The quizbowl corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Two answers are
indistinguishable in difficulty to the player who knows absolutely
nothing about either.
The quizbowl corollary to Clarke's Second Law: The only way to truly
discover that an answer is ungettable is to ask a question on it at
some point.
FWIW, I think Charlie Steinhice's "bragging rights" concept is cool.
He also notes which tossups went totally dead at a tournament, IIRC.
Anthony, who vows to never again write another question on which
someone has bragging rights at Trashmasters after having two such in
2000 (mission accomplished in 2001!), but who won't promise not to
spank you on the bonuses
--- In quizbowl_at_y..., kevinatil <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> Admittedly, there sometimes can be cases where even an inexperienced
> writer "should" know that certain clues are easy, such as the main
> character of a movie or the author of certain works of fiction.
> Anyone who is writing a question on a subject which they don't know
> too much about (or on a subject where they don't know too much about
> quiz-bowl-specific chestnuts) will often have trouble writing a
> pyramidal question due to their lack of knowledge.