Why we should move to Protobowl

Given the state of today's Zoom session, I think it would be beneficial for us to move scholar bowl practices to Protobowl. Since anything posted on the GroupMe gets hidden behind other messages, I figured I should type this out. I have a few good reasons for transitioning our practices, and by the end of this document, I think you'll agree with me.

The primary issue with our Zoom practice earlier today was the chaos. Because there were so many unrelated conversations going on between questions, it became hard to understand and answer questions. This led to requests to reread paragraph-long questions, fewer questions being asked, and a generally unclear protocol for answering questions.

Another issue was the answering system. Although Ms. Clark could see who had buzzed first, those who had attempted to buzz could not. In many cases, multiple people would try to answer simultaneously. Even when only one person buzzed, Ms. Clark could not see when someone had buzzed while trying to read the question, so it took an indefinite amount of time before they were recognized. This made the question take longer, which meant fewer questions being read. It also gave an unfair advantage to the buzzer, who could confirm or disprove their guess before answering. Although this had no significant impact on the practice, it doesn't prepare us for tournaments.

The scoring system we used worked, but it didn't operate as well as it could have. Instead of having numerical scores, we had to use tally marks. Ms. Clark had to manually update the scores when we answered questions right. Even though the scoring could have been a lot worse, there is substantial room for improvement as well.

These issues originate from the fact that Zoom wasn't built for scholar bowl. Our practices at school are tailored for scholar bowl. We have buzzers that are supposed to be used in a scholar bowl setting. Using Zoom for scholar bowl practices is like banging on a table to buzz in normal practice: Either way, it gets too chaotic and doesn't work well. However, we don't have to bang on the tables. Even without buzzers, we still have tools available that are made for scholar bowl.

Protobowl provides a solution to each of the problems I listed above. It also has numerous advantages over Zoom. The only feature of Zoom relevant to scholar bowl that Protobowl doesn't have is video. However, video isn't at all necessary to hold practice. In the past, we have done practices on Protobowl. The lack of video communication didn't prevent us from staying on for three hours.

Protobowl allows us to talk to each other without interfering with the answering system. This is because Protobowl has separate channels for answering and communicating. Any discussion that takes place over audio doesn't affect the question. Since the questions are displayed, not read, we are free to talk while the question is being shown. Not only can we communicate better, but we can also answer more easily.

Answering questions is much more convenient with Protobowl. It notifies you if you have or have not buzzed first. This means that there isn't any ambiguity regarding who should answer. And although it doesn't always correctly judge answers, it is generally accurate and solves more problems than it creates.

Protobowl also has a built-in scoring system that automatically updates when a question is answered. There is a very small delay between the buzz and the answer. It takes the responsibility of keeping score off Ms. Clark and allows us to more easily see what the scores actually are.

The last main advantage of Protobowl is that it is designed for scholar bowl. It allows most settings to be customized. Skipping questions, answering again, question speed, question category, and teams are all things that can be adjusted within Protobowl. Because of this, it can be modified to provide the best possible virtual practice we can get.

We would need to make a few changes to Protobowl settings to suit our needs. We would decrease question speed to encourage more thought-out answers and make the questions easier to understand. We would probably disable skipping and try to regulate chat. Protobowl isn't perfect, but it's better than Zoom.

Well, you've made it this far. I hope you agree with me in stating that we should move scholar bowl practices from Zoom to Protobowl. Either way, we have practice, which is a good thing. But I think practice is a lot better using Protobowl. Thanks for reading.

Alex Halbesleben