Rare Entries Contest OQ-01 Final Reminder

[Orlando Quattro]

This is the final reminder for Rare Entries contest OQ-01.

Please reply ONLY BY EMAIL to oqua...@magma.ca; DO NOT POST to
any newsgroup. Entries must reach me by Tuesday, April 14, 2015
(by Toronto time, zone -4). I will post a couple more reminders
before then.

Below the ten questions is a set of rules, largely based on those
created by Mark Brader for his long series of rare entries contests.
Please take the time to review these rules before emailing an entry.

Most importantly, please do NOT POST any discussion of this contest
to any news group prior to the entry deadline.

I wish you all good luck, and hope you find this fun (See rule 7).

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Rules 4.1.1, 4.1.3, 4.2, and 4.3.4 are relevant to certain questions.


0. Name an independent country where one might expect to find
penguins.

1. Give the name of a tincture used in English heraldry.

2. Unambiguously identify an opera from which music has been
featured in at least five full length feature films that are not
simply performances of the opera in question, and which have each
grossed at least $25 million (USD) at the box office, as shown by
the IMDB (Internet Movie DataBase) in their "Box office / business"
section, or other authoritative source.

3. name a contemporary string instrument that might be found in a
modern day symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra, or chamber
music ensemble, but NOT only in an early music ensemble. The
instrument must be employed in an ensemble role, and NOT solely
as a solo performer.

4. Name a nation with a team entered in the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup.

5. Name a North American venue that has hosted a Formula One grand prix.

6. Unambiguously identify a globally recognized landmark that contains
the word "red" as part of its name. Global recognition means that a
Google search produces at least one hundred thousand hits.

The Google search must be of the form: ("landmark name" "location")

7. Name one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, as listed in
Greek tourist guides from the 1st and 2nd centuries BC, and which
were all in existence immediately prior to 226 BC.

8. Name an automobile manufacturer that has featured an animal on an
on-car badge. The badge may be for a marque or a specific model.

9. Name a country with an active railway station at an elevation higher
than 7,000 feet (2,133 metres).

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Rules for Orlando Quattro's Rare Entry Contests

These are shamelessly borrowed from Mark Brader, who provided years
of entertainment with a long series of Rare Entries contests. I feel
that years of refinement lend these a certain authority, which is not
to say that I will not end up further refining them in the light of
experience with with my own rare entry contests. Also, Mark took the
trouble to place the text of his postings in the public domain, which
makes me comfortable taking advantage of his experience in this regard.

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Rule 1. The Game

For each of the questions in the quiz, your objective is to give an
answer that (1) is correct, and (2) will be duplicated by as FEW other
quiz entrants as possible. Feel free to use any reference material you
like to RESEARCH your answers; but when you have found enough possible
answers for your liking, you are expected to choose on your own which
one to submit, WITHOUT mechanical or computer assistance: this is meant
to be a game of wits.

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Rule 2. Scoring

The scores on the different questions are MULTIPLIED to produce a
final score for each entrant. Low score wins; a perfect score is 1.

If your answer on a category is correct, then your score is the number
of people who gave that answer, or an answer That I deem equivalent.

A wrong answer, or a skipped question, gets a high score as a penalty.
This is the median of:
- the number of entrants
- the square root of that number, rounded up to an integer
- double the largest score achieved by anyone on this question


Rule 2.1 Scoring Example

Say I ask for a colour on the current Canadian flag. There are 27
entrants, of whom 20 say "red", 4 say "blue", and 1 each say "gules",
"white", and "blue square". After looking up gules I decide it's
the same colour as red and should be treated as a duplicate answer;
then the 21 people who said either "red" or "gules" get 21 points
each. The person who said "white" gets a perfect score of 1 point.

"Blue square" is not a colour and blue is not a colour on the flag;
the 5 people who gave either of these answers each get the same
penalty score, which is the median of:
- number of entrants = 27
- sqrt(27) = 5.196+, rounded up = 6
- double the largest score = 21 x 2 = 42
Yielding a median, in this case, of 27.



Rule 2.2 Scoring More Specific Variants

On some questions it's possible that one entrant will give an answer
that is a more specific variant of an answer given by someone else.
In that case the more specific variant will usually be scored as if
the two answers are different, but the other, less specific variant
will be scored as if they are the same.

In the above Canadian flag example, if I had decided (incorrectly) to
score gules as a more specific variant of red, then "red" would still
score 21, but "gules" would now score 1.

If a wrong answer is clearly associated with a specific right answer,
I will score the right answer as if the wrong answer was a more
specific variant of it. In the above Canadian flag example, if there
were 3 additional entrants who said "white square", then "white square"
would be scored as wrong, but the score for "white" would be 4, not 1.

"More specific" scoring will NOT apply if the question asks for an
answer "in general terms"; a more specific answer will then at best be
treated the same as the more general one, and may be considered wrong.

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Rule 3. Entries

Entries must be emailed to the address given above. Please do not
quote the questions back to me, and DO send ONLY PLAIN TEXT in ASCII
or ISO 8859-1: no HTML, no attachments, no Micros--t character sets,
etc., and NO Unicode, please. (Entrants who fail to comply will be
publicly chastised in the results posting.)

Your message should preferably consist of just your 10 answers,
numbered from 0 to 9, along with any explanations required. Your
name should be in it somewhere -- a From: line or signature is fine.
(If I don't see both a first and a last name, or an explicit request
for a particular form of your name to be used, then your email address
will be posted in the results).

You can expect an acknowledgement when I read your entry. If this
bounces, it will NOT be sent again.

Entries must be received before the entry deadline specified for the
quiz. I may, at my discretion, apply latitude based on the log entries
from my mail server, provided that they unambiguously show that your
entry was received by your mail server before the entry deadline.


Rule 3.1 Where Leeway is Allowed for Entries

In general there is no penalty for errors of spelling, capitalization,
English usage, or other such matters of form, nor for accidentally
sending email in an unfinished state, so long as it is clear enough
to discern what you intended. Sometimes though, a specific question
may imply stricter rules. And if you give an answer that properly
refers to a different thing related to the one you intended, I will
normally take it as written.

Once you intentionally submit an answer, no changes will be allowed,
unless I decide there was a problem with the question. Similarly,
alternate answers within an entry will not be accepted. Only the
first answer that you intentionally submit counts.


Rule 3.2 Clarifications for Entries

Questions are not intended to be hard to understand, but I may fail
in this intent. (For one thing, in many cases clarity could only be
provided by an example that would suggest one or another specific
answer, and that would compromise the question.)

In order to be fair to all entrants, I must insist that requests for
clarification must be emailed to me, NOT POSTED in any newsgroup.
But if you do ask for clarification, I will probably say that the
question is clear enough as posted. If I do decide to clarify or
change a question, all entrants will be informed.


Rule 3.3 Supporting Information for Entries

It is your option whether or not to provide supporting information
to justify your answers. If you don't, I'll email you to ask for
it if I need to. If you supply it in the form of a URL, if at all
possible it should be a "deep link" to the specific relevant page.
There is no need to supply URLs for obvious, well-known reference
web sites, and there is no point in supplying URLs for pages that
don't actually support your answer.

If you provide any explanatory remarks along with your answers, you
are responsible for making it sufficiently clear that they are not
part of the answers. The particular format doesn't matter as long
as you are clear. In the scoring example above, "white square" was
wrong; "white (in the central square)" would have been taken as a
correct answer with an explanation.

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Rule 4. Interpretation of Questions

These are general rules that apply unless a question specifically
states otherwise.

Rule 4.1 Geography

Rule 4.1.1 Countries

"Country" means an independent country. Whether or not a place is
considered an independent country is determined by how it is listed
in reference sources. The primary reference is the list of UN (United
Nations) two-digit country codes.

For purposes of these contests, the Earth is considered to be divid-
ed into disjoint areas each of which is either (1) a country, (2) a
dependency, or (3) without national government. Their boundaries
are interpreted on a de facto basis. Any place with representatives
in a country's legislature is considered a part of that country rather
than a dependency of it.

The European Union is considered as an association of countries, not
a country itself.

Claims that are not enforced, or not generally recognized, don't count.
Places currently fighting a war of secession don't count. Embassies
don't count as special; they may have extraterritorial rights, but
they're still part of the host country (and city).

Countries existing at different historical times are normally
considered the same country if they have the same capital city.



Rule 4.1.2 States or provinces

Many countries or dependencies are divided into subsidiary political
entities, typically with their own subsidiary governments. At the
first level of division, these entities are most commonly called
states or provinces, but various other names are used; sometimes
varying even within the same country (e.g. to indicate unequal
political status).

Any reference to "states or provinces" in a question refers to
these entities at the first level of division, no matter what they
are called.



Rule 4.1.3 Nations In International Sports

When an international sporting event is involved, for instance the
ICC Cricket World Cup, some entries may appear as nations, but not
in fact be independent countries as defined in rule 4.1.1. England,
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are all examples of this, when
the country of Great Britain is not represented. In the case of any
question where such a distinction is pertinent, I will endeavour to
make this clear in the wording of the question.


Rule 4.1.4 Distances

Distances between places on the Earth are measured along a great
circle path, and distance involving cities are based on the city
center (downtown).



Rule 4.2 Entertainment

A "movie" does not include any form of solely TV broadcast (TV Movie)
or video release; it must have been shown in cinemas. "Oscar" and
"Academy Award" are AMPAS trademarks and refer to the awards given by
that organization. "Fiction" includes dramatizations of true stories.


Rule 4.3 Words and Numbers

Rule 4.3.1 Different Answers

Some questions specifically ask for a *word*, rather than the thing
that it names; this means that different words with the same meaning
will in general be treated as distinct answers. However, if two or
more inflectional variants, spelling variants, or other closely
related forms are correct answers, they will be treated as equivalent.

Similarly, if the question specifically asks for a name, different
things referred to by the same name will be treated as the same.



Rule 4.3.2 Permitted Words

On questions that specifically ask for a word, the word that you
give must be listed (or implied by a listing, as with inflected
forms) in a suitable dictionary. Generally this means a printed
dictionary published recently enough to show reasonably current
usage, or its online equivalent. Other reasonably authoritative
sources may be accepted on a case-by-case basis. Words listed as
obsolete or archaic usage don't count, and sources that would
list those words without distinguishing them are not acceptable
as dictionaries.


Rule 4.3.3 Permitted Numbers

Where the distinction is important, "number" refers to a specific
mathematical value, whereas "numeral" (or numeric representation)
means a way of writing it. Thus "4", "IV", and "four" are three
different numeric representations of the same number. "Digit" means
one of the characters "0", "1", "2", etc.

(These definitions represent one of several conflicting common usages.)



Rule 4.3.4 "Contained in"

If a question asks for a word or numeral "contained" or "included"
in a phrase, title, or the like, this does not include substrings or
alternate meanings of words, unless explictly specified. For example,
if "Canada in 1967" is the title of a book, it contains the numeral
1967 and the preposition "in"; but it does not contain the word "an",
the adjective "in", or the numeral 96.



Rule 4.4 Tense and Time

When a question is worded in the present tense, the correctness of
your answer is determined by the facts at the moment you submit it.
(In a case where, in my judgement, people might reasonably be unaware
of the facts having changed, an out-of-date answer may be accepted as
correct.) Questions worded in the present perfect tense include the
present unless something states or implies otherwise. (For example,
Canada is a country that "has existed", as well as one that "exists".)
Different verbs in a sentence bear their usual tense relationship to
each other.

You are not allowed to change the facts yourself in order to make an
answer correct. For example, if a question asks for material on the
WWW, what you cite must already have existed before the contest was
first posted.

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Rule 5. Judging

As moderator, I will be the sole judge of what answers are correct,
and whether two answers with similar meaning (such as red and gules)
are considered the same, different, or more/less specific variants.

I will do my best to be fair on all such issues, but sometimes it is
necessary to be arbitrary. Those who disagree with my rulings are
welcome to complain (or to start a competing contest, or whatever).

I may rescore the contest if I agree that I made a serious error and
it affects the high finishers.

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Rule 6. Results

Results will normally be posted within a few days of the contest
closing. They may be delayed if I'm unexpectedly busy or for
technical reasons. If I feel I need help evaluating one or more
answers, I may make a consultative posting in the newsgroups before
scoring the contest.

In the results posting, all entrants will be listed in order of score,
but very high (bad) scores may be omitted. The top few entrants' full
answer slates will be posted. A table of answers and their scores
will be given for each question.

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Rule 7. Fun

This contest is for fun. Please do have fun, and good luck to all.

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OQuattro

--
Orlando Quattro -- oquattro at magma dot ca
The Starving Artist's Garratt
My text in this article is in the public domain.