Well from everyone elses side (at least until you hand the rest out), it looks like this:



By the way, wasn't there also a team of two?

It was initially a team of three but one player withdrew. Since he had written at least one race quiz, I count him even though it'll be Kyle's choice whether he gets the award.

Oh, okay, I didn't realise she (I was sure it was a team of girls) withdrew part way through.

I'm thinking 'she' too and my understanding is that there was a very good reason for the withdrawal. My personal view, for what it's worth, is that the badgelet should still be awarded.

The other player was a she. She withdrew for two reasons. The first was that she was in hospital for a couple of days. The second was she went back to work full time.

She'd only submitted a couple of questions I think when she got sick. Can't remember - everything is a blur from the adrenalin rush

I didn't realise we could form teams with members who weren't all from the same Team. That should make it easier next time. We couldn't get anyone else motivated in the Scrambled Eggheads, beyond their offering to submit a question now and then if we needed it - and by the time you chased them up about that, it would have been too time-consuming.

I'm sure I'll be told off for being a spoilsport and a sourpuss, but I'm very much opposed to the idea of issuing badges and/or badgelets retrospectively, without making it explicit in advance that this would be the case.

Well done and congratulations to all those who took part and all that, but up until now it has been part and parcel of this site that EVERYBODY, and I mean EVERYBODY, had the opportunity to go for EVERY badge/badgelet available, no matter how difficult it is to get some of them.

But now here is one being given after the event, and deliberately closed off to anyone else. Sorry, but this leaves a nasty taste.

Maybe, in the interests of fairness, if there is ever another race, this badgelet should be made available to all new participants who didn't get it last time.

And please don't say that it's only a badgelet, and so doesn't matter that much. It counts in the overall "Most Badges Awarded" list, and counts towards the eventual "100 Badgelets" Badge (when that becomes available). For bragging rights, if nothing else, it matters.

That's my moan over! I'd be grateful for comments, for and against!

From the very beginning of the race we were told a badgelet would most likely be offered for participating. I see no real difference between this badgelet and one like Leader or Volunteer that can theoretically be earned by everyone but in reality is issued to very few. In fact there is no real way everyone could hold the Leader badge unless everyone was leader of their own team and what would the point of that be? On any one team only the leader gets the badge, meaning by default no one else on his team can get the badge.

Anyone could have joined the race and authored quizzes, therefore the badge was open to all. The fact that it was not yet established does not change the fact that anyone could have participated and that it was known about from the very beginning. I worked hard for the race badgelet and am proud to be a holder of it. I think those that went through the process deserve special recognition and after all it is only a badgelet, not a full fledged badge like the Leader or Volunteer, both of which I will probably never hold.

(Preface: I was not involved in the decision to make this badgelet. It came to me as a surprise as well, although earlier than to you.)

The decision to make the badgelet was known on the start date of the race, but it was at that time communicated only to the racers (I have just checked back - it is not in the TATR thread in the author lounge, but it is definitely in the "racer handbook" that we did receive on December 29). So it's not exactly an "after the fact" decision.

Whether this exclusivity is a good or a bad thing, I don't know. On the one hand, the "always available" principle has been set, but it has also been broken in the past by removing Best in Class from the list of things that can be earned (and that one even was a major badge). So there is a precedent for players not having been there at a certain time not being able to earn certain things. There are also awards out there that normal members can never hope to earn - especially the Volunteer badge is one that is to 99% invitation only and awards such as the Lucky Duck are not tied to any specific performance. So this isn't as unique as it might appear and the top badge holder rankings will always include a small amount of "white noise" when using them to assess performance.

This is by the way the reason for having the "Annex" group in the Tower of Challenges - a completist collector should not count those. They are predominantly based on luck, have criteria that some players will never be able to meet or are otherwise based on something that you cannot actively work towards.

By the way, if the award had been communicated prior to signup, the race would ironically likely not have worked in the first place. Many players just in it for the badge would have formed teams and some of those would have been authors not truly up to the task - we'd have seen race quizzes with three rejection rounds, legs lasting way over a month, teams disbanding in mid-race due to finding out just how much work it can be for a single badgelet and other problems.

Reusing the badgelet for the second race would violate trust as well - the racers were clearly told it would not be used for any other event.

Maybe this should just be thought of as a new type of award - one whose criteria include "doing something just because one really wants to do it and not because there's a badge attached to it". It might not remain the only one of its kind over time but this type will never become commonplace, so such awards will always only be a very small boost in the rankings for those whose dedication to playing and writing trivia is beyond that of a normal member.

I've been pretty vocal along the very same line when the retirement of the Best in Class badge came around, especially with the fact that it would have had an easy replacement - a fixed score threshold to be earned in a day or a mini-Endurance that requires a top 20 finish for the day. If that one hadn't set precedent, I would probably right be with you on the barricades even though I did play the race. With that one already retired and unavailable, I don't consider this new surprise an all-evil thing. It's a change that players will get used to and who knows - the possibility of another one of its kind lurking around an unknown corner might just boost participation in future activities.

Time will tell - in the long run this will probably open more things than it will hurt.

Wes

I approached Terry about the badgelet possibility before the race began (in other words, it was never really implied to be retrospective so much as it was a prize) because I anticipated the difficulty of the task at hand and felt that it would be extra incentive and well-deserved; racers were unaware that it was going to be included until they received their very first clue. The point wasn't so much that they would be going for a badgelet so much as they would be contributing new quizzes.

I think that it's a small token of gratitude for their desire to dive headlong into something as big as the race (and my kooky ideas); it makes it very special. I understand the disappointment in retiring it so soon, but everyone was given an opportunity to join-- even first-time authors and non-gold members. They accomplished a very difficult mission and worked together to make FunTrivia better. Almost every major author on the site, I would argue, frequents the Author's Lounge and the recruitment post was stickied to the top since early December. To get the badgelet, you basically needed to be an active author in the FunTrivia community with a noted interest in the site's authoring 'games' and challenges, and you needed to follow the instructions. The badgelet isn't for everybody.

I do hope to do another one someday, somehow (if I'm allowed) and I'm sure more people would join, but to place the badgelet front and center would have detracted from the point-- authoring for the sake of authoring.

Hopefully, we can find a way to incorporate the quizzes into a challenge for the players as well.



Perhaps Terry should remove the Retired Badges from that overall tally to make that fair.

I don't think so. Unless there are dozens of these around, there are other awards like the Lucky Duck and Volunteer included in the counts that contribute just as much, if not more "white noise" to the rankings. Yes, it may mean that a racer could get the coveted, as of yet unattainable, 100 badgelet award a few days earlier. But as soon as the 101st badgelet is out in the wild, it'll be there for all of us. (And Terry always has the option to release a few badgelets in short succession once we hit the 100 mark so the top players all get their chances at once even if they miss a few esoteric ones like the Race or the Codebreaker.)

There are also other little inequalities - anyone joining the site tomorrow will be at a major disadvantage towards one specific badgelet because they will be the only members who won't be able to pick this up in one year's time. They'll need to wait four.

To those who took part that and got the mini badge, a big well done . I was asked by a team mate to take part, but me being me just knew i would have held them back lol still be lost on the 1st leg

Do i begrudge those who have it. Not one bit, as so many mini badges and major badges have come via those who live in the authors lounge ( meant in a nice way) and long may it continue. There is always going to be major or mini badges that some people will not get, but overall things in FT tend to balance out in the end.

I couldn't have put it better myself. Saying from the start "Participation will get you a badgelet which you will never have a chance to earn ever again" would have attracted people who just wanted the badgelet, and didn't care about the race, or the fun aspect.

I wouldn't have joined even if 5 badges had been awarded, because I simply wouldn't have found it fun to write so much in such a short space of time, under that type of pressure. We all had the choice to join, and if you didn't want to join at the start, you shouldn't regret your choice.

IMO, there shouldn't be any more badges awarded for any sequels to TATR, not because people would be unworthy of a minibadge, but because this seems like a one-time thing, and that if there were more awarded, people would join just for the badge.

EDIT: Accidentally hit submit halfway through the last sentence.

I'm still waiting for the Lucky Duck to fly my way, and the badgelet for the Race feels to me a bit like that - I got a small but valued reward for doing something I really wanted to do, and enjoyed immensely. Everybody who wanted to be part of the action had the opportunity to do so - even the need to form teams didn't exclude players, as interested individuals were able to band together to form one. While it has been awarded after the event (the racers had to get to the end for it to be meaningful), anyone on the site who wanted to be part of the Race and write their little heads off for two months could do so.

I believe there was only one team in the race that consisted of an existing team. The rest of us formed into teams just for the race and got to know each other as we went along, which just added to the fun. I very nearly missed out myself, because I assumed the stickies at the top of the board were what they usually are - information about completed and ongoing challenges, so I read it only just before the closing date for entries. That would have caused me great anguish - I would have hated to have missed the challenge of the race, even though it was exhausting. I'd never realised that there were two 4 o'clocks in the day until I took part in this.

I agree absolutely that it's fair. I've followed the Race in the Lounge without taking part and the racers have put in a huge amount of effort to get the quizzes written and it wasn't only for the motivation of a badge. Badges are a great part of the site and I love having them to show my achievements, but to be honest, complaining because there's now one you can't get seems a bit sour. You had the option to join the Race in the first place so it was fair. I admit that having a badge there for an achievement encourages me to try for the badge's sake, but I wouldn't necessarily join the Race just for the reward of a badge - too much work with real life going on too! Sorry if you would have joined only for a badge, but instead of being bitter about not being able to get the badge, we should all be chuffed with the many new great quizzes that came out of the Race and commend the racers for their efforts. Plus, it's been said that a badge for other members will be released that involves playing the quizzes from the Race, so without the racers' efforts, we wouldn't have that new badge!

I sent invitations to many of the site's most active authoring teams back in December as well.

Hopefully if and when we do this again it will provide an extra jolt of motivation but we'll cross any reward opportunities when we get there. Just enjoy the quizzes for now; there's hundreds to play from the race quizzes (without all the extra ones written alongside).

In regards to too much going on in real life, I completely agree, but that's why teams had four people; teams are here to support!

I think the badge is absolutely deserved. It is great what these writers accomplished! That said, many of us have never been to the Author's Lounge, and it seems as if a challenge like this would have been a great way to bring new quiz writers into the fold. Maybe if something like this is done in the future, it might be worth it to alert people outside of the Author's enclave. Maybe a general announcement or something would work. I would probably not have played anyway, I find writing quizzes incredibly frustrating, but I just heard about the Race in the past few weeks.

I didn't join the Race to get a badgelet, and to find that there was to be one when the Racers Handbook was issued was a nice surprise, but that was all. I, and the rest of my team, joined up because we wanted to participate in a unique competition that challenged us as authors. We were the team referred to as all being from an existing team, but if none of my team had wanted to do it with me I would have gone ahead anyway and joined an ad hoc writing team as many others did.

As to it being not available to everyone, well, it isn't the only one. I shall probably never get the volunteer badge and perfect score still eludes me.

I consider it a souvenir more than a reward. For those who participated to look back and say "hey that was cool".

It's not like you're going to get checks in the mail for $2000 for having a mini badge.

I have no problem doing more of these one-offs, perhaps for completely different activities.

I couldn't agree more with what Kyle says here. Besides, there are three badges on the site for authoring quizzes (20, 50, and 100). Maybe I've been here far longer than some (11 years today!), but I can remember when there were no badges whatsoever...or "bonus points" for that matter. You can see by the link above (the timestamp was the day after I started). The site has evolved considerably since then. I commend the authors from the Race as it takes a lot of skill and work to get that many quizzes authored in that short a time (I realize there were three or four participating).

Congratulations on your 11 years - some achievement, you must be one of the earliest members.

The link just made me spend about an hour looking at the past of the site. If Terry allows it (against the standard rule), I should someday write a quiz about FunTrivia history. Or more than one - I could easily come up with 50 interesting questions about this topic...

Quite a difference, right, Wes?



Thanks for the well wishes, Christina.

There were just over 100,000 members when I joined. It's hard to believe it was that long ago I found this site!

Actually one of the interesting things was how many things were in place quite early or at least had clear and obvious roots. Okay, no levels or badges and "Global Challenge" meant something very different back then, but many things we take for granted today were pretty well established by 2003.

I also wonder just how many players would answer "Which of FunTrivia's 20 main categories of 2012 was the last to be established?" correctly.

[The answer is Video Games - for quite a time VG lived as part of Entertainment]

And here's one for you to research: The last category structure before the current one also had exactly 20 root categories and 19 match today's setup. Which was the 20th?

If I remember correctly, the answer is "Seasonal," which is now part of "World."

edit to add: "Video Games" took the 20th spot.

Score yourself 15 FT points

Wish I could in the Forums, though.

There are still a lot of things that are different from then to now. Can you name all the editors now that were the day I started? As far as I know, there are only five.

Very well said, rossian! The best part of this race is having gotten to know some of the people who ran, both as teammates and as competitors from other teams on the race. Now when I see your names, I feel I know you; I seek out your quizzes; I celebrate your successes.



I would have hated not taking part too, and the experience itself was so rewarding and exhausting that the badgelet is just icing on the cake. The race was the thing, as any of the racers can tell you.

Sue

Thanks for reminding me, Sue. The race generated a lot of friendship between the different teams, too. It was always good to receive a note of much needed encouragement from a fellow racer to raise sometimes flagging spirits. It was a shared experience for all participants.

I think I only disagree with two of the points that have been made in response to my original post (see below) - the general view seems to be that people took part in the Race because it seemed like a fun thing to do (which is great) and that the badgelet wasn't important (which is fine too). As a Volunteer Editor, I worked very hard in a short period of time to put a lot of quizzes online when the race visited the World Category, so I played my part too, and was delighted to do so.



I think this post has missed my point - if it had been made clear in advance that a badgelet would be awarded, then it would have been entirely fair if I had decided not to join. What is NOT fair is that it was only awarded afterwards, and then immediately retired.



I think "violating trust" is a bit strong - the ways in which games have been played and badges awarded have changed before. And this makes it look even more like a "private club" award. Not really in the egalitarian spirit of FunTrivia, in my view.

But no-one has really addressed my general point that awarding a badge/badgelet retrospectively, and then closing it off to future participants, is NOT a positive move. It is exactly as if it were to be announced today that everyone who had (say) played the Daily Game yesterday were to be awarded a special badge, as a one-off.

I think it is undeniable that the major reason FunTrivia has become the most popular online quiz site is the brainwave of awarding badges for progress, giving players a range of different things to aim for - people love collecting things. And the point that I really can't make too strongly is that, until now, EVERY badge or badgelet on the site has been available for EVERY player to aim for, no matter how difficult or time-consuming - including the randomly-awarded ones.