It didn't ship yesterday. I swear this is software release is a breach baby.

If you thought I was running short yesterday, today is nothing. Thankfully we've got a triple open mike night: Allison sent a link to her take in to me while MattW and Mark sent in via the email. First Matt, 'cause he hit the inbox first.

I know that NAQT's difficulty has gone down since 1999
from reading and then playing their sets. I know that
ACF's difficulty has gone down since 2000 from same;
the spring 2001 regionals and the 2001 fall tournament
were perhaps as close to perfect difficulty as packet
submission can get. Invitationals remain all over the
map: I wrote perhaps the most accessible invitational
packet of my life, a freelance round for GWU's
tournament, in between writing rounds for the
intentionally challening Bongo. If I personally can
switch difficulties when my purpose requires it, then
I'm sure that entire tournaments can do the same.

The idea that difficulty in general is still rising is
not the only misconception in the discussion; another
is the assumption behind that statement, that
difficulty is the major factor in retaining new
players. There are loads of teams out there who keep
upwards of five freshmen a year, including some teams
who seek out harder events--Michigan and Maryland
being the most obvious examples. Giving people a good
atmosphere, providing insight and resources on how to
be either a casual or a dedicated player as each
individual might wish, and above all treating freshmen
with respect is of the utmost importance. The biggest
problem with the rise of grad students is not an upset
to competitive balance; it's a widening of the age gap
between the elder people on teams and on the board and
the newbies, leading to lots of patronizing or
insulting comments. It is never appropriate to tell
someone that their opinion is invalid because they are
younger or less experienced than you; argue the
merits. Likewise, coddling your freshmen by taking
them to tournaments which do not represent what
quizbowl is all about can only lead to a shocking
discovery as they find themselves playing Chicago on
an Anthony de Jesus packet as sophomores. The approach
from the teams with good track records on recruiting
seems to be, teach freshmen to write, but only require
it a few times a year. Don't prevent them from going
to a difficult or competitive tournament if they want
to. If they say something stupid, correct what they
said, but don't tell them to shut up until they're
seniors.

The most important factor in continuing growth,
besides bringing in new players and new teams, is
creating new writers. Teams with good writers can do
this by teaching internally; new programs will need
the help of tournament editors or nearby volunteers.
It's often proposed that editors at submission events
should issue specific comments to each team about
their packet, yet I've heard of this happening only
once in the past two years (this year's Cornell
tournament.) It should be widely encouraged--perhaps
highminded programs could offer entry discounts to
anyone who hosts a commented submission tournament
during the same academic year. New, more detailed
documents on writing to complement the excellent
Michigan guidelines should be proliferated to teams as
well, along with a range of sample packets from all
common formats and difficulties.

I remind everyone yet again that three and a half
years ago I was struggling to put up 20 points a game
on high school questions. All I've done since then to
improve is write questions whenever possible (as well
as read more respectable literature, but I probably
would have done that anyway). I've never used
flashcards or lists and I rarely read reference books.
Improving to at least an average level in college is
not difficult for those who are motivated, and I think
with the few small changes above we can make the game
more welcome both for those people and for people who
just want to play the questions without working.

In the larger picture, we probably all need to start
being more "professional," as painful as that will be.
I've been told by the TD that there is a possiblity of
a certain upcoming tournament for which people have
purchased plane tickets being cancelled. Routinely,
tournament directors write finals packets during lunch
or make up tiebreakers on the fly. Tournaments are
announced mere weeks in advance, rendering teams
unable to present yearly budgets in the fall. If we're
ever going to achieve the levels of funding and
respect that similar academic club activities (chess,
debate, model UN) get from their schools, then we will
need to start acting like them. They know their own
rules, they know not to act like they're doing people
a favor by taking their money, they are experienced in
seeking funding, and you will never see someone
attempt to end a dispute on a chess mailing list by
posting "it's just a game so it doesn't matter." I
believe that activities can both "be just a game" and
"matter." Until more of us do, we will not be taken
any more seriously than we take ourselves.
--Matt Weiner


I’ll take a stab at this.

Quick personal background: With the exception of one or two years as an undergrad, when the BU program was crawling out of the primordial ooze, I’ve been involved in some sort of quiz bowl-type pursuit since 1982 (yikes!), starting in eighth grade and not looking back. Over the last 5 to 7 years, I’ve taken on more of an advisory role with college teams (BU and, now, Babson College) and am involved in one of the question-writing ‘businesses,’ TRASH. I still play, generally only trash.

I think about why I’m still involved with this pursuit, and it involves three things:

1. I still like to play. It’s a reasonably healthy outlet for my competitve nature, and one that doesn’t necessarily become harder as I age. I find the information interesting, and like to see where the breadth and depth of my knowledge lies.

2. I like the people. My usual trash teammates are among my best friends. The folks I work with for TRASH are fun to interact with, be it over email as we get questions ready or at tournaments (TRASH or otherwise). A bulk of the other people who play this are also fun to hang out with, even if I don’t see or talk to them regularly.

3. There’s a lot of room for individual accomplishment, achievement, and growth. You can become a better player, question writer/editor, found a team, lead it, and so on. There’s never a shortage of opportunity for folks who want to get deeper into the pastime.

The problem I see with quiz bowl’s future is that the first two points, which are probably common for most players, are being met less and less. I’ve never been much of a quiz bowl theorist, but I’ll try to ascribe reasons as best I can.

Enjoyment of the game requires, I think, a certain level of familiarity with the material. Losing when you recognize all 20 tossup answers is easier to take than losing when you recognize, say, half that. It doesn’t mean that all 20 tossups have to be obvious, written from the World Book questions. One could write a very challenging pack where answers would include, say, George Washington, Macbeth, and oxygen.

But that doesn’t happen. Or at least not as much as one would hope.

Some argue that there’s an arms race going on regarding question difficulty. Not sure if that’s necessarily the case; looking at some recent packs, I see more recognizable answers than say from 1997. I do think, though, that there’s a lasting effect whereby questions with ‘obvious’ answers aren’t looked upon as quality.

The problem, for me at least, is that there’s little intermediate quiz bowl. You’ve got junior birds for new players, while packet submission invitationals seem to cater to the experienced player. If you’re in the middle& well, there’s not much out there.

To my mind, this discourages the casual player, who could be the core of a huge expansion in quiz bowl. Craig mentioned beer league softball, and without taking it to that point (though we’ve all kidded about having to chug after missing questions), and thinking about the teams I’ve been involved with, there’d be great interest in a level of competition for the casual player.

Consider my new team at Babson. Babson is a business school, and while there are liberal arts and science requirements, they do not lend themselves to the sort of depth much of quiz bowl requires. It also means we don’t have the ability to get a cross-section of majors to put together on one team.

Playing on standard invitational questions is a challenge for Babson students, in that they don’t take advanced classes in literature, chemistry, physics, history, etc. It’s discouraging when, in practice, we go 5 or 6 questions with answers no one in the room other than I have heard of (and for me, only heard of because of experience, not knowledge).

I suppose I have two ideas for keeping the game enjoyable on this level-

1. Bringing back what some would consider over-used subjects, but with new facts. I think I see this happening a bit, but not enough to see it as a movement.

2. Making quiz bowl tournaments more like high school debate tournaments, where teams are grouped into novice, intermediate, and varsity levels. There is a practicality issue here in that you may need three sets of questions, one for each level. You could write one set for novice/intermediate and one for varsity, as NAQT has done in the past. In any case, offering opportunities aimed at specific skill levels will help players decide what they want from the experience. Casual players can stay in intermediate competition, while folks looking for a more hardcore experience can move up to the top level.

I don’t see the latter happening, but the slow grown of division 2 brackets is a start.

The biggest problem with quiz bowl comes from my second point- there are a number of people who make the quiz bowl experience less than fun. It’s actually not a ‘number’ as much as a small group whose vocal nature gives them influence beyond what would be expected and whose abrasive personalities turn off even experienced players.

It’s this group of people that dominate the Yahoo! group and generally act as beknighted members of the community. In many cases, their Platonic ideal of quiz bowl (shared or not) blinds them to the limitations that ideal places on growth. In many cases, this ideal seems to be that all events would be organized and written such that the winning team would go X-0, the second place team X-1, and so on. Questions would be written to reward depth of knowledge only.

Should quiz bowl come to this, it’d be a very small circuit. I’m sure they’d be very happy, but they’d also be very insular and not particularly friendly to new folks outside of the very determined or the very arrogant.

Which leads me to a side issue. Whenever this topic comes up, about the personality of quiz bowl, someone inevitably says that quiz bowl is, at its heart, elitist, and that explains why people act the way they do.

Bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, BULLSHIT.

Quiz bowl can cater to elite ‘competition’ without the rudeness that seems to attach itself to high levels of play (or people who think they play at a high level, or who see themselves as some sort of pivotal member of the community). I can’t say why there seems to be this corollary, perhaps it’s related to self-esteem or fear that the ‘common folk’ will take over what the ‘nerds’ have built for themselves.

What I can say is that acting like an ass, in person, at a tournament, or on a public forum like the Yahoo! group isn’t the way to develop a healthy, growing pursuit. I will say that, with both teams I’ve been involved with, it allows for a certain level of comic relief. But I think the long life of the BU team is due, in large part, to the success they’ve had catering to a wide array of skill levels. They’ve stayed involved in all major formats because they appeal to at least some sector of the team.

Given both where questions are going and the public ‘face’ of quiz bowl, I’d have a hard time seeing where growth is going to come from. I’ll take New England as an example. Over the past 10 years, there have been only five truly stable programs ‘ BU, Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, and Williams. Recruitment ebbs and flows, but unlike the mid-1990s, you don’t see teams that can send 3 or 4 teams to a tournament regularly. Yale gets props for coming back from the dead (there was a big chunk of the 1990s where they weren’t around), and probably are more stable at this point than, say, Williams.

But there aren’t many new schools. Brandeis, Wellesley, and BC are as close to ‘new’ as you get. Had I not come to Babson to work, the students here who have started playing never would have started on their own. Much of this is getting the word out to programs on how to start, but there’s not much out there to support the new teams and keep them going. Certainly getting involved and getting the perception that college bowl is all about being an annoying font of obscurity doesn’t help.

I don’t know if I’ve made much sense here. I definitely feel that there’s a problem, and don’t know if I’ve best expressed where I think it’s coming from and what it may do to the future of quiz bowl. I tend to think that there is a possiblity for quiz bowl to embrace a variety of skill levels and interests, but it may not happen because of a cadre of true-believers who draw the focus towards their specific idea of what quiz bowl should be all about. There’s no sense of inclusion, and without that the rank and file aren’t going to stick around.

Mark Coen
Residence Director
Office of Campus Life
Babson College