Protectiveness over Resources

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EastStroudsburg13
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Protectiveness over Resources

Post by EastStroudsburg13 »

I wanted to start a thread outside of the Administrative forums, because I think this needs to be discussed more openly. I also want to get a better sense of what the general thinking of current participants is, as I am admittedly old and the culture of the site has changed somewhat since I was in high school (not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation).

It seems as though there have been quite a few occasions of users being wary or reluctant to participate in the open sharing of resources. This is not necessarily a new phenomenon, and I fully understand the reasoning behind the line of thought; by publishing resources online, you are helping the competition which you must defeat in order to succeed! I can understand this reluctance, and generally in the past people of this persuasion would generally abstain from sharing full files, and just ask/answer questions on forum threads.

Perhaps it's just me, then, but I've noticed a slight change in the rhetoric regarding this philosophy, observed through posts and discussions in both the forums and IRC (so it's not just one person or an isolated incident; I am not trying to call any specific people out). There's been a rise in the idea of private trading and exchanges, almost like a science marketplace. Resources have value, and thus they should be traded for other resources of equal value, otherwise one person in the exchange might be taken advantage of. From a competition standpoint, I understand how this thought arises. Competition is stiff, and resources are important for preparation.

However, this idea kind of loses sight of a large subset of this competition. The Science Olympiad Vision is as follows: "Our vision is to increase K-12 student and teacher participation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM)." The way I think about it, while private exchanges benefit the participants of the exchange, it shuts out those who may not have anything to exchange in the first place. I'm talking mainly about lower-level, new, and growing teams, which is what drives the overall participation in this activity. Higher level teams get the accolades, and deservedly so, but the majority of Science Olympiad teams are not at that level, and are more about letting students explore interesting scientific fields than trying to compete for high places, especially in the more competitive states. In a private trading system, I fear that these teams would get lost in the shuffle.

Now, I think the mission of teams of all levels is valid, and I don't really have a good solution for how to help meet the goals of these varying missions simultaneously. And while I do stay somewhat involved with competitions nowadays, it's possible that there's something I'm missing in this dynamic that does benefit lower-level teams directly that renders this whole discussion rather unnecessary. So I really want to hear from you guys who are still competing about what are your thoughts about these things; should certain resources be protected more, what place should private exchanges have, how do we manage the goals of all teams (and are some goals more important than others, perhaps), etc.

I know this is a lot of text, but I had a lot of thoughts about this and I didn't necessarily want to dominate this thread with constant posts, so here's just one with most of what I've been sitting on. So feel free to discuss amongst yourselves, and I (and maybe you) will hopefully learn something! :)
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Re: Protectiveness over Resources

Post by windu34 »

I definitely agree with you that resources have become privatized. Much of the Scioly community has shifted to Facebook where teams discuss building and studying strategies over Facebook messenger rather than on the forums due to the inherent speed and ease advantages and private trades have become the norm between teams to bolster one another. While I do agree that there is a loss in resources available to others, it has also resulted in the formation of relationships between people all over the country as the personal touch of Facebook connects people to individuals much more readily than that of the forums.
While I also believe that smaller, less competitive teams are being left out, I am also guilty of furthering this during the time I was a competitor and honestly don't see a way around it. Success at nationals has really become a race for resources with so many practice tests available from invitationals these days and there is a clear correlation between practice and rank. As far as builds go, I feel this is less evident. I had no fear of showing my builds and posting pics on the forum because I knew that someone couldnt just rip off my EV or Robot design due to the complexity in the circuitry and programming, however I feel that might change with Mission and Mousetrap being much more physical-oriented.
That said, there are still resources available to lower teams that are extremely valuable and under-utilized: people. in 2016, Nationals but the names of the competitors who had won a medal in the event on the screen and thus it is all available in the awards ceremony video. Immediately after nationals, I went through the video and added everyone I could find who had medalled in my events on Facebook in hopes of learning and it resulted in a huge acquisition of knowledge as well as many friendships that continue to this day despite being on opposite sides of the country. While concrete resources like tests are somewhat privatized, knowledge in the form of wisdom is very available to anyone seeking it and even though most people arent willing to share tests and notes, they are willing to share study strategies and tips so in a sense, the resources havent so much disappeared rather than changed.
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Re: Protectiveness over Resources

Post by Random Human »

EastStroudsburg13 wrote:I wanted to start a thread outside of the Administrative forums, because I think this needs to be discussed more openly. I also want to get a better sense of what the general thinking of current participants is, as I am admittedly old and the culture of the site has changed somewhat since I was in high school (not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation).

It seems as though there have been quite a few occasions of users being wary or reluctant to participate in the open sharing of resources. This is not necessarily a new phenomenon, and I fully understand the reasoning behind the line of thought; by publishing resources online, you are helping the competition which you must defeat in order to succeed! I can understand this reluctance, and generally in the past people of this persuasion would generally abstain from sharing full files, and just ask/answer questions on forum threads.

Perhaps it's just me, then, but I've noticed a slight change in the rhetoric regarding this philosophy, observed through posts and discussions in both the forums and IRC (so it's not just one person or an isolated incident; I am not trying to call any specific people out). There's been a rise in the idea of private trading and exchanges, almost like a science marketplace. Resources have value, and thus they should be traded for other resources of equal value, otherwise one person in the exchange might be taken advantage of. From a competition standpoint, I understand how this thought arises. Competition is stiff, and resources are important for preparation.

However, this idea kind of loses sight of a large subset of this competition. The Science Olympiad Vision is as follows: "Our vision is to increase K-12 student and teacher participation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM)." The way I think about it, while private exchanges benefit the participants of the exchange, it shuts out those who may not have anything to exchange in the first place. I'm talking mainly about lower-level, new, and growing teams, which is what drives the overall participation in this activity. Higher level teams get the accolades, and deservedly so, but the majority of Science Olympiad teams are not at that level, and are more about letting students explore interesting scientific fields than trying to compete for high places, especially in the more competitive states. In a private trading system, I fear that these teams would get lost in the shuffle.

Now, I think the mission of teams of all levels is valid, and I don't really have a good solution for how to help meet the goals of these varying missions simultaneously. And while I do stay somewhat involved with competitions nowadays, it's possible that there's something I'm missing in this dynamic that does benefit lower-level teams directly that renders this whole discussion rather unnecessary. So I really want to hear from you guys who are still competing about what are your thoughts about these things; should certain resources be protected more, what place should private exchanges have, how do we manage the goals of all teams (and are some goals more important than others, perhaps), etc.

I know this is a lot of text, but I had a lot of thoughts about this and I didn't necessarily want to dominate this thread with constant posts, so here's just one with most of what I've been sitting on. So feel free to discuss amongst yourselves, and I (and maybe you) will hopefully learn something! :)
Cough me cough ;)
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Re: Protectiveness over Resources

Post by EastStroudsburg13 »

Random Human wrote: Cough me cough ;)
Yeah, I know the timing isn't great, but I'd been thinking about it for a while, and as I was making the response in Feedback I thought "I should expand on my thoughts about this, but not here." I apologize if you felt singled out, that was not my intention and I don't blame you for looking for opportunities to get resources. It's really more of a cultural phenomenon.
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Re: Protectiveness over Resources

Post by WhatScience? »

I know for a fact that part of what drove you to the point of making this post would be my words/actions on the Anatomy forum

First, I am not offended and am glad that you expressed their opinion on this matter. If you are brave enough to say it, many others must feel it.

However, I want to point out that there is no school advantage in this system. I come from an average school. The school provide you with little support in terms of resources. The season has not even started yet! Still, I work and take notes all on my own. If someone form a newer school did that, I would be more than happy to trade with them. As you said earlier, everything depends on the effort put in.

Nobody should just give up every advantage that have. However, if you work hard enough, anything is possible, no matter the school.
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Re: Protectiveness over Resources

Post by sciduck »

WhatScience? wrote: [T]here is no school advantage in this system. I come from an average school. The school provides you with little support in terms of resources. The season has not even started yet! Still, I work and take notes all on my own. If someone from a newer school did that, I would be more than happy to trade with them. As you said earlier, everything depends on the effort put in.
While this is true for personal resources like notes and personally made tests, most of the exchanges (at least that I've seen) are for invitational tests. This inherently gives an advantage to the better/richer schools who have the money and commitment to attend more invitationals.

So, if you're from a school that doesn't go to any invitationals, all you have is the test exchange. And if you want more, you would have to write an entire test set to trade for each new one. It would be way easier for those people if others uploaded more tests to the exchange.
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Re: Protectiveness over Resources

Post by Unome »

sciduck wrote:
WhatScience? wrote: [T]here is no school advantage in this system. I come from an average school. The school provides you with little support in terms of resources. The season has not even started yet! Still, I work and take notes all on my own. If someone from a newer school did that, I would be more than happy to trade with them. As you said earlier, everything depends on the effort put in.
While this is true for personal resources like notes and personally made tests, most of the exchanges (at least that I've seen) are for invitational tests. This inherently gives an advantage to the better/richer schools who have the money and commitment to attend more invitationals.

So, if you're from a school that doesn't go to any invitationals, all you have is the test exchange. And if you want more, you would have to write an entire test set to trade for each new one. It would be way easier for those people if others uploaded more tests to the exchange.
I can provide evidence to the fact that it is possible to acquire a dozen or more invitational sets starting out with only one invitational set, in one's first year of trading, because that is exactly what I did last year. Of the tournaments we attended, only Brookwood gave back tradable tests - I acquired another ten or so sets just starting with that in January. While multiple invitationals are obviously better, it's far from impossible to trade well with a small number of sets.
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Re: Protectiveness over Resources

Post by sciduck »

Unome wrote:
sciduck wrote:
WhatScience? wrote: [T]here is no school advantage in this system. I come from an average school. The school provides you with little support in terms of resources. The season has not even started yet! Still, I work and take notes all on my own. If someone from a newer school did that, I would be more than happy to trade with them. As you said earlier, everything depends on the effort put in.
While this is true for personal resources like notes and personally made tests, most of the exchanges (at least that I've seen) are for invitational tests. This inherently gives an advantage to the better/richer schools who have the money and commitment to attend more invitationals.

So, if you're from a school that doesn't go to any invitationals, all you have is the test exchange. And if you want more, you would have to write an entire test set to trade for each new one. It would be way easier for those people if others uploaded more tests to the exchange.
I can provide evidence to the fact that it is possible to acquire a dozen or more invitational sets starting out with only one invitational set, in one's first year of trading, because that is exactly what I did last year. Of the tournaments we attended, only Brookwood gave back tradable tests - I acquired another ten or so sets just starting with that in January. While multiple invitationals are obviously better, it's far from impossible to trade well with a small number of sets.
Maybe I just wasn't proactive enough, but I often found myself unable to trade until I got the next invitational's test back because everyone had all the tests I had. I guess timeliness and being comfortable reaching out to stragers would help?
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Re: Protectiveness over Resources

Post by WhatScience? »

sciduck wrote:
Unome wrote:
sciduck wrote:
While this is true for personal resources like notes and personally made tests, most of the exchanges (at least that I've seen) are for invitational tests. This inherently gives an advantage to the better/richer schools who have the money and commitment to attend more invitationals.

So, if you're from a school that doesn't go to any invitationals, all you have is the test exchange. And if you want more, you would have to write an entire test set to trade for each new one. It would be way easier for those people if others uploaded more tests to the exchange.
I can provide evidence to the fact that it is possible to acquire a dozen or more invitational sets starting out with only one invitational set, in one's first year of trading, because that is exactly what I did last year. Of the tournaments we attended, only Brookwood gave back tradable tests - I acquired another ten or so sets just starting with that in January. While multiple invitationals are obviously better, it's far from impossible to trade well with a small number of sets.
Maybe I just wasn't proactive enough, but I often found myself unable to trade until I got the next invitational's test back because everyone had all the tests I had. I guess timeliness and being comfortable reaching out to stragers would help?
No matter the invitational problem, you could write a test and have exchanges with others doing your event. At the end of the day, if you have a specific question or want to learn more about a specific part of the parameters, scioly.org is perfect.

If you want a basic-moderately advanced understanding, check out the wiki.

If you truly want to go far and get something that requires a ton of work, you need to start looking out for your self. For example, I put in 20 hours over the course of 5 days, as fast as I could go, on my respiratory system notes of Anatomy. I am not going to give those away for nothing. That means all the work I put in is useless. I am more than happy to help someone out with something specific, but if you want a true treasure, at least come to the table with SOMETHING.
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Re: Protectiveness over Resources

Post by JasperKota »

WhatScience? wrote:If you truly want to go far and get something that requires a ton of work, you need to start looking out for your self. For example, I put in 20 hours over the course of 5 days, as fast as I could go, on my respiratory system notes of Anatomy. I am not going to give those away for nothing. That means all the work I put in is useless. I am more than happy to help someone out with something specific, but if you want a true treasure, at least come to the table with SOMETHING.
A lot of times people trade for whole sets of tests - not sure how many out there can make 23 invitational-quality tests. Even then, there might not be a whole ton willing to trade tests from invites for something homemade. Trading notes is a lot rarer than test trading, the only time I've seen notes exchanged was during SSSS. Most people are in search of tests, though occasionally there's that post asking for people's notes.
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