[Hunt03] 2004 MIT Mystery Hunt

["Mark Gottlieb" <timhunt earthlink net>]

Hi all. I talked to one of the Mystery Hunt organizers this morning, so in
this email I will a) pass along facts, and b) rebut Eric's recent message.

There was a rumor circulating that the Hunt organizers were applying to MIT
for funding. This would turn the Hunt into an official MIT-sponsored
activity, which would result in restrictions on the percentage of non-MIT
students who could participate. This rumor is partially true, but not in
any way that would affect us. The Hunt organizers applied for, and
received, $600 in MIT funding. There are resultant restrictions that
dictate a high percentage of student participation ON THE TEAM RUNNING THE
HUNT. The restrictions do not apply to any of the teams playing in the
Hunt. This will perpetuate: if a team running the Hunt wants MIT funds,
they must meet MIT restrictions. However, as always, the Hunt is open to
everyone.

There was a rumor circulating that there would be a team-size restriction.
This is false. It was perpetuated by people who are not running the Hunt.
The idea was considered by the organizers so they could combat the
team-size and puzzle-number inflation that threatens to crush the Hunt, but
they realized it was unenforcable and against the spirit of the Hunt.

There is NO restriction whatsoever on team size for the 2004 Hunt. However,
the website states "Optimal size is at least 10-15 team members, with
plenty of MIT student participation." What does this mean? For one thing,
there is a push to include more MIT-specific puzzles. (Of course, every
Hunt organizer says that.) For another, there will be puzzles that, in the
words of the organizers, will be more painful the more team members you
have. The guy I spoke to (David) didn't want to go into specifics, for
understandable reasons. I don't know what this will entail, but it's
clearly meant as a balancing mechanism. The advantage a team gets for
having large numbers will be counterbalanced to some extent by a
numbers-based negative.

What does that mean for us? Unclear. Eric, you state that the goal of your
team is to have fun. The Hunt organizers are clearly stating that having an
excessively large team will impinge on your fun. Are the penalties they're
building into their Hunt enough to balance it? Does it mean the largest
team no longer has the largest advantage? Does it mean that the largest
team is still the most likely to win, but will just have a more unpleasant
time doing so? I don't know. The team captains have a responsibility to the
Hunt organizers to play by their guidelines, as well as a responsibility to
their team members to provide the most entertaining time possible. You'll
have to figure out how best to do that.

In my conversation, I mentioned that us NPL folk aren't the only ones with
gigantic teams. They know. The all-MIT teams who are even marginally
competitive have swelled to tremendous proportions because that's the only
way they could compete with *us*. So those teams might have a difficult
transition too. I urged David to post more supporting arguments for why
15-member teams are optimal; without actual evidence, I don't think anyone
will actually believe them. I also asked him to explore the possibility of
facilitating team-building. If we take the Hunt organizers' message to
heart and split into smaller teams, a number of outsiders will have a
problem. I love ACRONYM. But if Saxifrage decides that the team's got to
split, I have no problem taking some of my friends (for example, Slik,
Amanda O'Connor, and I'll fight each and every one of you for Zack Butler),
joining a group of enthusiastic MIT students who would welcome
collaboration with some top-notch solvers, and creating a new team. One
problem: I no longer know any MIT students. And I'm one of the people on
this list that's an alum! The Hunt organizers don't want to disclude
anyone, so they're thinking about that.

I hope that makes things a lot clearer. If you'd like to communicate with
the Hunt organizers yourselves, write to puzzle mit edu. They phoned me
cross-country within a day of my email. If you want to communicate with me,
feel free to do so at timhunt earthlink net, mark gottlieb wizards com, or
(425) 687-1598. I expect to be in communication with the Hunt orgainizers
again, and they recognize me at this point as a way for them to contact the
NPL community. They had heard rumors of dissent and were worried about
Eric's threats, though they had no direct information until I talked with
them. We ALL want to make the 2004 Hunt a great experience for everyone; we
should work together to make sure everyone has a good time.

Mark/Wombat


I'm going to take the rest of this email to directly rebut Eric's message
from a couple of days ago, which made me absolutely livid. Eric has had
more history with the Hunt than any of us, so I was shocked to see the
complete lack of reverence, gratitude, or sense of history he displayed.

Eric: "I was fully prepared to have our team opt out and instead *run* our
own Hunt during IAP"
How dare you? This is a clear threat that could destroy the Hunt as we know
it. You owe the Hunt a lot more than that. I heartily encourage you to run
a weekend-long team puzzle event in the Boston area... IN MAY. It would be
great! It would be lots of fun! Why on earth would you challenge the Hunt?
Why would you try to pull people away from it? Why have people travel into
Boston in *January* for an event you could run in any other month?

Eric: "the traditions of the Mystery Hunt (which, among other things, has
for ever and for always been a large-team hunt"
This is flat-out untrue. Sure, there have never been team restrictions --
but there never had to be. It's certainly not been a large-team Hunt
throughout history. A 25-person team was tremendous less than a decade ago.
A field containing a number of 30-person teams is a very, very recent
occurrence.

Eric: "the kinda-Mystery-Hunt-like thingamabob that the current Hunt
leaders wanted to do"
What an impudent attitude. There is no definition of the Mystery Hunt. It's
evolved every year at the discretion of the Hunt organizers -- discretion
that they've EARNED. The Hunt of today (completely computerized, handed out
in subsections) barely resembles the Hunts of 10 years ago. Since when do
you expect the Hunt to stick to a rigid template?

Eric: "Our team gets to stay together for future Hunts, which, if there is
a God, will immediately revert back to their correct large-team,
no-holds-barred format."
Wow. I like to think I know a bit about Mystery Hunts myself. But if I ever
got my hands on one again, I'd immediately implement a small-team-friendly
structure which completely negates the competitive advantage gained by
simply having more people than anyone else. Two years ago, when Acme won,
they had over 40 people. Last year, the winning team had over 40 active
people with a total network of over 90. HAVING THE MOST PEOPLE DIRECTLY
CORRELATES TO HAVING THE BEST CHANCE TO WIN. That means all teams with
competitive aspirations must supersize themselves. That means that the Hunt
organizers, anticipating how many people are on each team, must create a
Hunt with more and more puzzles to keep everyone busy and entertained.
There's no ceiling at this point, and it's a terrible situation. The Hunt
organizers -- who had that 90-person team -- are acutely aware of this as a
problem and are trying to fix it.

Eric: "we can still step in at any time and run one to show how it should
be done"
Only if you win. If you do start a rogue Hunt in January, I sincerely hope
no one supports it.

Eric: "Our team isn't the one that starts the two-Popes schism."
You're the only one threatening it.

Eric: "If the ridiculous small-team idea continues after 2004, I will call
on our crack team of constructors in 2005 and we'll bring back the original
Mystery Hunt tradition: *two* Hunts each January"
And there's your schism threat again. Like I said earlier, I support your
running a new puzzle event as long as it doesn't threaten the Mystery Hunt.
Before 2003, the last team to win the Hunt that had no non-MIT people on it
was my team a decade ago in 1994. God forbid the *MIT* Mystery Hunt be set
up to entertain MIT students -- and even allow them to win! There's no
reason your team should automatically be at the front of the pack, Eric. An
ideal Hunt would give an MIT student more of an advantage than an NPL
member. The NPL influx is a recent phenomenon that I'm both proud and
chagrined to have been a catalyst for. Just last year I was very worried
that MIT teams didn't stand a chance of ever winning the Hunt again.
Student teams were getting very discouraged due to all the high-caliber
competition flowing in from outside the community. The Mystery Hunt is now
the third-biggest NPL convention of the year after the actual Con and
Stamford. BUT IT IS NOT AN NPL EVENT. We have no innate rights to it. We're
privileged to be able to participate. You don't own it, Eric, and the Hunt
should not conform to your ideas of what it should be and how it should
work. If you want to create an NPL Mystery Hunt, great. But let the MIT
Mystery Hunt evolve on its own.

Hurrah for change. Support the current Hunt organizers.

Mark