...and back to the forums for why I really came

It appears to me that the list of categories to change the future is incomplete. A category which may have been brand new this week (Our Solar System) doesn't appear in the list. Also, I find it strange that the bottom of my list ends with Name the People or something instead of something with a letter later in the alphabet.

You are correct, the list of "Change the Future" categories is incomplete.

I believe that there is an ancient thread on this somewhere and, if memory serves correctly, the reason is that the complete list of categories and subcategories is rather large. I think that if you look at the list regularly, you will find that the categories change periodically.

*Some* of the categories change periodically, a great many of them are always there.

Is it a technical limitation of the dropdown field? (i.e. can only query X items from a list?) Otherwise, it seems like too much maintenance to rotate what comes in and out of that list.

If the former really is the case, couldn't a second dropdown be presented to complete the list?

Some subcategories only have 2/3 quizzes in them - imagine how easy it would be to play the quizzes, copy down the answers and get 15/15 on the actual Who's The Expert in 20 seconds. I'd imagine that's a reason, it might not be the main reason though.

And do you really want to scroll through a second dropdown? The one we have is large enough.

I've watched this for a while. At any one time there are 324 categories available for selection (300 in the drop-down list + the ones which will be used in the next 24 hours, some of which had been available for selection). The list of categories only changes when a category hits the "magic" number of 31 quizzes or when editors add leading spaces to certain category names (it happened this week with "Reptiles and Amphibians" and "Specific Bird Species"). When a new category makes the list, whatever category was at the bottom is no longer selectable. When I started watching the list in 2009, the last possible category was "Rock and Roll", it is now "Names in Songs".

Categories from Brain Teasers, Sports, Television, and Video Games are never added to the selection list. In addition, a bug was introduced around June/July 2010 which causes all "For Children" categories to return "Invalid Directory" when selected, and the game stopped using them at that time also.

Actually, yes. At this time there are only 70 in the current list that I haven't won yet (and most likely won't). It would be nice to select categories such as "Roman History", "Shakespeare", "The Bible", etc that I could do well at but are now currently not selectable ONLY because of their position in the alphabet.

I don't know how the list is set up but it is not totally in alphabetical order, so while categories are dropped off the bottom of the list they aren't necessarily the last in the alphabet. We can still choose Specialized History, Thematic 10 Questions, U.S Vice Presidents, U.K. Railways...


On a related issue, would it be possible to add the parent category to the choices or to sort them by the main category? One of the categories on the dropdown (which I don't remember seeing before this week) is "Genesis". I checked in Search and there is a "Genesis" category in Music and a "Genesis" category in Religion. It would be nice to know which one is in the Expert choices.

I think you and I would both love to see more baseball. Sports categories come along in expert so seldom that I have stopped waiting for them. At least when they do, they generally "cannot be changed."

I think you may be able to tell by the other categories around it.

The two categories above "Genesis" are "Environment" and "Flags and Symbols". The two categories below are "Global Trivia" and "Health and Human Biology". Since none of these are either Music or Religion, it doesn't seem to help.

Genesis (Religion) has 32 quizzes. Genesis (Music) has only 5. So it has to be the Religion category.

Speaking of Change the Future, someone needs to explain to me why other people are allowed to change your Change the Future choice. The Change the Future is a level perk. You are only allowed to use it once per week. I used mine this week. Three hours later when I checked, someone had replaced my pick with their own. If this is a perk, why is it allowed to be negated? Why aren't the only categories that can be changed the ones that no one has used their Change the Future perk on? This is the only perk that someone else can take away from you.

And for the record, I have found out who replaced my pick. Until there is a change in how Change the Future is set up, that person might as well forget about using their Change the Future for a long time. As long as someone can change someone else's pick, I'll be changing this person's pick every week.

It's simply because there are more people entitled to use the perk than there are Expert games in a week. If no one could override someone else's choice, then no one would be able to use the perk past Monday probably! Getting petty about it isn't going to solve anything - I doubt that person changed your topic as a personal thing. For the record, I rarely use the perk, but when I do, I never override someone's choice out of courtesy, but it's the way the game is set up. You are warned on the page that your choice can be overriden by another player.

I never change someone else's pick out of courtesy either, but it is just that, a courtesy. It is within the rules to change another person's pick for reasons described by Reeshy. It seems very petty to follow someone around for weeks changing their picks, when they have done nothing wrong and did not specifically target you most likely.

I disagree. Usually when my pick gets changed, there are plenty of unchanged categories.

Why not add another perk at level 100, 125, or 150, the ability to change a category without being overridden? If too many people start using it, then restrict the # of times it can be used (say, once per month instead of once per week).

Also, why can't the dropdown list make every category selectable? I want to see more Roman History, Shakespeare, the Bible, or "For Children" categories. Why make an arbitrary cutoff at 300 when there are more than 300 large categories?

LOL @ the dippity... I remember when I was trying to get my 100th win and kept picking German, only to have it overwritten every single time. I got my own back though, I got my 100th on another subject then got German when someone else picked it.

An unchanged category is not always one people may want to change, as they may be categories you have not won yet (at least for me it works that way being far off the 100 wins). Fortunately I always find categories like Needlework or US Vice-presidents to change into something more suitable.

I actually won the US Vice-Presidents, much to my amazement. I think it must have come up when all the Americans were asleep. The more obscure ones can sometimes be easier to win, maybe because players groan and decide not to play. The perk is one I use only occasionally. Would I change someone else's pick? Probably not, but if it happened to be Baseball.....

....and for those of us who like baseball, it seems unfair that a category with so many quizzes available would not be one that we could choose from to see who the expert really is..

I always change Harry Potter when someone has chosen it, out of principle.
I don't mind if someone changes mine, they normally come up when I'm asleep or driving home or other periods away from the computer, so I rarely get to play my own picks anyway.

So nobody can answer my question as to why it isn't set up so someone cannot change another person's pick.

In the meantime, DomInNeyTor has changed my pick for this week. What a clever dick he or she is.

This might be because only Terry can give the reason; I was always under the impression that it was just part of the game. If everyone got the chance to change it and the changes couldn't be swapped out, there could come a time where people wouldn't be able to use the perk.

My suggestion would be to play tactically-- save the perk until the very, very end of the week when everyone has already used theirs. Just like the other games, it might simply be a matter of strategy.

I did speculate it was because there are more players than available Expert games per week, which seems a very valid reason to me, but I guess confirmation would be nice.

I've picked the same category every week for the past six weeks. Each time I've either offline when the category was played or, worse, I've simply forgotten. This week I chose another category to break the cycle only to see that things have really gone back to normal... it will be on when I'm asleep.

So rabbits don't have alarm clocks?

No, only long ears, sharp teeth and a pointy stick!

I had the same 2 guys erase my choice every week I tried to outlast them but I work weekends and would miss it. I gave up and quit playing. Mean people suck.

They might not be mean, they might just dislike the category (categories) you choose. I have had several people change my choices, and with the obscure topics I pick, I'm not suprised.

Adam has made the comment I thought of also. Don't give up playing: you can win categories you haven't picked too.