In the relatively short time I have been making quizzes I have noticed the increased strictness on grammar and spelling.

Grammar and punctuation are probably the toughest things for me to overcome (my English skills not being amazing), but I have researched things such as correct punctuation usage on the internet, so as to reduce the amount of editing the editors need to do.

If it is something I have to do to keep creating quizzes and make a good name for myself here, so be it.

The quiz editors have helped me to make better quizzes

Quote:
Why are they so strict on quizzes, I thought this was a have a good time site but they act like your in English or Grammar class.

I have trouble just reading this question - a whole quiz written like this would drive me spare! There are at least 4 major grammar/punctuation issues, most obvious of which is the 'your' (repeated in the previous question of the original posting)!

A good quiz question has to be easily read, so you are only being tested on your knowledge, not on your ability to interpret a poorly-presented quesiton>

I forgot to preview that last posting - it should have ended 'question.', not 'quesiton>'. Proofreading is SO important!

I'm fairly new in Quizzyland (Dec 2009) and only have a few quizzes on line. The one thing that astounds me is the amount of trouble people have getting quizzes accepted.

I try to use humour in my quizzes (in questions, answers and notes) and because of this I sometimes "push the envelope". This often results in correction notes from editors asking me to "tone it down" or "think of how <such and such> might view my joke" etc. Have a look at my team membership and you will get a better idea of what I mean.

At all times I have found the editors to be friendly, supportive and constructive. Given that they are volunteers we should all be grateful.

My simple rules for getting a quiz accepted are:

1. Keep it interesting

2. Use spell and grammar checking but get an educated human being to give it the once over as well. Microsoft are not perfect (notwithstanding their advertising).

3. Remember that the first two "W"s stand for "World Wide" and that people from non-English speaking backgrounds may be reading your quiz. They would have learned correct grammar, spelling and punctuation in their English class even though you may not have.

4. If you are asked to correct your quiz read what the editor has to say before shooting from the lip. If you don't understand then drop them a friendly note.

5. Be nice in all your correspondence. Even in the hypothetical circumstance that an editor is being a complete moron you will get a better response from all concerned if you keep your head. If you respond by also being a complete moron the other editors will probably not support you fully.

6. Don't use the Fora as your first port of call when you don't agree with an editor. Approach them nicely and if that doesn't work use the appropriate mechanism. (Did you notice the correct but somewhat obsolete use of "Fora" as the plural of "Forum" there? Yes, I am a smartypants so please don't bother hassling me).

Thnks for listeniing. Keep on questioning.

All good advice, LillianRock.


agony, editor in Literature, Music and For Children

I know there are some grumbles about the editors but the ones I have worked with have been very helpful. One in particular was great in getting me to sort out my capitalisation issues - I learnt a lot and I think/hope my quizzes have now improved in this area.

All of the editor's I've worked with have been great.

Almost all the editors I have dealt with have been extremely helpful.
When I needed to delete a submitted quiz because of a cultural issue that had arisen, the editor in question went out of her way to assist me, and told me how to save the quiz offline so that I can easily recreate it when the issue is no longer an issue.
And the advice I have been given has invariably made the quiz that bit better !

Well i have been trying for weeks and still havent got any thing dont what is going i sumbbited 1 changes keep on going up and down its not very for any one else would want to put on a quiz my quiz Music and is mixture.:)

anatalee, according to the information I have access to, your Music quiz has never been submitted for editor review.

You currently have one quiz submitted about tennis. This quiz was originally submitted on 19 September. Then on 6 October you changed the category and re-saved. This puts a new submitted date on your quiz of 6 October and it is sent to the end of the editing queue.

I hope I am posting in the right area - my first post. I do have something of a general grievance on the editing of quizzes. A couple of my quizzes have had to go through extensive editing and re-editing; one of the reasons is that I am not supposed to have numerical answers to the film quizzes I do, another is that some of my questions are deemed too difficult, and therefore it will end up being rated poorly.

However a very new quiz on Doctor Who's second series has just gone online in the last couple of days. (1) It is incredibly difficult (2) One of the questions requires a numerical answer and (3) There is a grammatical error ("it's" instead of "its") in the preamble to the quiz.

I can't help but feel that there are double standards at play here. I am totally in support of the correct use of grammar and punctuation - I hate the misuse of the possessive apostrophe for example - so I am surprised that this glaring error got through; but these things happen. However I am somewhat aggrieved that the quiz seems to flout other 'rules' that I have not got away with.

As far as I am concerned, the quizzer concerned can make his or her quiz as difficult as they like; if I know nothing about Doctor Who's second series, I can choose not to play the quiz. I'm not going to rate it poorly just because I don't know the answers! I rate a quiz poorly if I think it's lazy (repeating questions from other, previous quizzes for example) or for many other reasons.

Finally there is a question on there which requires a numerical answer; again, I don't mind at all (if the answer is interesting) but once again why is that OK but not my question?

The kinds of quizzes I want to set are on specific films - 'Get Carter', 'Double Indemnity', 'Withnail and I' etc. I want to make these questions difficult (NOT impossible ie stupid questions like 'What's the car registration of the car in such and such scene') as the people who want to play such quizzes expect difficult quizzes. There's no point asking a devotee of a cult film like 'Withnail and I' who played 'Withnail', it's too easy. I got a very nice compliment from someone the other day on my 'Withnail and I' quiz who only scored 4 out of 10 but praised it for being 'very hard!'

I've gone on a bit but I'd be interested to hear what others think about this - and indeed what editors think.

Shame you've written "editor's" though!

Don't want to be rude, but your two lines or so are almost unreadable; it may therefore be that your quiz(zes) is/are being rejected due to the poor grammar and spelling?

I'm not an editor for Movies or TV, but perhaps I can offer some general advice.

In terms of difficulty, there are many levels. There's difficult in terms of what an average viewer would find difficult, and then there's difficult in terms of what a really huge fan of the show would find difficult. Or it could be that the level of difficulty of that one question didn't fit with the overall level of difficulty of your quiz.

With respect to numbers questions, I know that I discourage players from using them (players don't enjoy them) but I make allowances if I feel the author has demonstrated that the number was poignant. For example, the answer to one question I allowed recently was "9 months" and in the info the author explained that a character likened the length of time to that of human gestation. A player is more likely to remember that than the number itself, making it a fair question IMHO.

Also, the Category Notes for Movies (main Movies page > Quiz Creation Notes for Movies > Unacceptable Questions > Numerical) states specifically: "Please avoid questions that ask about heights, weights, dates, time of day, or other numerical data. These questions are very boring to players who must guess at them, and can almost always be replaced by more interesting questions. Quizzes with numerical questions will probably be rejected." The Television category has no restriction about numerical questions, but the allowing or disallowing of a numerical question would still be at the discretion of the editor.

Are some of the recent posts missing from this thread? I don't understand the comments in the last two posts by dersinghampaul... who they are directed to and what they refer to.

(Shuehorn: Are some of the recent posts missing from this thread? I don't understand the comments in the last two posts by dersinghampaul... who they are directed to and what they refer to.)


I think dersinghampaul's second post (number 661923) refers to oidioid's post number 629447.
Likewise dersinghampaul's third post (number 661924) seems to be a reply to anatalee's first post in this thread (post number 659276).

All this can be quite confusing. Therefor a word of advice: the best way to reply to a previous post is to copy it (or the part you want to reply to). See how I replied to Sue's question.

And the website has the functionality to do it for you by pressing quote. I agree. Thanks for the clarification, JanIQ.

I think that written communication is a difficult thing. The tone doesn't get transmitted and the reader can take things more or less aggressively than they were intended. To be honest, your original post, dersinghampaul, sounded a bit defensive and rude how I read it. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, and on rereading it I cut you a little slack.

I too have had people ask me to simplify my quizzes, and even though I want to have tough ones, I have followed the suggestions. The quizzes are still not easy, but I do think they came out better, I had to force myself to give more information of interest. A quiz answer can be clever and difficult without being numerical.

Hang in there, and I look forward to playing your quizzes.

Sue

As the editor who accepted the quiz you're referring to... sorry but I don't find it that glaring. I well know the different between its and it's, though I usually need to stop and think about which one I need to use. It's an easy one to miss as the incorrect version is still a correct word. These things definitely do happen.

As for your other issues, as LadyCatriona said above, Television has no such restrictions on numerical answers. We may discourage them if they are particularly picky or impossible to answer even for huge fans, but we don't have a general ban on such questions. There are some site-wide authoring guidelines, but then each category has some of their own. Movies has restrictions that don't apply to Television quizzes because Movies' requirements are at the discretion of Movies' editors. Animals has guidelines that Celebrities doesn't, Brain Teasers has several restrictions unique to that category, etc. This is why it is important for authors to read the guidelines of each category they want to write in, and also recognize that the guidelines do not cover every issue that your quiz may be rejected for.

Same goes for difficulty... there is no hard and fast rule on this, but it's at editor discretion. If I see questions that are needlessly complex or confusing, I'll suggest to the author that they might be way too hard and that players may rate their quiz poorly (many people hate trick questions), but if the author chooses to keep the difficult questions, so be it. If they technically meet our requirements, then fine, I'll let them pass. Plus we can't always know what's too hard if it's just about the subject matter. I don't know one single thing about Doctor Who so I have no idea whatsoever if the questions are easy, average, or impossible. In addition, it's usually helpful for authors to learn through experience what kind of questions work and which don't, and what difficulty level players are most receptive to, etc.

As the editor who edited your Movies quiz I don't think you have been completely fair in your recounting of that process.

I explained to you that Movies was the only category that did not allow questions requiring numerical answers, told you the reasoning behind it and pointed out that this was spelled out in the Movies Guidelines.

You were not made to change questions because they were too tough. I asked you to reconsider the questions because I felt that the quiz would rate poorly because of them and explained this to you. However if you had wanted to leave them that way you were certainly welcome to.

Animals and Sci/Tech do not typically take numerical answers either.

Thanks for that clarification GG!

As the other Movies editor working on your Movies quizzes, I feel that I should weigh in as well.

I wouldn't say that there are double standards at play here - as has been pointed out already, different categories have different guidelines, so what may be acceptable in one category may not be acceptable in another. As I have indicated to you privately, these guidelines have been developed over the years based on the editors' experience with what does and doesn't work in that category.

In the case of questions requiring numerical answers, the experience in the Movies category has been that such questions tend to be nitpicky and therefore unpopular with players, as well as notoriously difficult to verify if they should ever generate correction notes. For these reasons, Movies has adopted a specific guideline that says that such questions will probably be rejected, while reserving the right to allow for exceptions.

I don't edit in the Television category, but from what has already been said, it seems like while they don't have a specific restriction on numerical answers, they do discourage such questions if they are particularly picky or impossible to answer, so the two approaches really aren't that far apart at the end of the day.

As to the issue of difficult questions, I too don't recall ever asking you to replace a question because it was too difficult. I do recall rejecting some of your questions because they didn't comply with another Movies guideline, which is that players should be able to answer the questions in a Movies quiz from having watched the film and its credits only. I also advised you of the reasons for this - a 'behind-the-scenes' or 'making of' quiz would likely attract less plays than a 'straight-up' quiz about the events of a film, and correction notes on such quizzes are also difficult for editors to fact check. You were given the choice of the direction you wanted to take on your current Movies quiz, and you chose to rework it as a straight-up quiz about the movie. If you would rather write a making-of or behind-the-scenes quiz, that option is still open to you. You just need to apply the changes I advised you of in my last correction note.

The editors are here to help authors with the guidelines, but along the way we do also try to advise authors (especially new ones) about what is and is not popular with players. We do this because we assume that all authors care, at least to some extent, about the ratings for their quizzes. It is also our way of passing on some benefit of our collective experiences with quiz writing.

If there is a double standard at work at all, it is this: the editors may be more willing to allow for exceptions to the guidelines in the case of experienced authors who have proven themselves to be careful and responsible. Speaking for myself, I would be more prepared to accept a quiz submission that pushed the boundaries of our guidelines if it came from an author with a good track record of dealing with corrections and writing quizzes that were largely error-free.

You are something of an unknown entity to the editors at the moment - you joined the site in September, and have only two quizzes under your belt to-date. I appreciate that you want to craft a certain type of quiz on specific films, but it may just be that you are trying to do too much too soon. We all need to learn how to walk before we can run. I applaud your enthusiasm, and I am sorry if you feel that this is stifling to your quiz writing efforts, but I feel that you need to demonstrate to the editors that you are able to work within our guidelines before you attempt to bend (not break) those same guidelines. I hope this makes sense.