to respond to the latest ACF critiques mentioned. Popularity does not indicate merit (c.f. any book, music, or movie bestseller list). The issue at hand is not just ACF evangelism, but a genuine concern for preserving the quantity and quality of question writers and packet submission tournaments in the face of the proliferation of tournaments run on pre-written high school question sets. Finally, one contributing factor to ACF's lack of popularity is the credence many teams who have never played ACF themselves will give to the inaccurate, outdated assertions that claim ACF only cares about obscure niche knowledge and are spread by equally inexperienced individuals like Mr. Knapp (who has never played an official ACF tournament, to my knowledge). When teams really do buy into this myth and staunchly refuse to try ACF Fall or Regionals (and even circuit packet submission tournaments in many cases) despite editors' earnest attempts to improve accessibility it's not that easy to just sit back and "take a chill pill" when deliberate misinformation is influencing the circuit. P.S. To take my own advice and stop clogging up the board, this is my last post for this netiquette topic on Yahoo. If anyone wants to call me out and debate this further on hsquizbowl or collegequizbowl, I'm game.
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