When Sporcle changes your quiz title..

[Si]

Forgive me if this topic has already been covered in an existing thread. I've only recently taken an interest in 'Sporcle University', and I hope that I am welcome to participate, if not, I will go away.
 I've just come across a new published quiz on Sporcle, it's called 'What Movie? Drivers and Passengers', and what intrigues me most about it is how its title, 'What Movie? Drivers and Passengers', might have come about. I suspect that Sporcle changed its original title when they decided to publish it, and the quiz's URL does indicate a different title. The reason I bring this up is because in early June of this year, I submitted a quiz called 'Taxi Driver or Taxi Passenger?', the third in a series of four "taxi drivers in the movies" quizzes that I started in 2012 with 'Click That Cab!'. I always go through great pains to make sure my quiz titles are original/unique, with due diligence thoroughly performed, and I can assure you that the words 'Drivers' and 'Passengers'/'Driver(s)' or 'Passenger(s)', however written/whatever the order, no matter how I mixed them up, never showed up in the Sporcle movies category search engine, so that gave me the assurance that my planned 'Taxi Driver or Taxi Passenger?' title was good to go. If I knew that there already existed a quiz called 'What Movie? Drivers and Passengers', I certainly would not have titled mine 'Taxi Driver or Taxi Passenger?', considering how fussy I am about such things, but again, no quiz with those words, "Driver(s) and/or Passenger(s)", showed up in the search engine, only mine would eventually do so after I had submitted it. Now, today, if you enter the words 'Driver' and 'Passenger' in the Sporcle search engine, these 2 quizzes show up, the newly published 'What Movie? Drivers and Passengers', a fine quiz, with its 20,000 and counting plays, and my little 'Taxi Driver or Taxi Passenger?' one, with a number of plays that's just about less than my age in years.. The fact that this published quiz, 'What Movie? Drivers and Passengers', does not contain any pictures or reference to taxis/taxi drivers does give me hope that if Sporcle ever decides to publish a movie taxi-related quiz, one of my four contributed efforts might be the chosen one. I can dream..
Back in 2013, an unpublished quiz of mine called 'Movie Titles With a Little Help from The Beatles' had been on Sporcle for well over a year when suddenly I noticed that it was now showing up under a new name, 'Making Movies with the Beatles', in my contributed quizzes page. I quickly guessed the only explanation was that Sporcle had altered my original title because they were about to publish it, however several weeks passed, and the quiz, with its new, rather bland title 'Making Movies with the Beatles', had still not gotten published. I figured they changed their minds about publishing it, fine, so I gave it back my preferred original title. Luckily for me, the quiz did eventually get published, with the original title intact too, and it has been by far, my best-received quiz ever on Sporcle.
I wonder how quiz creators feel when Sporcle publishes them, but in doing so, modifies the original title of their work. I understand sometimes Sporcle will shorten it out of necessity, and I know getting published is the ultimate honor on Sporcle, so any quibbles about why'd-you-change-my-original-title-? can be perceived as being ungrateful and nitpicky, but still, is it okay and understandable for one to have their feelings hurt when they object to having had their original quiz title changed, or when seeing someone else's published quiz get a new title that closely matches one of your own? I'd love to know what others' experiences have been when they've had a quiz published, but under a different title not necessarily to their liking.
Si, username: notaratface

[Ubbiebubbie]

It's necessary to remember that when Sporcle publishes a quiz, a very important factor is how that quiz looks to site-users and potential players, which is majorly impacted by the quiz title. Often, "anecdotal" or "conversational" titles are changed to be more self-explanatory in regards to the quiz. 

I have two examples of my own off the top of my head: a quiz in an import/export series whose titles followed the format "We Want Your ____" or "Take Our ____" was changed simply to "Countries With the Most ____", because it clarified the nature of the quiz to the many front page visitors; and, a quiz that spelled out countries using telephone numbers had been called "Hello? Hello? 4-Letter Countries?" was modified to be "4-Letter 'Telephone' Countries". 

In both scenarios, primarily, I was extremely grateful for the publishes, and I in no way had my feelings hurt. As long as my quizzes can provide entertainment and serve as a mentally stimulating diversion to anyone, I'm beyond gratified. If Sporcle wants to increase the playability of my quiz, even at the expense of doctoring what may have been a clever or more "meta" title, I have no objection whatsoever.

In your particular case, the published quiz had most likely been called "What Movie? Look Who's Driving (Slideshow)". Although I cannot speak for Sporcle, the change to "Drivers and Passengers" was incredibly likely not intended to draw attention from your quiz, but, in fact, to clarify that the quiz consists of pictures of... drivers and passengers. Also, I would argue that the name change could inspire one of that quiz's near-20,000 players to seek more quizzes related to movies and driving, and play your quiz.

Also, regardless of whether the new title is to your liking, Sporcle reserves the right to modify any content contributed to the site -- I say, let it be! They'll do what they think is best (and they've been doing this for 8 years now!).

Ubbiebubbie

[Chenchilla]

I can understand where you're coming from. I don't always make quizzes with obscure, clever titles, but when I do, I too take some pride in it.

A year or so ago, I made a quiz about weird dating websites, and gave it a short time-limit to make it a blitz. I called it 'Speed Dating'. The title may have been a good attention-grabber, because it very quickly got an EP. Weeks later, I found a quiz titled '25 Dating Websites That Actually Exist' on the front page, and I thought "Oh great, someone else had the same idea and now they're published. As it turns out, I had gotten my first ever publish. 'Speed Dating' had to be changed to a non-blitz style quiz, because the name had already been taken by a previously-published quiz (which was completely different). Was I upset that the title and time were changed? A little (largely because the change in title made me think I had been cheated out of a publish). I was too gratified to be published; I cared not for the title change.

Since that episode, no major title changes have affected me, but there's always a little detail that's changed, yet I still don't mind very much. I may not care about my original work as much as you do, or others do, but it's still my opinion that no one should worry too much about those changes. In the end of the day, Sporcle owns all of the quizzes. Change is bound to happen, but change doesn't mean that the original was bad.

The Sporcle staff want the published quizzes to succeed. Any edits to a quiz are in the best interest for the overall success of the quiz. They also want quiz contributors to succeed. You shouldn't become too attached to something as small as a clever title. The important thing is to move on and continue to contribute quality quizzes.

P.S. One thing I often see with many quizzes is a funny or clever comment of the URL. I've experimented with that many times myself.

[DesertSpartan]

I want to say two things relating to this post by Si (notaratface): 

1) Check out the two quizzes: Click That Cab! and With a Little Help from The Beatles.  I enjoyed both quizzes and found both to be somewhat unique ideas.

2) In general when a title of one of my quizzes has been changed, the quiz has been published, but I have a Missing Word quiz with a lot of plays and good rating with a changed title and no publish.  I have elected not to change the title back.

[JoeBeta]

Chenchilla mentioned something that was very helpful to me. As a rule, I try to make the URL and quiz title identical. An unexpected benefit to this is that I can find out which quiz titles have been changed in my published quizzes. I guess another benefit is that the original quiz title is set in stone in the URL. As far as I know, a quiz URL has never been changed after a quiz has been launched. If anyone knows of an exception, I'd love to hear of it. I've never had a quiz title changed for the worse. "Flowers In Films" was changed to "Films With Flowers". Perhaps it's actually better because you aren't being asked to name the flowers. "Periodic Elements In Song Lyrics" was changed to "Elemental Music" - shorter, less exact, but one of my favorite title changes made by Sporcle. As far as being hurt is concerned, I am sure that everybody in the Sporcle community is at one time upset about editing changes that sometimes occur when one of their quizzes is published. I was upset when Dave & Buster's stopped making shrimp po'boy sandwiches. You just have to move on with life. There's a Sporcle Quiz idea - "Upsetting Menu Changes In National Restaurant Chains". I wonder if it's been made already ...