AI-generated summary of Usenet

An AI (Claude) wrote this page from a local archive of the Usenet newsgroup alt.college.college-bowl (1993–2003). It is not a QBWiki article. Nobody at QBWiki, and none of the people it mentions, has reviewed it, and it may get facts, dates or emphasis wrong. Claims are footnoted to the original posts on Usenet Rewind, and quoted posts are shown word for word from the archive: check those before relying on anything here.

alt.college.college-bowl FAQ

From Usenet Quizbowl Annals · AI-generated summary of Usenet
alt.college.college-bowl FAQ
EditorsPat Matthews (1993 – May 1996); George Atendido (from May 1996)
First posted4 September 1993
FrequencyMonthly, with companion postings
Size1,562 lines (January 1996 edition)
Distributionalt.college.college-bowl; news.answers from May 1996; a web version by 1997
CompanionsCollege Bowl and ACF question-writing guides; contacts list; tournament list

The alt.college.college-bowl FAQ was the frequently-asked-questions document of alt.college.college-bowl. Edited by Penn's Pat Matthews from 1993 to 1996 and by Minnesota's George Atendido thereafter, it explained College Bowl and ACF to newcomers, compared the two formats, pointed readers to the packet archives and, from 1996, recorded national champions. It went out every month together with a small set of companion documents — two question-writing guides, a contacts list and a tournament list — which together made up most of the shared written infrastructure of the early-1990s college circuit.

History

The group's founder, Joel Furr, asked for FAQ volunteers on 23 April 1993, five days after announcing the group; Jennie Rosenbaum volunteered Matthews.[1] An anonymous Michigan poster asked again in May.[2] Matthews offered to build it in June,[3] and it arrived on 4 September 1993, with nine named contributors, in the first of the monthly batches.[4] Revised versions followed in September and December.[5] In December 1993, when a news administrator questioned whether the group deserved to be carried, the FAQ, the contacts list and the guides were cited as its justification.[6]

The January 1994 edition listed eleven contributors;[7] the edition posted on 3 February 1995, last changed on 12 January, credited twenty.[8] The January 1996 edition ran to 1,562 lines and came with a changelog;[9] because the archive is missing almost all of 1995 after March, it is the only source in the archive for that year's national champions, including Harvard's double.[10]

In May 1996 George Atendido took over, issuing version 2.0b1 and cross-posting it to news.answers;[11] Atendido's status note at the end of August listed the summer's changes: NAQT, CBI's new web site and policies, and the spamming that had followed the winter's events.[12] In November 1996 Rob Hentzel, posting a newsreader filter that discarded anything cross-posted to more than two groups, remarked that it was a sad comment that such a thing belonged in the FAQ.[13] By 1997 Atendido maintained the FAQ on the web.[14] In March 1999 a "New FAQ" announcing the group's rebirth was swamped by cross-posters within four days.[15]

Contents

The FAQ's best-known section was its comparison of College Bowl and ACF, which grew out of a table Peter Freeman wrote for a newcomer in the group's second week.[16] It also carried information on Freeman's anonymous-ftp packet archive at Chicago, which held sold sets back for a year.[17] Some of its early statements were later disputed. The 1993 FAQ described ACF as founded "a couple of years ago" by mostly southeastern schools and called 1993 the first ACF national championship, while other posters credited earlier ACF events; and it named the organization the Academic Competition "Foundation", while Swisdak's guidelines said "Federation".[18] By 1996 it recorded national champions year by year and noted changes such as the expansion of the Honda Campus All-Star Challenge to 64 teams.[19]

Companion postings

Question-writing guides

The Stanford College Bowl question-writing guide, by Doug Bone, David Frazee and Chris Golde, was posted on 19 July 1993;[20] Marc Swisdak's ACF Question Writing Guidelines followed on 8 September, and a revised version 1.5 was appended to the Terrapin Invitational announcement that November.[21] Both went out with the FAQ each month.

Contacts list

A list of college programs' e-mail contacts grew from Matthews's April 1993 "email Project", Patrick Friel's compilation that July and Matthews's monthly versions;[22] Darrell Frye and Jonathan Rowell took it over in 1994.[23] In November 1996 a troll's "Dork watch" appeared to reuse it as a list of mailbombing targets (see Meow Wars on alt.college.college-bowl).

Tournament list

Matthews's running calendar passed to Maryland's Mike Starsinic in 1994,[24] and in 1996 to Yale's Samer Ismail, whose College Tournament List was compiled with UMBC's Jonathan Lazar.[25]

See also

References

  1. ^ Joel Furr, “FAQ Organizers requested”, alt.college.college-bowl, 23 April 1993 [Usenet Rewind]; Jennie Rosenbaum, “Re: FAQ Organizers requested”, alt.college.college-bowl, 23 April 1993 [Usenet Rewind].
  2. ^ Anonymous Michigan poster (as "Nigel the Lemur"), “FAQ”, alt.college.college-bowl, 3 May 1993 [Usenet Rewind].
  3. ^ Patrick G. Matthews, “Frequently Asked Questions list”, alt.college.college-bowl, 17 June 1993 [Usenet Rewind].
  4. ^ Patrick G. Matthews, “FAQ monthly posting”, alt.college.college-bowl, 4 September 1993 [Usenet Rewind].
  5. ^ Patrick G. Matthews, “FAQ monthly posting”, alt.college.college-bowl, 29 September 1993 [Usenet Rewind]; Patrick G. Matthews, “Alt.college.college-bowl FAQ”, alt.college.college-bowl, 2 December 1993 [Usenet Rewind].
  6. ^ Charles Robert Odell, “Re: alt.college.college-bowl”, alt.college.college-bowl, 4 December 1993 [Usenet Rewind]. Lines 19–25.
  7. ^ Patrick G. Matthews, “Alt.college.college-bowl FAQ”, alt.college.college-bowl, 2 January 1994 [Usenet Rewind]. Lines 4–7.
  8. ^ Patrick Matthews, “Alt.college.college-bowl FAQ”, alt.college.college-bowl, 3 February 1995 [Usenet Rewind]. Lines 0–9.
  9. ^ Patrick Matthews, “Alt.college.college-bowl FAQ”, alt.college.college-bowl, 10 January 1996 [Usenet Rewind]; Patrick Matthews, “changes to the FAQ”, alt.college.college-bowl, 10 January 1996 [Usenet Rewind].
  10. ^ Patrick Matthews, “Alt.college.college-bowl FAQ”, alt.college.college-bowl, 10 January 1996 [Usenet Rewind]. Lines 1237–1266.
  11. ^ George Atendido, “College Bowl FAQ, v. 2.0b1”, alt.college.college-bowl, 23 May 1996 [Usenet Rewind].
  12. ^ George Atendido, “About the Alt.College.College-Bowl FAQ”, alt.college.college-bowl, 31 August 1996 [Usenet Rewind]. Lines 17–18.
  13. ^ R. Robert Hentzel, “Killfiles for 'rn'”, alt.college.college-bowl, 11 November 1996 [Usenet Rewind].
  14. ^ George Atendido, “Big-Endian | about the Quiz Bowl FAQ”, alt.college.college-bowl, 30 March 1997 [Usenet Rewind]. Lines 7–12.
  15. ^ Daniel W. Beshear, “New FAQ”, alt.college.college-bowl, 10 March 1999 [Usenet Rewind]. Lines 0–13.
  16. ^ Peter Freeman (as "it's enrico palazzo!"), “Re: How to participate in ACF??”, alt.college.college-bowl, 27 April 1993 [Usenet Rewind]; Patrick G. Matthews, “FAQ monthly posting”, alt.college.college-bowl, 4 September 1993 [Usenet Rewind]. Lines 97–212.
  17. ^ Patrick G. Matthews, “FAQ monthly posting”, alt.college.college-bowl, 4 September 1993 [Usenet Rewind]. Lines 576–665.
  18. ^ Patrick G. Matthews, “FAQ monthly posting”, alt.college.college-bowl, 4 September 1993 [Usenet Rewind]. Lines 32, 70–74, 773–774.
  19. ^ Patrick Matthews, “Alt.college.college-bowl FAQ”, alt.college.college-bowl, 10 January 1996 [Usenet Rewind]. Lines 307–333.
  20. ^ Patrick G. Matthews, “Question writing guidelines”, alt.college.college-bowl, 19 July 1993 [Usenet Rewind].
  21. ^ Marc Swisdak, “ACF Question Guidelines”, alt.college.college-bowl, 8 September 1993 [Usenet Rewind]; Vishnu Jejjala (as "Spinoza's God"), “TIT Final Announcement”, alt.college.college-bowl, 8 November 1993 [Usenet Rewind].
  22. ^ Patrick G. Matthews, “The College Bowl/ACF email Project”, alt.college.college-bowl, 20 April 1993 [Usenet Rewind]; Patrick G. Matthews, “Contacts”, alt.college.college-bowl, 11 August 1993 [Usenet Rewind].
  23. ^ Jonathan Tyrone Rowell, “Contacts List v11.94”, alt.college.college-bowl, 14 November 1994 [Usenet Rewind].
  24. ^ Michael Denton Starsinic, “Official Tournament List, v. 2.00”, alt.college.college-bowl, 5 September 1994 [Usenet Rewind].
  25. ^ Samer Ismail, “COLLEGE TOURNAMENT LIST, v. 1.0”, alt.college.college-bowl, 15 July 1996 [Usenet Rewind]; Samer Ismail, “1996-97 TOURNAMENT LIST, v1.1”, alt.college.college-bowl, 1 September 1996 [Usenet Rewind].