Well, my observation was that traditionally trash and academic tournaments have been placed under the same umbrella, with the circuit operating accordingly. Examples would be the way in which quiz bowl clubs generally function to fund, host, send players to, and practice for both academic and trash tournaments. Another would be the way in which the message boards have been set up to accomodate announcements and discussion both for both types of tournaments. The implicit expectation would be that by having the same origins, trash and academic tournaments would respect each other's right to exist, e.g. by not scheduling events on top of one another, drawing teams away and forcing them to make the choice between one or the other. I realize this practice has been just as much (if not moreso) for the practical reasons of attracting the most teams as it has out of any understanding of a social contract, but the effective result has been that in claiming a date in advance, a tournament host (trash or academic) should be able to safely assume that any other potential tournaments will not interfere with the process by scheduling against it, and should a schedule conflict arise, the one claiming the date earliest would be entitled to deference. That's been the precedent, and it seemed to work well enough. The reason people have been getting worked up about Cancel Bowl is that it damaged that assumption. Brown's prior claim was not respected, even after it was pointed out, the apparent lack of interest in accomodating Brown, demonstrating any concern for how the scheduling affected them and and other teams, and providing assurance that these mistakes won't happen in the future, has been unsettling. I know all of us will move on just fine, but it's annoying that an academic tournament director now has the additional worry of whether or not a trash tournament may come out of nowhere and impose on his tournament and the potential attendees. In my suggestion of perhaps divorcing academic and trash tournaments, my proposal would be that teams and directors seriously consider pursuing their respective interests independently. For example, a club could split into separate academic and trash organizations, each with its own funding source, membership list, practice schedule, etc. and that way if even one person wants to focus on academic, he could do so and recruit others to go to tournaments rather than sitting at home while his teammates spend their money on TRASHionals (and vice versa again). If there isn't going to be respect for the aforementioned social contract between trash and academic tournaments, is there a reason that they should be drawing from the same pool of resources, players, etc. Tl;dr: Point 2 reflects the status quo, but Cancel Bowl's violation of point 2 raises the question of whether point 1 should become the new status quo. I hope that help clarifies things a little. --- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "Kristin Sausville" <kristin.sausville_at_...> wrote: > > What I'm not understanding is this: > > The people determined to forge a rift between "academic" and "trash" > tournaments seem to be making two points; namely -- > > * "Academic" and "trash" tournaments are completely separate entities, as > far apart as east and west, to the point where it borders on inappropriate > even to discuss the two in the same context. > * How dare there be an "academic" and a "trash" tournament in the same > vicinity at the same time. > > Don't these two points contradict each other? > > Kristin Sausville > --OMG, I'm a dinosaur! > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >
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