I'm sorry if this topic was brought up before (and especially if it has already been implemented). I could not find anything on the topic, though, so here we go.

It appears that some quizzes come in sets. Is there any way a "playlist" function could be added to funtrivia.com?

My personal reason for wanting this is that I have a few series of quizzes, and it would be nice to present them in chronological order (rather than having them spread out in a category, listed by ranking). I'm sure I could come up with some cases in which it would be nice to group together quizzes that are found in different categories, as well.

Perhaps we could limit these lists to being accessible only through player profiles to prevent cluttering the more trafficked areas that would otherwise inevitably fill up with random lists. Or we could limit people to only making lists that include their own quizzes (I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not, but it would curb the number of lists).

If there is some way to do this, I'd like it too. I've got a few series, and in one series of four, it's very seldom that all four get played - someone will play three of them in a row and not notice the fourth, further down the category list.

Maybe have a link you could hit to "find more quizzes in this series", similar to the "find more quizzes by this author" link. It would be up to editors or author to hit a certain button to include the quiz on a list when it goes online.

I too vote for this. My Beanie Babies series is all over the board; A is much further down than C (the highest rated) and X is higher than G, etc... My Telescope Words series has this same issue.

Also, I have a few video games series that are based on each level of a game. It's always nice to play those in order.


Too, there are series that span more than one category. My "random quiz" series would be one that comes to mind.

Also, there are series that are always a bother to play in order... Those with two people collaborating. I have several series with Kyleisalive, and I know there is one with linkan and, oh darn, what's his name, and also Mike and Row's invertebrates.

So, yes, I would like to see these be listed all together as well.

Yes, this is a good idea and something that I've considered in the past. It can be added in our next quiz system update.

And perhaps the link could also include series that aren't necessarily series, per se. For instance, I have a music wordplay "series" of quizzes. It was not intended as a series, but it would be nice to link them all together. Also, it would be nice to be able to have a place where all my Busride quizzes are together...


Although now it is sounding complicated. Haha. Just the series quizzes being in the same place is a good enough idea for me.

Whoo! Ya! Thanks Terry!

Awesome!

Yes, grouping our Amazing Race I quizzes altogether comes to mind!

It might be a good way to organize all of the past commissions and Lounge challenges if it stretches past single-player playlists.

I'm assuming from the celebrations that Terry has worked his magic. What exactly has he done? I know that he's added the playlists, but how would I access them?

Sorry if I'm missing something staring me in the face - it wouldn't be the first time.

I think the celebrations are just because he's confirmed to do it in the next update I went looking for them last night but I don't think anything's been done quite yet.

Oh, right. Silly me. :P Thanks for responding so quickly.

There seemed to be a lot of support for this idea, with it already being implemented in the next update (though perhaps I just stumbled upon a work in progress).

How often do these updates appear?

Updates appear when Terry has time to organise them. Sometimes an idea is implemented almost immediately, sometimes it is months later. It may not happen overnight, but it will happen.

Unless he forgets all about it

I'm for multi-author playlists, such as some of the challenges/commissions that get a lot of submissions. The geo-challenge by geniusonwheels has already been made into a bus ride. I can see something similar happening (as Shuehorn noted) with the Amazing Trivia Race 1 - with six legs of at least 3 "clues" each and 10 teams, this challenge will result in a MINimum of 180 quiz additions to the site.

Not sure about individual author playlists though. If I like a certain bunch of authors and have the time/am in the mood to play some quizzes, I'll generally check their profiles in any case (and yes I do scroll past the first page for the more prolific ones lol). But if it can be implemented easily then Great!

I only wish I had more time to play anyone`s quizzes - there are so many wonderful offerings here!

Yes you can always go to the profile, but that can be difficult to play a series in order, scrolling through pages, and possibly missin some in doing so. :-)

I definitely think the amazing race would make a nice new badge challenge. 180 quizzes isn't easy for one badge.

But some of them are video games, quizzes, Salami. That would be exceedingly cruel.

I don't get it. Why is that cruel?

Some people actually LIKE video games.

I could make the same argument... Some of those quizzes are history, some are people, some are world.... But you don't hear me complaining (much). :P

Besides, video games is the least appreciated category out there... Not in many hourlies and dailies, when they are, just a few questions, not many badge and badgelet challenges contain them, etc....

Besides, don't you LIKE being out of your comfort zone, rossian?

I'm quite happy in my little comfort zone, thanks. I've been dragged quite far enough out of it in the Author Lounge already but video games is really a step too far. They have dragons, and monsters and all sorts of scary things. You wouldn't want to subject me to that, would you?

So does movies, television, literature, and heck, history.

Yes, I want to subject you to that.

Don't forget humanities - mythology has some of the scariest things you could think of. :P

Video games aren't exactly my favourite, but they're only as bad as any specific quiz on a never-heard-of-band, or an unpopular book. Some of them can be very interesting (especially some of Kyle's), and they're not all extremely specific "What colour is the dragon's hair in the 3rd level of world 6 in MW3?" (and yes, I'm fully aware that there are no dragons in "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3", and definitely not in level 3 of world 6).

Why thank you.
I try to open them up a bit more.

I'd like this - I have one "set" that go towards the Mission Impossible badge, and many people get three of them, but miss one because it's actually in a different subcategory. (They cover specific dates, and one of them only covers a single year so is categorised in that year, while the others are in a slightly more general category for the decade as they have more than one year. If I'd realised this would happen I'd have written them slightly differently, but it just never occurred to me until much later.)
I also have one like Agony's, where one of the quizzes in a series is much further down the list, and it's a bit of a "viciosu circle" in that to move up the list it needs more plays, but it won't get more plays if people don't know it's there. It's never been really worth going to the trouble of sending a CN on it to add a conclusion paragraph (they were written before that was added to the template) but it would be nice if people could at least see it was there and complete the series if they want to

Jakeroo, you seem hesitant about individual author playlists. You say that if you like an author that you will scan his/her profile for more quizzes. I can understand your hesitation, but a good example of this strategy not facilitating users is with people like myself. Let's say I have a number of quizzes about a certain book series (nine). It could be difficult or cumbersome to track down my specific nine quizzes out of 30+, especially when they're ranked by rating, rather than placed in a chronological order, by author. If you wanted to get around that by looking at my profile, then you would have to search for them in a sea of 200+ quizzes about vastly different topics, spread across multiple pages (I hope I didn't come off as snarky or flippant. That really was not my intended tone).

So my primary reason for wanting playlists is to group together quizzes that are related, or to present a set of quizzes in a certain order.

A personal example would be a series of quizzes I wrote for the “Star Wars: X-Wing” series of novels (which are actually in the process of being refurbished).

An example of grouping together related quizzes would be, perhaps, grouping my quizzes about various or multiple Star Wars movies (the individual quizzes are scattered throughout different sub categories).

Firstly, and what I feel is one of the most obvious locations, is to have a given playlist accessible from its creator's profile page.

And now for the possibly over complex stuff: where else could links to playlists be placed? Just having them in the author's page might make them difficult to track down when people go searching for specific topics.

Placing a playlist containing the quizzes for the X-Wing novels could easily be displayed in the X-Wing sub-category. All the quizzes in the list already belong to that sub-category. The issues that arise are: if there is a playlist containing only quizzes for a given sub-category and that playlist has a link IN that sub-category, then do you keep the individual quizzes available in that sub-category? And if not, then it becomes difficult to compare quizzes in a sub-category based on ranking.

If we were placing links to playlists in relevant categories, where do they get placed if a playlist spans multiple sub-categories? At the lowest possible sub-category that still encompasses all sub-categories that contain quizzes in that playlist? For this style of playlist, removing the individual quizzes from their respective sub-categories seems like a really bad idea.

If playlists were to contain quizzes across multiple root categories (which could always be restricted), where would they be placed, apart from the creator's profile?

While it is tempting to limit playlists to contain only quizzes made by one author, and have that list made by that author, for the sake of keeping the number of playlists down, I don't think this is a good idea. First of all, it may be nice to create playlists to help archive the quizzes of authors that have since left funtrivia. Secondly, it stifles creativity and user-created content, which is not what funtrivia is about. I'm not really sure how we might enforce or at least encourage responsible playlist creation. If someone wanted to make a list containing all of his or her personal favorite quizzes, that should be allowed, though that might a point in favor of making playlist only accessible from a player's profile.

Should there be a special page, or a mirror set of categories and sub-categories for storing links to playlists?

Ultimately, I feel that the current state of funtrivia (no playlists) can be improved (having playlists at accessible from at least the creator's profile). How far should this go, and in what way should it be implemented?