Request for comment

[Dan Tilque]

I'm considering running another Rare Entries contest, but before I do,
I'd like opinions on one aspect. In previous contests, answer sets were
emailed to the person running it. I'm wondering if this should be
changed to have the answers posted in the newsgroups.

We post our answers to quizzes in rec.games.trivia and it only
occasionally causes problems. The main problem that shows up is that
sometimes people accidently see someone else's answers before they were
able to send in their own, so they're forced to recuse themselves.

So any one have any thoughts or preferences? Any other potential problems?

--
Dan Tilque

[Erland Sommarskog]

A potential problem that I see is that answers could be contested already
during the contest and this could lead to long to long threads. Keep in
mind that it is not uncommon that answers are on the edge.

Also, many entrants may prefer to wait with sending in their submission
because they want to conduct some serious research. During this period
they have to be careful not to open someone else's entry.

I think the research is the key here. For the "use-your-knowledge-only"
quizzes that we have, I typically look at the questions and either post
my slate directly, or decide to skip. Only if the quiz is really interesting
and I have a lack of time for the moment, I keep the quiz until later.

So if you plan to forbid research, answers to the newsgroups would be OK.
But if you plan to stick with the traditional rules, I recommend against it.

--
Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, esq...@sommarskog.se

[gerson]

"Dan Tilque" wrote

... other potential problems?

I use to play trivia night in a pub near where i live here in Melbourne, Australia, (there are many such pubs that run trivia nights
both here and in England and maybe elsewhere for all I know (taking note of English tv prog "Eggheads")), and our team thought it
was ok to take advantage of available resources to get answers to questions. So, E.G. "what color is Galliano", well anybody could
rush up to the bar and have a look at the Galliano bottle should they have known that Galliano is a drink (or sidle up if they think
and consider that there are people there that don't know it's a drink). So, I mean So-o, whose ever answers are posted first (and
second etc. too) will be fair game ie "available resources" to some others, no matter what. So therefore, I must say, emailing's the
only way.

[Mark Brader]

John Gerson:

> I use to play trivia night in a pub near where i live here in Melbourne,
> Australia, (there are many such pubs that run trivia nights
> both here and in England and maybe elsewhere for all I know (taking note
> of English tv prog "Eggheads")), and our team thought it
> was ok to take advantage of available resources to get answers to

> questions...

Well, not in the pub trivia league *I* play in. That would be cheating.

> So, I mean So-o, whose ever answers are posted first (and
> second etc. too) will be fair game ie "available resources" to some
> others, no matter what.

In the trivia contests like QFTCI and Calvin's quiz, we already trust
people not to cheat, so I don't think this is a big issue. However,
Erland's concern about accidentally reading followups makes sense to me.
--
Mark Brader | "No woman in my time will be Prime Minister or Chancellor
Toronto | or Foreign Secretary ... Anyway, I wouldn't want to be
m...@vex.net | Prime Minister." -- Margaret Thatcher, 1969

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[gerson]

"Mark Brader" wrote

> John Gerson:
> > I use to play trivia night in a pub near where i live here in Melbourne,
> > Australia, (there are many such pubs that run trivia nights
> > both here and in England and maybe elsewhere for all I know (taking note
> > of English tv prog "Eggheads")), and our team thought it
> > was ok to take advantage of available resources to get answers to
> > questions...

> Well, not in the pub trivia league *I* play in. That would be cheating

Depends what people think the rules are, or ought to be, and I used the Galliano thing to say it's not really possible to avoid
"cheating" in some circumstances, and I didn't say I approved of it, and oh, we used to win half the time anyway because we had an
advertising man who used to read the newspapers end to end *and* remembered what was in them, and another bloke who was keen on
james bond movies and pop music plus, and me who might know how many hearts in an octopus

> Mark Brader | "No woman in my time will be Prime Minister or Chancellor
> Toronto | or Foreign Secretary ... Anyway, I wouldn't want to be
> m...@vex.net | Prime Minister." -- Margaret Thatcher, 1969

shades of Andrew Peacock