One of the most important aspect of the culture at IIT-B is the General
Championship. The Inter-hostel GC is one thing that separates us from most
of the routine colleges. The amount of effort that is put in by all
hostels towards winning the GC is tremendous. No wonder, winning the GC
is, a passion for most of us. With the passion arise questions about
scoring systems, fairness of judging etc. in an attempt to make things
closer to perfection. Here in my letter to you I would like to bring to
notice the loop-holes in the Scoring pattern.
The first one is encountered when 2 or more events are clubbed into one. For example, English and Hindi Turncoat (2 events into 1) or the Classical Carnatic, Hindustani and Instrumental (3 events into 1) are considered a single event. The reason for the 2-3 events to be clubbed into one are that the events are that they are held on the same day and secondly the events themselves are relatively small.
Coming to the present system of scoring, the first 5 positions in any event are given points in the following order 20-14-9-5-2. The points scored by each hostel in separate events (eg. English and Hindi Shipwreck) are clubbed and an over-all position is given to the hostel with maximum points in that clubbed event (ie. Shipwreck) . This position gets points as 20-14-9-5-2 which is the contribution to the trophy points (ie. Lit.). The problem in this system is that lower position's points end up figuring nowhere in the over-all position list. They just get lost in the process of giving over-all position. (As it is, clubbing of events robs a hostel with a lower position of any points it manages to collect.)
Clearly, the hostels with higher positions ate into the points of hostels with lower positions. Moreover, you can't assure that the above system rewards hostel which got positions in both events. Take the example of H10 and H4 which got more points than it scored even though it got a position in only one of the events.
If we replace the smaller events by Cult Trophies and the combined event by Cult GC, the same argument can be seen to hold.
An alternative solution to this could be the following. Specify credits for a particular event. Give points in the same manner ie. 20-14-9-5-2 for the top 5 positions and add the earned points (Here, points = credit points x position points) _directly_ to the Main Cult GC and not to individual trophies. I am not saying that the concept of trophies be completely removed. All I am suggesting is that the position in a particular trophy should not be criterion for or effect position in the main GC. The trophies can still be given to whoever scores the maximum points in a particular trophy. Just that a first place in the Lit Trophy should not mean 20 points in the Main GC.
Moreover, in this system of credits you can differentiate between an event that requires a lot of effort from an event that is smaller in comparison. For example, the effort put in Group dance is more and deserves more weightage than Solo dance. Or for that matter, winning IHPD is not just the same as winning JAM.
One crib against such a system could be that a particular hostel which is very good at, say, FineArts will bag all FineArts positions and have a huge tally in the Cult GC. Indeed, that is the whole point. Somebody wins FineArts GC very convincingly and gets 20 points and a distant 2nd gets 14 points. Whereas, in the Lit trophy a hostel coming first by a very small margin gets 20 and a very close second gets also 14 points. How do you recognise somebody who has done exceptionally well or console somebody who has come a very close second?
The second crib could be that the earlier system encouraged hostels which got positions in both events and trophies. But that's not really the case. A look at the above example will show that the same can't be assured. Compared to the above system there is not one advantage that I can see in the present scoring system or any reason why we should continue with it. I feel that the present scoring system in the GC is not fair as it helps only the best postions to get more points. The winners keep winning. If that is the motivation, why give 5 positions at all?
Zishaan M. Hayath is a second year dual degree student in the Civil Engineering
Department. He can be contacted at d0zmh@civil.iitb.ac.in.