[Hunt03] Large teams, and Eric's mail

[Lance Nathan <tahnan MIT EDU>]

Long, and my apologies; bear with me if you can.  I've got a few piecemeal
responses to Eric, first, though Mark may have said (albeit with more
force) the lion's share of my own thoughts.  Further down, if you want to
skip right to it, I discuss my own plans for 2004, since that was one
reason Eric sent the mail to people outside his own team.

First, then, Eric's mail:

> And I would have been delighted to also participate in the
> kinda-Mystery-Hunt-like thingamabob that the current Hunt leaders
> wanted to do.

I have much more faith in the current leaders than to refer to their Hunt
as a "kinda-Mystery-Hunt-like thingamabob" simply because they've
suggested that team size may be an issue.

> *My* idea of a fun weekend is hanging out with friends and
> friends-to-be, collaboratively working on challenging tasks at a
> (relatively) leisurely pace, while catching up on each other's lives,
> reminiscing about past Hunts, and bringing newcomers into the fold.

See, I more or less agree with Eric on this point.  Then again, I'm also
perfectly happy to throw a party for friends and friends-to-be and hang
out; I don't see any reason at all that I need to hold that party at the
Mystery Hunt, especially if the suggestion from the organizers is that a
smaller group would be more appropriate.

(Admittedly, a small group of people solving more actively--even without
any sense of whip-cracking--may also be within my ideas of fun, and
somewhat farther from Eric's.  Nevertheless.)

> Bad points:  1) No matter how the team splits, there will be people on
> both halves of the split who miss being with people on the other half
> of the split.

This is true about splitting any team, yes: but then again, I'd love to
solve the Mystery Hunt with, say, Dan Katz.  Or with Katherine, with whom
I have only solved one thing (a flat competition in Newark) in spite of
two years of rooomate-friendship.  Or, for that matter, with Eric; or
Elaine or Tivol, with whom I do not believe I've ever solved anything at
all; or, indeed, pretty much everyone else getting this email.

But "I would miss the other half of the team" seems no more an argument
for not splitting the team than "I wish I could solve with the people on
Acronym, Pturnips, Setec, and Palindrome" is an argument for merging Acme
with all four of those teams.

You simply can't solve the Mystery Hunt with *all* of your friends (or
indeed all potential-friends, or there'd only be one team).  Choosing a
team is saying "Though I would love to, I won't be able to solve with a
large subset of my friends."  Splitting a team is merely adding a few more
people to that subset.

> P.S.  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, one for
> small teams (then, one or two people), and one for big teams (then,
> mostly fraternities).

To be honest, I think my reaction to this..."threat" is a strong word, so
say "suggestion"...was not entirely unlike Mark's, though I have less
history with the MIT Hunt.  Eric did indeed say "a different weekend of
IAP," but that does indeed still suggest competition with the MIT Hunt: I
know I wouldn't be up to two such marathon solving sessions in the same
month, so if Eric started a Hunt the week before, or the week after, I'd
very much have to choose between them.

(And, forced to choose, I dare say that, though I certainly would love the
sort of puzzles Eric and his compatriots would write, I'd be hesitant to
show such contempt for the team running the Hunt as to say "Not having any
idea what you have planned, I've decided I don't like it, so I won't
participate in it.")

May sounds like a fine idea.  Throw a Hunt in May, and--discounting any
dissertation deadlines--I'll be there.  Another Hunt in January, when
your reason can't possibly be "because it's the month we don't have
classes"?  Why?

---

All that said: Eric said that he "would be interested to hear [our] plans
for 2004."  Fair enough.

I've just sent mail to Acme saying, in essence: I've thought for a little
while now that teams should probably be smaller, and I would much rather
see the teams agree to limit their own sizes out of fairness than to see
the organizers forced to set external limits.  So I'm stepping up to the
plate and, regretfully, leaving Acme.

I may form my own team (and, indeed, if I do, I will probably attempt to
attract many of the people I recruited onto Acme, just as Mark would,
forming his own team, take Mike and Amanda, and try as hard as he could to
get Zack).  I may put myself on the unattached Hunters list: wouldn't it
be nice to spend the weekend with a brand-new team, helping them keep from
feeling overwhelmed?

But either way, I honestly feel that, if the organizers of this year's
hunt think that 15 or so is a good size for a team in their hunt--even
though they're not going to actually force teams to be that size, either
de jure by telling us to shrink, or de facto by writing a Hunt that's
harder for larger teams--then I'm willing to respect their wishes on this,
even though it means not solving with at least half of my friends on Acme.

I also think that, *true or false*, there's a perception among many MIT
students who do the Hunt that NPLers come in from outside and form large
teams like Setec and Acme and Palindrome.  And even though Acme and Setec
both have solid student-and-recent-alum cores, and even though I'm an MIT
student [on leave, and not an undergrad, but by god I'm still an MIT
student], it's very much my belief that it would be a show of good will
for the teams seen as NPL-heavy or outsiders to shrink somewhat.

Of course, some of this, I must admit, stems from the fact that not only
do I not want to win the Hunt this year, I want to *not* win the Hunt this
year.  In three years, when I might be ready to consider winning again and
when every team has organically reduced to 15 people and the 15-person
student teams are eyeing my 15-person mostly-non-student team uncertainly,
well, I'll cross that bridge in three years.

Those are my thoughts--and, more precisely, my actions--on the matter.
Your mileage may, and very likely does, vary, and I can only hope that we
all have a good time at the Hunt this year because, really, what else
could we possibly want?

Thanks for bearing with me on a rather long message.

                --Lance

/-------------------------------------+---------------------------------\
| Lance Nathan, Graduate student, MIT | You will not find in semantics  |
| Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy | any remedy for decayed teeth or |
| web:   http://www.mit.edu/~tahnan/  | illusions of grandeur or class  |
| email: tahnan mit edu               | conflict.      --Alfred Tarski  |
\-------------------------------------+---------------------------------/