"Americacentricity" of quizzes
Posted by: Linda1
"Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Nov 15 2003 12:28 PM
"Americacentricity" - is that a word?! Anyway, what I mean is the tendency for quizzes in QLand to be geared towards US topics.
I've heard some feedback from some of the non-US members that they're concerned about the fact that their interests are not as well represented. Or, that all the quizzes seem to be America based - American movies, actors, tv shows, locations, hobbies, etc.
Well, I have a solution!
Create a quiz!!! 
If all you're seeing are US-geared quizzes, there's nothing preventing you from creating a quiz that's not. What you're seeing is the quiz creating from the people who have chosen to do so - and if only Americans are creating them, you can't be shocked that they're going to create them based on their own interests. And, you can't be offended by that, either. It's not like the editors are keeping other quizzes off, just because they're not America centered. We take what we get here.
One note that I'm not sure some people are aware of....our editors are not primarily from the US. We have editors from ALL over the world. Many of our editors speak multiple languages, many have lived in multiple countries of the world, and all are highly talented in the field of editing quizzes!
If you're not happy with the quizzes you're seeing, there is a remedy. But, YOU have to take the initiative in doing something about it!
Posted by: Linda1
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Nov 15 2003 12:37 PM
One caveat to the above, though. You do need to realize that a great portion of the site's members ARE Americans. So, that affects the kinds of quizzes that are played.
However, that's fixable as well! This is (get this!), the WORLD WIDE Web. That means that your friends and family can actually join FT - even if they're not American born! Whoa! Pretty cool, huh? Get the word out about the site to all your friends - get the site recognized in your country. Tell everyone what a wonderful place it is to meet new people, play new quizzes, create new quizzes, etc.
See, there's no excuse for complaining that we're too "American" here!
Posted by: Terry
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Nov 15 2003 01:06 PM
It's funny, because FunTrivia is truly content-by-democracy. FunTrivia has the perfect balance of content because it truly represents those people who visit the site. It's not only not broken, but it's optimal
Terry
Posted by: Copago
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Nov 15 2003 01:33 PM
Another forum board I frequent that is for my favourite sporting team had a thread linked to the quizzes of that particular team recently - and it would have to be 99% Australians that go there. So if peopel see a particular interest of theirs represented it will hopefuly encourage them to explore the site further or make even more quizzes on that topic.
Wests-tigers forum
Posted by: TabbyTom
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Nov 15 2003 02:42 PM
Maybe we should also point out that our American members don’t all confine themselves to American subjects for their quizzes. There are some fine quizzes on British subjects by Ladymacb, Morrigan716, LindaC007 and Junior The Jaws, to name only a few.
Posted by: Kuu
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Nov 15 2003 02:49 PM
I have written a few quizzes with Australian themes. They are usually only done by Australians and I usually get quite a few compliments.
The only time I get annoyed by 'Americanisation' is when I do a quiz that I think is going to contain a broad coverage of a subject only to discover that it is an American quiz. For example perhaps a quiz is titled 'Famous Women' and all, or nearly all the questions are about American women.
Posted by: thejazzkickazz
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Nov 15 2003 06:25 PM
I don't think the problem at this website, in regards to quiz content, is related to 'Americentrism'. I think there is an overall lack of interest and enthusiasm for cultures and topics outside the realm of the English speaking world. All one has to do is look at the number of times quizzes on Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific islands have been played, or better yet the number of quizzes created on those topics in general, to see that we in the Western world are rather insular in our thinking and in the attentions we pay to the rest of the world.
I have seen some of the complaints from those who lament the 'Americentricity' of the contents at Quizzyland, but rarely see their names among the lists of players who have tried quizzes on topics outside their narrow realms...
Posted by: Kuu
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Nov 15 2003 06:49 PM
I could do a quiz on something like South American Pioneer Aviation (a subject I am actually interested in) but I doubt anyone much would do it. Likewise on many other subjects I am interested in.
Posted by: spanishliz
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Nov 15 2003 07:26 PM
I'd play that one, Kuu, if only to learn something.
Posted by: Linda1
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Nov 15 2003 10:11 PM
Quote:
I could do a quiz on something like South American Pioneer Aviation (a subject I am actually interested in) but I doubt anyone much would do it. Likewise on many other subjects I am interested in.
Like Spanishliz said, some will try a quiz like that to learn something - believe it or not, some people actually use the site to better their minds!
But, the above statement also proves my other point. There's no rule about encouraging people you know who enjoy the same kinds of things you do to join FT. If you have friends who like South American Pioneer Aviation, get them here, so they can also enjoy quizzes on that subject. If you're in a club or organization that enjoys such a topic, perhaps they could join FT and expand the quizplayer base. Again, ya can't complain about the interests of the people here - they can have any interests they please! It's only through expanding that player base that we get a more diverse group of people who will play more diverse topics.
All boils down to simply...Get the word out about FT! Encourage everyone you know to take a look at the site and become involved! That's how we get the kind of site where we all learn something new about the world around us.
I guess my frustration with this is that it gets awfully tiring to hear the griping about the site. What are you doing to help change it? Griping gets you nowhere! Actively recruiting more members is a more positive thing to do.
Posted by: JuniorTheJaws
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Nov 16 2003 03:59 AM
Quote:
I could do a quiz on something like South American Pioneer Aviation (a subject I am actually interested in) but I doubt anyone much would do it. Likewise on many other subjects I am interested in.
Kuu, when I decided to create my very first art quiz about the National Gallery, Jazz informed me that it may not be played nearly as much as the other quizzes like music, television, and Celebrity quizzes. Upon hearing that I still created "Ten Masterpieces in the National Gallery" and not long after it was placed online it had sunglasses and it now is the number one quiz in the art by museum section....which I am very proud of.
Since then I have created quizzes on Derbyshire, England, John Constable, Titian, and Rodin.....and they have all be played under 30 times and have not even been rated...and it does not bother me because I created quizzes on subjects that I like and eventually others that like those topics will play them.
The most important thing I have discovered and learned from being at Funtrivia is that people in general will play what is interesting to them. I do not worry too much about quiz rankings and or ratings, but am very pleased when art quizzes receive sunnies and or EP's ...as those types of quizzes are a bit more difficult to create than the millionth quiz on "Friends" is.
The most important thing is to create quizzes that interest you and eventually they will get played...when the right person or persons click on the new quiz list and see a quiz that is different and uniquely written...that is the best satisfaction of all.....luring quiz players into the quiz and then receiving their appreciation on a creating a well informed, unique topic quiz.....not the ratings, but rather your piece of mind and knowing that you taught someone something new that day.
And Kuu, if you do create a quiz on "South American Pioneer Aviation," I will definitely play it, as I am sure I will learn something that I do not know from playing it. Learning is perhaps the best tool...and creating quizzes on subjects that interest you help others to learn.
Also, one cannot worry what others like...you have to create quizzes that you like...and Jazz's quiz list is the perfect example!
And thanks TabbyTom for the compliment above....much appreciated. 
---------------
Agnes (JTJ)
Posted by: Bruyere
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Nov 16 2003 08:09 AM
I've been looking at every aspect of this question since I got here a while back, almost three years now.
Sure, I'm American but, perhaps not your typical garden variety as I've studied in the UK, France and the USA, lived and worked abroad and don't really see that many barriers between us all. Plus as a translator, I deal with the varieties of English (as well as French for that matter) in everyday life.
One thing I do try to implement here as an editor (and as a mod when I was one for a brief time) is to gently remind people when they write quizzes that they will be taken by people all over the world, therefore if their work is specific to one part of the world, like hit songs in the Australian market, then go ahead and say so.
Yes, I admit that Americans are probably the first to forget and put things like "Our president" because they haven't realized that the site is used by people all over the world.
There are diplomatic ways of mentioning this though. In most instances they are younger people but not always. If I see a quiz on a particular make of car, I always ask them to specify which market, UK, Australia, or US. These are just examples of how to minimize the country specificity.
One other thing you'll note is that if most Americans did the British version of Trivial Pursuit, they'd fail miserably at it as the sports and other cultural references would be obscure to most of us. We share a lot of cultural references but if one group used the other's version of the game, there would be a lot of gaps in our knowledge of television programs or very specific things we don't necessarily share. If you get a quiz here that someone has dreamt up for general trivia and it represents typically British or US style trivia, then perhaps yes, you might be a bit flustered. I personally enjoy it as my chances of knowing what on earth is going on in cricket or rugby or Terry Wogan's early career are hopeless. But I have fun guessing.
So I do recognize that in the past there were a lot of American style trivia quizzes here that didn't take into account that "our president" wasn't necessarily anyone else's president, but lots of progress has been made. The editing team really does come from all around the world.
I think the only answer to anyone who really objects to the Americanocentricity is to create their own quizzes that illustrate the opposite.
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Nov 16 2003 11:04 AM
I have to agree with Agnes about writing quizzes that reflect your own interests, rather than what you imagine the interests of the majority are. I doubt that my quizzes on CBC radio, or Canadian Mystery Authors, will EVER get enough players to be rated, but I enjoyed writing them.
One of the things that drew me to this site when I first discovered it was the fact that there were quizzes on MY areas of interest, odd and obscure though some of them are. I have still not, after about a year on the site, ever been into the Celebrities or People categories, and I'm sure that there are plenty of players who've never ventured into the Detective and Mystery category of Literature, where I spend a lot of my time. There is room for all of us here.
Posted by: LindaC007
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Nov 17 2003 06:57 AM
Agnes' quizzes on Derbyshire and the National Gallery were just lovely quizzes in every way. Everyone, no matter where they call home, would enjoy them.
Agony is right. There is room for all of us. Variety is truly the spice of life here.
Posted by: Linda1
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Dec 11 2003 09:36 AM
Bringing this up as it relates to another current thread.
Posted by: ironikinit
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Jan 02 2004 10:18 AM
Well, it's nice to have a variety, true, but I can't recommend bothering with a 20 question quiz on an author unless you're fairly sure that he's popular enough to get at least twenty or so plays.
Even though I did exactly the opposite once, it wasn't terrible. I learned a good deal about an author I like while writing the quiz. I doubt I'll do it again, though.
As for Americentrism, I'm sure it's frustrating. I imagine many people find the large number of quizzes about US presidents as uninteresting as I find quizzes about the London Underground. That's just the way trivia is, though. There are subjects that will simply always be a mystery to me, such as sports above a very basic level, or classic TV, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or any number of topics.
The advice to write quizzes to counter-act flooding of certain topics is good, and I like that editors have put moratoriums on certain topics now and then. That probably helps a lot.
I'm pleased to say, Bruyere, that although I'm not Australian by birth I've yet to lose a series of Australian Trivial Pursuit. I think it helps that my favourite topics are Science/Tech and History. If it was sports I'd be hurting.
Posted by: Bruyere
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Jan 02 2004 07:38 PM
Time and time again I realize that if a quiz is well crafted it doesn't matter what the subject is. The trick is to get well crafted ones.
I did the French national one on TV recently and scored as well as booksellers and another group despite the strong cultural bias in which you must know names of breakfast cereals and radio programs people listened to sixty years ago. The questions were very well crafted and enjoyable to take however.
This is what I try to encourage in people writing quizzes here.
Posted by: quogequox
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Jan 23 2004 08:04 PM
The issue I have with the Americanisation of the questions is the labelling of them! If i go to a general sports quiz and find it's about college basketball, ice hockey, baseball and so forth it leaves me guessing, if it's about American sports, american movies, american anything it should be labelled as such. If it doesnt have such a label it's not unreasonable to assume that we may get a spread of questions.
Given some off the ridiculous restrictions placed on quiz making, it's surprising ( yeah right!) that such a simple task as placing USA in the title isn't one of them.
Posted by: JuniorTheJaws
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Jan 23 2004 08:31 PM
Quote:
Given some off the ridiculous restrictions placed on quiz making, it's surprising ( yeah right!) that such a simple task as placing USA in the title isn't one of them.
Not to sound cruel or anything, but why should it be just the American quizmakers who have to label their quizzes? Why not the British? Or the Aussies? Should they not label theirs? Sounds silly doesn't it?
Once you click "play" to actually play a quiz and you find that it is "American" then all you have to do is to click the back button on your browser bar to take you out of it if you do not want to play an "American" quiz.
But nevertheless, you are missing the fact that some "American" quiz authors have written diversified quizzes on numerous subjects of world interest.
Stressing that I am not knocking our quiz authors that come from Great Britain, Scotland, Wales, Australia, India and various other parts of the world, as they contribute greatly to the site...what I am saying is that everyone and I stress everyone is quite capable of expanding their knowledge. And when you think of it in those terms are quiz rankings really all that important? Me thinks not.
---------------
Agnes (JTJ)
Posted by: quogequox
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Jan 23 2004 08:48 PM
Well obviously all quizes should be labelled appropriatly but i think you'll find that non-usa topics specific to a country or region are labelled as such either due to the approach of the quiz maker or on request by moderators.
As to all i have to is backspace back if the quiz isnt what i expected, that's true but rather beside the point, all i have to do is sit at the back of the bus but that dont make it right.
Posted by: JuniorTheJaws
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Jan 23 2004 09:00 PM
Quote:
As to all i have to is backspace back if the quiz isnt what i expected, that's true but rather beside the point, all i have to do is sit at the back of the bus but that dont make it right.
But actually that is the point. You are basically saying that when you click play to enter a quiz and realise that it is "American" in nature that it does not appeal to you. So if something does not appeal then why play it? When you sit in the back of the bus, do you not move when an empty space closer to the front becomes available? Or do you just sit there at the back?
What I do know is that depending on the topic at hand each editor will determine if a quizmaker would be better suited in stating that the quiz is based on ..oh let's say a British television show, as opposed to just using the programs name in the title.
What I have found is that it is the quiz authors who are not American, that tend to state the country/city origin of their quiz. So with that being said..would it be surmised that if it is not labelled then it is American in nature? I know I would.
------------
Agnes (JTJ)
Posted by: quogequox
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Jan 23 2004 10:41 PM
Well no it's not the point at all if something is wrong you attempt to fix it you don't just put up with it. That's why i can sit anywhere on the bus now!!
Wrong is wrong it doesn't matter whether it's americanised or botwanaised.
What you have here is the thinking of the blind majority, if it's not an issue for most then the rest of you are just gonna have to deal with it. Strangely i thought the world had moved passed that mentality.
Posted by: JuniorTheJaws
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Jan 24 2004 06:10 AM
Most important thing I think that is being forgotten is that Funtrivia is a US based site to begin with.
Not that it matters really, but if it the American quizzes that are a problem, then the only thing I can suggest would be to create some of your own quizzes.
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Agnes (JT)
Posted by: gtho4
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Jan 24 2004 08:35 AM
>> posted by quogequox:
>> If i go to a general sports quiz and find it's about college basketball, ice hockey, baseball and so forth it leaves me guessing, if it's about American sports, american movies, american anything it should be labelled as such. If it doesn't have such a label it's not unreasonable to assume that we may get a spread of questions.
This is a reasonable presumption; and a reasonable request. Categorisation was pretty well an art form when Quizzyland was in its infancy, but has improved markedly since. We get it right most times, but some do slip through. If you find one that's in the wrong sub-category, send a correction note to the author (editors of each category see all corr notes). If they're not brought to an editor's attention, the mis-categorisation can't be fixed. Ditto where the quiz introduction needs expanding, as it doesn't adequately describe its questions/content.
Posted by: Linda1
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Jan 24 2004 04:04 PM
Absolutely. If adding a little statement to the intro would help people know better what's in the quiz, it can be done. It's not that big of a deal. And, not something that needs a lot of hooplah over! Adding in a phrase that the quiz covers mainly American sports (for instance) shouldn't be a problem. (Although, I hope that doesn't mean you'll limit yourself to non-US quizzes!
Take some of them - even if it's just to learn something new about something American. You might enjoy it!)
I also would reiterate that we're always looking for quizzes from ALL over the world. As has been stated before, our editors are not all Americans. And, there is no rule that says only American quizzes get put online. Those of you who are not from the US, create some quizzes, so the field will be more level for everyone.
Posted by: Linda1
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Jan 24 2004 04:06 PM
(quogequox, we'll try to "audi et alteram partem" as we can
And, yours was a reasonable request. Thanks for alerting us to something that might be helpful to other members of the site.)
Posted by: Coolupway
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Jan 25 2004 02:31 PM
I must sadly concur in the observation that subjects relating to a certain huge, powerful democracy have come to predominate here at FT. There is no sense denying it any more, and indeed, as I look back, I realize that I have been complicit in perpetuating this subtle and insidious cultural imperialism.
Of the quizzes I have on the site, the one that has been played far and away the most is one which concerns Apu Nahasapeemapetilon of "The Simpsons". I have started at least one forum thread about "the ineffable subcontinent." I have debated the particulars of the 1947 partition in the fora and put up many questions in other quizzes about certain prominent members of the Congress Party, and more recently, again tin the fora, discussed the BJP. And I have read, also in the fora, more about cricket than the human mind can comprehend.
FT is rampantly and undeniably Indocentric.
Western Civilization? "I think it would be a good idea."
Haay Ram.
Posted by: quogequox
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Mar 14 2004 03:02 PM
May I present quiz number 169713 as an example of a mixed sport quiz which could snuggly fit under the umbrella US mixed sports. I doubt whether a quiz on sporting events of the Transvaal would find itself disguised as a mixed sport quiz.
Posted by: damnsuicidalroos
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Mar 14 2004 09:48 PM
The fact that there is a certain Americacentricity doesn`t bother me in the slightest. The daily quizz is a good example of my unbotheredness.Each time I play I find many USA questions that I wouldn`t have the foggiest about and score low and feel dumb
.Then I recall which country wins the Olympics time after time when the scores are based per capita and realise that Australia is once again miles ahead of the pack
. I believe that giving the yanks a few points headstart is only a leveling of the field afterall.
Posted by: Bruyere
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 10 2004 09:55 PM
I think we've almost reached parity as I just got four, count em, four Aussie questions on the daily quiz.
Posted by: Wallarobba
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Jan 02 2005 12:55 AM
4 questions on the daily quiz? Good. I'm from Australia, and even though I hardly ever do the daily quiz, I still think it is unfair that Australians like me have to battle 20 American questions!
Posted by: quogequox
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Jan 02 2005 02:02 AM
Dont even bother mate
Consider it an opportunity to learn.
Posted by: beee
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Apr 02 2005 06:58 PM
I just had a thought. One of my quizzes is on 80s cartoons, and I received some feedback on it from somebody who suggested I should mention in the description that it was not based on American cartoons. Personally I didn't think this was necessary because there is no reason for people to assume that a quiz on 80s cartoons should be based on American cartoons, but I did add this into the description.
Witht hings like this couldn't it work the other way as well, so if a quiz is on something like TV shows from a particular time period or something like that which people aren't necessarily going to assume wil be Americacentric there could maybe be some mention of it in the description.
Did that even make any sense??
Posted by: silverginger
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Apr 02 2005 07:40 PM
As editors in different categories, we cannot apply one rule to satisfy another. I am a Brit, and while I have difficulty in other quizzes, I understand that a lot of people don't. Course we're gonna struggle, but at least we'll learn something.. maybe!
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Apr 02 2005 09:56 PM
beee, we ceratinly encourage authors to include some mention of time periods, countries of origin, and so on in the introduction. An introduction like "This quiz is based on the cartoons that I grew up watching during the 80's in the UK" is so much better than "Do you know your cartoons?". Players from the UK who would maybe have assumed that your quiz was on American cartoons, (because so many of the quizzes are), and therefore wouldn't have bothered taking it, will give it a try - whereas players who wouldn't have a hope of knowing any of the answers will be warned of that going in.
One of my first quizzes was on cooking and baking, and I used the terms for baked goods that I am familiar with here in Canada. I quickly got notes from players in the UK and Australia, letting me know that 'biscuit' for example, is not universally a quickbread eaten with gravy! I put a little note in the intro, and have had no trouble since.
Posted by: Eraserhead
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Jul 18 2005 04:31 AM
Sorry to ressurect this, but someone was looking at it and drew me towards it and I have something that irks me greatly. I have no problem with people writing quizzes based on the country they live in, were born in etc. That's only natural. The problem I have is the assumption that the whole world IS the USA. An example is a quiz that actually isn't specifically American, but will have questions like:
"Which east coast city........." or
"Which state capital............"
I hate to break it to these people, but other countries have east coasts and states.
Posted by: Leau
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Jul 18 2005 04:41 AM
When I edit quizzes like that I ask the quiz maker to clarify the questions and include the country they're talking about, because, like you say, there's more to the world than the USA. As far as I know the other editors do so as well. Of course we're only human, so there will always be the odd slip-up. And there are old(er) quizzes that don't follow the current guidelines. But in general, questions like that should be rare.
Posted by: bloomsby
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Jul 18 2005 08:46 AM
Like other editors, I make a point of asking quiz-makers to specificy the country or region and have in some cases altered the titles of quizzes to make this clear.
What's often more difficult is the kind of quiz on something like "Key Events in 1980" where there is a significant bias towards one country, but something like half the questions relate to other countries.
Moreover, there are some quizzes online dating from a time where people were less aware of or sensitive to such things.
I remember taking a quiz ages ago on "World History" in which all the questions except one were on American history. That quiz was taken offline.
FT Editor
Posted by: ladymacb29
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Jul 18 2005 08:48 AM
If you see a question that's not clear, send a correction notice and/or bring it to an editor's attention so we can fix it.
Posted by: apathy100
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Jul 18 2005 09:55 AM
I think that we need to take risks when we make our quizzes. I am from Canada, and I have made many quizzes on Canada so that others can learn about my vast, beautiful nation. It is with this in mind however, that I have also made quizzes on topics that I in fact knew little about. For example, I have made 5 quizzes so far in the religion category. I am not religious by any means and I actually know very little about the bible. These quizzes have given me the opportunity to read the bible and become more educated on the subject. I took a risk in making a quiz on a subject that I know little about and although these quizzes have not been rated in the "sunglasses", I have received good feedback from many quiz takers.
Also, I recently wrote a quiz on a Canadian television show called "Today's Special". I am not trying to advertise my quiz, but this is just to explain my reasoning, however, Today's Special is a tv show that for the most part, very few people from outside of Canada would know. Although I have only had about 20 people play my quiz, I have received positive feedback on this quiz because it was on a topic that was unusual or as a Canadian quiz taker told me "it brought back memories from the past".
I think that if you want to see more quizzes from your nation, take a risk and make one. It never hurts to try it. In the future, I intend to make other quizzes on regions of the world that do not normally get a lot of attention. The world fascinates me, the USA fascinates me, and I will make my best efforts in the future to even out the playing field for all areas of the world. Obviously this is just my opinion, however, I think that taking a risk may go a long way. The editors are quite helpful and I have found that many of the editors encourage creativity with quizzes, so with that in mind, it seems to me that many editors like it when a quiz maker takes a risk, as long as the quiz is approached thoughtfully, creatively, and most of all, includes the proper grammar, spelling, and reference tools that are necessary to make a fun quiz.
I am sorry that I have rambled on now, however, I like to take rare quizzes on topics that most quiz takers do not expect to show up on their screen. This makes for a fun, educational experience for all of us. There are only so many quizzes on "The Simpsons" you can take before they get redundant.
apathy100
Posted by: Bruyere
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Jul 18 2005 10:20 AM
I'm picky about this and work tirelessly to avoid them going online. Some things are really hidden however, unless you've been around and traveled or at the very least, been exposed to things from other countries.
For example, cooking quizzes are hard to edit or write because each country uses different systems of measurement and supplies! I know that Agony mentioned it earlier, but it takes a really keen editor to even glean out the obvious things that aren't the same in each country.
I closed the drinks section of Hobbies a long time ago because there were too many recipe quizzes and then, the problem was people fiercely debating their own recipes in correction notes.
Posted by: trivet
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Aug 07 2005 10:30 PM
I would agree in general terms that adding quizzes allows those of us who have never lived in the US to balance things a little. On the other hand, the more I get questions about Hotels in Disneyland in Global quizzes, the more likely I am to actually take the time to memorise what and where they are. How many of them can there be?
Most people participating regularly will have experience and knowledge far beyond their local history and culture. By the nature of the forum, if people don't enjoy it, they'll go elsewhere, that's part of having the ability to choose.
It does all come down to attitude and all credit to the editors for getting it right so often.
Posted by: bloomsby
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Oct 08 2005 04:12 PM
When creating a quiz it's worth bearing in mind that the materials used may be biased towards a particular country or continent. In my experience, the problem is particularly striking in materials on inventions and inventors.
Posted by: cheekay
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Apr 15 2006 08:33 PM
I'm from South Africa and I'm doing my darndest to get my country on the Quizzyland map. I currently have 2 quizzes I'm anxiously waiting to submit - just as soon as my current submission has been approved. My quizz names are "Prominent South Africans" and "South African Slang", so there really should be no doubt about the type of questions (I hope).
I too feel overwhelmed when I encounter a quizz about sports and it's alllllll football, baseball and ice hockey (which I presume is American). All I CAN do is eeny-meeny-miny-mo my way through the quizz and hope I hit a few
Posted by: ladymacb29
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Apr 15 2006 08:41 PM
Ice hockey - the unofficial Canadian sport! (Lacrosse is actually their official sport, if I remember correctly.)
Posted by: cheekay
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Apr 15 2006 08:55 PM
Well, there you go! If I don't know something that's Official (probably well documented too
), how am I expected to know anything else about it?
Posted by: auntie1
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Apr 16 2006 05:40 AM
cheekay,I'm an older Australian non-sporting female,and was dismayed at first by "Americacentricity".
But this is after all a site originating from America and if you really love Trivia, it's the only place to be.
You and others, by writing new quizzes will contribute to the pool of questions which will accelerate the site's increasing multi-culturalism, to the benefit of all.
I suggest you play existing quizzes slowly at first and take time to memorise the answers.
I'm sure it won't be long before we see
Posted by: auntie1
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Apr 16 2006 05:43 AM
....moving right along now....
your name ranking highly in the Hourly
Competitions.
Good Luck.
Posted by: skunkee
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Apr 16 2006 07:25 AM
People write quizzes about what they know. Your quiz on South African slang will be totally foreign to me, but that's okay!
Posted by: cheekay
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Apr 16 2006 02:54 PM
Thanx auntie, I'm playing in hardcore mode and try not to memorise answers, so that whatever my ranking, it's a true reflection of what I've accomplished here (darn noble of me hey LOL) but some facts do stick, so I'll just keep chugging along.
skunkee, I know you won't understand the South African slang, however, in my additional information on the question, I try to truly familiarise the quizz taker by providing pronouncement of word(s) using english type of sounds. I was prompted to do something like it because of the South African movie "Tsotsi" that recently received an Oscor in the foreign film category.
And, let me categorically state that I am in no way complaining about the content of funtrivia - it is after all the best trivia site I've come along. Since setting up home here, I stopped looking for other trivia sites.
Thanx to Terry and all the volunteer editors for doing such an excellent job!!!
Posted by: cheekay
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Apr 16 2006 03:00 PM
At least I understand the game of cricket - even if I don't know who won what test against whom at what location in which year leading by x amount of runs or wickets standing.
Posted by: sundaygirl1965
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 14 2007 08:11 AM
Hi all,
Is there a list of quizzes that the site wants? I am british and find some of the US questions hard, but hey i am learning something.
I wouldnt mind trying to create a quiz, but am unsure how to go about it and what quizzes are most needed on the site.
we dont want loads of quizzes on the same subject so what would be a safe subject to start with,
sunday
Posted by: denni19
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 14 2007 08:30 AM
Hello sunday
!
I think you might find these guidelines of some help. They appear on top of the "Create new quiz" page.
Quote:
Please keep in mind that we get HUNDREDS of Entertainment, Movie and Music quiz submissions each month. These are ok, but our players like a nice mix of topics. Therefore, we encourage you to submit quizzes on areas such Science, Technology, Geography, Politics, History, Word Games, Animals.
It might be difficult for anyone to ask for a specific quiz/questions. Also, I don't think the site wants anything specific. People create their quizzes and other people play it or not.
If there's a subject you'd like to see covered and couldn't find any quizzes about it by now, then the best you can do is create one.
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 14 2007 02:24 PM
I agree - we are always looking for quizzes in subjects that have not yet been covered to death.
Think of all of your interests, things you know something about. Then go looking for quizzes on them. When you find one missing, that's a good place to start.
Posted by: trapt1
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Apr 02 2007 06:28 PM
I create a lot of quizzes that have to do with chart positions based on information from Billboard USA. I have always been told by editors to make sure and specify what country's charts are being refered to. In the last six months or so, I have taken a number of quizzes that have questions that refer to chart position in one way or another, but nothing in these quizzes mentions what chart or what country they are refering to. I recently sent a message to one quiz maker correcting her statements in a quiz where some of the questions mentioned chart positions. Her response was that the song in question DID hit number one in England, and that she shouldn't have to specify because there are so many countries that are on the website. Actually, that is EXACTLY the reason that the country or chart needs to be specified. I have gotten questions wrong since this was not done. Is this not being required anymore?
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Apr 02 2007 06:33 PM
It is definitely being done, but may have slipped under some editor's radar. If you see it, please send a correction - then an editor will make sure it gets done, thanks.
Posted by: morrigan
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Apr 02 2007 06:35 PM
I always send a correction when something's not specified-like whether a quiz covers the movie or book version of something.
It does make a difference.
Morrigan
Posted by: ladymacb29
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Apr 02 2007 06:57 PM
Quote:
It is definitely being done, but may have slipped under some editor's radar. If you see it, please send a correction - then an editor will make sure it gets done, thanks.
... or it could have been put online before this was required.
Posted by: The_lioness33
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Jul 20 2007 06:44 AM
On American related quizzes, this is a problem I've found that seems to be mainly American.
I have done a few sports quizzes, hoping that the quiz will be on the rules and nature of the sport, not who plays them, and I have found that even though it states nothing in the title like "famous basketball players" about 60% of the questions are about sporting heroes (mainly American) rather than the actual game.
Could it be made a requirement to put in the title if the quiz includes rules or just player trivia?
Posted by: trevor1968
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Jul 26 2007 07:52 AM
Hi,
I wrote a post on this topic last night but it got deleted. Do anyone know why?
please help
Posted by: sue943
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Jul 26 2007 08:09 AM
Because it was not on topic. This thread is about the "Americacentricity" of quizzes, your post wasn't.
Posted by: trevor1968
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Jul 26 2007 08:33 AM
Ok Thank You Sue
Posted by: sancho_pft
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Jul 30 2007 01:18 PM
My only grumble about Americacentricity is that some wholly Amercian questions do pop up in the Global challenge; maybe I'm wrong but I don't see many UK-specific questions filtering through to the Global qeustions.
Posted by: DakotaNorth
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Jul 30 2007 02:14 PM
Quote:
My only grumble about Americacentricity is that some wholly Amercian questions do pop up in the Global challenge; maybe I'm wrong but I don't see many UK-specific questions filtering through to the Global qeustions.
I find that interesting, especially since the majority of questions in the global challenge, especially People, are UK specific.
Posted by: veronikkamarrz
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Tue Jul 31 2007 04:53 PM
I agree. A lot of quiz questions in the GC are UK based. There also seems to be way more football questions than necessary. Especially, uniform numbers, team dates, etc.
Posted by: Rowena8482
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Nov 15 2007 02:23 PM
I wonder if the UK people perceive it as "America centric" and the USA people perceive it as "UK centric" because we all remember the questions we got wrong?
I seem to constantly come up against USA brand names for drugs and can never remember which is which, and also some of the cooking ones, with pie crust, biscuits, cookies etc, I have to think hard to get the American one rather than the British one.
I have noticed some sports questions sneaking into general lately, from mixed quizzes and they drive me mad too because I am hopeless at sport.
The one in animals about "which football team are the Magpies" probably drives a LOT of people mad too - I got lucky because it's local to me, but I would think a lot of people get peeved by that one...
edit to add - There are a lot of "old" questions in the GC too, especially in animals, where the questions are now not permitted in new quizzes to the category but come up time and again in GC rounds. Weights of dogs and how long they live with options very close to each other spring to mind. They are very hard to get at any speed
Posted by: lesley153
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Nov 15 2007 05:23 PM
Good point, Rowena. These days, I check the quiz-writer's profile before I tackle a quiz, sometimes to see which spelling hat to put on, and sometimes to see which direction to point my brain in.
There do seem to be a lot of quizzes about American branded medicines, and menus in American fast-food places. I'm also stumped, not only by the questions about where U.S. sportsmen went to school or college, but also by the interest in where they were educated. So while I'm scratching my head about NFL and MLB (?) statistics, or wondering why I don't know where Ian Botham and Graham Gooch went school, there are other people wondering about football and cricket, conkers and welly chucking.
One thing I would like to see - and it's only a little detail, I think - is US-biased quizzes to be labelled US-biased. Most of the quizzes written by people outside the US are labelled as having a bias towards the country of origin. So far it seems to me that America is the only country not required to do so. Not so that we can back out of it, but so that we have a bit of a clue as to the answer. It would help a lot with things like music, entertainment and word games, at least.
Posted by: Leau
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Nov 15 2007 05:41 PM
We do require authors to label their quiz if it's country specific, regardless of the country in question. Of course there are many older quizzes that were placed online when the rules weren't as strict as they are now, and they might not have been labeled.
Leau, editor
Posted by: JuniorTheJaws
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Nov 15 2007 06:20 PM
Quote:
One thing I would like to see - and it's only a little detail, I think - is US-biased quizzes to be labelled US-biased. Most of the quizzes written by people outside the US are labelled as having a bias towards the country of origin.
Exactly what Leau said:
Quote:
We do require authors to label their quiz if it's country specific, regardless of the country in question. Of course there are many older quizzes that were placed online when the rules weren't as strict as they are now, and they might not have been labeled.
Leau, editor
Posted by: lesley153
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Nov 15 2007 07:23 PM
Thank you, Leau and Agnes. I'll know next time that unlabelled quizzes are old ones. It's good to know, that the current rules apply to all the countries.
Posted by: helenwalland
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Jan 31 2009 07:38 AM
This is a very interesting thread; I do think more information could be given at the descriptive stage of a quiz. I always label my quizzes 'UK bias' because I have been frustrated by finding quizzes unlabelled. Recently I did a quiz about a British band, the question was about a song that reached the top ten but the reference was a USA chart - now how am I going to know that unless it is well sign posted?
I am not always sure how much of a UK bias my quizzes have but I think people should be warned.
JuniorThe Jaws can I just say 'Rosa Parkes' to you and also, over here in Great Britain, we include Wales and Scotland in Great Britain.
Posted by: sue943
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Jan 31 2009 10:59 AM
Quote:
over here in Great Britain, we include Wales and Scotland in Great Britain.
We know, it is just that some of the Welsh and Scots didn't want to be lumped in with the UK, they wanted to be in their own countries.
Posted by: Midget40
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 18 2009 12:13 PM
My only real pet peeve is when they get into the GC in the numbers they do. I used to play history thinking it would be world history but after a week of getting 13 or more US based questions (I started writing them down) I had to give the catagory up.
But the worst is Geography. It's one of my favourite subjects - US included but I kept getting multiple questions on US state flowers and coins and the like (I cant remember them all now)
To me geography is about cities and rivers and countries and their geographical features. I couldn't name all the capital cities of the US states but I agree that that's a geography question.
I just feel it's a bit of an uneven playing field when so many get into the competition quiz's like the GC and KO.
Posted by: Schoonie101
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 18 2009 12:43 PM
Oh, it gets drastically made up for in the Who Am I? game which is extremely UK-centric. Not many Australians in that game, though, do have to admit that.
Posted by: Mink
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 18 2009 01:11 PM
I have to say that I don't agree that Who Am I? is UK-centric. The choices are often nearly all non-UK people even when the answer IS a UK person so it should be easy to eliminate the ones you do know. In my experience there are plenty of US people in there too, though I would agree that there are fewer people from all other countries included. If you want more non UK/US etc then send in suggestions!
Posted by: Schoonie101
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 18 2009 01:19 PM
Yeah, but the US people are generally people like Tiger Woods, Robert DeNiro, and Ronald Reagan. As opposed to some random MP, cricket/soccer player, or broadcaster from the 40s.
Generally, I've found that UK people make up about 8-9 out of the 15.
Are suggestions currently open for submittal? I thought that was closed out for the time being.
Posted by: supersal1
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 18 2009 01:43 PM
Isn't jmelston in charge of that one? Perhaps you could PM him and see. It was open for a while for people to submit on the chatboards, but not that many people took up the offer.
Such additions as were offered were added pretty much immediately. However, the advice to those who mention the americacentricity of quizzes has always been to go and make your own. I've created quite a few. Some, but by no means all, have a UK slant. However, the majority are from 2006 onwards. Until recently, there hasn't been a shake up in the question pools for around two years. Obviously, I don't make quizzes just to get them in the tournaments, but anyone who did so would be sorely disappointed.
Anyhoo, I don't see how one game makes up for the globals and all the other hourlies!
Just a thought, but do Americans all know all 50 state mammals, birds, gemstones, cooking pots, etc?
Posted by: CellarDoor
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 18 2009 05:31 PM
Quote:
Just a thought, but do Americans all know all 50 state mammals, birds, gemstones, cooking pots, etc?
I certainly don't -- most of those are as hard for me (lived in the U.S. all my life) as they are for you! There are a couple of states that have sort of famous State Whatevers, especially songs, and I know a fair number of state mottos and nicknames because the state often puts them on license plates, so you get reminded of them on the roads. But the official state coin, insect, flower and whatever-the-heck-else? I don't think there are very many who keep track, and I couldn't name any of them for my own state.
Posted by: Schoonie101
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 18 2009 05:45 PM
Quote:
Isn't jmelston in charge of that one? Perhaps you could PM him and see. It was open for a while for people to submit on the chatboards, but not that many people took up the offer.
Such additions as were offered were added pretty much immediately. However, the advice to those who mention the americacentricity of quizzes has always been to go and make your own. I've created quite a few. Some, but by no means all, have a UK slant. However, the majority are from 2006 onwards. Until recently, there hasn't been a shake up in the question pools for around two years. Obviously, I don't make quizzes just to get them in the tournaments, but anyone who did so would be sorely disappointed.
Anyhoo, I don't see how one game makes up for the globals and all the other hourlies!
Just a thought, but do Americans all know all 50 state mammals, birds, gemstones, cooking pots, etc?
Thanks.
Actually, I think the general quizzes are fine. I can't say I've really run into a major skew on the Global Challenge, even on the Geography. They're ALL hard!
Know 50 state mammals, etc.? Not me. Outside of California, I do know that Idaho likes potatoes but beyond that? Sheesh - not a chance!
Posted by: Jabberwok
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 18 2009 05:45 PM
I'm puzzled by the state drinks being mostly innocuous liquids such as milk.
Or lemonade.
It somehow doesn't seem very honest when I know you must have as many varieties of home brew and wines as we do over here.
Posted by: Schoonie101
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 18 2009 06:10 PM
Quote:
I'm puzzled by the state drinks being mostly innocuous liquids such as milk.
Or lemonade.
It somehow doesn't seem very honest when I know you must have as many varieties of home brew and wines as we do over here.
You're not the only one! Wisconsin state beverage being milk? Hmm. I've wondered about that. Granted, Mickeys is probably the best beer that comes out of that state (Milwaukee's Best aka BEAST is not much in the way of competition) but that place is brewery central.
Then again, what do I know?
Posted by: guitargoddess
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 18 2009 06:31 PM
Milk as Wisconsin's state beverage makes sense to me.. isn't that like The Dairy State or something? They've got a lot of cows.. and they're Cheeseheads, so milk isn't that puzzling.
Posted by: Schoonie101
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 18 2009 06:45 PM
True true. But I'd bet more beer gets consumed there than milk!
Posted by: shuehorn
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Feb 18 2009 09:42 PM
Quote:
Quote:
Just a thought, but do Americans all know all 50 state mammals, birds, gemstones, cooking pots, etc?
I certainly don't -- most of those are as hard for me (lived in the U.S. all my life) as they are for you! There are a couple of states that have sort of famous State Whatevers, especially songs, and I know a fair number of state mottos and nicknames because the state often puts them on license plates, so you get reminded of them on the roads. But the official state coin, insect, flower and whatever-the-heck-else? I don't think there are very many who keep track, and I couldn't name any of them for my own state.
Very well stated. I have no idea of the majority of these, and I guess (usually not very well) when they come up...
Sue
Posted by: Quiz_Beagle
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Feb 19 2009 05:41 PM
Well, as to milk and Wisconsin - obviously I've learned the answer since, but the first time I saw the question, all I thought of was "What made Milwaukee famous, made a loser out of me" - and that wasn't milk!
Posted by: Jabberwok
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Feb 19 2009 06:11 PM
Yes, but...
http://www.netstate.com/states/tables/state_beverages.htmonly one state owning up to an alcoholic state drink?
Well done Alabama!
Posted by: guitargoddess
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Feb 19 2009 06:23 PM
Quote:
Yes, but...
http://www.netstate.com/states/tables/state_beverages.htm
only one state owning up to an alcoholic state drink?
Well done Alabama!
Milk is pretty over-represented.. don't you Americans drink anything else?
Posted by: darthrevan89
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Feb 19 2009 09:08 PM
Quote:
Milk is pretty over-represented.. don't you Americans drink anything else?
I've never even heard of such a thing as State Beverage before...but I'm in complete agreement, what's up with all the milk?!
This is more to my taste, I didn't realize it was tied to my state, but I do love Dr. Pepper. 
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/national_drink_of_texas_dr_pepper/
Posted by: wdstk
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Feb 19 2009 10:37 PM
Kentucky has milk instead of bourbon?
Jack Daniels distillery must be crushed.
As you see, Americans aren't at an advantage. I know my state stuff and I usually guess wrong at the others. I also don't know any sports on all the continents.
Posted by: Midget40
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Feb 20 2009 03:22 AM
Maybe the question should be - Why are they included in the geography quizzes then? or does geography itself have a different slant meaning in different countries (thats a serious question by the way).
As I stated previously my understanding of geography is the geographical features of a place - towns, rivers, mountains, climate etc
Re the "Who Am I?" From an impartial non UK/US based player I would say they were fairly even in representation of questions. My brain switches back and forth from 'US' to 'UK'. If you belong to one of those countries I think you only notice the ones that AREN'T from your coutry rather than the ones that are.
Posted by: Midget40
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Feb 20 2009 03:26 AM
Sorry cant help laughing - just did the Hourly Expert game after writing that.
The topic says "This Hour: States & Cities (History)"
Imagine my surprise when all 15 were on US states and cities.
That really should have 'US' in front of it. I'm not sure how many countries around the world have states but I know for sure Australia does
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Feb 20 2009 08:42 AM
Well, where would you suggest questions like that be put, within the larger categories of FT?
If you were to be working toward your BA in Geography, you would not be limiting yourself to studying physical features of the landscape. Geography also encompasses *human* geography - I'll quote the Wiki article here: "a branch of geography that focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction with various environments." A big part of that is what is called "Cultural Geography", and things like state birds fall into that category.
There certainly are too many questions of that type in our question pool, but that has more to do with them being easy to write and research, than anything else. Those categories are closed to new quizzes and have been for ages.
Posted by: darthrevan89
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Feb 20 2009 10:25 AM
When I studied Geography in High School a few years ago, I was quite surprised to find that it was not so much about rivers, mountains, etc. I, actually, would've called it history: a history of the governments, cultures, etc.
Posted by: guitargoddess
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Feb 20 2009 12:10 PM
Well that's why history and geography often 'go together'.
Most of my teachers from elementary school to high school taught both of those subjects, rather than one or the other. I believe, even at my university, if you are studying for a B.A. in Geography, there are a couple of required history courses that you have to take (I think Environmental History is one of them). Not the other way around though - I'm not required to take Geo classes for my history degree. However, if I wanted to, some history courses count as pre-requisites for geography courses.
And about the state bird/state beverage/etc questions in Geography quizzes: I agree that some of those questions belong in the Geography category. For example, if you were writing a quiz on the state of California, you might have 4 questions about individual cities, 2 questions about rivers, 1 about mountains, 1 about a beach or something, then maybe 2 asking for the official State Whatever. That makes sense. I think, however, if you were writing an entire quiz on State Birds, would that not go under General -> USA Specific? (assuming those kinds of questions weren't restricted)
Posted by: Midget40
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Feb 20 2009 03:13 PM
Actually I kind of stuffed up here by following up a previous post I made about not really caring in the quiz's but not liking them in the GC and KO etc
As far as quiz catagories go I don't have a problem with them being put in the Geography section under a sub catagory.
I was still on the fact that I don't think they should be in the GC geography questions when it's a world wide contest and sometimes you could get 10 out of fifteen questions on a 'state something'.
I say I stuffed up because, of course, this is really on the quiz's not the challenges but it's hard to seperate them on an issue like this
Posted by: jonnowales
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Feb 20 2009 03:35 PM
In France, I believe they combine history and geography into one phrase:
L'histoire-géo
Whether or not they are taught as two separate subjects my memory unfortunately lets me down
Posted by: Jabberwok
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Feb 20 2009 03:38 PM
I sometimes smile when I do a quiz on World Geography or World History that is 2/3 USA.
I just assume that for some, the States is a synonym for World.
It's one of the things that makes the Americacentricity of the site interesting, a possible insight into a different culture and a different way of seeing.
Posted by: skunkee
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Feb 20 2009 04:50 PM
Perhaps I'm beating a overworn drum here, but the questions are drawn from the quiz pool and if there are more American based quizzes than not, what are we supposed to do?
As has been said many times, if you want a better showing of non-American questions, write the quizzes!
Posted by: supersal1
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Feb 20 2009 05:37 PM
That is a fair point, but it's not as if new quizzes go straight into the cache for tournaments. I know Terry has recently expanded the pools, but the vast majority of questions still come from quizzes written between 2000-2004.
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Feb 20 2009 06:22 PM
I think all the caches are up to date now, which means most of the questions are from recent (ish) quizzes. The number of quizzes going online has generally increased every year.
Posted by: Midget40
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Feb 21 2009 12:47 AM
I don't think it's quite as simple as that skunkee.
I'm doing my share writing quiz's - I'm nearly up to 50 in 7 months which I don't think is too shabby.
But there's two issues here.
1) Apart from a history quiz I did, none of mine are Australian based so though I write I haven't added any Australian based questions to the pool
and
2) The population differences in countries and their members. Even if every single member in the non US/UK countries wrote quizs we couldn't equal the volume that the US can produce
I think I may need something clarifying here that may answer my question.
I'm starting to gather that ANY question that is in, say Geography seeing as thats what I was talking about, gets added to the Geography pool.
I was under the impression that it was a choice what went into the general pool (like obviously the questions that appear in the Impossible catagory aren't) but I think I made a wrong assumption there
I think I'm suggesting that not all of these ones on 'state something' should be added to the competition pools.
Posted by: jordandog
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Feb 21 2009 09:13 AM
Quote:
Kentucky has milk instead of bourbon?
Jack Daniels distillery must be crushed.
Actually, the Jack Daniels distillery is in Tennessee, wdstk, so I don't think Kentucky is too worried about that.
Posted by: skunkee
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Feb 21 2009 09:24 AM
Quote:
1) Apart from a history quiz I did, none of mine are Australian based so though I write I haven't added any Australian based questions to the pool
Sorry if I didn't express myself clearly, but I did mean for players write more quizzes with an Australian/British/Canadian slant.
I'm guilty too! I have almost 300 quizzes online and I think that only about 6 of them (off the top of my head) have a Canadian focus (I am Canadian), while a couple of others are about our trip to the UK and Southern Ireland.
The questions can only be drawn from quizzes online. They are not chosen on a question by question basis, although certain categories can be eliminated.
Playing Devil's advocate for a minute here, let's assume we could choose the questions and balance them out to give fair representation to other countries. Because of the smaller pool of questions we would have to draw from, we would soon be getting the complaint that there wasn't enough variety in the question pool as the same questions would be circulated through the system much more frequently.
I guess it's just hard to counteract the fact that there are a lot more Americans on site than Canadians, Brits or Ozzies!
Posted by: darthrevan89
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Feb 21 2009 09:50 AM
I have a slight problem with the argument, "There aren't enough questions on country X in the pool, so go write quizzes on that country to get them there." The question pool is still very largely drawn from quizzes written 4 to 8 years ago. I believe Terry only updated 30% of the cache to newer quizzes. And even then, many of the country-specific quizzes might go into very specific categories that mightn't be added to the pool. Even if they were, if we were to start writing even more non-American quizzes now, who's to say that they'd be added before 2-3 years and the next cache update rolls around?
As an American, the bias doesn't stand out as much. A good many American-based questions are just as foreign to me as something British or Australian, and as the subject of State Drinks has shown I don't think I'm the only one that would say that. Almost evens it out, doesn't it?
I did count on the Who Am I? yesterday, 7 Americans, 4 Brits, and 4 Scottish/Canadian/Germans.
Posted by: Leau
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Feb 21 2009 09:55 AM
Try playing those games when you're (like me) Dutch!
Posted by: zorba_scank
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Feb 21 2009 09:43 PM
Or Indian!
I love to get questions on French, German, Spanish or other non US/UK nationalities. That's the only time I can pick out the right answer by just scanning the options. Otherwise even if I do get it correct, I'm too slow to win.
Posted by: MotherGoose
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Feb 21 2009 10:19 PM
Quote:
In France, I believe they combine history and geography into one phrase:
L'histoire-géo
In West Australia, we go to high school for five years - years 8 to 12. For the first three years of high school (years 8, 9 and 10), history and geography are taught together as one subject called Social Studies and it is a compulsory subject. They don't split into separate subjects until years 11 and 12, when they are available as options.
Posted by: fredsixties
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Apr 18 2009 04:37 AM
We could certainly narrow it down for potential players by requiring a note in the title of description of the quiz to mention the country that the quiz is specific to, if it is no general in nature. That way there would be no surprises for the potential player, and one would be able to play the quizzes of interest to them without guessing the country.
Posted by: funnybuni
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Apr 18 2009 07:53 AM
Quote:
We could certainly narrow it down for potential players by requiring a note in the title of description of the quiz to mention the country that the quiz is specific to, if it is no general in nature. That way there would be no surprises for the potential player, and one would be able to play the quizzes of interest to them without guessing the country.
The quizzes are usually set up that way. If you don't want to play a quiz on the United States, then go to the "Australia" category, or the "France" category. The other quizzes generally don't matter as much - a quiz on the Titanic would be the same in every country, wouldn't it?
As for the hourlies and such - those questions are randomly selected from all the quizzes on the site. It just so happens that a majority of geography/history quizzes are based in America... or something.
Posted by: Richie15
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Sep 14 2009 02:34 PM
In the hardcore part of the Global Challenge I must have faced 600 questions on sport. Not a SINGLE one has been on football - or 'soccer' as I suppose I have to call it. Several hundred each though on US football and baseball. More than a dozen on - is it really professional? - paintballing(?), and about as many on skateboarding. Since, 'globally' speaking, American football and baseball barely amount to a gnat's [censored] in comparison to soccer, I question the fairness and integrity of the Global Challenge. I understand that assorted lamewits will automatically tell me that I should set to writing soccer questions if I want to see them appear in the tournament, safe in the convenient knowledge that weight of numbers will always tell in the distribution of questions (by the way - I'm not particularly a soccer fan; it just strikes me as odd. I'm more of a cricket and rugby man, subjects which I confidently expect never to appear in the GC), but surely there are already enough soccer questions in the archives for us to see the occasional ONE? And what about tennis, track and field, cycling, boxing, swimming, golf? They barely feature. US players are handed a massive advantage in this and in one or two other categories which I can only assume they are loathe to surrender. The 'Global Challenge' is a bit of a misnomer, since in some instances it is anything but.
Posted by: Nightmare
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Sep 14 2009 03:21 PM
Quote:
I understand that assorted lamewits will automatically tell me that I should set to writing soccer questions if I want to see them appear in the tournament,
I guess that I'm what you call a 'lamewit' then.
Posted by: jonnowales
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Sep 14 2009 05:25 PM
Well I was doing some calculations on the sports quizzes here at FT when this issue last came up, so my figures will now be out of a date by a few tenths of a percent (which is just unacceptable
) so I have done them again:
American Football - 1086 (1091 but 5 taken out as they weren't US specific)
Basketball - 595 (600 but 5 taken out as they weren't US specific)
US College Sports - 758
Baseball - 2551 (the Japanese specific quizzes have been taken out)
Total US specific sports quizzes = 4990
Total sports quizzes on FT = 10712
Percentage of US specific sports quizzes = 4990/10712 = 46.58%
Percentage of total visitors to FT that are from the US = 53.40%
46.58%
< 53.40% - so in fact the US specific quizzes are underrepresented!
As for not many soccer quizzes making it to the hourlies - your best bet would be to submit to the question quest - I am sure Nightmare will take as many soccer questions as you are willing to give!
I too am a 'lamewit'.
Posted by: skunkee
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Sep 14 2009 05:34 PM
Quote:
I understand that assorted lamewits will automatically tell me that I should set to writing soccer questions if I want to see them appear in the tournament,
Name calling really helps present your case in a mature fashion.
What solution would you suggest then? All you have done is present a problem and derrogate the most obvious solution.
I guess I must be another lamewit.
Posted by: lesley153
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Sep 14 2009 06:51 PM
Quote:
... a note in the title of description of the quiz to mention the country that the quiz is specific to...
I like that idea. I believe that even American quiz-writers are required to declare American bias in their quizzes, but I still see new quizzes with American spelling required but not specified, and I've lost count of the number of TV quizzes which were all about American TV programmes which I'm not aware have ever been shown in England, and performers I've never heard of.
It's not about representation - it's about knowing what to expect, and what's expected of us.
Posted by: skunkee
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Sep 14 2009 09:00 PM
Quote:
I still see new quizzes with American spelling required but not specified
The only place this would matter is in a FITB answer. When editing a quiz, we try to ask for both spellings in that case, but sometimes we don't think about it and let it pass. If you see something like this, please send a Correction Note and it will get adjusted.
Posted by: Richie15
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Tue Sep 15 2009 04:59 PM
Jonnowales. If only 47% of the sport questions in the GC are US specific, I'm a Dutchman. Are you sure you're holding your calculator the right way round?
Posted by: MotherGoose
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Tue Sep 15 2009 05:06 PM
It never ceases to amaze me that the content of this site is solely determined by the participants, who subsequently complain about the content.
If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
Posted by: jonnowales
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Tue Sep 15 2009 05:40 PM
I didn't say 47% of the sports questions in the GC are US specific. I said roughly 47% of the sports quizzes on the site are on US sports. The pool of quizzes (and now more recently, the single questions) are from where the questions for the Global Challenge are drawn. In the sports category in GC you should expect to see that
at least 53.40% of the pool is on US specific sports. GC is in divisions based on difficulty also - if a minority of people on the site follow say cricket, then the cricket questions are going to be considered very difficult and will be thumped up to division 9 and 10, the same goes for darts, snooker and lawn bowls. As most people here are American, the chances are that more people will get the questions from American sports quizzes correct and will fill up the earlier divisions.
I spend most of my working hours with a calculator close by - I know how to use one!
Posted by: BxBarracuda
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Tue Sep 15 2009 05:50 PM
In the last few divisions of the global challenge, where most of the time during the global challenge is spent, very few people score enough on the Sports, or Television for that matter, to qualify for hardcore advancement. Most of the categories get exponentially tougher, those two are usually the hardest though to qualify.
Posted by: lesley153
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Tue Sep 15 2009 05:58 PM
Quote:
If you see something like this, please send a Correction Note and it will get adjusted.
I have been known to write to the quizwriter and ask them to take pity on BE-speakers. Usually works.
Posted by: Verbonica
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Tue Sep 15 2009 10:10 PM
I feel your pain about the Sports questions! Others have said this, but I'll chime in too - I'm American and I also have lots of trouble with those questions. And...
Quote:
The 'Global Challenge' is a bit of a misnomer, since in some instances it is anything but.
"Global" in this sense doesn't refer to the "world", but is used referring to FunTrivia in toto, with the other meaning of global: adjective 2. comprehensive, general, total, thorough, exhaustive, encyclopedic. So, it means an overall challenge from all of the quizzes that are found here on FunTrivia.
Posted by: bucknallbabe
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 12:44 AM
Jonno - if the total Sports section was made up of country specific sports I would agree with your contention that the US is under-represented. However, many of the Sports quizzes are not country-specific as the sports, eg the Olympics, swimming and tennis, are played, known and reported on worldwide. If you exclude those and all the other non-country specific quizzes from the total number of Sports the picture would look very different I am sure. And where does NASCAR fit?
However, there are other factors which influence this issue. For example, US sports such as baseball, football and hockey have a long tradition of statistic keeping - baseball even has it's own society with 7000 members devoted to statistics - and sports statistics are a hobby in themselves. The type of questions which are in the quizzes, such as Jersey numbers and colleges attended are irrelevant in many non US sports so there isn't the potential to redress the balance by similar quizzes.
Also, and this is a qualitative observation, Sports questions do not seem to repeat as often - maybe there are proportionately more questions because there are more quizzes - does anyone know whether there are equal numbers of questions per category in each round? Because this is an issue for me, I count the number of questions in each round which are in categories which begin US, MLB or NHL - 10 is not unusual.
With regard to Hardcore, like Richie I'm nipping at the heels of those in line for the badge but don't score in Sports - in the first week alone, when Sports appeared 9 times out of 14, I missed out on scoring on 4 of the games. The last time I checked, in Division 6, Sports (by far my worst category) had appeared 24 times compared to 13 for my best.
My problem is that I can't see any way of actually improving my scores on US Sports questions. I'm fine on rules and terminology for most sports but I can see no way of getting to grips with jersey numbers, colleges, batting average, seasonal rankings. Anyone got any hints?
Posted by: bucknallbabe
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 01:04 AM
Actually, Verbonica, in the introduction to the Global Challenge, there are several references to playing against people from all over the world so I would suggest that this is a valid interpretation of the phrase. With regards to the globality of the question pool, Video Games is not in the challenge and for hardcore members, so far this challenge, Entertainment has not been asterisked. If this isn't deliberate, the odds must be amazing.
Posted by: dg_dave
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 02:06 AM
Quote:
but I can see no way of getting to grips with jersey numbers, colleges, batting average, seasonal rankings. Anyone got any hints?
I only know a few jersey numbers and some stats...one that comes to mind is .406, the last full season batting average over .400, and it was done in 1941. As to which college team was # 1 in 1965, I'd have to look it up too.
Posted by: bucknallbabe
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 03:51 AM
I do know one stat - Joe DiMaggio had a 56-game hitting streak in 1941 - the "streak of streaks" used as the basis of an essay on probability by Stephen Jay Gould in his book "Bully for Brontosaurus". I don't recall coming across a question on it though. Apparently he also wrote an essay on the decline of the .400 hitter. See, I have nothing against baseball or football, am just frustrated that I can't answer the kind of questions in the games!
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 09:06 AM
I would like to point out that *no one* is good at the statistics -jersey-number type questions. There may be a few people onsite who know these things, but in general, most Americans are just as bad at this as those from other countries.
If many Americans were sailing away with those categories, getting 15/15 in 35 seconds, while the rest of the world struggled in the doldrums, the complaint would be justified. However, on the whole, Sports is a difficult category for everyone, no matter where they are from.
Posted by: fredsixties
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 09:30 AM
Seems pretty simple to me. It's a question of numbers. If there are 100 U.S. Baseball questions and 10 soccer(football) questions, the baseball questions are going to show up a lot more often if it's randomly done. (Which I'm sure it is). The only way to get a balance of questions is to have the same number of questions for all sports (or any other topic) and that doesn't seem likely given the amount of quizzes submitted by U.S. participants versus other countries.
Posted by: REDVIKING57
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 10:28 AM
Just an observation: The invitation to 'write a quiz' to re-dress the balance viz-a-viz the North American 'bias' in GC Sports or Hourly Quizzes doesn't really stand up,on two counts:
Currently,on-line on FT,there are 1,091 quizzes on American Football. There are 1,253 quizzes on 'Soccer' (I,too,hate that word!) and 501 on Cricket. In over two years on the site,I doubt if I've seen more than a couple of dozen questions in the GC and Hourlies on 'Soccer',and none on Cricket. But many hundreds,if not thousands,on Gridiron. This is the same in the Team games and Knockout.
Secondly,obviously the volume of quizzes on a particular subject is not reflected in the selection for GC,Hourly or Daily games. The only mention of Cricket I have seen is the occassional cricketer on the 'Who Am I' game. So,I was wondering,what is the selection criteria for these quizzes? Or do you not think there is a 'North American Bias' on some categories,sport in particular?
Posted by: BxBarracuda
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 12:21 PM
RV, In terms of the GC, as Jonno mentions above, play sports in the upper levels of the GC, you shall find a good bit of Cricket questions in there. I would say from 2 - 5 cricket questions each set.
Posted by: REDVIKING57
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 12:52 PM
Thanks Bx. But I gave up doing any sport on GC or 'hourlies' a long time ago!
Would you believe it,I just did the GC,and got a Football (soccer) question - in the History set!
Posted by: shuehorn
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 01:21 PM
You might want to try Sports again once you are higher in the GC, as the mixture changes and includes other sports. I am hopeless at all sports, but since I am doing Hardcore, I play everything they throw at me, anyway.
Posted by: Nightmare
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 01:31 PM
And that's the attitude to have Sue! Keep plugging away and you keep rising up the ladder, while others complain without being a part of the solution by creating the quizzes that they seek.
Posted by: whee
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 02:05 PM
Quote:
Just an observation: The invitation to 'write a quiz' to re-dress the balance viz-a-viz the North American 'bias' in GC Sports or Hourly Quizzes doesn't really stand up,on two counts:
Currently,on-line on FT,there are 1,091 quizzes on American Football. There are 1,253 quizzes on 'Soccer' (I,too,hate that word!) and 501 on Cricket. In over two years on the site,I doubt if I've seen more than a couple of dozen questions in the GC and Hourlies on 'Soccer',and none on Cricket. But many hundreds,if not thousands,on Gridiron. This is the same in the Team games and Knockout.
Secondly,obviously the volume of quizzes on a particular subject is not reflected in the selection for GC,Hourly or Daily games. The only mention of Cricket I have seen is the occassional cricketer on the 'Who Am I' game. So,I was wondering,what is the selection criteria for these quizzes? Or do you not think there is a 'North American Bias' on some categories,sport in particular?
I like both American football and cricket and have reasonable trivial knowledge in both. In general, I find the cricket question on this site are a lot harder. There are some very easy American football questions in the quizzes. This would explain why you don't see the cricket coming up until later in the challenge.
This would explain why
Posted by: Jakeroo
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 04:38 PM
Quote:
For example, US sports such as baseball, football and hockey have a long tradition of statistic keeping -
I wholeheartedly agree that some folks perhaps put too much emphasis on the "statistics" side of games/sports. And you also made me giggle, because I think the Canadians, Russians, Finns, Swedes, Czechs, Germans, Swiss and ex-Soviet countries might be surprised to find out that hockey is a "U.S. Sport". Historically, American-born players haven't exactly been "spectacular" by any means on an international level (with the possible exception of the women players!). In fact, only about 0.15 % of their total population even plays hockey. Even unlikely countries like Japan, France, Italy and South Korea have active hockey teams/leagues.
hmm, that just gave me an idea for QQ (no peeking now lol)
_________________________________
here's my favourite "stat":
"100% of the shots you don't take, don't go in" - Wayne Gretzky
Posted by: flopsymopsy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 06:00 PM
I shall assume it means
ice hockey and not real hockey, which every right-thinking person knows is played on grass.
Frankly, as a Brit, I am dreading the onset of cricket and proper football in the GC, I know as much about them as I do about baseball - which is nothing. But at least baseball answers are fairly simple:
- If Babe Ruth is mentioned, it's probably him.
- If Joe DiMaggio is mentioned it's probably him.
- If Cy Young is mentioned it's probably him.
- If all three of them are mentioned, it's the other one.
Posted by: BxBarracuda
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 06:10 PM
I would say you would be better then average results from that method Flopsy.
You could add Jackie Robinson to that list of baseball players.
In World Cup questions if Brazil is an option, I go with it.
Posted by: dg_dave
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 16 2009 11:18 PM
Quote:
You could add Jackie Robinson to that list of baseball players.
As in which player wore # 42. It's about the only jersey number I know...I think Pete Rose wore 14...?
Posted by: jonnowales
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 03:44 AM
Bucknallbabe - why would you exclude non-country specific quizzes from the statistics? I just worked out the number of quizzes on sports which are specific to the US (not world sports with an American spin eg American Olympic Gymnastics Gold Medallists 1972-1988) as a proportion of all quizzes on the site. It seems a fair way to do it. I probably should have included NASCAR (368 quizzes) - but it would still result in a slightly lower percentage of quizzes on US sports in relation to the US demographic at FT.
The GC gives questions in certain divisions based on the percentage of right answers for that question by players. If more people get it right than wrong it'll end up in the lower divisions - if most people get it wrong, like they do for cricket and soccer (most people here after all are American) then they'll be in the later divisions. You can't really change the hierarchy.
Posted by: spanishliz
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 06:07 AM
Quote:
I shall assume it means ice hockey and not real hockey, which every right-thinking person knows is played on grass.
I'm sorry, but I find this comment extremely offensive, and uncalled for, in any discussion.
Posted by: satguru
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 07:43 AM
Quote:
There are some very easy American football questions in the quizzes.
This illustrates perfectly a similar point I've been addressing with writers for years and is now not allowed in new questions, easy is in the eyes of the writer and player, and in fact incredibly rare for the two opinions to coincide. For most of us this side we're more likely to know about nuclear physics or renaissance art as they do actually cross borders. I don't imagine many countries outside N. America would know anything at all about American football either but you clearly assumed we all must do. Nothing wrong but just shows how easy it is to think everyone else must share our own common knowledge.
Posted by: MadMags
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 08:51 AM
Quote:
I shall assume it means ice hockey and not real hockey, which every right-thinking person knows is played on grass.
If you'd ever been to a(n ice) hockey game and heard the slap of the puck, the sizzle and swoosh of the skates as they cut, carve and spray the ice, bodies slamming into boards, the yells of the enthusiastic fans, and felt the electricity in the chill air of the arena or outdoor rink, I think you'd agree that (ice) hockey is very real.
This is not to say that pick up hockey, street hockey, roller hockey, field or any other form of hockey is not real either.
Posted by: flopsymopsy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 09:08 AM
Quote:
Quote:
I shall assume it means ice hockey and not real hockey, which every right-thinking person knows is played on grass.
I'm sorry, but I find this comment extremely offensive, and uncalled for, in any discussion.
I meant no offence, it was intended as a joke. In the same league as when we say that when Americans say 'football' they don't mean real football... oops, I've offended them now. I'm sorry if you were offended and next time I'll use three smilies to spoil the subtlety of my very British humour.
Posted by: lesley153
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 09:11 AM
Saying - for instance - hockey, when you mean ice hockey, makes it even harder for people who are floundering. Not that I know anything about either of them, but I remember playing (normal) hockey on the school field (grass) and hating every minute of it.
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 09:15 AM
Kinda like saying "hockey" when you mean "field hockey"...
I think if we all remember that we are part of a larger world, and that things we take for granted might not be obvious to others, we can work around these things.
Posted by: TabbyTom
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 09:17 AM
Quote:
I shall assume it means ice hockey and not real hockey, which every right-thinking person knows is played on grass.
The North American usage with "hockey" is no different from the world-wide usage with "tennis". The game played at Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows is lawn tennis, even if the court is clay or tarmac. But because it is far better known than the original game, it has become simply "tennis", and we have to call the original "real tennis" or "royal tennis" (if, indeed, we ever need to mention it at all) . Similarly, in areas where ice-hockey attracts more attention than the original game, it's natural enough that it should take over the original name.
Posted by: MadMags
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 09:19 AM
By 'normal' hockey, I'm assuming you are referring to field hockey, as I see nothing abnormal about ice hockey, nor the various other variations of hockey.
I think we need to keep in mind that this is an international site, and should use the proper names, not the shortcut ones, so as not to confuse or offend our other respected members.
Posted by: BxBarracuda
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 10:30 AM
Handball is another sport that fits the category of having different meanings from the game I grew up playing in America in parks and schoolyards, to the one that is played in the Olympics.
Outside of the Olympics I never knew of that style of Handball.
Growing up, handball was played one on one usually, alternately hitting the ball against a wall and keeping it in the boundary lines.
Posted by: Snowman
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 10:41 AM
That sounds a lot like the game that we call "Fives"
Posted by: kyleisalive
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 11:20 AM
In Canada, 'Hockey'/'Ice Hockey' is played on ice. 'Field Hockey' is played in a field, and 'Ball Hockey' is played on pavement or a court.
I don't think there's many of us here who grew up thinking different...Ice Hockey's just one of those parts of our sporting culture.
Posted by: BxBarracuda
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 11:53 AM
Yes, what I was talking about is a variation of "fives".
Outdoors it is played with just one flat wall, two lines to note the side boundaries, and two horizontal line markers, the further back one is an out line, the other down the middle of the side lines is the service line. Some courts I have seen don't have a service line, and sometimes not a back out line.
Indoors it played in room, though indoors raquets, not tennis, are used more often.
Posted by: nasty_liar
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 01:32 PM
Here sits a huge sports fan. I watch football, rugby, cricket, formula 1, tennis, athletics, snooker, darts, some boxing, some golf, I watch a variety of things at the Olympics....
I never play the sports category in the global challenge, who's the smartest and I dare not even attempt it in the piece of cake game because they are no interesting at all for me! Too many questions about sports that are obscure (to me) like baseball, gridiron and basketball.
This is by no means a complaint, I am merely stating a few facts there that tend to back up what many have said above.
I am smart enough to realise that there are many, many more US users of the site and have written far more quizzes on American sports. At the same time, those quizzes have been answered correctly more times than other sports quizzes because of the number of American quiz takers, thus making them eligible for use in the hourlies. Its just numbers
As an aside, I will try the sports category when I get to the higher levels in this GC (I've never got beyond Brainiacs before, but I think I'm set to break that!).
Posted by: BxBarracuda
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 01:53 PM
The American based sports questions you will see in the GC in those later rounds are obscure ones, even to those of us who follow the sports regularly.
Posted by: lesley153
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 02:34 PM
Quote:
Kinda like saying "hockey" when you mean "field hockey"...
Exactly - the hockey I played on the school field.
Quote:
By 'normal' hockey, I'm assuming you are referring to field hockey...
I think we should ... use the proper names, not the shortcut ones,
Exactly again.
Every country and culture has its own words for hockey, football, tennis shoes, beer cans; and some sort of protocol for being clear and unambiguous would be wonderful.
Posted by: Gatsby722
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 04:16 PM
Jeesh
! After reading all this, I think I have every number of excellent excuses, especially now, for disliking
any number of sports quizzes and/or questions all over the place. It comes as a relief, too. Up until this thread, I had just assumed I had no very good clue about sports, in general. I reckon it's feeling better to know that, now, it's much more a digestable matter of knowing a little less about
field varieties of hockey than I do about
ice varieties of it
. Whoever's getting to talking about different variations of it than those two? You need to stop
! I'm already *sports inadequate*. I need to start feeling *adjective inadequate*, too? Just kidding .. but I was thinking: here's this erstwhile editor, Nightmare, trying to champion the cause of quiz writers coming up with new quizzes in the Sports category. Seems like a worthy mission, yes? But, ye Gods, who would dare write one
now? Not only does one have to research every question to make sure they have the "sporty" details right, they also have to cross-culture every adjective they use in it properly to make sure it's both inclusive (culturally) and specific enough to scratch every itch that could possibly be scratched? I'm currently having some mighty troubles building a quiz on Marvin Gaye (and I know lots about him --- both where he's from and what he did, where). I'll maybe try a "football" quiz next? Ugh. Not a chance! It'd take me four questions to clarify what I meant by the word 'football', evidently ...
Although, I guess, that'd mean it would be easier for me to write up six questions as opposed to ten ...
Posted by: satguru
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 07:51 PM
I've also played deck hockey on board ship using quoits, but plays just the same as the field sort. And there's one we played in a wooden gym with light sticks which also has a name but can't remember it. Same skills and moves for all really, except the ice sort requires professional skating ones on top. I still can't go backwards after 40 years...
Posted by: spanishliz
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 08:05 PM
Quote:
I'm sorry if you were offended and next time I'll use three smilies to spoil the subtlety of my very British humour.
I'm very well aware of British humour, being half-English myself. There is nothing subtle, however, about implying that people are wrong-thinking for not using the same terminology that you use. I have played both versions of hockey, at a very very minor level, and find the one that requires skating infinitely harder to play, and extremely real.
Posted by: flopsymopsy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 08:55 PM
It was a joke, clearly a very bad one that didn't translate. It was not intended at all seriously, and certainly not meant to imply that anyone who doesn't think as I do is wrong-thinking. If I actually thought that I'd never have said it in a million years. Nor was it an adverse comment on ice hockey or in favour of field hockey or any other sort of hockey. I have actually watched ice hockey in Canada, and it was as exciting as anything I've seen. Skill, speed, pace... it's a great game. I've never played field hockey in my life, and only watch it at the Olympics - but a very large number of people do play it worldwide and find that exciting too.
What I said was part of a light-hearted post that included my joking comments on how to answer baseball questions - I hope no one takes that seriously either or they'll all be blaming me when the answer isn't Babe Ruth. I've already apologised for offending you, I can't do any more than that.
Posted by: queproblema
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 09:12 PM
Flopsy, I totally got your joke and it made me smile.
Posted by: BxBarracuda
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 17 2009 09:24 PM
I thought your method for baseball questions was logical Flopsy and I was serious in my response. There is some humor in the method, but I think it will get you better then average results.
Posted by: Jakeroo
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 04:45 AM
Re: "hockey"
When I made my comments, I assumed that at least 56% (53% Americans plus 3% Canadians) of the folks here knew that when bucknallbabe mentioned hockey in the same sentence as US Sports that she/he meant "ice hockey" rather than "field hockey". Yes Lesley, I'm completely at fault for thinking that the other 44% of the people on this site should also assume the same thing. I most definitely should have typed "ice hockey" instead of just "hockey". My apologies!
I also thought that more than half of us realised flopsy was only making a joke. I can also certainly understand some people taking offense when there are no "smilies" involved - unfortunately, with text comments, the "twinkle in one's eye and the wry grin" doesn't always come across in the way we hope it does (happens to me all the time lol) Anyway, the actual "day one" of the invention of ice hockey has been a matter of debate in this country (Canada) for over 100 years. So, depending on who you believe, the first ORGANISED field hockey teams in Britain predate the first ORGANISED ice hockey teams by anywhere from 6 to 30 years (neither of which would be as in their current forms today). So if "real" means "first chronologically", I can live with that lol. I certainly didn't take "real" to mean "the one and only".
Re: "football" (as in "soccer")
North Americans are often "ridiculed" for calling the game "soccer". The truth is, our game(s) of "football" (meaning gridiron type) were already well-established before the "beautiful game" caught on here in popularity. So we needed another name to differentiate between the two. We chose "soccer", which, I've been given to understand (I could have been misinformed), was a BRITISH invention, used by folks to differentiate asSOCiation ("assoc") football from rugby type football. "Soccer" rolls off the tongue more easily than "assoc" so the nickname stuck, I guess. In any case, the term didn't originate over HERE. Furthermore, some proponents believe that, from a strictly etymological point of view, the term "football" means ANY game played ON foot (as opposed to on horseback), not necessarily a game played WITH the foot.
Re: "football" (as in gridiron)
I realize most people think that the US version of "football" is the "only" gridiron game. However, Canadian (gridiron) football has different rules, as well as a different "style". Canadian football games are much more "wide open", we have a bigger field size, different number of players and, some feel, a more interesting/unpredictable game from a pure "entertainment value" perspective. For instance, while American football games can often be very low scoring (sheesh, some ICE hockey games have higher scores lol) and the final minutes of the game considered "boring" by some (i.e. that they are usually filled by nothing but timeouts and grounding the ball - yeah, I know, it's called "strategy" lol), Canadian games can actually be WON in the final seconds. When hubby is watching an NFL (the US version) game and I tell him dinner will be ready soon and he says "five minutes", I always ask, "is that football minutes or REAL minutes?" LOL. Anyhoo, when people say "North America", it would be nice if folks didn't assume that Canada is a part of the United States ~. Also, there are other forms of the game, for instance: "touch football" and "flag football" (neither of which are played on a professional level, but are still valid sports nonetheless).
I could "go on"... but.... yes, Gatsby, I DO understand your "frustrations" lol (enjoyed your post, btw)
---------------------------------
No sport is "real" until you play it yourself. I have the scars to prove it.
Posted by: Richie15
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 05:23 AM
Flopsy you're an evil and vicious woman for so blatantly implying that all Americans are complete idiots and you should be flogged through the streets of Northampton as a penance. Wearing a hockey goalie's mask and a pink bunny costume.
Posted by: bucknallbabe
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 05:37 AM
Jakeroo - you are right. I chose to use the words "football" and "hockey" deliberately as they were specifically in the context of US sports and using my own self-imposed protocol, I referred to them using the same terms as I assumed the players of the game would - after all it is the NFL not the NAFL (National American Football League) and the NHL not the NIHL (National Ice Hockey League). I'm sorry you came into the criticism which possibly should have been directed at me. I wasn't around much yesterday so have only just caught up on the discussions.
Posted by: lesley153
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 05:42 AM
Does that mean that I too am completely at fault for assuming that everyone would know that "hockey" is what you play on grassy fields?
Flopsy, I too got your joke and it made me smile too.
Richie, I like your thinking, but I can't help thinking that the pink bunny costume is a cruel step too far.
Suddenly this thread is a lot of fun.
Posted by: lesley153
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 05:43 AM
Is NHL ice hockey? Gosh - really old, and still learning!
Posted by: REDVIKING57
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 07:14 AM
Quote:
Flopsy you're an evil and vicious woman for so blatantly implying that all Americans are complete idiots and you should be flogged through the streets of Northampton as a penance. Wearing a hockey goalie's mask and a pink bunny costume.
And ice skates? And why only Northampton? Couldn't we have "Flopsymopsy On Tour"?
I'll organise tickets.......!
Posted by: flopsymopsy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 07:38 AM
Quote:
Flopsy you're an evil and vicious woman for so blatantly implying that all Americans are complete idiots and you should be flogged through the streets of Northampton as a penance. Wearing a hockey goalie's mask and a pink bunny costume.
Richie, you are a very bad man. You only resurrected this thread because I was beating you in the GC and managed to get some good scores in Sports. Well, not any more - my baseball rubric failed me today. *sobs* It's a pretty poor show when a GC Sports category contains not a single reference to Babe Ruth, Cy Young, Joe DiMaggio OR Jackie Robinson - I may have to call in the umpires.
Or even better, I should publish the note you sent me about my underwear.
(Now that comment should set tongues wagging and keyboards rattling. )
Jakeroo, let's not go into the history of various sports, eh? Or I shall be forced to refer to the derivations of baseball and then even Bx will reach out to bite me and queproblema will stop smiling.
Lesley... what everyone plays on grassy fields is Lacrosse. Field hockey is for cissies, why they even stop playing when it rains. 
I spent my teens playing a North American sport, and just to show how stupid I really am, I was goalkeeper in a school team where the games mistress did not believe in masks. I was allowed to wear padding but facemask... no way; I'm amazed I have any teeth left. And if anyone thinks that men's lacrosse is more violent than women's, then they obviously have not played in a league of English schoolgirls.
I'm off now, to practise for the world tour of "Rabbits on Ice". All Rights Reserved. 10% to my Ticket Agent, RedViking.
Posted by: lesley153
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 07:48 AM
Quote:
Field hockey is for cissies
That's me!
Will your tour be coming to Bedford?
Posted by: spanishliz
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 08:28 AM
Right I'll apologise for being too thin-skinned. I was in the middle of a family crisis so I guess my funny bone wasn't working.
Posted by: REDVIKING57
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 08:49 AM
Quote:
Right I'll apologise for being too thin-skinned. I was in the middle of a family crisis so I guess my funny bone wasn't working.
Well played,Liz! Let's just have a little giggle,and move on.
Posted by: REDVIKING57
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 09:26 AM
Posted by: flopsymopsy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 09:34 AM
Quote:
Will your tour be coming to Bedford?
I try to avoid Bedford. It's a black hole for motor traffic - once in Bedford there is no escape, the vortex sucks you in and then there are no signs out, and what few signs there are all point in the wrong direction. The best thing to happen to people from Northampton for decades is that they're building a bypass round Bedford.
*shakes hands with spanishliz* Sorry to hear about the crisis, I hope it resolves itself in a good way.
Posted by: bucknallbabe
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 10:40 AM
By all means avoid Bedford - Milton Keynes is only a few miles away and has an ice rink - and an ice hockey team MK Lightning.
Posted by: REDVIKING57
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 12:16 PM
Quote:
By all means avoid Bedford - Milton Keynes is only a few miles away and has an ice rink - and an ice hockey team MK Lightning.
Is that who the legendary Concrete Cows play for?
Posted by: lesley153
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 12:18 PM
Quote:
I try to avoid Bedford. It's a black hole - once in Bedford there is no escape...
So would I if only I'd known. You don't have to be driving for it to be a black hole. Lemme out! Help!
Quote:
The best thing to happen to people from Northampton for decades is that they're building a bypass round Bedford.
Best thing for everyone, I think.
Posted by: Rowena8482
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 03:35 PM
Quote:
Jeesh ! After reading all this, I think I have every number of excellent excuses, especially now, for disliking any number of sports quizzes and/or questions all over the place. It comes as a relief, too. Up until this thread, I had just assumed I had no very good clue about sports, in general. I reckon it's feeling better to know that, now, it's much more a digestable matter of knowing a little less about field varieties of hockey than I do about ice varieties of it . Whoever's getting to talking about different variations of it than those two? You need to stop ! I'm already *sports inadequate*. I need to start feeling *adjective inadequate*, too? Just kidding .. but I was thinking: here's this erstwhile editor, Nightmare, trying to champion the cause of quiz writers coming up with new quizzes in the Sports category. Seems like a worthy mission, yes? But, ye Gods, who would dare write one now? Not only does one have to research every question to make sure they have the "sporty" details right, they also have to cross-culture every adjective they use in it properly to make sure it's both inclusive (culturally) and specific enough to scratch every itch that could possibly be scratched? I'm currently having some mighty troubles building a quiz on Marvin Gaye (and I know lots about him --- both where he's from and what he did, where). I'll maybe try a "football" quiz next? Ugh. Not a chance! It'd take me four questions to clarify what I meant by the word 'football', evidently ...
Although, I guess, that'd mean it would be easier for me to write up six questions as opposed to ten ...
Nightmare is just amazing when it comes to sorting out all the "little niggles" in sports quizzes. I know literally nothing about practically any sport you could name and yet, with his expert help, freely given, I have managed to not only get several sports quizzes online, but actually have two of them "get the thumb". Nightmare was patience itself with me when I asked what I suspect were extremely odd questions, and given the time difference between us went "above and beyond the call of duty" to stop me saying anything that would make me look obviously silly
I wrote the quizzes purely by research rather than knowledge I already had if that makes sense, so the facts were there, but it was definitely Night's help that turned them into readable, playable, and (I fondly hope) interesting quizzes. Nobody need 'fear' having a go at writing sports while he's on the job, if I can do it anyone can!
Posted by: jonnowales
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 03:41 PM
Quote:
Nightmare is just amazing when it comes to sorting out all the "little niggles" in sports quizzes. I know literally nothing about practically any sport you could name and yet, with his expert help, freely given, I have managed to not only get several sports quizzes online, but actually have two of them "get the thumb". Nightmare was patience itself with me when I asked what I suspect were extremely odd questions, and given the time difference between us went "above and beyond the call of duty" to stop me saying anything that would make me look obviously silly
I wrote the quizzes purely by research rather than knowledge I already had if that makes sense, so the facts were there, but it was definitely Night's help that turned them into readable, playable, and (I fondly hope) interesting quizzes. Nobody need 'fear' having a go at writing sports while he's on the job, if I can do it anyone can!
Most definitely agree. Nightmare is a true sports enthusiast - even if it is cheerleading!
Posted by: Lones78
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 18 2009 09:14 PM
I have also found Nightmare an excellent editor. He is extremely helpful and somehow manages to 'tell me off' in a way that doesnt make me feel like I am being naughty
In relation to the football discussion, in Australia the only football is AFL (Australian Rules).
But now we arent allowed to call soccer 'soccer', we have to call it 'football'. It gets extremely confusing. Then there are the two versions of rugby that get played here. Technically that is football as well but no-one in their right mind
would try to confuse the situation by calling all 4 forms of football 'football'. *sigh*
And Flopsy, if that tour is coming to Australia, we have hardly any ice so you can be pretty safe in the knowledge that what we call hockey over here is 'field hockey'
Posted by: LeoDaVinci
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 08:16 AM
Quote:
4 forms of football
Only four?
* Associated (soccer), of which I know that the indoor and field versions have slightly different rules.
* Gridiron American rules
* Gridiron Canadian rules
* Aussie rules
* Gaelic rules
* Rugby
* Rugby Union
and those are just off the top of my head...
Posted by: REDVIKING57
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 10:04 AM
Quote:
Quote:
4 forms of football
Only four?
* Associated (soccer), of which I know that the indoor and field versions have slightly different rules.
* Gridiron American rules
* Gridiron Canadian rules
* Aussie rules
* Gaelic rules
* Rugby
* Rugby Union
and those are just off the top of my head...
Yes,General,you forgot Table Football,Blow Football and Fantasy Football! LOL! Not to mention XBox,PSP,etc.....
Interesting thing is,only ONE is played predominantly with the Foot/Feet! And only two use a proper foot BALL!
Posted by: flopsymopsy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 10:38 AM
Quote:
* Rugby
* Rugby Union
erm... doesn't Rugby = Rugby Union?
Which is not the same thing as Rugby League...
And where will we put Rugby Sevens if it becomes an Olympic sport?
Quote:
And Flopsy, if that tour is coming to Australia, we have hardly any ice so you can be pretty safe in the knowledge that what we call hockey over here is 'field hockey'
I've been to Australia, Leonie. I was taken to the top of Mount Kosciuszko where my friends were ecstatic at the sight of snow... a patch about 8 feet square and six inches deep, and a very dirty brown colour where a lot of excited Aussies had walked all over it, LOL.
Posted by: REDVIKING57
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 10:50 AM
Quote:
Quote:
And where will we put Rugby Sevens if it becomes an Olympic sport?
Flopsy,being an ardent Football (soccer) fan,do you really want me to tell you where you can put Rugby Sevens? LOL!
Posted by: flopsymopsy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 11:09 AM
Quote:
Flopsy,being an ardent Football (soccer) fan,do you really want me to tell you where you can put Rugby Sevens? LOL!
ROFL!
Er... since you put it that way, not really! hahaha.
Wot? Not a Tigers fan? Wow, so I can safely say "Go on the Saints!" and not get killed, hurrah!
Posted by: REDVIKING57
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 11:28 AM
SHHHH! Bob (RMG) might hear you! He might set his avatar on you! LOL!
Posted by: flopsymopsy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 02:21 PM
Pfft! I'm not afraid of an avatar whatever it is...
*goes to look at RMG's avatar*
*gulp* Jolly good team, the Leicester Tigers.
Posted by: Jakeroo
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 04:47 PM
is there some possible way we could get back "on topic" here? lol
Posted by: flopsymopsy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 05:23 PM
Oh.
Okay.
Let's talk about why Television questions are so difficult to answer from the other side of an ocean/globe.
I'd say that's the category with some of the most problematic cultural assumptions - and I'm sure it works in many directions.
For example, a question such as "which dog-owning granny from Full House won a daytime Emmy for her nursing duties in General Hospital" is a double whammy for me... I can't watch those programmes, they're just not shown here, so I have no idea what Full House is about, who's in it, what role they played... and ditto for General Hospital plus who is this Emmy when she's at home? Actually I do sort of know the answer to the Emmy bit but only vaguely, she doesn't travel.
In the same way, I wouldn't expect an American to know "Which hapless mechanic from Eastenders developed twinkletoes on Strictly Come Dancing 2009". However, I suspect, hope, that a British quiz writer would know that Americans wouldn't understand the assumption within the question, ie who plays a mechanic in Eastenders, whereas I don't think Americans realise how little of their television is seen outside the US. And I would also expect a British quizwriter to know that Strictly has another name outside the UK and what it is... but perhaps I'm assuming too much there, lol.
Anyway, these are not problems when I'm doing a quiz on a specific show... but they are problems in the hourlies and the GC because there's no time to figure out the many layers of assumptions being made.
So has that stirred the pot enough?
Posted by: BxBarracuda
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 06:06 PM
We do understand Flopsy, but I think it goes more to quiz writers sometimes thinking their favorite shows are watched by everyone.
I dread the Sports and Television categories the most when playing hardcore, and I watch a decent amount of American T.V. and follow a decent amount of American Sports.
Posted by: PDAZ
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 06:32 PM
Very guilty about the TV thing. I find it surprising when recent American shows are known overseas (like "How I Met Your Mother"), but I tend to take it for granted that people are familiar with the older US shows. I'm still trying to digest the fact that "The Brady Bunch" isn't internationally-known. You're missing out on the sibling order psychology of "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia"!
Posted by: lesley153
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 06:52 PM
Quote:
So has that stirred the pot enough?
Beautifully, actually - the best bit of pot-stirring I've read this month.
And it explains perfectly, and articulately, why I open so many TV quizzes and then promptly close them again. Questions like "Who had a cup of coffee with George Clooney's character in episode 8, series 82, of ER?" are about as answerable as "Who just missed being 73rd draft for XYZ in 1942?" when you don't even understand what the draft system is about.
Posted by: Jar
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 08:47 PM
Quote:
are about as answerable as "Who just missed being 73rd draft for XYZ in 1942?" when you don't even understand what the draft system is about.
The draft is no longer done. It was active when we were involved with Viet Nam. The US Government drafted men when they turned 18 years into the military.
Is there any other kind of draft? Well, outside beer/lager?
Like you, I just close sports questions, even the easy quizzes. It really irritates me when I see "here's an easy one!" and I've absolutely no clue what it is about. Television shows after 1965 get the same treatment. My problem is that having lived in Spain for 3 years there are television shows I've never even heard of.
Someone recently asked me if I would be going to the new Dallas Cowboys stadium (also known as Jerry's World). Why in the world would I go see a sporting event when I don't even like American Football! And answer a question about it? In my dreams!
So, being American, I have no clue as to the answers to American sports questions. Hmmm, maybe I should make some questions about sewing and see if Nightmare can answer them!
Posted by: Nightmare
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 19 2009 09:54 PM
Quote:
Hmmm, maybe I should make some questions about sewing and see if Nightmare can answer them!
Nightmare has neither made or allowed a single question such as the draft pick described. 1)It is too ambiguous and frivolous, and 2)Most college questions are not allowed because they have the least global value in Question Quest. If the question is plucked by the system from a quiz, then point your finger at the system.
And btw, I'm working on a huge paneled bed quilt with only one side left to line stitch.
Posted by: bucknallbabe
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 20 2009 01:31 AM
I love the phrase "global value" - that's really what we have been talking about. If the Global Challenge, which invites players from all over the world to compete against each other, is to appeal to those players, then the question pool should consist of questions with high rather than low "global value". I think what a lot of us have been saying is that many of the questions on US Sports in the pool are at the lower end of the scale.
Posted by: flopsymopsy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 20 2009 05:37 AM
Quote:
I'm still trying to digest the fact that "The Brady Bunch" isn't internationally-known. You're missing out on the sibling order psychology of "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia"!
I'm not going to tell you what I just had a question about in the GC or what the answer was but thanks so much. LOL!
Posted by: sue943
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 20 2009 09:04 AM
Yes, please keep it on topic in this thread since it is an anchored thread and intended to answer various questions.
Posted by: Midget40
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 20 2009 10:41 PM
This is my first time playing hardcore and sports is killing me. It keeps coming up and I've hardly ever qualifyed in it up to level six - I dread the higher divisions.
I'm hopeless on sport from any country but I can at least learn from some questions and get them right if they come up again but I haven't found a way to remember all the statistics questions and jersey numbers and don't think I ever will.
My personal pet hate though is being asked where people I've never heard of (and have no idea what sport they even play) went to college among a list of colleges that I've probably never heard of. Don't know why but that ones always irked me.
Posted by: wayman71
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 20 2009 11:01 PM
Quote:
Most college questions are not allowed because they have the least global value
And I, for one, thank you for that!
Posted by: Rowena8482
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 26 2010 04:01 AM
I just gave up on the "Globalisation of my Quizzes" thing when I got a message complaining that a quiz with 4 US, 1 Canadian, and one Secretary General of the U.N was too British and the people in it weren't well enough known outside "UK circles". (Of the remaining 4 Qs, 3 were Brits and one was Australian.... sighhhhhhhhh) Is there anything more American than The Jacksons and Baywatch? Someone point me at it if there is
Posted by: BxBarracuda
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 26 2010 08:19 AM
I would first and foremost consider the source of the note.
I hope the Jacksons and Baywatch aren't considered typical of America, but I guess I shouldn't be suprised if that is how America is viewed around the world.
Posted by: JanIQ
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 26 2010 11:42 AM
When I write my quizzes, I tend to focus on more than my home country (Belgium). Otherwise my quizzes would all be rated poorly.
Posted by: tezza1551
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 26 2010 05:43 PM
Most of my quizzes have focussed on my home state of Western Australia, and I would hope that people would try them in the same spirit that I try the American or UK based quizzes - to learn something.
Having said that, I would not attempt an American or UK based sports or TV quiz, as I have no interest in either topic in ANY country.
Posted by: english_gent
Geographical slant on questions - Thu Aug 30 2012 04:51 AM
I've noticed, as I'm sure many others have too, the slant (sometimes heavy bias) towards american subjects.
I appreciate that it possible that the majority of people venturing onto this site, and submitting questions, are indeed american located or of american origins.
However, as a suggestion, would it not be possible to perhaps tag each question with a geographical reference and maybe limit a set of random questions (for the daily or hourly question sets) with five from any geographical location??
Is this a viable option to do??
Would this be appreciated by the masses??
Just wanted to throw this idea out into the ether and see if
a) my arm gets bitten off;
b) if this has been thought off before;
d) yes, there is no c; and
e) what others thing of this bias.
Posted by: english_gent
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 06:19 AM
I just want to add my voice to this thread.
Had many examples of bias towards american related questions and just taken Who's The Expert and of 15 questions, 14 of which were american.
Now, I understand that the majority of people here may well be american, or ask american related questions - thats to be expected. However, this IS the internet and as such, it has to be recognised that people use this site ALL over the world.
My suggestion for reducing any slant/bias towards any one geographical area is to simply add a field when submitting questions to determine said geographical area (say by USA/UK/Canada/Australia/Europe etc) and then limit any question set to no more than 5 from any area.
Whether this is pratical or not is another matter and only can be addressed by those in the know. I'm guessing that for future submitted questions, it wouldn't be a problem, but for those already submitted than this could be a lengthy process.
I admit to not having read through the whole thread here, (and will rectify after posting this) but I personally feel that for this site to be fully 'international' it needs to have more questions set (by people of this site) to compensate for the american subject matter.
I do understand that whilst the site may have started off small and grown over the years, retrospective action to counter bias is never going to be easy, but there needs to be some adjustment to make it a more level playing field for all concerned.
Posted by: reeshy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 10:14 AM
The advice that is nearly always given when a question of US bias comes up still applies: the reason so many questions have a US slant is because most members are American. If you want to increase the number of questions from other countries, then you can always have a go at writing them yourselves.
Posted by: dsimpy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 10:52 AM
I actually think this issue of the 'America-centricity' of questions on Funtrivia can be a little overstated. There's no doubt there are 'more' American questions than from other English-speaking countries, and that's clearly unavoidable given the site membership, but I don't think the imbalance is as bad as that.
To be honest, most of us outside the USA are so bombarded with multiple aspects of American culture in our daily lives - television, KFC/McDonalds, Hollywood etc. etc. - that we're way more familiar with 'American' trivia questions than many US-based players are with British-Irish-Australian (and even Canadian?) trivia questions ... so that reduces the effect of any imbalance considerably.
So I honestly don't think it's a problem on Funtrivia ... apart perhaps from the obsession 'some' US question writers have for incomprehensible football/baseball statistics
... and the other tendency to assume that only Americans are reading their question and that there's no need therefore to make clear it relates to things-American! The example that comes to mind are questions like "Who was the first President to ...", as though no other country in the world has Presidents!
... Apart from that, no problem
Posted by: JanIQ
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 11:05 AM
I'm afraid english_gent's suggestion is not quite practicable.
Terry could program a box for indicating on *new* questions / quizzes which region is involved. But who'll take care of the more than a million existing questions?
Posted by: AdamM7
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 11:39 AM
and the other tendency to assume that only Americans are reading their question and that there's no need therefore to make clear it relates to things-American! The example that comes to mind are questions like "Who was the first President to ...", as though no other country in the world has Presidents!
I'm sure this isn't just with American questions. Out of a lot more than 1,000,000 questions on the site, I'm sure at least one of them asks "Who was our prime minister in 1912?", or "When did we last win a medal in the Olympics?" It might seem like this because there are more American questions, so more act like this is a purely American site. Either that or the fact that most questions from the point of view of an Italian would not be accepted, even with the lower standards that this site used to have.
Posted by: dsimpy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 12:01 PM
I'm sure this isn't just with American questions. Out of a lot more than 1,000,000 questions on the site, I'm sure at least one of them asks "Who was our prime minister in 1912?", or "When did we last win a medal in the Olympics?"
Hmmm yes, I'll concede that .... at least one question out of a million!! I think my point though, that there is a reasonably significant MINORITY of American questions (FAR higher than one in a million and FAR more frequently than is the case for questions written by players of other countries) that don't bother specifying the specific context - the USA - that they refer to, still holds true.
Posted by: english_gent
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 03:16 PM
I see that some of the posters who followed my post, if they're specifically replying to my post, didn't fully understand my drift.
It has to be accepted that the majority of the questions already submitted are american related in subject, and one remedy to this is simply for more questions to be submitted which are NOT american related. Difficult possibly as the sphere of 'americanism' is expanding if you consider TV programmes (as an example) are now shown more and more thoughout the world.
However, to simply brush this over as 'this is how it is' is simply a poor (and lazy) excuse and while I accept that to retrospectively alter submitted questions to fit in with the idea that I proposed (as an example) will take a lot of time, I feel that there should be at least some effort made to 'level the playing field'.
Fine if all people want to do is answer questions on a specific theme/subject, but when attempting to complete general hourly/daily quizzes and to be stumped by a influx of american-based questions seems somewhat unfair to those people who are in the minority (namely - non-american individuals).
The internet is a region-free zone where impartiality should reign supreme, and whilst I appreciate that this objective is a long term goal, it should be something (for everyone, both admin and quizwriters) to aim for and there's no time like the present to address this issue.
To ignore this imbalance is to accept that that there is a 'class difference' with America being in heirachy position over the rest of the quizzing world.
Posted by: sue943
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 04:04 PM
As our members write all the quizzes and the majority of our members are American how can you insist that they write quizzes aimed at Brits or Aussies? It would be the same as insisting that you write an American quiz when you are British.
Posted by: looney_tunes
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 04:05 PM
There are two separate issues here - questions that have an unwritten assumption that players will know they are referring to the United States, and the number of quizzes that are based on US trivia.
The questions you see are the ones written by FunTrivia members and placed online because they met the standards at the time they were written. If you feel a change needs to be made to a question to make it more accessible in the timed games, you should submit a correction note after playing it. The volunteer editors have their hands full editing new quizzes and attending to corrections that have been sent - there is no way anyone has time to go through 120,000 quizzes searching for questions that could be reoworded to be more precise. (I personally cringe a little bit every time I see Civil War references, as if there was only one civil war in the history of the world. However, since the category in which the quiz is found specifies American history, it is fair for the writer to assume that players will expect the questions to be about the US civil war of the 19th century.)
As others have said before, both on this topic and in other threads bemoaning the fact that many of the quizzes in a certain category seem to be on a single topic rather than the full scope that the category offers, the only way to increase the number of questions that focus on a particular area is to be part of the quiz writing process, and increase the number of quizzes that do not focus on the United States.
Posted by: dsimpy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 04:42 PM
The internet is a region-free zone where impartiality should reign supreme, and whilst I appreciate that this objective is a long term goal, it should be something (for everyone, both admin and quizwriters) to aim for and there's no time like the present to address this issue.
No time like the present indeed!
In your six and a half years on the site so far, you've written 11 questions and no quizzes. It'd be great to see some quintessentially English quizzes from you to level the playing field a bit against those damn yanks!
Posted by: lesley153
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 05:36 PM
I agree with english_gent that it would be really rather nice to know, before we commit ourselves to a quiz, whether or not an ostensibly global title genuinely is global, or contains 100% American topics.
I didn't realise that we were competing with each other over who's written more or most quizzes, or that we need to have written a minimum number of quizzes to be entitled to an opinion.
Posted by: guitargoddess
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 06:34 PM
The internet is a region-free zone where impartiality should reign supreme, and whilst I appreciate that this objective is a long term goal, it should be something (for everyone, both admin and quizwriters) to aim for and there's no time like the present to address this issue.
To ignore this imbalance is to accept that that there is a 'class difference' with America being in heirachy position over the rest of the quizzing world.
But this particular website is American-owned. There is absolutely no requirement to make the site's features 'fair' for people from other countries. By your criteria, should we be expected to offer quizzes and games entirely in multiple world languages, because otherwise it's biased against people who don't have a firm grasp of English? This site has a great number of things to do here, some of which are more 'fair' or widely accessible to international members than others.
I think there is already a lot in place to try to make things as fair as possible: many categories disallow certain types of questions because the answers can differ around the world (e.g. movie release dates), we enforce that questions be worded as clearly possible if there may be international confusion (if you see questions that are truly ambiguous and may have different answer depending on what region you think of, it's probably an old question; flag it for editor attention), and people from any country are allowed to join and submit material.
But at the end of the day, it's an American website and the content is largely American. That's not unfair. It'd be like if you repeatedly went to an Indian restaurant and kept complaining that there was too much Indian food. You're free to choose not too participate in whichever of the games or subjects if you are frustrated that you don't know enough answers.
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 06:57 PM
Flagging questions according to the supposed bias of whatever country would also not necessarily meet the needs of players.
I am Canadian. I have zero interest in playing Canadian-slanted questions - I want a variety, with many having no bias to country of any sort (Science, animals, workdplay...) I listen to music from all over the world, read books from all over the world, have a reasonable grasp of history of the western world, at any rate, and would like to learn more about the rest of the world. Ditto Geography, Movies, People...
Authors already complain about how stringent our quiz and question writing rules are. Should we add to them the rule that authors also categorize whether a question is a) very specific to the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, etc etc, b) moderately specific to blah blah, c) slightly specific to etc etc, d) non specific as to region? And then players would have to choose which question pool they would have their questions drawn from, keeping in mind that in certain subjects the pool would be very small and the questions memorized in a very short time.
So, no, I'm sorry, I think that the suggestion is not really very practical, even leaving aside the enormous task of categorizing all existing questions.
Posted by: zorba_scank
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Aug 30 2012 09:16 PM
I agree with Agony on this. I'm from India and most of the questions on the site about my country or the Indian subcontinent are on topics I'm already well versed with. I come here to learn about other parts of the world and things that are not familiar to people like me. If the hourly games were tailored to give me questions only from my region, given the small question pool, it would soon turn out to be a memory game of 'fastest fingers first' with nothing new for me to learn. Of course this wouldn't work at all for categories like Movies, Music, TV etc. where I doubt there are more than a couple of India specific quizzes. It would be even worse for me if it was broadened to include Asia. I'm more likely to have heard of American/British TV shows, than something being shown in China.
Posted by: english_gent
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 02:00 AM
Firstly, thanks dsimpy for taking the time to point out the length of time that I've been on the site.
But actually I've only ever been on here for 9 months at best in that whole period so that information is somewhat skewed but thanks for attempting to put a point accross :p.
I have actually recently submitted several QQ questions in my paltry attempt to address this issue but I am merely one voice in the wilderness. Let's not speak of attempts to submit a full quiz - thats another issue for another day.
I fully understand other peoples points and the suggestion I made was only a suggestion. I fully accept that even if if was a good idea, to geographically catalogue all previously submitted questions is a huge problem.
Yes, this site is an american based one, but when the site is on the internet, the 'home' location becomes meaningless, and especially when one pays for membership, then surely one is allowed to post his/her suggestions and opinions???
The quote "the customer is king" is valid in most businesses and as this site offers membership, then desite whatever reasons that brought it about, to ensure the growth of the site, opinions surely matter.
Now, if this idea of my is rubbish then fair do. But once again, it doesn't remove the fact that for some people (either majority or minority) some displeasure has been raised about the amount of american related questions appearing in the hourly/daily quizzes and no matter how you look at it, presents an unfair quiz for those who are not american.
There will be no easy answer in getting this addressed other than to take the easy way out and say 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.
I know it may come accross as whinging/moaning/complaining but having said that, being an english speaking person, I am lucky that the site is in english. Pity the poor lads/lasses however who speak little english and still wish to participate on this site - it must be a hundred times worse for them.
Posted by: dsimpy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 04:16 AM
Well english_gent, I've never suggested anywhere you're not entitled to an opinion - of course you are! So am I.
My opinion is that there simply isn't a problem of over-Americanization of questions in the mixed games. I accept that some other non-Americans feel as you do, however many non-Americans (as I know from previous discussion of this issue in the Forums) do not.
I also like rising to the challenges the site throws up (including stuff that baffles me), instead of expecting the site to be continuously tweaked to cater for one preference or another.
What we all agree on is that the most effective way to address any perceived imbalance is for non-American players to contribute questions and quizzes on their own culture and social context.
I don't think your own proposal is workable at all, not least - as I think someone else has said - because it would involve pretty subjective judgements being made about the 'degree of Americanicity' or 'degree of Britishness' or ... of any question.
Incidentally, a lot of question/quiz writers don't only write questions based on their own geographic context. Although Irish, I've written American, Australian, Canadian, Scottish, English, French (etc) questions, and I know loads of other players have gone outside their own 'zone' too.
Posted by: sisterseagull
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 04:20 AM
Well.... I'm trying to do my bit!
I have twenty-one single questions accepted on a variety of subjects, mainly british military history, but also including Sweden and France, so there's a european slant there (I have another thirty or forty in the pipeline also).
I have thirteen full quizzes on line, again eleven of these are typically british and the remaining two are about France, with a further eight in various stages of construction... I am working on a list of subjects that I also would like to write quizzes about and these number around twenty. Like the Americans here, I like to write questions and quizzes about subjects that interest me and that I have a good working knowledge of. Most of my quizzes and questions are pretty obscure (at least I think so) but I also try to be mindful of the fact that some of my players will not have english as their first language but, with a little research the answers are not that difficult to find... I have one quiz that is about the local dialect in my part of England, its only had 120 plays so far, so certainly not american!
It's great to learn things about different parts of the world so there'll be no complaints from me on that score. FunTrivia (even with the american bias) is worth every penny/cent/euro/yen etc of my membership fee!
Posted by: english_gent
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 05:23 AM
I'm also getting a list of questions built up ready to submit (both QQ and full quizzes) and whilst I agree to learning about other parts of the world, it is darn annoying to do an hourly/daily quiz and get shed loads of american questions (for the most part generally unknown to those not living in the USA) especially when one is trying to obtain a badge or two.
So, it seems to be accept the status quo and try to change from within. Hey ho.
And dsimpy, I wasn't having a go at the 'free speech'/opinion part, was just 'correcting' the point about the actual time I've been on here.
@ sisterseagull - a fellow devon living soul
I will have to venture your way and see your quizzes.
Well, thats my thoughts said on this subject.
Enjoy the quizzes, american or otherwise :p lol
Posted by: Midget40
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 07:25 AM
Every time this topic comes up the whole 'well write more questions that aren't American' comes up.
This is just ridiculous.
If there are lots more Americans on the site the questions/quizzes now are going to far outweigh the non- American ones so even the NEW question pool is going to be US biased.
And it's not just a matter of trying to match them now - you have to try and increase the number to outweigh all the old ones that are on here which is virtually impossible.
It's not going to happen from a purely logical/mathematical angle so lets stop trying to pretend that it's the answer to the problem.
I don't think there is an answer to this problem (and it obviously IS a problem for a lot of people) so lets just admit that there isn't a way to fix it instead of bringing this old chestnut up every time
Posted by: tezza1551
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 07:55 AM
Well said, Midget40.
but what else would you expect from another West Aussie !
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 08:31 AM
Another approach to this - and honestly, it's not meant to be in any way dismissive - is not to play the games where this bias bothers you. There is no obligation in any way to play the dailies and hourlies.
Posted by: rossian
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 08:55 AM
I mostly find the balance of questions works out. In KO, or the Daily Game, there is usually one US sport or geography question which I struggle with but often balanced out by a UK question which I know, but would probably cause more difficulty to an American player. This doesn't always happen, but occurs often enough for me to think that Terry has tried to build this in to the database selection.
Getting the balance right isn't easy. I've written several UK specific quizzes and also mixtures. Even then some players complain. I've had notes saying that the player doesn't like UK and US hits being covered in the same quiz, or complaining that a quiz should have been labelled 'UK specific' because of one, very small, reference.
Posted by: ga_jam831
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 10:22 AM
I could do a quiz on something like South American Pioneer Aviation (a subject I am actually interested in) but I doubt anyone much would do it. Likewise on many other subjects I am interested in.
I would tell my Dad about this quiz if you wrote it. He has been flying most of his life so I know he would find it interesting. I say go for it!
Posted by: reeshy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 01:23 PM
I doubt that any one who suggests the writing of more non-US questions seriously imagines that non-US will one day beat out US questions. I certainly didn't when I reiterated the suggestion. Actually, writing more questions from other countries DOES contribute to the solution, in my opinion, as it enriches the variety of the question pool and there will be more non-US questions than otherwise. I dare say that in any case it's a much better solution than if anyone were to suggest cutting down on the US questions! I agree with the suggestion to play other games if you're bothered about the bias - there are plenty of country-specific quizzes out there. Otherwise, you just have to play the hourlies etc. with the caveat that questions MAY be more US-based. I say "may" because I honestly don't notice that I'm being bombarded with US questions all the time. Of course there is no quick fix, and possibly not a proper solution at all, but pooh-poohing suggestions to expand the variety of questions is certainly not going to help either. Although the internet is international, it must be borne in mind that most authors ARE American, and many people are much more comfortable writing what they know. The questions are made up of what the community submits, so if there's an imbalance, it needs to be addressed by the community, i.e. the authors, but certainly without the restriction on people submitting US-based questions: there has to be an increase instead of questions based on other countries.
Just my (perhaps a bit more than!) two cents.
Posted by: guitargoddess
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 02:01 PM
Yes, this site is an american based one, but when the site is on the internet, the 'home' location becomes meaningless, and especially when one pays for membership, then surely one is allowed to post his/her suggestions and opinions???
The quote "the customer is king" is valid in most businesses and as this site offers membership, then desite whatever reasons that brought it about, to ensure the growth of the site, opinions surely matter.
Of course you're allowed to post suggestions and opinions, it's really just that this subject has been complained about to death for 10 years, and honestly I think it is one of those things that doesn't really have a solution. Writing more quizzes on other topics can HELP (after all, the system can't give you more non-US questions on a topic like say, Television Mixture if there are little to no non-US questions in the database) but ultimately, I think that's just the way she goes.
Being on the 'worldwide web' doesn't mean every site is international. It means people from around the world can access it, but that doesn't mean it needs to cater to every person's whim. There are TONS of American-owned sites that people from other countries can use or visit but are "discriminated" against in favour of Americans.
I get what you're saying, it can be a bit irritating to feel excluded based on citizenship. belong to a cooking website that is American based and I pay a fee for extended membership there. As an American site, they've offered some stuff that I'm simply not eligible for, as a Canadian. Do you know how many countless American sites I happen upon when looking for products to end up being disappointed that they refuse to ship things to Canada? What good would it do complaining about it though? It's the prerogative of the site owners to offer what they offer.
I think FT is one of the best sites I visit in terms of being less American-centric. We'll accept millions and millions of British (or whatever) themed questions if people submit them, and I disagree that a solution is needed to having largely American topics in the database. You can't please all the people all of them time. Every desire of groups of members on this site cannot be met or catered too, and there's no requirement anywhere that says it should be. Frankly sometimes I think it's annoying enough that quizzes need to be tailored to daily/hourly game play at all. And if major changes WERE made, then you'd have the Americans up in arms about not knowing anything about Australian topics.
This subject has been beaten like a thrice-dead horse and personally I feel it's time to say, Everyone from anywhere is welcome to join in, but this is how the site is. It's up to you to decide if you want to participate or not.
Posted by: dippo
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 02:58 PM
So I suppose this wouldn't be a good time to suggest renaming the 'Movies' category as 'Films'?
Posted by: spanishliz
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 03:04 PM
Funny you should say that, but I quite often think of Movies as Films myself. (The humour lies in the fact that I'm a Movies editor
)
Posted by: Tizzabelle
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Aug 31 2012 05:29 PM
So I suppose this wouldn't be a good time to suggest renaming the 'Movies' category as 'Films'?
If we're going to do that I think it should be as the old-fashioned "Filums". Or even "The Flicks" I still say, on the odd occasion, that I'm going to the "the flicks".
Posted by: Snowman
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 01 2012 12:55 AM
If Movies becomes "The Flicks", can we also rename Television as "The Goggle Box" (as opposed to the internet which is the "Google Box").
Posted by: dsimpy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 01 2012 03:48 AM
So I suppose this wouldn't be a good time to suggest renaming the 'Movies' category as 'Films'?
If we're going to do that I think it should be as the old-fashioned "Filums". Or even "The Flicks" I still say, on the odd occasion, that I'm going to the "the flicks".
How about renaming it 'The Pictures'?
Posted by: KayceeKool
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 01 2012 04:06 AM
My late mother-in-law always used to refer to it as "The Bioscope"
Posted by: mehaul
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 01 2012 04:39 AM
Charge-coupled motion capture (Sees Emcee for short) since celluloid film will soon be a technology of the past as digital storage becomes universal.
Posted by: tezza1551
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 01 2012 04:54 AM
In Australia in the 50s & 60s, it was "going to the pictures"...my city cousins used to talk about going and i used to wonder what the pictures were of !
Posted by: spanishliz
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 01 2012 06:49 AM
We called it "going to the show" when I was a kid in south-western Ontario in that same era.
Posted by: guitargoddess
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 01 2012 07:23 AM
My dad still calls it that, Liz.
Posted by: reeshy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 01 2012 09:41 AM
In Australia in the 50s & 60s, it was "going to the pictures"...my city cousins used to talk about going and i used to wonder what the pictures were of !
I hear that quite a bit still here in the UK, including from my family.
Posted by: sue943
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 01 2012 10:01 AM
I certainly used to say it, I rarely go these days so don't say anything but I guess I could when not thinking just say the pictures.
Posted by: shuehorn
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 01 2012 09:35 PM
I mostly find the balance of questions works out. In KO, or the Daily Game, there is usually one US sport or geography question which I struggle with but often balanced out by a UK question which I know, but would probably cause more difficulty to an American player. This doesn't always happen, but occurs often enough for me to think that Terry has tried to build this in to the database selection.
Getting the balance right isn't easy. I've written several UK specific quizzes and also mixtures. Even then some players complain. I've had notes saying that the player doesn't like UK and US hits being covered in the same quiz, or complaining that a quiz should have been labelled 'UK specific' because of one, very small, reference.
And let me add that just because one is from the US, it doesn't necessarily help on the US-based sport questions (I'm hopeless at sports, so it wouldn't matter what country they were from, I'm out).
Sue
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 01 2012 10:12 PM
Sue, I agree. I can get very basic questions about the rules of ice hockey, but that's pretty much it, for sports. Might as well ask me about cricket as Canadian sports, they are all a mystery to me.
Posted by: tezza1551
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sat Sep 01 2012 10:47 PM
Spanishliz, going to "the show" conjures up a very different image for me. "The Show" was our local Agricultural Show, where Dad and Uncle Don won ribbons for their wool, and Mum judged the Handicraft sections, and won prizes for her knitting & cooking while my aunt won in the flower section, and occasionally, I won a ribbon or two in the Riding classes.
The half a dozen stalls that made up Sideshow Alley were fascinating.. fifty years later, I still remember going through the Haunted House with my cousins, and while we weren't allowed to go in, the boxers from George Stewart' troupe used to stand outside and challenge the locals... the Octopus, Merry Go Round & Ferris Wheel...
You saw everyone there, from the local member of Parliament to neighbours and friends, to cousins you only saw once a year... everyone went to the Show.
Posted by: english_gent
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 12 2012 03:40 AM
Just briefly wishing to state this concerning my idea I mentioned recently and that people said would be difficult to implement.
I've spoken to a friend of mine who's well versed in all things website authoring, and he stated that it would be a relative easy thing to do.
All new quizzes (either individual questions or quizzes as a whole) can have an extra field for geographical location to enter by the quiz author, as I originally thought.
As regards to the questions already submitted - he said that people taking the quizzes can enter a 'geographical tags' after quizzes are completed (akin to error report submissions) for an incentive of say, 1 point per question tagged with a country.
The backlog of questions will eventually get tagged over time and saves admin having to do this.
So, I guess it is technically possible to implement such a system, but judging by the 'tone' of the posts here, there would appear to be no desire to level the playing field regards question bias towards any one particular country.
Posted by: kaddarsgirl
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 12 2012 07:52 AM
Just briefly wishing to state this concerning my idea I mentioned recently and that people said would be difficult to implement.
I've spoken to a friend of mine who's well versed in all things website authoring, and he stated that it would be a relative easy thing to do.
All new quizzes (either individual questions or quizzes as a whole) can have an extra field for geographical location to enter by the quiz author, as I originally thought.
As regards to the questions already submitted - he said that people taking the quizzes can enter a 'geographical tags' after quizzes are completed (akin to error report submissions) for an incentive of say, 1 point per question tagged with a country.
The backlog of questions will eventually get tagged over time and saves admin having to do this.
So, I guess it is technically possible to implement such a system, but judging by the 'tone' of the posts here, there would appear to be no desire to level the playing field regards question bias towards any one particular country.
Quick question. What happens when there's a quiz with zero country bias? Nothing to tag in that case.
Posted by: JanIQ
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 12 2012 11:22 AM
A similar issue could arise if the quiz consists of a mixture of different countries, such as is frequently the case in some Geography subcategories.
Posted by: trident
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 12 2012 12:43 PM
So, I guess it is technically possible to implement such a system, but judging by the 'tone' of the posts here, there would appear to be no desire to level the playing field regards question bias towards any one particular country.
I don't think it's a matter so much of not wanting to "level the playing field". I think it would be great if we had more questions in the pools involving countries other than the U.S. But as editors and Terry (as the site administrator), we only receive content that is then put through an editing process and published online. We don't demand that more British or Australian or Canadian or South African, etc. quizzes be published. It is up to the quiz-writers to decide on what they want to write.
In terms of the technically possible, there is likely a way to implement such a system, but who knows how involved such an implementation would take when there is not a terrific demand for such a thing. I, for one, would prefer the webmaster to spend his time designing new games and concepts for the site than to create a complete overhaul of the system.
There is a notion out there that Americans can be self-involved and not care about other cultures, "America-centricity," if you would. But I don't think that is what is going on here. Instead, we simply have to deal with what we get in terms of submissions. If the majority of them deal with American topics, then the majority of questions you will get will be related to American topics. It's an old chestnut when we say "well, write more non-American topics!" But it is true. Our quiz-writers determine our content.
Might I suggest an alternative to the personal "you should write more quizzes" approach. The following link is to the Quiz Author Lounge which is a board that is meant to better our quizzes and their standards. I am sure that if you get a community of quiz-makers to help submit quizzes on non-American topics, it will be much more effective in terms of leveling the playing field than an odd algorithm that may produce wild results and end up as more work for the editors:
http://www.funtrivia.com/bb.cfm?boardid=2222222
Posted by: english_gent
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 12 2012 02:39 PM
@ kaddersgirl - I guess it would be deemed to be geographically free so could be used as a wildcard so to speak.
I'm just voicing my opinion is all.
There will always be more American related questions here than any other country, but that isn't the point of my idea.
My idea was to ensure, for the daily/hourly games (and global challenges - where I have come across an inordinate amount of MLB questions as bonus subjects to the point that it is taking the michael) where such quizzes do not have any bias towards any one country.
Getting more non-american questions isn't the short-term answer, addressing the issue of changing the formula used in selecting the quizzes is.
Posted by: guitargoddess
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 12 2012 02:55 PM
But bias itself is biased. Questions you deem as "too American" may not be so to other people. As it was pointed out above (somewhere), just because a quiz is on an American topic doesn't mean that other people don't know about it. American TV shows for example. People all around the world have seen 'Friends'. Excluding those questions (or many of them) from an hourly quiz where the topic is Television isn't going to please everyone around the world. And there are many Americans who are as clueless about MLB as you are.
Posted by: AdamM7
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Wed Sep 12 2012 03:00 PM
Never mind "the answer" - I don't think that there's a problem. I don't think that there's anything wrong with the majority of questions being American and I don't think that there's anything wrong with more American questions turning up in hourlies.
Sure, we all get frustrated when we get questions on what number shirt some American football player wore on some random game, but we get these types of obscure and, in some cases, completely useless questions from all different countries. "Who got eliminated in the 3rd week of Big Brother?", "Which person won a gold medal in the 1944 Olympics for Australia in 100m freestyle?" etc.
I don't like the idea of calling my question English, or American or even "geographically free". It doesn't seem like it's a worthwhile thing. In some quizzes, people will state in the intro "Note: American/English/Canadian etc. bias". I think that is sufficient enough. In hourlies, it is and always has been complete luck with what questions you get and that is perfectly fine.
EDIT: I didn't see guitargoddess' post before I wrote this, but I completely agree with it. Look at my avatar and my signature. You can see that I like "The Simpsons". I am English. What country is "The Simpsons" made and set in? It's definitely not England and not even in Europe.
Posted by: english_gent
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 02:07 AM
I get your point AdamM7, and always have done - I even pointed that out in a previous post.
But to my mind, there is an issue of fairness, however different people perceive it.
For example, if we have two teams competing in a quiz over three rounds (say USA Vs Europe). It would be deemed fair to have round 1 on American subjects, Round 2 on European, and round 3 on various subjects.
Not to have all three rounds on American subjects, which is 'similar' to what I (and I alone) notice about the daily/hourly games. Yes there are non-American questions appearing (obscure or otherwise) but the FREQUENCY of american questions that occurs is alarmingly slanted.
It is an exagerated point I make here but one which somewhat makes my point clearer to a degree.
(on another point - attempting the UK Hourly quizzes brings up some extremely NON-UK questions which leaves me gobsmacked as how they could be classed as UK but thats another whinge I have.)
I freely admit that I'm not the best at answering quizzes but I do want to get to the top level of the Global Challenge, and just want to have a fair crack at it which isn't what I perceive to be getting.
Judging by what I have seen, this is a subject that WILL be picked up every now and then (and yes, people will always choose what quizzes THEY want to tackle) but when it comes to the daily/hourly quizzes, I guess everyone will just have to put up with the bias that is there whether they like it or not - it is something which becomes clearer by the day that will simply not be addressed.
Posted by: dg_dave
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 07:08 AM
english_gent, there will most likely always be more US-based question due to the majority of members hailing from the US. I am also in that count, but I did author a quiz that covered a subject from Canada, the UK, and Australia, with only one US-based question in it, so American authors can do other subjects, but as we know US-based facts and figures moreso than anything else, there will be more US-based questions. I'll know more about baseball than I will cricket (I still wonder how one person scores 200 or more runs in cricket), and more about gridiron football than soccer. It doesn't mean I can't learn other subjects, whether it be UK, Australia, France, etc.
I cannot remember where the post is, but someone posted that about 55% of the membership or people that peruse this site are from the US. Looking at the alexa site, today shows 46.2% are from the US
(see here).
People all around the world have seen 'Friends'. Excluding those questions (or many of them) from an hourly quiz where the topic is Television isn't going to please everyone around the world. And there are many Americans who are as clueless about MLB as you are.
I am the reverse of this. I know far more about MLB than I do
Friends. I barely know who played on the show (I'm not sure I can even name all six), much less who played which character.
Posted by: dippo
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 08:14 AM
For example, if we have two teams competing in a quiz over three rounds (say USA Vs Europe). It would be deemed fair to have round 1 on American subjects, Round 2 on European, and round 3 on various subjects.
Not to have all three rounds on American subjects, which is 'similar' to what I (and I alone) notice about the daily/hourly games. Yes there are non-American questions appearing (obscure or otherwise) but the FREQUENCY of american questions that occurs is alarmingly slanted.
It is an exagerated point I make here but one which somewhat makes my point clearer to a degree.
But we don't have teams competing in that way. In nearly all games on this site, you compete against other players and teams regardless of their country, and there is little one on one competition other than in the knock out.
If you want to increase the amount of questions on UK and European subjects, then that would discriminate against the Americans, who are in the majority on this site.
My only concern about the American bias of the site is the occasional assumption that other countries don't exist - a quiz about Civil War should not necessarily be exclusively about the American Civil War; I believe quite a few countries have had them!
Posted by: kaddarsgirl
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 08:20 AM
For example, if we have two teams competing in a quiz over three rounds (say USA Vs Europe). It would be deemed fair to have round 1 on American subjects, Round 2 on European, and round 3 on various subjects.
Of all the teams I see (the ones than tend to do well in team games and such) none of them have exclusive membership to only one country. A majority of the teams have members from all over the world, and almost every team I would bet covers at least two countries in their membership. I know you're trying to make a point with your above statement, but it would never happen that way, because the site, and the teams, are integrated.
Posted by: english_gent
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 12:47 PM
@ dg_dave - I know there will always be more US questions than any other. I've already said this in previous posts and I have no objection to that aspect, believe me.
All I'm wanting to address is the formula used in compiling the questions for the daily/hourly quizzes which a lot of people I would think wish to compete more fairly.
Maybe I am in a minority, and if so - fair enough.
AND @ dippo - I KNOW that's not how teams work here at Funtrivia. I was merely attempting to explain the principle of fairness as how I see it, and somehow explaining (poorly so it seems) how I perceived it to this site in regard to the daily/hourly quizzes.
It seems that it is one view held here, that if it's not broken, then why fix it - which is fine as far as it goes and it doesn't matter who says that (American or otherwise).
However, even if the site originally was aimed at Americans, because of the way the internet works nowadays, any website cannot restrict itself to any one geographical area (with the exception to possibly television channels etc. To say now that this site is still solely for the use of Americans would be somewhat daft, espcially as more and more non americans are members/visitors to this site (dg_dave quoted a figure of 46.2% of todays visitors being Americans - but bear in mind statistics can say anything you want it to).
All I'm putting forth is simply an idea I had which possibly could address an imbalance that I saw. Thats it - simple as. Just my opinion.
Anyone else is fully entitled to their opinion as well.
I know - some people will say if I don't like it, then maybe I should clear off.
Well, it's a possibility to be sure but, at the moment all I can say it that whilst I will be staying with this site, I am now wiser as to which quizzes I can and will take, and sadly it will mean some of the fun of this site will disappear because I will not be able to achieve some of the badges I had wished to go after.
And that for me, and hopefully for the admin team too, is something to give some thought to, because if this happens to me (and I'm just an ordinary Joe) then whats to say it won't happen (won't have happened) to others.
All I wanted to do is help get this site to improve and be better for the future, but as I've said, maybe I am just in a minority.
Everybody have fun now
Posted by: Tizzabelle
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 01:06 PM
I am the reverse of this. I know far more about MLB than I do Friends. I barely know who played on the show (I'm not sure I can even name all six), much less who played which character.
Dave, the characters were Chandler, Happy, Sleepy, Grumpy, Doc, Rachel, Monica, and Bashful. I think
Posted by: JanIQ
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 01:45 PM
The last show of "Friends" I saw, had Duchess, Marie, Toulouse and Berlioz. There was also a Tom O'Malley. Lol.
Posted by: shuehorn
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 02:01 PM
[...] at the moment all I can say it that whilst I will be staying with this site, I am now wiser as to which quizzes I can and will take, and sadly it will mean some of the fun of this site will disappear because I will not be able to achieve some of the badges I had wished to go after.
english_gent, I hope you will stay and persevere. I don't think that you will be blocked at getting any of the badges due to the bias. When I look at the list of badge recipients, they are from all over the world. Even in the KO where people are pitted one on one, many times the non-US player wins a KO match, so the question content is not providing too much of an advantage in terms of geography. I am clueless at sports, no matter where they are played, and you will find that many US players are not as good at world geography than players from the rest of the world. Most US players find the questions harder and harder in the GC as they move up the ranks, and there are more and more non-US questions. This translates to things becoming easier for those with a general culture (as we say in Colombia for non ethno-centric knowledge) that is broader than just the US. Give it a chance and let us know how it goes.
Sue (who lives in the US now and also did as a child, but lived the majority of her adult life outside of the US in South America)
Posted by: guitargoddess
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 02:15 PM
However, even if the site originally was aimed at Americans, because of the way the internet works nowadays, any website cannot restrict itself to any one geographical area (with the exception to possibly television channels etc. To say now that this site is still solely for the use of Americans would be somewhat daft, espcially as more and more non americans are members/visitors to this site (dg_dave quoted a figure of 46.2% of todays visitors being Americans - but bear in mind statistics can say anything you want it to).
The website does NOT restrict itself to any geographical area and it is NOT solely for the use of Americans and nobody is saying that. It remains, however, an American-based site. We gladly accept questions and quizzes about any country or culture, and everyone from everywhere is welcome to join, with the caveat that
it is an American site. I don't see how you can willingly join and participate in an American-based website and complain that it's too American.
If you were accepted as a contestant on a regular US-based episode "Jeopardy", would you very well expect them to rearrange their questions to be not-American? You shouldn't, because it's an American show. Just as this is an American website. The only difference here is that the system doesn't purposely choose to give you American-oriented questions. It chooses at random from the questions available in the database. The database is largely American-oriented. That's the way it is.
Posted by: looney_tunes
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 03:56 PM
And the longer you play, the more of the information becomes familiar. The colleges attended by various professional athletes of whom I have never heard doesn't stick, but I have become familiar with a whole lot of state flora and fauna, as well as their commemorative coins. These bits of information lodge right beside Zodiac dates and traits, flowers and gems associated with each month, and anniversary traditional gifts as things i never cared about until I started playing here, but which I have had to learn.
Posted by: english_gent
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 04:28 PM
@ guitargoddess - A question please. Where does it specifically say on this site that it is an american based one??? (and I'm not talking about the forums).
AND by accepting money from people all over the world, surely you can no longer abide by saying it is simply an american site??
Posted by: english_gent
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 04:43 PM
Also, the other thing I have also noticed is simply when presented with a suggestion, in this case, mine. Most people have either said, "nah, it won't work. It is as it is and Tough" or words to that effect.
I'm not a bad guy here, although I'm beginning to get the feeling that people are jumping on me for wanting to help "improve" (or change) the site (in my eyes at least).
Actually, maybe that's not completely fair to say that.
Just people seem to think it's easier to pooh-pooh any idea then say "Well, you might have a point, but I wouldn't know how to move forward with this, if at all" type of response.
@ guitar-goddess - you analogy about being a contestant in a US base 'Jeopardy' is correct and quite rightly too 'When in Rome....' and all that, but note that in my example, I wasn't restricting it to country. Was just suggesting how something should be FAIR.
That's all I'm trying to raise the awareness about....Fairness - Well, in my eyes anyway.
Others will disagree - that's only to be expected.
Anyway, I've said more than enough on this subject. It's not getting anywhere, and I'm not one for banging my head against the wall pointlessly - I'm getting a headache
Posted by: guitargoddess
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 05:01 PM
I don't know that it explicitly says anywhere that the site is American-based, but if you read the Terms of Service there are several references to US law and there is a US address listed as the copyright holder. And it just is. The owner and webmaster is based out of the US. Edited to add: actually it really doesn't matter if the site is 'officially' US based since it's not the website owner who contributes all the content but the users, and there is no restriction on submitting non-American material. What matters is that over the course of the history of this site, the majority of contributors have been American or other people writing on American topics.
Money is accepted from people all over the world because every one is welcome. But no site can possibly be made entirely 'fair' for every type of person out there.
You're not the "bad guy" for making suggestions, but this has come up ad nauseum over the years. There is no perfect solution, and frankly there isn't really a "problem". No one or hardly anyone can excel at every single subject or every single game on this site, or be able to win every single badge; some games really favour speed and some people just can't compete in that regard. People who can't see well may have a bit of trouble with photo quizzes. We also have vocabulary-based games; for people for whom English isn't there first language, those are challenging. Should we remove those games? Must they be reconfigured to be more fair for that group of people? I don't think so. I mean English IS my first language and the badge that has eluded me for years and years here is the Word Wizard!
I guess to me the bottom line is that there are some things that can't or won't be 'fixed', because there's no need. People in this thread were pooh-poohing the old 'write questions on other topics' suggestion, but really, that's the best 'solution' there is. If the questions in any given category are 95% American, lower that percentage. It may not ever happen, but it COULD if there were enough international authors who cared to work on it.
No one is forced to be a paid member; if anyone feels that there isn't enough here they can do well in, they don't need to fork over any money.
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 06:33 PM
On the matter of responding to suggestions -
Terry is quite responsive to suggestions from members about improvements or changes needed to the site. Over the years there have been dozens if not hundreds of member suggestions acted upon.
In general, though, changes that involve giving more work to either Terry or the other staff, or increasing the number of things authors must do in order to get quizzes online, are only put in place if it is clear there will be an overall benefit to the majority of users.
In this case, that benefit is not at all clear. Most American users don't need it. A sizable portion of non-American users don't need it - I'm not an American myself, and most definitely would not approve of a change of this sort, as stated earlier.
There is always enough work to be done around here that we are unlikely to put a lot of effort into making a change that the majority of users would see no need for - we have other, higher, priorities. Anyone who has played the country-specific games can see that categorizing questions by country is not quite as easy as it looks - we worked quite hard at this, and it didn't really turn out all that well. We realize that on this issue, this website is less than perfect. We have other imperfections, however, that seem more solvable and that will get the attention first.
I would like to add that most of the senior staff are not Americans. We do work quite hard behind the scenes at evening the playing field where we can and at making sure questions that assume everyone in the world lives in the US do not go online.
Posted by: jmorrow
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 08:10 PM
I agree completely with what agony said. I don't think this is a case of a suggestion being dismissed out of hand, or a general refusal to implement improvements on the site. Everyone who has responded in this thread has provided their reasons for their views, and it seems clear that most people simply don't see the need for this particular improvement.
english_gent, you have pointed out that because of the way the Internet works these days, no website should restrict itself by geographical area. I'm just curious, but why doesn't this inclusive and open-minded attitude apply to your trivia-playing habits? Doesn't your suggested improvement boil down to just that - a self-imposed restriction on the types of questions you would like to see in the games that you play on the site, based on geographical area?
I don't usually contribute to this thread because I don't really understand this perennial complaint about geographical bias. When I play a game on the site, I don't see each question as having an "American", "British", "Australian" or "neutral" bias. To me, the question is either about a topic I am familiar with, or it isn't. If I know the topic, I have a fighting chance at getting the answer right. If I don't, I play the question anyway, as I might just learn something new or interesting.
If the topic just doesn't hold any interest for me, I'll try to avoid the topic if I can, and if I can't, and I can't get over the fact that these questions will show up in certain games or tournaments on the site, well, I'll simply avoid playing those games or tournaments. There is already so much to do on this site, and Terry is adding more all the time, that I've never had a problem with this approach. And I have accepted long ago that there will just be some badges that I simply cannot win. Does that make the site less enjoyable somehow? Not really. As guitargoddess has said, it is impossible to please everyone all of the time.
Posted by: tezza1551
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 09:04 PM
[/quote]If the topic just doesn't hold any interest for me, I'll try to avoid the topic if I can, and if I can't, and I can't get over the fact that these questions will show up in certain games or tournaments on the site, well, I'll simply avoid playing those games or tournaments. [/quote]
Well put, jmorrow. My thoughts exactly !
Edited to add.. sorry, nt sure how to do the quote thingy !
Posted by: zorba_scank
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 09:09 PM
I'm one of those who didn't want the change simply because I like the variety of questions and the new things I learn on the site. This has nothing to do with how easy or difficult it may be to implement the geographical suggestion.
For newcomers it may seem like the American bias is too huge and impossible to get past but spending some time playing the games will prove it's not so bad. When I look at the top 10 Badge winners list in the Hall of Fame, only 2 out of the 10 are Americans while the rest are British, Australians, Canadians, Europeans and Asians. It's not possible to get in the top 10 without winning a majority of the hourly/daily game badges, so the fact that there are so many non-Americans proves that though there may be a bias in the question pool, it is not such a huge disadvantage for the players.
Despite having being born and brought up in India, I have ended up winning categories like US Presidents, US Govt, Mixed UK, Africa etc. It's mostly because of the stuff I've learned playing here. On the other hand, I can never do well enough in the Movies category of the Pot of Gold. Give me a Bollywood quiz and I would've probably had that badge on Day 1 but I'm just not that familiar with Hollywood/British movies and actors. That's something I have to live with and I'm ok with that.
Posted by: kaddarsgirl
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 09:33 PM
Edited to add.. sorry, nt sure how to do the quote thingy !
Just take out the "/" in your first quote "[ ]" and that should work. Only include the "/" in the end quote.
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 13 2012 09:54 PM
Edited to add.. sorry, nt sure how to do the quote thingy !
Or, rather than just starting typing in the box, click on "reply" under the previous post. You'll get a box with a lot of symbols at the top. Click on the " and put your copied bit that you want to quote in the space that comes up.
Posted by: looney_tunes
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 14 2012 12:00 AM
Edited to add.. sorry, not sure how to do the quote thingy !
Or, rather than just starting typing in the box, click on "reply" under the previous post. You'll get a box with a lot of symbols at the top. Click on the " and put your copied bit that you want to quote in the space that comes up.
Or click on "Quote", and select the text you want to quote, deleting the rest. The open and close brackets are automatically supplied, and you have the window displayed so that you can also do clever stuff like bold, smilies, etc. At the end of the quoted bit, hit enter then type your response.
Edited to add: how clever, it even produces scroll bars if there is too much text to fit - I never noticed that before.
Posted by: tezza1551
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 14 2012 01:10 AM
Thank you all
Posted by: english_gent
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 14 2012 02:15 AM
english_gent, you have pointed out that because of the way the Internet works these days, no website should restrict itself by geographical area. I'm just curious, but why doesn't this inclusive and open-minded attitude apply to your trivia-playing habits? Doesn't your suggested improvement boil down to just that - a self-imposed restriction on the types of questions you would like to see in the games that you play on the site, based on geographical area?
Good question, and to a degree, everyone naturally imposes upon themselves a self-restriction on which quizzes to play, mainly by their own limits of knowledge, but not always.
But my answer to your question is simply no. When it comes to selecting quizzes of your own choice, I do not look to have anything different to the current status quo.
However, when it comes to participating in the Daily/Hourly quizzes, due to the random nature of the quiz selections, this is the part that I believe there is an imbalance which I was pointing out here, and putting forth an idea of how to address.
I'm sure most of us are competing in the Global Challenge and I would like to have to be able to get to the top level, but in my opinion (and I sure someone will correct if I'm wrong) but if questions are bias and it stands to reason that more americans will get more answers correct, then the likelihood will be that too many people will get to the top level before me and therefore finish the challenge (have I got that right?).
Admittedly, it seems a small thing but I do like the aspect of badges and want to compete. Yes, I will have to learn more, and yes - more american based subjects too (but not American Sports thanks all the same). Either that or simply to forget about it all. It's that simple.
I hope that helps clarify my position.
Posted by: rossian
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 14 2012 02:41 AM
I've just had a look at the top ten in normal mode in GC. The top ranked player, as she so often is, is jules44 from the UK. The top ten (as a snapshot now, as it will change a bit) has 4 players from the UK, 3 from the USA, one each from Canada, South Africa and Sweden, so the perceived bias doesn't really show in those statistics.
The answer is really to keep playing regularly and choose your topics wisely, especially in GC. I avoid sport, television and movies as much as I possibly can as that's where my knowledge is weakest.
The badges are achievable - look at the Hall of Fame most badges and you will find that two of the top three are UK players, and the top ten includes Canadians, Australians and other countries too.
Posted by: sue943
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 14 2012 11:12 AM
@ guitargoddess - A question please. Where does it specifically say on this site that it is an american based one??? (and I'm not talking about the forums).
AND by accepting money from people all over the world, surely you can no longer abide by saying it is simply an american site??
Terms of Service, scroll down to the second paragraph from the bottom if you don't want to read all of it.
The Website is controlled and offered by FunTrivia from its facilities in the United States of America. FunTrivia makes no representations that the Website is appropriate or available for use in other locations. Those who access or use the Website from other jurisdictions do so at their own volition and are responsible for compliance with local law.
Posted by: english_gent
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 14 2012 12:56 PM
Thank you Kind Lady
Posted by: Midget40
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 14 2012 01:04 PM
After reading all of this about how questions are accepted from 'all over the world' may I just point out that myself (and others) have been made to change certain questions because they could be a problem for American players.
I must point out that this is NOT my experience with most editors at all but it has happened.
I was warned by a few non US quiz writers before it happened to me but honestly thought they were being oversensitive or had an axe to grind.
This was the only comment on the question - there were no grammar or spelling issues etc but I could not get them online without changing them to make them more "US friendly".
Even though I'm English Australian the majority of my quizzes are not - in fact I think I only have one Australian specific quiz and that's a history one.
And when writing the single questions( if you want to actually get them to count towards a badge) the sad fact is that you have to give them a US slant to get the percentages right.
Posted by: jabb5076
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 14 2012 01:49 PM
In contrast to the last post, I have had two single questions rejected by editors simply because they were U.S. specific and therefore likely too difficult for players from other parts of the world. I truly believe the editors do their best to make as many questions as possible accessible to the vast majority of players, but it simply is not reasonable or realistic to expect the site to be altered/overhauled to reflect an equal distribution of questions from around the globe. And in the 11 months I've been participating in quizzes and games on this site, I've learned a fair amount about other countries' cultures and histories. That, to me at least, has been the biggest benefit of playing funtrivia. Sure, I wish we could get rid of stupid sports questions like "What was the score in Superbowl whatever," and even dumber questions involving a minor celebrity's birthday, but I realize many of these types of questions are from many years ago when standards were lower. I think we just need to accept that nothing is perfect, and appreciate the enormous variety funtrivia offers at free or minimal cost.
Posted by: kaddarsgirl
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Fri Sep 14 2012 03:36 PM
In contrast to the last post, I have had two single questions rejected by editors simply because they were U.S. specific and therefore likely too difficult for players from other parts of the world.
This same thing happened to me. I also once got a note from an editor who was editing my quiz, saying that I should alter my quiz to make it more accessible to a global audience. She was right.
Posted by: Jakeroo
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 16 2012 12:06 PM
I've never found any suggestion from an editor to be specifically "geographically biased" (as in US vs the rest of the world), but more along the lines of "playability". For instance, in a movie quiz, maybe I didn't provide enough info in the question for NON-movie goers to have a slight chance at guessing the correct answer. People from all over the world attend movies produced in countries from all over the world. Non-movie goers don't. It has nothing to do with a certain country really.
I can't think of a more important place to stress "playability" than the Single Questions. After all, the ones you get credit for usually have a high number of people getting them correct (in general, speaking of "fairness/nonfairness", there are probably very few people who rate the q on its "interesting" value, rather than whether they got it right or not lol - sad to say, it's general human nature I suppose). What next? Should the raters have to say where they are from too, as well as the question writers having to designate a perceived bias? Anyway, if you get suggestions in THAT challenge, be thankful and make the changes. Honestly, the editors have YOUR (as well as the site's) best interests at heart.
Expecting the whole world to conform to one's OWN version of "fairness" is not FAIR at all. There are people playing here who are legally blind and LOADS of people whose first language is NOT English. I could name several other personal situations that would make it disadvantageous to playing here. None of them have anything to do with "place of birth" unless it's a case of local economics/technology. Do you hear them complaining? Nope.
As for earning badges, the people with the most of them are from ALL parts of the world. I have a few and I can assure you that I didn't need all the questions to be about Canada in order to get them lol (I mean, how many q's about curling could we stand? giggles). I certainly didn't purposefully seek out Canadian based quizzes for ANY of them.
I don't know about other folks, but I like to learn new stuff. When I travel to other countries, I want to eat their food and see how they live. I don't complain that there isn't a Tim Horton's there lol. Otherwise I might just as well stay at home and watch National Geographic on TV while eating pizza. I don't learn a SINGLE THING by playing ONLY the subjects I'm familiar with. And I like surprises, so I'll leave with this overused (but I think it kinda fits) quote:
"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get"
Posted by: dsimpy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 16 2012 03:24 PM
When I travel to other countries, I want to eat their food and see how they live. I don't complain that there isn't a Tim Horton's there lol.
I just want to make clear that Tim Horton doughnuts are - thankfully - widely available in Belfast!
Posted by: jabb5076
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 16 2012 03:41 PM
You know, I've been to Canada a bunch of times and have yet to have eaten at a Tim Hortons. Of course, I live in Georgia, the home of Krispy Kremes, and don't really like donuts! I guess it's my California roots---give me a salad and I'm happy!
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 16 2012 04:12 PM
The doughnuts at Tim's are not really all that good.
Posted by: Jakeroo
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 16 2012 04:23 PM
I'm actually not a fan of donuts (we generally spell it "doughnuts" here) except my gramma's homemade, homefried "cake" variety with sugar and cinnamon on top. Unfortunately she's dead now, so perhaps my preferences are based on fond memories. Coffee (and Tim's is usually rather on the strong side) goes right through me in less than an hour along with heart palpitations (sorry for the gory details lol). I've been to Georgia three times (I personally would like to die in Savannah lol) and didn't see what the "fuss" about Krispy Kremes was (no offense meant). Tim's (here anyway) DOES serve other things besides donuts and coffee (unfortunately they stopped serving "stew in a bread bowl" and substituted chili, hardly the same). I'm with you Jabb. Next time you visit here, look us up.
I realise this has become "off-topic", so in an attempt to bring it back, do most folks think that Beatles questions should be designated as STRICTLY British, or are they more of a global nature? I'm thinking the latter and that attempts to make ANY question solely assigned to one geocentric location are totally subjective and are not logical or "do-able". Hair-splitting is not worth anyone's time and just invites more argument. If badges are the major reason a person is here (or is the sole reason for a complaint), then I have to wonder at one's priorities in life.
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 16 2012 05:19 PM
The Beatles are a very good example, also Shakespeare, Dickens, Agatha Christie, etc etc. And on the American side, we have Jazz, Mark Twain, Stephen King or Chuck Berry.....
If "fixing" this were simply a matter of Terry spending ten minutes coming up with a program and the authors and editors spending a second per quiz clicking a certain button (which it very clearly is not) we would still have a majority of members preferring that it not be fixed at all, because they don't see a problem.
The big bone of contention seems to be Sport, and my guess is that almost all members would have trouble even with the sport of their own countries. Sports trivia is highly stats based, which means that only those who really pay attention to these things know anything about it, no matter where the questions originate. I'm Canadian, and I certainly know more about ice hockey than I do cricket or American college football, but not a whole LOT more. It would be a matter of getting, oh, 12 questions right out of a hundred, as opposed to 1.
Posted by: jabb5076
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 16 2012 05:49 PM
Oh, you are totally right, Agony. Even die-hard sports nuts aren't likely to know obscure stats about a player, team, tournament, or year, even when its one of their favorites. I don't really know why people have created quizzes and questions on such insignificant minutiae, unless they are deliberately trying to make the questions impossible to answer, or they are one of those odd individuals who get their jollies with stats and are under the misapprehension that everyone else feels the same.
And Jakeroo, I don't get the raptures over Krispy Kremes, either. When I first moved here from California, one of my fellow teachers practically forced me to try one at a faculty breakfast, insisting I just didn't like donuts because I hadn't had the best. She was sorely disappointed when my response was just, "Ok, they're hot donuts."
Posted by: bloomsby
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Sun Sep 16 2012 10:05 PM
Trying to impose nationalities or ethnicities on questions would be tricky in a whole range of areas and in some cases would stir up a hornets' nest - simply in aid of some largely rhetorical 'global level playing field' or whatever. Actually, if people want to be really, really pedantic about 'global equality' then presumably about one-fifth of all questions would have to be about Chinese topics and we'd also need lots more questions about India, too. I've a hunch that the UK would only get a very occasional look-in.
A little example now in addition to those already mentioned. What box or boxes would one tick for Franz Kafka? Czech, German, Austrian or Jewish? All four groups have claimed him ...
One key point has so far been overlooked. This is an English-language site, and well over half of the native speakers of English live in the U.S. That's just the way things up and there's no point in getting aerated about it.
Posted by: shuehorn
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Sep 17 2012 08:33 AM
And Jakeroo, I don't get the raptures over Krispy Kremes, either. When I first moved here from California, one of my fellow teachers practically forced me to try one at a faculty breakfast, insisting I just didn't like donuts because I hadn't had the best. She was sorely disappointed when my response was just, "Ok, they're hot donuts."
Love it, jabb! I'm not a big donut or doughnut fan either.
Sue
(a late transplant to Georgia, USA via New Jersey, New York State, Mexico and Colombia)
Posted by: mehaul
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Sep 17 2012 08:55 AM
Why are all the train questions (except for that one about the Indian-Pacific in Oz) about British trains and their stations? We have trains and stations in the USA (to me 'American' includes all nations in North and South America).
Posted by: reeshy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Sep 17 2012 09:36 AM
Why are all the train questions (except for that one about the Indian-Pacific in Oz) about British trains and their stations? We have trains and stations in the USA (to me 'American' includes all nations in North and South America).
Because that's what people are submitting! I've no idea if this post is in humor or not, though. :P
Posted by: Tizzabelle
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Sep 17 2012 09:37 AM
Perhaps the UK is full of train spotters?
*Tizzabelle now runs, hides, and assumes another identity*
Posted by: satguru
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Sep 17 2012 09:42 AM
So I can win a few more expert games?
Posted by: Jakeroo
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Sep 17 2012 04:12 PM
LOL!
Posted by: jabb5076
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Mon Sep 17 2012 05:26 PM
We may have trains, but you sure never hear about people riding on them (except maybe commuters in the NE) but we do have lots of subways!!
Posted by: english_gent
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 20 2012 05:21 AM
Just noticed.
On the title bar, when logged on the Funtrivia site. It says "World's Largest Trivia and Quiz Site" and not "America's".
Just a thought.
Posted by: Mariamir
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 20 2012 05:50 AM
On the title bar, when logged on the Funtrivia site. It says "World's Largest Trivia and Quiz Site" and not "America's".
Correct. As far as I know, it IS the world's LARGEST trivia and quiz site. McDonald's may be the world's largest hamburger fast food chain, but it is still an American company (wait, it's headquartered in the US, IS it an American company? But this is beside the point.) FT is an American site, yet holds the record of being the biggest trivia and quiz site
in the world. Doesn't make it un-American, though.
Posted by: flopsymopsy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 20 2012 05:51 AM
The Chinese have the world's largest army, it's still Chinese.
And do give it a rest, you're making me ashamed to be British, and after the summer we've just had it's not a feeling I like.
Posted by: Mariamir
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 20 2012 05:54 AM
And do give it a rest, you're making me ashamed to be British, and after the summer we've just had it's not a feeling I like.
I was thinking of saying something like that.
Being British is nothing to be ashamed about...I could name many Americans who would make me ashamed to be American, but in the end they aren't the country (thank goodness).
And yes, it was an amazing Olympics. And to gloat, we got the most medals.
Posted by: flopsymopsy
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 20 2012 06:01 AM
And yes, it was an amazing Olympics. And to gloat, we got the most medals.
Yes you did... but I wish Americans would learn to do the medals table properly - it should be based on gold medals won and it means we were third, not fourth! Oh please don't start me on an americanicity rant, lol.
But thank you for the compliment, we've had a wonderful summer.
Posted by: agony
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 20 2012 07:33 AM
We're starting to wander far off topic here.
I don't want to close this thread because it's a legitimate topic of discussion, but I think we've pretty thoroughly covered this most recent inquiry.
Posted by: jabb5076
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 20 2012 09:29 AM
[
(And do give it a rest, you're making me ashamed to be British) [/quote]
Thank you, Flopsy. I suspect you speak for a good many of us. That poor dead horse has been flogged till there's nothing left but bones!
Posted by: bloomsby
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 20 2012 02:54 PM
Yes, it's time to stop the rhetoric.
Posted by: guitargoddess
Re: "Americacentricity" of quizzes - Thu Sep 20 2012 04:12 PM
Honestly agony, I think it should indeed be closed. This topic has been rehashed and rehashed. Personally I think it's time for discussion over.