<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> If teams want to see examples of how not to run a tournament, and how to squander more packets than any other TD could possibly dream to work with, all they have to do is think back to Penn Bowl 10. Maybe Penn shouldn't attempt to hold a 64-team tournament if they don't have the sufficient resources to do so, instead of churning out the same inferior product year after year. Sheer inertia and the opportunity to see teams from different areas of the country are the only reasons many teams come back. At least we got a nice break from playing during the great packet mixup after being hurried through a half-hour lunch on Saturday. If Penn had put half as much time into editing the questions as they did in making computer graphics and pretty typesetting, maybe it would have been a good tournament. Our team only got through 15-16 questions in several rounds because the the questions weren't edited properly for a timed tournament - too much unnecessary verbiage and long bonus intros. At least in an untimed format, you're guaranteed to get through 20 tossups and bonuses. But, hey, it's penn bowl, so no one expects a decent product anymore. <<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I haven't seen a more brazen criticism of a tournament. I ask the question; have you ever edited a tournament this big before? What kind of product can one expect when running a tournament this large? Can your expectations of this tournament be up to the standard of a small tournament? Lets give a little license to the folks from Penn. I have no doubt that they did their best at providing a good product. Certainly the packet mixup was a problem, but it was a mistake common to many tournaments. Most times, it is unavoidable in relation to a large tournament. Computer Graphics and type-setting take 10 minutes of one's time - it is not at all time consuming. Additionally, in our experience, none of our rounds heard less than 18 tossups, and in only 2 cases, we heard 19 tossups. In two other instances, we heard all 28 tossups. Finally, in all of our rounds, both teams combined never scored less than 300 points, and in most cases teams scored over 400 points. In rounds we scored both scored less than 300 points, we both had poor bonus conversion. For you to make the accusation that Penn did not take the time or effort to edit packets, or make an attempt to edit the packets to proper length is baseless. What do you know about the original packets submitted? How do you know how much effort they put in? You assume too much. Its also insulting to a team I respect for its effort in organizing a tournament of this size, to which some lessons we will take to heart this coming April. Finally, and most importantly, it is not Penn's fault for having poor questions - it is the responsibility of the question writers to provide questions that fit timed tournaments and provide quality questions, not the question editors. If you submit bad questions, and everyone else submits bad questions, editing can only do so much to improve the situation. The blame, therefore, rests primarily on us, for continualy providing poor questions for packet-submission tournaments. If you felt the questions were poor to begin with, look at yourselves and see where you can improve. It will help a lot in future Penn Bowls and in other packet submission tournaments. Sincerely, Jason Paik Washington University in St. Louis
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