Protectiveness over Resources

[EastStroudsburg13]

Random Human

Have approval from East...?

This is the kind of thing that started this thread. Please try to keep relevant. If you read East's post, you should respect that you should not be posting messages like that. There is already this forum (where we stand with supporting open test exchanges) and facebook (where I assume most test exchanges are in more closed groups).

Uhhh... No like East told me specifically on pm that we are allowed and able to start a test exchange on another website. Anyone interested?

I think his point was that discussing the organization of such things on this thread derails the general purpose of this thread. And while you're definitely allowed to do whatever you want on an external site, we won't necessarily be thrilled about it. Contributing to public resources will always be preferred and encouraged.

However, it seems counterintuitive that only top-tier teams trade with other top-tier teams; that's a conflict of interest. Many smaller teams strongly benefit from test trading as it forgoes the conflicts of interest for the bigger teams.

Agreed, the majority of teams that I've traded with have been teams looking to improve or on the verge of qualifying for Nationals - more advantageous for both of us than trading with teams that we're likely to compete against.

This is a fair point. I would be interested in seeing a distribution of what teams are active in private trading, based on tiers (e.g. nats elite, nats regular, nats contender, state regular, state contender, regionals regular).

[knottingpurple]

The one time I think some form of private exchange is absolutely necessary is for tryouts. Maybe other schools are different, but we often have some of our team captains not make the States or Nats teams, so they can't write the tryout tests because how would we compare their scores, then? Even if we have captains write the tests for our first round of tryouts at the beginning of the year, it's difficult because they don't know all of the events, and some of their tests won't end up as great quality. So I guess what I want when I think of an exchange being private is for it to be only accessible to captains - for practice, printing the public test exchange is great but that would defeat the purpose of tryouts if we did it. But even the tryout exchanges we've done with other captains where we've all written tests, while there are some good tests there are also bad ones, and it's difficult to tell until after you've graded a few and discovered things in the answer key which don't make sense. So that's why I really like being able to trade for invitationals tests, from invites we didn't attend, which aren't publicly available. Since you didn't go to the invite, nobody on the team has already taken the test; if it's a test from a Nats-level, well-regarded invite, you can trust the quality; since it's supposed to be a private test, people can't find it online somewhere else.

I guess I never felt with private test exchanges that the goal was to keep tests away from other teams or something. If every school's captains submitted a test to the captain's tryouts exchange, it wouldn't make the exchange worse! There'd just be more tests to choose from! And for exchanges we do for practice, it's a bit like the public exchange on here, where having all the tests on the public test exchange is only useful to people who actually print them out and take them. I think there doesn't need to be quite so much hiding of every single test - but for tryouts, at least, there need to be some tests which aren't accessible to everyone, which are known to be good quality.

[syo_astro]

I'm just going to post here...while the other thread has been raising some informative points that interest me, I don't want to get things more heated...

In my limited 5 minutes, some clarifications from what I said before:

2. See #1; I meant that kind of mindset, and how you shouldn't have that kind of mindset.

Don't worry about it, sorry I was confused! It happens on the internet. That did clear things up, though, I still suppose mixed mindsets can get complicated as I think I said before. Words are fine as long as we use them respectfully .

You can never have enough tests- ever. I've personally done about 40 or so sets of Materials Science tests. I have also written too many tests (they start to get formulaic after a while). It is in my very honest opinion that with anything of value, an economy starts. At that point, every person (or team I guess) is for themselves. There's nothing preventing lower-tier teams from trading materials and whatnot (I have personally seen teams that don't get out of regionals have very devoted captains that obtain over 20 sets of tests). However, it seems counterintuitive that only top-tier teams trade with other top-tier teams; that's a conflict of interest. Many smaller teams strongly benefit from test trading as it forgoes the conflicts of interest for the bigger teams. Countering that point would be the fact that most top-level teams raise enough funds to travel and afford each invitational, allowing them to trade out of state to also forgo that conflict of interest. Sure, creating a set of tests on maybe SOUP or PUSO level is difficult, but reaching out to those alumni or even the veterans here can be really helpful and a way to write that set of tests. Every team is interested in a set that can help their team, which gives that set of tests value.

TLDR; Just write a bunch of tests if you can't attend invitationals. Writing tests is also a form of preparation as you get into a test-maker's mind! I know more teams than I have fingers that have written invitational level tests (some even have written 3 sets!). It all depends on how much you're willing to give to upgrade your team.

I won't deny that tests are a useful resource. But as you say, when you get to 40 tests there tends to be repeat information. Direct practice is important, but information can obviously be learned in lots of ways. Investing in test collection is not a waste of time, but an infrastructure focusing on getting everyone 40-50 tests...can only be so useful. This isn't so much to do with private v. public exchanges, just on (scioly) learning practices.

While there's nothing *explicitly* preventing new teams from trading, new teams *inherently* don't necessarily know how to access various resources as well (see the other thread, it's discussed more there...). You're right, it's not that experienced teams don't want to trade with new teams, but it's good to understand how networking...works (you address that in what you say about invites I think). This is good to see when you get to leadership / mentorship roles and need to question the goals / purposes of what you're doing, especially beyond just competing and winning. I do like that you discuss both sides, though!

It is interesting to view this all from an economics perspective (as I see from posts). Trying not to add another rant in support / against, it seems like that has been done multiple times. I'll just summarize that one aspect of all of this is about how resources should be spread (it could be an endless debate, but it is a way to state assumptions surrounding learning and competition, which should be understood well), and another (mimicking pikachu) is about the general attitude / environment this creates.

...Uhhh... No like East told me specifically on pm that we are allowed and able to start a test exchange on another website. Anyone interested?

East already gave a good explanation. Sorry about the confusion. I sometimes see that discussions / debates go off topic, and I like to try to mediate that when I'm aware of it.

[WhatScience?]

"While there's nothing *explicitly* preventing new teams from trading, new teams *inherently* don't necessarily know how to access various resources as well"-syo_astro

Come on, how much are schools involved in this. Type in "science olympiad "on google and this forum is the fifth entry. After that just search this forum for the keyword test. You would find out about the test exchange on the wiki and the private one on Random's site.

How hard is it?

Due to random's forum, trading for tests privately has gotten exponentially easier. So being protective over resources is fine. If people work, they will get there anyway.

[whythelongface]

"While there's nothing *explicitly* preventing new teams from trading, new teams *inherently* don't necessarily know how to access various resources as well"-syo_astro

Come on, how much are schools involved in this. Type in "science olympiad "on google and this forum is the fifth entry. After that just search this forum for the keyword test. You would find out about the test exchange on the wiki and the private one on Random's site.

How hard is it?

Due to random's forum, trading for tests privately has gotten exponentially easier. So being protective over resources is fine. If people work, they will get there anyway.

I thought that we came to the universal agreement that advertising Random's forum on this forum is frowned upon due to the inherently different philosophies of the two sites.

[WhatScience?]

"While there's nothing *explicitly* preventing new teams from trading, new teams *inherently* don't necessarily know how to access various resources as well"-syo_astro

Come on, how much are schools involved in this. Type in "science olympiad "on google and this forum is the fifth entry. After that just search this forum for the keyword test. You would find out about the test exchange on the wiki and the private one on Random's site.

How hard is it?

Due to random's forum, trading for tests privately has gotten exponentially easier. So being protective over resources is fine. If people work, they will get there anyway.

I thought that we came to the universal agreement that advertising Random's forum on this forum is frowned upon due to the inherently different philosophies of the two sites.

I didn't mean it as advertising and I guess I should stop mentioning it. However, the forum is a very relevant point when discussing if one should protect their resources.

[syo_astro]

I didn't mean it as advertising and I guess I should stop mentioning it. However, the forum is a very relevant point when discussing if one should protect their resources.

This has been discussed at length elsewhere and is not really relevant to what *I* said. I was also bolding "materials" to emphasize that I mean resources in general. That one sentence is not completely clear, but please read the rest of the paragraph as the context is very important.

Most of what I said did not discuss about test trading anyway. Please don't distract from the many points by focusing on a particular issue that is of strong debate. This isn't an attack, I'm just trying to prevent misunderstanding what I said after the previously heated debate.

Really: Much of that post was a clarification for what I said previously. I have been very busy, and I just wanted to fix some of what I said before, along with adding a bit of discussion that I hope would be interesting...

[Skink]

I apologize in advance for necro-ing this, but this particular subject is near and dear to me seeing as how I got in trouble here some seasons ago for seeking private test exchanges in my signature, something that I had thought was totally innocent. The argument went that this (very common practice both on-and-offline) ran contrary to the goals of scioly dot org and that I wasn't welcome here should I continue. I stopped, obviously, but the real question is what happened in the (now many) years since. A few observations:
1. Teams are still regularly not populating the test exchange; this is not a new phenomenon. Folks pay to attend invitationals with the understanding that they come out with so-and-so many tests for their use. They don't generally want them circulating. Heck, they don't want them circulating to other teams in attendance at the same tournament, even, which is why many invitationals still struggle to build a full test bank afterwards.
2. I receive a PM every now and then randomly seeking a private test exchange. I've done it once or twice when the benefit was mutual. I sometimes exchange with other local schools, but this is a time-consuming, effort-intensive process for very little gain.

When I was younger and newer to this, I believed that the most useful event preparation was precedence; that is, whatever was on the last test is the best predictor of the next one. "Study old tests!" was the mantra. That could not be further from the truth. The event rules and overpreparation rooted in those (something that, I'd argue, this site does stand for) are the best predictors of event success. What I have come to believe, then, is that old tests really aren't worth all that much. I don't bother scanning and archiving invitational deals anymore because...what's the point? If folks have the time to go back to them, they have time for more focused preparation (including more studying, preparing their own questions, or working out of textbook end-of-chapter problems, which tend to be better-written than what you see at average invitationals). Plus, for any well-designed laboratory event (which is, what, half of the non-build events these days?), you probably don't have the exact same set-up (or know what it was in the first place), anyway. In addition, then, I have stopped bothering with test swaps, private or otherwise. My teams don't substantially benefit, and I certainly don't want them for anything anymore.

Having said that, even though my position on this has matured over the years, I implore everyone to not judge those who do actively engage in private event swaps. They're not anti-freedom of information; it's just not expected that teams populate the test exchange heavily. Count the number of invitationals per year. What proportion actually get uploaded and archived to the public test exchange? A very small one. Thus, teams who want more tests have to work within those limits; trades are a good way to get what they want while gaining the interest of others enough to put the time investment into a team that isn't theirs.

That's not to say that it's a bartering market, either, though. If you ask for something specific (and singular), in my experience, folks are generally willing to lend an ear and a hand. One of the cornerstones of this program is networking, the familiarity and mutual respect that comes from seeing the same people at tournaments many times a season and many years in a competitive career. For example, if you want a Herp test, I don't know too many people who would actively blow you off. It helps to build a relationship first, though. And, the more you know somebody, the more likely you are to do full-invitational private swaps. Personally, I don't see anything harmful in that.

[Unome]

That's not to say that it's a bartering market, either, though. If you ask for something specific (and singular), in my experience, folks are generally willing to lend an ear and a hand. One of the cornerstones of this program is networking, the familiarity and mutual respect that comes from seeing the same people at tournaments many times a season and many years in a competitive career. For example, if you want a Herp test, I don't know too many people who would actively blow you off. It helps to build a relationship first, though. And, the more you know somebody, the more likely you are to do full-invitational private swaps. Personally, I don't see anything harmful in that.

On this; I think full-set swaps are far more common than you think. I've come across many teams while trading that already have every set I have plus several more (at this point in the season, a "full" collection seems to be around 20 or so sets). I've traded full sets with around 10 or so teams over the last two years, and I'd estimate there are probably a few hundred or so teams fully engaged in trading sets regularly.

[y1008083]

Yeah what unome said is true