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Rare Entries Contest OQ-02 Begins
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Orlando Quattro
May 3, 2015, 5:11:19 PM5/3/15
to
This is my second attempt at a Rare Entries contest, and I am hoping
that the questions in this one will reflect lessons learned from the
first one, both in their nature and their wording. That being said,
I am sure that entrants will find further ways to correct any failures
on my part.
Please reply ONLY BY EMAIL to oqua...@magma.ca; DO NOT POST to
any newsgroup. Entries must reach me by Tuesday, May 26, 2015
(by Toronto time, zone -4). I intend to post several 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).
Perhaps even more fun than my previous first attempt, despite the
fact that, yes, there is another railway question.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rules 4.1.1, 4.2, 4.3.2, and 4.3.4 are relevant to certain questions.
0. Name a country where there are extensive, long-term nuclear
exclusion zones due to persistent nuclear contamination resulting
from either military or industrial wide area nuclear activity
(weapons testing, dumping, accident). Extensive means at least
one hundred square kilometres, and long-term implies a probable
requirement to maintain the exclusion zone for more than a century.
1. Find a pair of reasonably common English words that are homophones
[ Definition of HOMOPHONE: Each of two or more words having the
same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling
(e.g. new and knew). - Oxford English Dictionary]
and which have a combined length of at least 22 letters.
Reasonably common means that both words can be found in any
good English language dictionary and are in general usage,
not jargon specific to some profession or trade.
2. Uniquely identify a currently inhabited community of any size
with the name of Ottawa.
3. Identify an extant species of wild cat (within the family felidae)
that can be found natively in the wild only north of the equator.
4. Identify a country where the official space agency with which
that country is associated has sent two or more astronauts from
that country into earth orbit.
5. Identify a narrow gauge railway (gauge less than the 4' 8 1/2" of
standard gauge) that at any time in its history has operated at
least 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometres) of line. Here the term line
refers solely to route distance without regard to parallel tracks
that might increase the length of actual railway track.
6. Name a pope of the Catholic Church whose pontificate (tenure of
office as pope) lasted more than 30 days, but less than 175 days.
7. Name a movie that has a two word title (in English), one of
which is the word "red" and the other of which is NOT a noun
in the context of the title.
8. Name a currently independent country that was formerly a member
state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and which has
land borders with at least five neighbouring independent countries.
9. Name a political or religious organisation that includes "orange"
in its name, officially or unofficially. The orange in the name
must NOT refer to a geopolitical location such as, for example,
Orange County. If the name given is unofficial, please also
provide the corresponding official name.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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 distances involving cities are based on the city
centre (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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Rule 7. Fun
This contest is for fun. Please do have fun, and good luck to all.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
OQuattro
--
Orlando Quattro -- oquattro at magma dot ca
The Starving Artist's Garratt
My text in this article is in the public domain.
that the questions in this one will reflect lessons learned from the
first one, both in their nature and their wording. That being said,
I am sure that entrants will find further ways to correct any failures
on my part.
Please reply ONLY BY EMAIL to oqua...@magma.ca; DO NOT POST to
any newsgroup. Entries must reach me by Tuesday, May 26, 2015
(by Toronto time, zone -4). I intend to post several 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).
Perhaps even more fun than my previous first attempt, despite the
fact that, yes, there is another railway question.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rules 4.1.1, 4.2, 4.3.2, and 4.3.4 are relevant to certain questions.
0. Name a country where there are extensive, long-term nuclear
exclusion zones due to persistent nuclear contamination resulting
from either military or industrial wide area nuclear activity
(weapons testing, dumping, accident). Extensive means at least
one hundred square kilometres, and long-term implies a probable
requirement to maintain the exclusion zone for more than a century.
1. Find a pair of reasonably common English words that are homophones
[ Definition of HOMOPHONE: Each of two or more words having the
same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling
(e.g. new and knew). - Oxford English Dictionary]
and which have a combined length of at least 22 letters.
Reasonably common means that both words can be found in any
good English language dictionary and are in general usage,
not jargon specific to some profession or trade.
2. Uniquely identify a currently inhabited community of any size
with the name of Ottawa.
3. Identify an extant species of wild cat (within the family felidae)
that can be found natively in the wild only north of the equator.
4. Identify a country where the official space agency with which
that country is associated has sent two or more astronauts from
that country into earth orbit.
5. Identify a narrow gauge railway (gauge less than the 4' 8 1/2" of
standard gauge) that at any time in its history has operated at
least 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometres) of line. Here the term line
refers solely to route distance without regard to parallel tracks
that might increase the length of actual railway track.
6. Name a pope of the Catholic Church whose pontificate (tenure of
office as pope) lasted more than 30 days, but less than 175 days.
7. Name a movie that has a two word title (in English), one of
which is the word "red" and the other of which is NOT a noun
in the context of the title.
8. Name a currently independent country that was formerly a member
state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and which has
land borders with at least five neighbouring independent countries.
9. Name a political or religious organisation that includes "orange"
in its name, officially or unofficially. The orange in the name
must NOT refer to a geopolitical location such as, for example,
Orange County. If the name given is unofficial, please also
provide the corresponding official name.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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 distances involving cities are based on the city
centre (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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Rule 7. Fun
This contest is for fun. Please do have fun, and good luck to all.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
OQuattro
--
Orlando Quattro -- oquattro at magma dot ca
The Starving Artist's Garratt
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Calvin
May 27, 2015, 7:31:32 PM5/27/15
to
On Monday, May 4, 2015 at 7:11:19 AM UTC+10, Orlando Quattro wrote:
> This is my second attempt at a Rare Entries contest, and I am hoping
> that the questions in this one will reflect lessons learned from the
> first one, both in their nature and their wording. That being said,
> I am sure that entrants will find further ways to correct any failures
> on my part.
>
> Please reply ONLY BY EMAIL to oqua...@magma.ca; DO NOT POST to
> any newsgroup. Entries must reach me by Tuesday, May 26, 2015
> (by Toronto time, zone -4). I intend to post several reminders
> before then.
Oops. Is this still happening? I didn't see any reminders.
> This is my second attempt at a Rare Entries contest, and I am hoping
> that the questions in this one will reflect lessons learned from the
> first one, both in their nature and their wording. That being said,
> I am sure that entrants will find further ways to correct any failures
> on my part.
>
> Please reply ONLY BY EMAIL to oqua...@magma.ca; DO NOT POST to
> any newsgroup. Entries must reach me by Tuesday, May 26, 2015
> (by Toronto time, zone -4). I intend to post several reminders
> before then.
cheers,
calvin
Mark Brader
Jun 27, 2015, 11:47:46 PM6/27/15
to
On May 3, Orlando Quattro wrote:
> This is my second attempt at a Rare Entries contest...
not answered it or responded to an earlier query in the newsgroup.
On the assumption that he's no longer available to do it, I'm willing
to score any entries that people email to me in the next few days.
If you entered in response to the original contest posting, please
send me the same entry that you did then. If you hadn't gotten around
to it, you may as well treat this as a reminder and construct an entry
now if you feel so inclined.
Of course, if any scoring involves a judgement call, my judgement may
be different from Orlando's, and if there are people who don't see
this notice and email me their entries, I won't be able to score those.
I did enter myself and will be scoring my answers along with the others.
Let's say you until Thursday, that's July 2 (by Toronto time, zone -4)
to either send me your existing entry or construct and send a new one.
That gives you 5 days and about 12 minutes from the time of posting.
If Orlando pops up before that time and wants to resume the contest on
a basis of his choosing, then I'll withdraw.
For the benefit of people constructing a new entry, here's a repeat
or Orlando's questions and rules. Everything between this point and
the signature is the same as in his original posting.
--
Mark Brader "Doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing."
Toronto "Doing *anything* is worse than doing nothing!"
m...@vex.net -- Lynn & Jay: YES, PRIME MINISTER
> This is my second attempt at a Rare Entries contest...
> Entries must reach me by Tuesday, May 26, 2015 (by Toronto time,
> zone -4). I intend to post several reminders before then.
Well, an email message I sent Orlando did not bounce, but he also has
> zone -4). I intend to post several reminders before then.
not answered it or responded to an earlier query in the newsgroup.
On the assumption that he's no longer available to do it, I'm willing
to score any entries that people email to me in the next few days.
If you entered in response to the original contest posting, please
send me the same entry that you did then. If you hadn't gotten around
to it, you may as well treat this as a reminder and construct an entry
now if you feel so inclined.
Of course, if any scoring involves a judgement call, my judgement may
be different from Orlando's, and if there are people who don't see
this notice and email me their entries, I won't be able to score those.
I did enter myself and will be scoring my answers along with the others.
Let's say you until Thursday, that's July 2 (by Toronto time, zone -4)
to either send me your existing entry or construct and send a new one.
That gives you 5 days and about 12 minutes from the time of posting.
If Orlando pops up before that time and wants to resume the contest on
a basis of his choosing, then I'll withdraw.
For the benefit of people constructing a new entry, here's a repeat
or Orlando's questions and rules. Everything between this point and
the signature is the same as in his original posting.
Mark Brader "Doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing."
Toronto "Doing *anything* is worse than doing nothing!"
m...@vex.net -- Lynn & Jay: YES, PRIME MINISTER
Mark Brader
Jul 3, 2015, 12:33:10 AM7/3/15
to
On May 3, Orlando Quattro wrote:
> > This is my second attempt at a Rare Entries contest...
> > Entries must reach me by Tuesday, May 26, 2015 (by Toronto time,
> > zone -4). I intend to post several reminders before then.
> > This is my second attempt at a Rare Entries contest...
> > Entries must reach me by Tuesday, May 26, 2015 (by Toronto time,
> > zone -4). I intend to post several reminders before then.
Earlier this week I wrote:
> Well, an email message I sent Orlando did not bounce, but he also has
> not answered it or responded to an earlier query in the newsgroup.
> On the assumption that he's no longer available to do it, I'm willing
> to score any entries that people email to me in the next few days.
>
>
> If you entered in response to the original contest posting, please
> send me the same entry that you did then. If you hadn't gotten around
> to it, you may as well treat this as a reminder and construct an entry
> now if you feel so inclined.
>
> Of course, if any scoring involves a judgement call, my judgement may
> be different from Orlando's, and if there are people who don't see
> this notice and email me their entries, I won't be able to score those.
>
> I did enter myself and will be scoring my answers along with the others.
> Well, an email message I sent Orlando did not bounce, but he also has
> not answered it or responded to an earlier query in the newsgroup.
> On the assumption that he's no longer available to do it, I'm willing
> to score any entries that people email to me in the next few days.
>
>
> If you entered in response to the original contest posting, please
> send me the same entry that you did then. If you hadn't gotten around
> to it, you may as well treat this as a reminder and construct an entry
> now if you feel so inclined.
>
> Of course, if any scoring involves a judgement call, my judgement may
> be different from Orlando's, and if there are people who don't see
> this notice and email me their entries, I won't be able to score those.
>
> I did enter myself and will be scoring my answers along with the others.
Orlando wrote:
| 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...
| 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
There were 7 entrants, and the winner is BRUCE BOWLER, finishing
just ahead of Erland Sommarskog.
These are their slates of answers (some abbreviated). As always, you
should be reading this in a monospaced font for proper tabular alignment.
BRUCE BOWLER ERLAND SOMMARSKOG
[0] Russia Ukraine
[1] Adolescence/-ts Confectionary/-ery
[2] Ottawa Twp., Ohio Capital of Canada
[3] Rusty spotted cat Lynx rufus
[4] (wrong answer) (wrong answer)
[5] QR D&RGW
[6] Celestine V John Paul I
[7] Big Red (wrong answer)
[8] Kazakhstan Azerbaijan
[9] Orange Volunteer Force Orange Order
| 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.)
entrants sent a compliant entry to Orlando but then forgot to keep
it compliant when resending it to me. All is forgiven, this time.
To review the 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.
"more specific" scoring.
Here is the complete table of scores.
RANK SCORE ENTRANT Q0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9
1. 216 Bruce Bowler 2 1 1 1 WR 3 3 1 2 1
2. 252 Erland Sommarskog 1 1 1 2 WR 1 1 WR 1 3
3. 432 Mark Brader 2 3 WR 1 3 WR 1 1 1 1
4. 576 <rare-e...@hotmail.com> 2 1 2 2 1 WR 3 4 1 1
=4. 576 John Gerson 2 3 2 2 1 3 1 4 2 1
6. 1152 Stephen Perry 1 1 WR WR 1 WR 1 4 1 3
7. 1296 Christian Kelly 1 3 WR 1 1 3 3 4 1 3
And here is the complete list of answers given. Each list shows correct
answers in the order worst to best (most to least popular). The
notation ">>>" means that "more specific variant" scoring was used.
| 0. Name a country where there are extensive, long-term nuclear
| exclusion zones due to persistent nuclear contamination resulting
| from either military or industrial wide area nuclear activity
| (weapons testing, dumping, accident). Extensive means at least
| one hundred square kilometres, and long-term implies a probable
| requirement to maintain the exclusion zone for more than a century.
2 Russia
1 Australia (see note)
1 China (see note)
1 Ukraine
This is a hard one to research on the Internet. There are lots
of articles about the two accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima,
and all related searches tend to be overwhelmed by false hits from
those and by general anti-nuclear propaganda. One entrant added
a note suggesting that all other answers than Ukraine and Japan
would be incorrect.
My own answer of Russia was just a guess and I could not find
supporting evidence for it on my own. (In USSR days their main
nuclear-weapons test site was in what's now Kazakhstan, and of
course the Chernobyl site is now in Ukraine.) But when another
entrant submitted the same answer, it was based on the Kyshtym
(or Mayak or Chelyabinsk) accident of 1957. According to this page:
http://blogs.voanews.com/russia-watch/2011/04/25/nuclear-zone-turns-into-wildlife-refuge/
it seems to be a correct answer.
The British conducted nuclear-weapons testing in Australia from
1952 to 1963 at a site called Maralinga. This has largely been
cleaned up, but there is still a zone of a few hundred square
kilometers where "as a precaution", no "permanent habitation" is
allowed. See:
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/11/05/backgrounder-why-was-maralinga-used-secret-nuclear-tests
I don't have details about the half-life of the radioactivity
remaining there, and am dubious about whether Orlando would have
accepted this as correct; but I gave the entrant the benefit of
the doubt.
Finally, China certainly conducted nuclear-weapons testing on its
own land, so it's possible for one or more exclusion zones to be
needed there. But given the tendency of the Chinese government
to secretiveness, I figured that they might well exist without
the details being available on the Internet. So I again gave the
entrant the benefit of the doubt.
| 1. Find a pair of reasonably common English words that are homophones
|
| [ Definition of HOMOPHONE: Each of two or more words having the
| same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling
| (e.g. new and knew). - Oxford English Dictionary]
|
| and which have a combined length of at least 22 letters.
| Reasonably common means that both words can be found in any
| good English language dictionary and are in general usage,
| not jargon specific to some profession or trade.
Complementing, complimenting]
1 Adolescence, adolescents
1 Confectionary, confectionery
1 Indiscreetness, indiscreteness
1 Phosphorescence, phosphorescents
I wasn't sure whether Orlando intended "in any good dictionary"
to mean that any dictionary he checked had to include the word,
or if the entrant had to be able to find it using any dictionary
she chose to use, so I took the more generous interpretation.
"Phosphorescent" as a noun isn't in most dictionaries I tried, but
it is in the OED Online. (Rule 4.3.2 would not allow the OED to
be used, but clearly the wording of the question superseded it.)
"Indiscreteness" similarly is not in some dictionaries, but is
in others. So I accepted these answers.
Also, I judged that an -ary ending produced a "closely related form"
under rule 4.3.1, and scored accordingly.
Finally, dictionaries generally don't give pronunciations for regular
inflected forms, but I think it's very common for the ending -cents
to be pronounced without the T sound, so I had no problem accepting
the two homophone pairs that were based on that.
| 2. Uniquely identify a currently inhabited community of any size
| with the name of Ottawa.
1 Capital of Canada
1 Ottawa Township, Ohio
WRONG:
1 Ottawa Islands (neither inhabited nor named Ottawa)
1 Ottawa, Iowa (not uniquely identified)
1 University of Ottawa (not named Ottawa)
I chose Ottawa, Iowa, because it's not on Wikipedia's disambiguation
page for the name "Ottawa", but is in the USGS's Geographic Names
Information System. Unfortunately, I didn't notice that the GNIS
actually shows *two* "populated places" in Iowa by that name! One is
in Clarke County and the other about 20 miles away in Polk County.
The first one is known to Google Maps, whose satellite imagery shows
what looks like a handful of buildings belonging to 3-4 separate farms
all clustered within a 1,000-foot square area around a crossroads.
The Polk County one is not known to Google Maps and its satellite
imagery shows only one cluster of buildings near the location the
GNIS shows, and they look like they might all be part of one farm.
Townships in Ohio are units of local administration and I'm not
sure they necessarily qualify as communities, but again, I gave the
entrant the benefit of the doubt.
| 3. Identify an extant species of wild cat (within the family felidae)
| that can be found natively in the wild only north of the equator.
>>> 1 [WRONG] Lynx rufus gigas
2 Sand cat (Felis margarita)
1 Clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa)
1 Ounce (Panthera uncia)
1 Rusty spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus)
WRONG:
1 Lynx rufus gigas (asked for species, not subspecies)
According to web sites I found, the clouded leopard that's confined to
the northern hemisphere was only recently realized to be a separate
species from the Sunda clouded leopard, which isn't. They both
exist in Indonesia, but their ranges don't overlap.
| 4. Identify a country where the official space agency with which
| that country is associated has sent two or more astronauts from
| that country into earth orbit.
>>> 2 [WRONG] USSR
1 Canada
1 China
1 Germany
1 US
WRONG:
2 USSR (not a country)
Orlando's rule 4.1.1 started that the primary reference for what
is a country would be "the list of UN (United Nations) two-digit
country codes". This is nonsensical since there are more than 100
countries that are UN members, let alone countries of the world.
I took this to be the applicable list:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49alpha.htm
The USSR is not on it, and the question did not say "a past or
present country", so I scored that answer as wrong. But by rule
4.1.1 about "countries existing at different historical times"
with the same capital city, it still counted against Russia.
| 5. Identify a narrow gauge railway (gauge less than the 4' 8 1/2" of
| standard gauge) that at any time in its history has operated at
| least 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometres) of line. Here the term line
| refers solely to route distance without regard to parallel tracks
| that might increase the length of actual railway track.
1 Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (US)
WRONG:
1 Alapayevsk Narrow-Gauge Railway (Russia) (too short)
1 Norwegian National Rail Administration (too short)
1 Rhaetian Railway (Switzerland) (too short)
I wonder why I thought the RhB qualified.
| 6. Name a pope of the Catholic Church whose pontificate (tenure of
| office as pope) lasted more than 30 days, but less than 175 days.
1 Adrian V (37 or 38 days in 1276)
1 Gregory VIII (58 days in 1187)
1 John Paul I (34 days in 1978)
1 Valentine (about 40 days in 827)
I'm not sure how many correct answers there are to this question:
I think about 12-15. Various lists of popes are available online,
but the information about dates tends to be incomplete.
One entrant predicted that Severinus (66 days in 640) would be a
popular answer; I have no idea why. In fact nobody named him.
The most popular answer, Celestine V, was the last pope to
voluntarily resign the position before Benedict XVI in 2013.
In Celestine's case it wasn't a matter of old age but because he
found couldn't hack the politics.
| 7. Name a movie that has a two word title (in English), one of
| which is the word "red" and the other of which is NOT a noun
| in the context of the title.
1 Big Red (1962)
1 Perfect Red (2007 short)
WRONG:
1 RED 2 (2013) (does not include the word "red")
The titles "Big Red" and "Deep Red" have each been used as the working
title of one movie, the release title of another, and the title of
a TV-movie. But only the second of these counts, so entrants who
only gave a title did not need to disambiguate which one they meant.
There was no specification that "movie" meant a feature film, so
I accepted my own answer based on a short.
In the action-comedy movies "RED" and "RED 2", RED is not the word
"red" but is an acronym for "Retired and Extremely Dangerous".
| 8. Name a currently independent country that was formerly a member
| state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and which has
| land borders with at least five neighbouring independent countries.
1 Azerbaijan (Russia, Iran, Armenia, Turkey, Georgia)
1 Belarus (Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia)
1 Russia (14 countries)
1 Ukraine (Russia, Romania, Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland,
Belarus)
1 Uzbekistan (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan,
Turkmenistan)
There are 6 correct answers -- and at the point where I had received
6 entries, each of them had already been given!
| 9. Name a political or religious organisation that includes "orange"
| in its name, officially or unofficially. The orange in the name
| must NOT refer to a geopolitical location such as, for example,
| Orange County. If the name given is unofficial, please also
| provide the corresponding official name.
1 Anti-Orange Committee (Russia)
1 Association of Loyal Orangewomen of Ireland
1 Orange Democratic Movement (Kenya)
1 Orange Volunteer Force (Northern Ireland, UK)
The Orange Order is an international fraternity for Protestants,
which was created at a time of religious conflict and later in the
past may, shall we say, have done its part to exacerbate this.
Today it is a peaceful organization (we know this because its
web site says so) that consists of 8 autonomous "grand lodges" in
various countries. The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland incorporates
12 County Grand Lodges; some of those counties are in (the republic
of) Ireland and some in Northern Ireland.
Thus there is no distinct Orange Order organization for Northern
Ireland, which caused me a problem when one entrant wrote "Orange
Order (Northern Ireland)". However, it turned out that the
parentheses were only meant to indicate an explanatory comment,
and there is no penalty for misexplaining in a comment.
Thanks to all for playing and, if applicable, for resending your
answers to me.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | A driver I know is getting uncomfortably close to
m...@vex.net | earning the nickname "Crash". --Lee Ayrton
gerson
Jul 3, 2015, 1:42:32 AM7/3/15
to
"Mark Brader" wrote
1. 216 Bruce Bowler 2 1 1 1 WR 3 3 1 2 1
2. 252 Erland Sommarskog 1 1 1 2 WR 1 1 WR 1 3
3. 432 Mark Brader 2 3 WR 1 3 WR 1 1 1 1
4. 576 <rare-e...@hotmail.com> 2 1 2 2 1 WR 3 4 1 1
=4. 576 John Gerson 2 3 2 2 1 3 1 4 2 1
6. 1152 Stephen Perry 1 1 WR WR 1 WR 1 4 1 3
7. 1296 Christian Kelly 1 3 WR 1 1 3 3 4 1 3
I observe I was the only one without a wrong answer, and I came near last !
:)
Mark Brader
Jul 3, 2015, 2:58:49 AM7/3/15
to
Mark Brader:
> I observe I was the only one without a wrong answer, and I came near last !
I don't think a 4th/5th tie in a field of 7 is all *that* near last!
The WRs in this contest mostly counted as about 6.
--
Mark Brader | "...having compressed some 300 million years into
Toronto | two paragraphs, I have left out some details."
m...@vex.net | -- Roger Gary
>> 1. 216 Bruce Bowler 2 1 1 1 WR 3 3 1 2 1
>> 2. 252 Erland Sommarskog 1 1 1 2 WR 1 1 WR 1 3
>> 3. 432 Mark Brader 2 3 WR 1 3 WR 1 1 1 1
>> 4. 576 <rare-e...@hotmail.com> 2 1 2 2 1 WR 3 4 1 1
>> =4. 576 John Gerson 2 3 2 2 1 3 1 4 2 1
>> 6. 1152 Stephen Perry 1 1 WR WR 1 WR 1 4 1 3
>> 7. 1296 Christian Kelly 1 3 WR 1 1 3 3 4 1 3
John Gerson:
>> 2. 252 Erland Sommarskog 1 1 1 2 WR 1 1 WR 1 3
>> 3. 432 Mark Brader 2 3 WR 1 3 WR 1 1 1 1
>> 4. 576 <rare-e...@hotmail.com> 2 1 2 2 1 WR 3 4 1 1
>> =4. 576 John Gerson 2 3 2 2 1 3 1 4 2 1
>> 6. 1152 Stephen Perry 1 1 WR WR 1 WR 1 4 1 3
>> 7. 1296 Christian Kelly 1 3 WR 1 1 3 3 4 1 3
> Thanks from me for doing this.
You're welcome.
> I observe I was the only one without a wrong answer, and I came near last !
The WRs in this contest mostly counted as about 6.
--
Mark Brader | "...having compressed some 300 million years into
Toronto | two paragraphs, I have left out some details."
m...@vex.net | -- Roger Gary
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