John Nam notes: << What's the big deal? It seems to me that someone is overly concerned with a perceived conflict of interest, when everyone in the know knows that the qb mailing lists have been run and moderated by R. from Day 1, and that he also is one of the powers-that-be of NAQT. I for one am grateful that there is a forum which announces all this stuff, and that R. has put in his own time and effort into moderating the list and getting a replacement list going when his iastate address stopped working. >> If I recall the timetable correctly, R first formed the mailing list groups before becoming in the head position of NAQT. While I know I had some problems with the appearance of conflict of interest at that time with R being moderator, these concerns did not sufficiently concern me as the mailing lists were set up and associated with Iowa State where he had been previously affiliated, and they had particular guidelines which R had to agree to in order to form that mailing list group (which I also presume is a maintained affiliation with the university, but I don't completely know about how it works at Iowa State, and that isn't salient to my point). That being the case, the fact that sign-up and access to the new proposed mailing list requires that one register an email address with an NAQT server gives NAQT a decided advantage in disseminating information about its tournaments at both the college and high school level. It also forces people who wish to know more about the HS circuit to perceive NAQT as being the only sanctioned program run by college-program alumni (to declare my own potential conflicts in this argument, PACE being the non-profit entity to which I am a part). Furthermore, it may be very awkward for people affiliated with other question-writing companies and organizations (such as College Bowl, ACF, TRASH, Chip Beall, Quiz Prep or whatever) to send out email with a reply back to an _at_... mailing list address. If it were any other company, let's say with _at_... addresses, with Mr. Reid being the moderator of the group, I know there would be an uproar. The differene in the outrage may be over the personality and company overseeing the mailing lists, but the structure of the perceived conflict of interest is identical. I agree with John that Rob has done us a very great service by establishing these mailing lists, that there is a forum to discuss issues and to announce tournaments; the time that R has spent doing this is very well appreciated, and by all means, I do not mean to imply he's anything less than a person with whom I completely respect with his integrity and fairness, if not his timely responses to questions I had brought up last week to everyone. But I do think there is a danger of having it all set up through an _at_... address that in the long run will further blur the lines between NAQT's influence over the QB and HS-QB communities. The problem to me is a perceived conflict of interest by setting up the mailing lists with _at_..., not on R's ability to moderate them (although I would also like to see a second moderator assist him to further water-down any potential conflicts of interest). And it is to that question that I bring up my concern.
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