At the risk of ruffling feathers, I am getting frustrated at the paucity of II that I am seeing in some questions.

One of the things that separates FT from lesser quiz sites is that we try to make playing an informative, learning experience - not just a chance to show off knowledge.

The Interesting Information is, I believe, a key part of it.

Many of us who write quizzes know this, and go to some lengths to add to the quiz-playing experience.

I am sad to say that many questions add little, or nothing, in the II

All too often I see questions that merely repeat the question in the II, but in different words.

Some editors will know that I have submitted CNs to vent my frustration.

This is a question I got today that typifies what I am talking about.

The most famous of the RAF fighters, this was Britain's fastest and most manoeuverable fighter in the Battle of Britain. What was its name?
Your answer: Supermarine Spitfire

The Spitfire was the icon of the battle of Britain. It was extremely fast and very manoeuvrable.

In my view the II adds nothing to the question. Yet there is so much say about a fighter plane that was part of Britain's air defences for almost 20 years: where is the justification for stating "this was Britain's fastest and most manoeuverable fighter in the Battle of Britain"? How fast could it fly? Where is the context of the Battle of Britain? ...

No one expects screeds of II: but I think we need to set, and maintain, standards.

The current standards are, for many categories, at least one sentence of original information that does not repeat the question and/or correct answer." Your example information technically passes muster, as the first sentence does not appear anywhere previously in the question and answer.

I personally agree that I find questions with a lot of good quality information to be the "best," but it would be very hindering for many authors if we only allowed quizzes to go online with paragraphs of well-researched, well-written information. If we forced authors to write more, likely what we'd end up with is quizzes going online with paragraphs full of sentences hastily thrown together to meet the minimum requirement. I don't think it would improve the quality of quizzes going online in the way that you are imagining.

Consider that we didn't used to have a requirement for the interesting information section at all. An author who feels hard-done-by writing the single sentence of information required to have the quiz go online is not going to do a better job adding more, and there's a good chance that it will discourage many authors from writing at all.

If you don't like a quiz because of the lack of information, you're free to rate the quiz as 'poor' and move on to the next one.

Edit to add: The Correction Note system should only be used to address actual problems in the quiz. It should not be used to comment on the quality of the product based on personal opinion. The rating system should be used for this purpose.

It's often a judgement call. Personally, I would send that particular info section back for a bit more meat, but I can see why another editor would let it pass.

When editing I often look at the quiz as a whole. If nine of the questions have good info, and the quiz otherwise passes muster, I'd let one poor info section go through, rather than sending the quiz back so one more sentence can be added. And, again, a different editor might make a different choice.

As LadyC says, giving the quiz a poor rating is your way of showing that you don't like this. And it often helps us in persuading authors who are reluctant to put in a little more research, if they can see an actual impact on their ratings.

Over the years I've gotten several notes from authors that say, in essence "Wow, I followed your advice and did more than the bare minimum, and now I'm getting nice notes from players and the quiz is my highest rated by far!"

I have sent a quiz back because some info sections were lacklustre compared to others in the submission, or to others that I have seen from that author in the past where I know they are capable and confident enough to do better work. However, I don't like to discourage submissions from authors where the above example is likely to be the limit of what they can, or will, submit. Not everyone is a born writer, and I don't think it's in the spirit of the site to deny authorship to all but an elite group.

Edit to add: For clarity, these are sent back with a suggestion that they put more work into those sections.

I take the points made by our two esteemed editors.

Where I tend to notice lacklustre II most is in the FunTrivia Duel or other challenges that are an amalgam of questions broken out from original quizzes, or written as single questions.

I agree that we should not discourage good questions or quizzes, but if someone is motivated enough to write a quiz or a single question, then good II is not a difficult door to push.

The example I quoted is not the worst I have seen.

There was one along the lines: "Which technology company was co-founded by California natives Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak?"

The II was: "Wow, who would have thought California could have produced two such geniuses!"

That sounds like it was from an older quiz that went online before we had developed standards for the info sections. I should amend my previous statement of the current standards to say that the requirement is one sentence of factual information without repetition of the question or answer. If this was submitted today, I would have told the author that while saying that we welcome sentences voicing the author's opinion, but it must be in addition to a sentence of factual information.