I have a Two Tower (movie) quiz. I received a note from a person saying that the Fellowship used cloaks not capes. I sent a note saying back I didn't think there was much difference between a cape and a cloak, and that the answer was totally understandable. I also informed told him that I had changed the word but I thought he was being a little picky.

He sent me a message back saying 'if you are going to do a quiz on the works of Tolkien, then get the words right.' I replied that my quiz was on the work of Peter Jackson, which was based on the work of Tolkien but was not Tolkien.

The latest note I think is rather rude (though there is no swearing). He says and I quote ' You must not be very intelligent, then.'

My quiz was done over 500 times without any complaining that I had used the word cape instead of cloak. The question actually was

How did Frodo and Sam hide from the Easterlings outside of the Black Gate?

a) Frodo covered Sam and himself with his cloak ( I had cape originally)
b) They hid behind a rock
c) The hid in a small cave
d) They climbed a tree

BTW I checked and thoughout the two movies, FOTR and TTT, the word cloak is only ever used once.

I haven't come across a quiztaker as picky as this one before (are they common, have I just been lucky?)

And if anyone can actually tell me the difference between a cape and a cloak? I found one definition that said that a cloak was 'A loose outer garment, such as a cape'. Another definition said a cape is shorter than a cloak, while this quiztaker has said 'A cape hangs from the shoulders down, but a cloak covers a lot of the front upper body'

I am probably being over sensitive.

I've had one or two rude quiz takers myself--they're not too common. I must agree that a cloak and a cape are pretty much the same thing. Don't worry too much now--Linda will get 'em!

We can't "get 'em" if we don't know who they are! We need y'all to tell us when you get rude quiztakers - a name is a good start!

There are some areas which seem to attract people with an almost obsessive eye for detail. I suspect "Lord of the Rings" is one of them.

I once included in a quiz a question about "Star Trek" - the editor quite rightly pointed out that I needed to make the answer 100% unquestionable, to avoid hundreds of follow-up messages.

In your case, I say switch it back to "cape". We shouldn't encourage these people.

Must be the month for them. I've had a few lame corrections that came at me blunter than .. than.. can't think of anything right now, but they were really blunt... bordering on rude.

I must confess I'm quite blunt back to them. If people can't be polite or constructive I'm not going waste time communicating with them. If I send a correction notice, I'll always preface it with 'loved the quiz but you might want to look at question... another possible answer would be .....' etc. It's just courtesy. People go to a lot of trouble with their quizzes and I hate seeing them slammed by some no-it-all with the manners of a spoon.

If you make quizzes in categories in subjects that have cult followings, you get this kind of thing, Kuu. It's funny (looking back on it), but one of the first corrections I got completely hurt my feelings! It was on an old Universal monster film quiz, and the player ask me if I had good sense!! Here it is nearly two years later, and I still remember it! I told them, Welllll...I may not, But I have this movie--And I am Right!! I told an editor about it later, and he said "Tell me next time--Don't delete it!"

Most people, 99% are very nice, though. But the 1% still gets my goat.

I've had plenty of these...I think the Beatles one was the worse.
Beatles quizzes seem to incense people in particular and Tolkein has engendered some really hard debates.
Your wording was fine...I'm not sure I didn't approve your quiz in the first place...I didn't notice anything was amiss.
Ditto on the above though, we don't tolerate rudeness in quizmaker notes.

I have had very few correction notes, and most the ones I have recieved have been very polite- I do not mind that at all. It took me over three hours to research the facts for the most recent one, but I enjoyed doing it. ( I was wrong, and I admitted, and changed, it).

I may be in the lofty position of Editor, but I am still a human, and prone to human emotions- if someone 'yells' at me, I have to restrain myself Hopefully I have done this.

Well, I feel fortunate that in so far all of my corrections notes have been polite. Also, they have been helpful--I am glad to have a second and third pair of eyes on my qiuiz. Of all the corrections notes I've recieved, there was only one I thought was incorrect and that did not lead me to change my quiz. This is a good system here at quizzyland for the correction of quizzes. It's just unfortunate that you occasionally get some rude ones.

I've only done a few quizzes but the responses I've had have all been positive (One pointing out a mistake I had missed but it was in a very pleasant and helpful way, no criticism was even hinted at in the PM)
I'm sorry that you've met the "Expert" but we do all meet them, You've done the research and set a 10 round 10 questions per round general knowledge quiz, they've watched every episode, know every word of the script, know everyone who's appeared in the programme and everyone of the production crew and you've just asked the one question they couldn't remember the answer to (They will pick every possible word in your question to find fault with as a reason for them not getting it right.)

I have changed the word back to cape

I am a LOTR freak by the way. I saw FOTR 8 times at the cinema, and TTT ten times. I have two copies of the FOTR (cinematic release and Extended Version), my screen-saver and desktop have LOTR themes. I even went out and bought a Legolas figurine. When I bought him home my husband had fit of laughter as buying such a product in very 'un-me'. I used to refused to buy such figurines, toys etc for my children because I said they were commercial rip-offs.

Despite being this way about LOTR, I am still polite about other people's quizzes. I think I have only sent a note about a mistake once. I didn't even said it as a corection note but as a suggestion. I started it by saying something positive about the quiz and then added 'but I am confused by question 6..........'.

What drives me nuts is when I have one quiz taker send me a notice saying one thing, and another quiz taker sending me a notice saying another. For example, I have several "I Love Lucy" quizzes. I think the grand total is 6. Anyway, there is one question on one of the quizzes that asks if Fred ever owned a part of Miami Beach. T or F question. I made the question false, because Ethel convinced him NOT to buy it. I had a quiz taker tell me that Fred DID buy the land, but Ethel made him give it up. So I changed it. Then, recently, I had another quiz taker tell me that Fred never owned the land because Ethel didn't let him buy it. That kind of stuff drives me crazy. At least they were nice about it. What should I do with that one though?

... yet another reason why we ask that you have interesting info. The more interesting info you have backing up why your answer is correct, the less likely you are to get correction notices. Site sources, scenes, etc. if you have to.

I DO have interesting info for that question. I always put interesting info. It's just that the first correction notice made me doubt myself and I changed the info. Then another player comes along and tells me that I was right the first time.

Oh, well. I'll just have to watch the episode again, that's all.

Drac, if anyone knows about capes or cloaks it's you!!

I have had the misfortune of attracting a "swearer" Kuu, so I contacted Lisa (DakotaNorth) with the details and the person was dealt with.

The thing that bugs me is when you get the "Your quiz is rubbish", no constructive reason etc. and then you check and the person hasn't even attempted to write one quiz themselves. I always tell them to criticise me when they've done the hard work I've done and then they'll be in a better position.

I wrote a quiz on Spiderman the movie and I've had so many remarks on that quiz - again it is a cult, the film, the actors and the comic strip. One of the questions is slightly tricky, but the answer is definitely correct, and I've had many people say that my answer is wrong, although like Drac above I have explained my reasoning in detail. By the same token the same question attracts "Oh, that answer is SO clever" responses, because people appreciate what I've done and my explanation. I did consider changing the answer to stop all the fuss, but decided against it as I know I'm right!!

I've never left a correction notice. In the very few instances when I've seen something that I think is wrong I have left a note, not a correction notice, saying I believe the answer is wrong but I'm not sure.
What amazes me about the correction notices I've recieved is the passion the quizztaker seems to have about the correction. Most of the correction notices I've recieved have been because the quizztaker has misread the question, or is simply wrong. In every case though they seem very miffed that there is a mistake in my quiz. I have to chuckle when they send their correction notice to me. It's usually incorrect, but it's usually followed with about 30 exclamation points lol. Example:

Question.... What is the number of JFK's PT boat times the number of toes on Marilyn Monroe's right foot?

Answer.... 545

Correction Notice.... 545????!!!!!!! What do you mean????!!! Marilyn Monroe did not have 436 toes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lol. Right you are. Now thats what I call passion!!!!!!!

I'm glad someone brings this up. Lately I've received a lot of complaints about my quizzes from people that are angry when they didn't get an answer right.

Since most of my quizzes are about science and maths, I did expect to get some of that reactions, but lately it's getting worse. So when a quiz is played over 1000 times and then someone is telling me the question is not clear, I dare to doubt it...

By far my favorite reaction is this: "I don't like that theory" . Okay, that is just plain honesty. But should someone block my quiz for it?

But yes, we are maybe a bit oversensitive. As long as I'm getting a lot of motes saying they enjoyed the quiz and really learned something, I should be happy, no?

But yes, there is a tendency of notes getting more and more rude lately...

I have been getting complaints all along. They are mostly polite ("Get a life!" etc)
but there are exceptions...

In my case, the person giving the correction is more irritated by the fact that he wasted his 'precious' time doing my quiz. Personally I don't blame him!


It is MOST irritating when your quiz is played only 3 times and you get 5 compliments (they have helped me improve my vocabulary a lot!) and 10 correction notices.


( to be honest, I am quite surprised that a jihad hasn't been issued on my head till now )

I must be a rarity at FunTrivia!

As a quiz-taker, I have sent many notes to other quiz-makers questioning something I thought was incorrect and I have never received a nasty note in response. I have found that, in almost every case, the quiz-maker either corrects the mistake without comment, or sends me a nice reply saying how grateful they are for the feedback so they can correct their quiz. I think this is because most quiz-makers do care about the quality of their quizzes. They really want to know if there is an error.

As a quiz-maker, I receive the occasional correction notice - again, always polite. Sometimes the mistake is mine (none of us is perfect), more often it is not. I guess I am really lucky that no-one has ever sent me an abusive message or accused me of wasting their time.

Some of these notes have resulted in a friendship and continued correspondence with other FunTrivia regulars. I guess I am very, very lucky!

Quote:

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Wow, what a lot of communication from just three people!

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And those three are just the editors!

Joking, Ace, your quizzes are a joy to edit.

The thing that would annoy me the most about quiztakers, is receiving rude correction notes about true or false questions, with a correct answer being false. I try to include at least one of these type of questions in all my quizzes, and sometimes I make the correct answer false.

A few clowns have sent rude messages, telling me that what I said in the question never happened and are completely wrong. After reading these notes, I'm left thinking "Of course such and such didn't happen, the correct answer is false". I'm sure that other quizmakers would experience a similar sort of frustrating experience, when they make false the correct answer in a true or false question.