Eric:
"A writer for us could conceivably
screw up and submit something to us that he or she had
also submitted to ACF, due to poor recordkeeping or
something"
I think I've seen incidents of this--the 2000 SCT
had one or two questions which I think had been
submitted to an earlier tournament. One began with a
specific gravity of heavy water (the answer was Heavy
Water). I believe it had also been used in an eastern
tournament previously in the year. I remember mentioning it
at the time.
The other things which I've
noticed is that variants of the questions used at the ICT
and SCT are put into the high school/invitational
packets you distribute. Although tossups/bonuses are
usually mixed, there tend to be some very similar
questions. This comes as no surprise given the limited
number of writers, but it does convey a slight advantage
on those who've recently played/perused those easy
packets. This isn't plagarism certainly by my estimation;
but it might lead to that deja vu feeling that the
question had come up.
I do appreciate the personal
and technological effort NAQT goes through to make
sure that questions stay unique.
Jer