Saying that the TD and editor are to blame for subquality questions is surely too "black-and-white." At an invitational tournament, the teams have a responsibility for submitting the best packet of questions that they can, not merely throwing together however many questions in the two days before the packet deadline. The TD and editor then have the responsibility to ensure that those questions are turned into the best edited set of questions possible. Is it the responsibility of the TD and editor to write new questions, if needed? Perhaps. Would it be their responsibility to write the whole tournament if none of the questions were written satisfactorily? Absolutely not. Penn did not agree to write a tournament; it agreed to host an invitational tournament. Therefore, responsibility for quality must be divided between the attending teams and the host. [Many teams turned in packets late, mine included. As a result, my team forfeits its right to complain about the quality of the questions.] Now, as to the actual editing of the questions: I respectfully disagree with Mssrs. Goodman and Hamilton about the nature of the questions. With a few notable exceptions (e.g., the cricket tossup), there were very few hiccups in the packets as they existed, and most questions were well edited for inclusion in a timed tournament. There was a suitable variety in subject material and difficulty. This brings me to my last point: question quality is certainly a subject of personal taste. Some people are I'm sure ACF devotees; others prefer NAQT; some may even like CBI. This just goes to show that everyone's opinion is subject to their own tastes--and are colored by their own experiences. So, to offer a few thoughts. 1. If people have constructive criticism to offer, go ahead. It will offer valuable guidance to everyone. If it's just griping about sour grapes, find some other way to vent frustrations. 2. If people want better questions at tournaments, everyone has to play fairly: questions need to be submitted on time, and should be edited BEFORE they are submitted. [Submitting questions with spelling and grammar errors is frankly unfair to the editors, since they need to waste time correcting "mechanical" aspects of the questions instead of improving the "content."] 3. Remember: everyone's opinion counts, but in a tournament, the TD's opinion counts more. :-) So if everything isn't done to your satisfaction, and you think you can do better, hold your own tournament. 4. In a philosophical sense, Penn Bowl is more than any old tournament--it's three hundred people coming together for a weekend and doing something they enjoy--and nobody's getting a paycheck for it. And anyone can attend, so long as they agree to play by the rules. --AEI
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