Ok thanks, will do

I think I have to challenge this a little bit. Bukowski was an influential poet and prose writer, well known in literary circles during his life, and still studied and written about twenty years after his death. A lot of his writing had strong autobiographical elements, so a clue that references his first job, in a perfectly reasonable question about his first novel, is not really "out there". He's not obscure - anyone familiar with twentieth century American literature will have at least heard of him, even if they don't know the title of his first novel.

Much as I love Jane Austen and enjoy Charles Dickens, I would be happy to never see another question here about either of them, and instead get some questions about other well known and important writers. I'd put Bukowski on that list.

I got this question in the Fifty-Fifty today which can't be answered with only 2 options:

"In terms of location, which is the odd animal out?"

I have also sent a correction note.

Terry - can you look at filtering this type of question out, please?

In the Fifty-Fifty game, "Last Month Final Results" (link on the Monthly Leaders page) still shows the first month winners. Hasn't been updated. Minor issue, but I'm curious...

done

I found and fixed the bug that had caused that. Unfortunately it won't work until next month, as the generated results for last month were lost.

Thanks, Terry. I'm beginning to think the site has it out for me. First it can't show Immortal status for some of us, and now the fifty-fifty results. I'm cursed!

More seriously, thanks for always being so responsive.

Hi. I encountered this question in the Fifty-Fifty round that finished a few minutes ago. I suggest adding a filter for questions where the answer options include "both". Thanks.

15. Amino acids are important biochemical compounds. Which organic functional groups do amino acids contain?

Your answer: carboxylic acids

The correct answer was both

Amino acids are molecules which contain both a carboxylic acid and an amine group. Amino acids are used for building proteins and metabolism.

71% of FunTrivia players have answered this question correctly in the past.
Question by player workisboring.

That filter is in place for questions that are drawn from quizzes. It does not, however, seem to be catching the ambiguous questions drawn from the single question pool. I understand that it is being worked on somewhere behind the scenes.

Great, thanks.

This was in today's game.

I haven't played the game much, so forgive me if there is a better place to report specific questions.



Music
11. Roger Taylor gained fame by playing the drums in which super band?

Both
Neither

Both?

Good guess, Kyle! I chose that as well.

You can now see your total Winner Points under the "game details" hidden section on the game page.

My next goal is to roll out the Fifty-Fifty division system to the other hourlies.

Who's the Expert is still up in the air. I understand it doesn't make perfect sense when the topics change and thus the comparisons arent exactly the same.

But, it doesn't seem any WORSE to me than the current "level" system that is used in the game. And so for consistency reasons I'm tempted to roll the divisions out to Expert too.

Resist the temptation ! Altering any game should be based on making an improvement, not because it doesn't seem any worse or because it is inconsistent. I would expect 2 different types of game to be inconsistent. It ain't broke...

Would it be possible to try it in Expert for a month and the assess how it worked or didn't work?

Don't do it for Expert. Please.

Wed and I have discussed tweaking it and doing divisions by total different category wins. So players with 2 wins would likely be in Divison 1, and players with 120 different category wins would be in Division 5.

How about using division 5 for a large number of Champion division wins?

This makes no sense to me. Just because someone has 120 different category wins doesn't mean they know anything about the Expert topic of the hour. So under this proposed system you would be playing against players who are brilliant at the topic and those who are not.
Under the current system, in Champion mode you are matched against other players who have also proven their expertise at the topic. Which is how it should be, because the results actually mean something.

The new division system would not replace Champions. If you won the topic before, you're a champ and play against other previous winners.

What it will do is replace levels (a very rough measure of global play strength) with topic wins (a specific measure of Expert game strength and progress) for those who have never won that particular topic.

This is inherently a double balancing factor: If you have 100 wins, you have on the one hand proven your ability to compete at a nmber of different topics. You have on the other hand exhausted your best ones and are now playing topics that aren't your strength. The new division system will ensure you'll be up against players in the same situation. It should keep the difficulty of winning another topic you've never won before rather consistent over most of your playing career.

I've been in on the talk with Terry and Wes about these games and I am the first to admit that the dailies/hourlies are not my side of the site. I don't get involved too much in them and don't really have too much to say about any changes being made to them.

What I do want to note in here is that any changes that are being made are being done for the sake of improvement and not 'just because'. In the case of WTE and our other hourlies, one of the foci we have on our plates is longevity-- what's going to keep players engaged, challenged, and fair the longest? The options that are still actively being discussed are just some of the possibilities and we're far from saying that anything is permanent. I understand the "if it ain't broke..." adage, but if diminishing returns are seen on a game, then there are regards where it is broke, even if it's not apparent from the player's side.

That being said, with a number of recent changes, especially to site aesthetic, homepage changes, and game tweaking, we always get a number of people who say "don't do it", and in many cases, there's no reasoning given with those statements. When asked, those players say "I don't like it that way that hasn't happened yet." And yes, that does mean that consideration does have to be made as to whether or not we keep the game the same way forever. But this also means that someone playing 20 years from now (and some of the quizzes on this site are nearly 20 years old!) is not only going to be starting at the bottom rung, going up against people with, potentially, forty years of playing under their belt, but they're going to be playing a trivia game that hasn't had any alterations in 40 years. These days, trivia apps are lucky to get ONE year of longevity from consistent players.

And yes, while it's a testament that people are still playing our daily/hourly games after so long, there comes a time where we have to consider ways to draw people in and potentially enhance the competition or tweak the framework of the game. Although it hasn't been said, some of the changes that are being considered right now could mean more badges, rewards, and opportunities for players who really know their stuff to get recognized in better ways. And these options aren't available to us right now in the current version of the game.


As always, I ask people on here to look at these things with an open mind. Terry and Wes are usually pretty on the money with assessing what will work out best our players, and I think that some of the upcoming stuff, even though it means a small bit of change, will be well-received on the other side. Just like when the homepage was last changed or changes were made to badge sizes or etc. etc.


If it turns out to be a lousy decision, we're more than reasonable enough to find a way to make it better again.

I'm a lot more comfortable with changing expert to match the other games if Champions Division remains unchanged. I think the worry was that you could be in a group with someone who has very specialized knowledge and was winning a few related categories over and over giving others no chance to win that category. That's fine within Champions Division but would be a problem if Champions on hopeful Champions were mixed together.

I mean, that does give more credence to the fact that that person is the expert (if we're asking 'Who's the Expert?').

But we could face similar arguments with the games now. Someone who plays the game every time Led Zeppelin comes up and memorizes the questions is going to have a significantly easier time of dominating the categories. Someone who's played every Led Zeppelin quiz on the site is also going to be successful if WTE comes up with that topic and they play it for the first time.

There are always going to be factors that come into play that could knock a player off the top position. The game should not always be easy though; the point is to find the people within a lucky hour who comes out on top, and most times that's going to be the most knowledgeable player. Some times it's not. Not everyone is going to be capable of winning every topic. And that's fine too.

I wouldn't be surprised if the 50/50 division style actually makes things a bit more fair. As players go through the motions and shift up and down the divisions, it might actually result in a balance that ends up being more rewarding for dedicated players AND for players who benefit from their niche topics.