How to not obscure the map in map quizzes?

[Sander Deryckere]

There are some possibilities to not obscure a map, but they all have problems:

• A map quiz like http://www.sporcle.com/games/g/europe looks very good, because it doesn't use a marker, but rather a background colour to show the correctly guessed countries. However, I don't see how this can be achieved in the settings.
• There's a way to not show the answer text, by adding the "empty answer" as first possibility for any answer (like "/UK/United Kingdom" will accept only UK and United Kingdom, but will not show any text), however, it also doesn't show the wrong answers, so it doesn't let people learn what they forgot. Having settings to "hide correct answer text" and "hide correct answer marker" could help.
• It's also possible to show one-letter answers, by putting that first "B/Belgium" will show the B as answer, but with disabled single-character guesses, it can't be guessed by pressing "B". However, this again has the problem of teaching the correct answers to the one taking the quiz.
• One experiment I did was this: http://www.sporcle.com/games/sanderd17/municipalities-of-west-flanders , it places the names at the sides of the map, to not obscure the view. At least this teaches players about what they missed, but not where it belongs (however, by replaying the quiz, with a bit of trial and error, they can teach themselves). Perhaps this could be formalised with a "put answers in table" option, where every answer text goes in a table, gets a number, and the markers on the map are numbered too.
  

How do you try to avoid cluttered/obscured maps? Do you think any of these settings will be coming to sporcle?

[Quizmaster91]

I don't have much experience with these kind of map quizzes, but you could try to make a map with labels that are part of the map. The labels would be numbers, with underneath the map some kind of description with all the numbers again. Then, using the labels that come with the answers, you could indicate which number corresponds with which answer. You'd end up with a quiz that would be a bit like this, but a little less sophisticated since the labels would not change color after being guessed. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible for a normal Sporcler to replicate the quiz I linked to exactly, or otherwise I don't know how.