In answer to the question about timing, (because the poor horse has been mistreated enough) it all depends on the quiz. There are lots of quizzes that take a long time to edit because they are from first time quiz makers and have quite a few errors in them. As we are anxious to give everyone a fair shake and the benefit of the doubt that they have perhaps overlooked the guidelines being readily available, that sort of quiz will take a longer time.

So, you sometimes have a quiz that has major structural things wrong with it, spelling and grammar errors, and other things that are preventing it from being considered seriously. This must be done diplomatically as lots of folks are a little sensitive about having their work corrected. We do our best and sometimes that best isn't good enough these days as people have a tendency to assume it's an automatic process, or right. Most people however, find it a great way to get their work online.

Even an experienced writer in other contexts might need assistance to make his or her quiz work well in this format. We sometimes get accused of making someone 'dumb down' his or her work, but this is almost never the case. We simply want it to reach a larger audience and we've seen all the possible responses to types of questions.
Because we have to do the clean up in the background, we can anticipate some types of questions falling flat on their faces.
We know a lot more about how some questions work now than we did when I joined up four years ago.

We also have to be careful for the daily quiz because your questions must stand alone now.

So I bet you're thinking I haven't answered your question but I have actually. It depends on the quiz you click on to edit. I know that I occasionally spend a half an hour on one person's quiz, get up for coffee and the computer goes down, arggggh. When you look at the queues, it reflects more than you think however, as there are a few quizzes in every queue that require a lot more hard work to get them into shape.

Now back to the original heinous crime committed, if it really is offensive to find human errors despite the fact that we have a way of being able to deal with that immediately (Can you actually tell a newscaster that he or she's made an error immediately? Can you get a response from a reporter in the newspaper? Can you tell the Da Vinci Code guy he's made an error?) then, perhaps using a site that accepts quizzes on an automated basis would be better. We've already spoken of several of those. I've had a look at a few of those and it isn't appealing to me.
Part of the reason I stay here is that we have more originality and not just a pub quiz screen type question or Trivial Pursuit. We have questions on every conceivable topic too. I know not everyone is happy getting these questions on their daily quiz, but so be it, it's not an automated site, it's a human site.

If it's the subject matter that motivated this question, as I suspect but cannot confirm nor do I wish to, then yes, it's unfortunate and there were rather a lot of those questions when I joined up here too. But, once the quiz is in the template here, it's a human process and no longer robotic one. If I don't realize that Axl's second wife's maiden name wasn't spelled correctly then there will undoubtedly be one of you who does. Does this mean I'm a poor music editor because I didn't catch this error? I don't think so. The burden of proof is really on the original author and it's a matter of trust established over time.
Then the players come in and if they do notice an error, they can tell the person. If the person doesn't respond, then we do. I can't think of a better system really.
As long as each person does their part of the job, we're fine.

Hummm, I haven't read much of this topic, but I still had a question regarding spelling (so I thought of writing here instead of creating another topic). It was a long time ago, I created a quiz about an album from a band, and it seems that one of their songs is spelled incorrectly, however the quiz editor (can't remember who... was it you, Ladymacb29? ) prompted me to correct the spelling mistake in the song title... the problem was that even if written incorrectly, the song title is written that way (on the CD cover, on their website, etc). What happens in such a case?

I'm not sure as i'm not an editor, but I think in that case you would fill out with reasons (possibly the sites link) the, "I would like to ignore this complaint/correction because..." box. personally however I would send a private message to the actual editor of the quiz before doing so.

Without knowing the specifics I can't tell, but I would probably not allow the question as a fill in the blank, as players would be left wondering which spelling to use. I would also expect the author to note the situation in some way in the interesting info, if it was likely to cause problems. I would accept an incorrect spelling in a multiple choice answer, because that spelling would be correct in that context - that is, if the band spelled the word wrong in the song title, than the incorrect spelling is the correct song title. Whew! Does that make any sense?
After all, we acept "The Beatles" as the answer to "Who sang 'Can't Buy Me Love'?" even though "Beatle" is the incorrect spelling of the word 'beetle'. In the same way, we would accept "kd lang", and "ee cummings" as correct spellings of those names, even though they don't have capitals, because that is the preferred spelling of the person in question.

I've played quizzes which have been played hundreds of times already, yet have found spelling or other obvious errors in the quiz. Usually, though not always, I send a correction note, and have even sent corrections to authors who are also quiz editors so no-one is infallible.
I always try to be polite in sending correction notes, especially for minor spelling or 'typo' errors, but rarely receive any acknowledgement so have no idea if the error(s) have been corrected or not. I sometimes wonder if, when quizzes have been played many times and still have errors, correction notes are simply being ignored? I do accept of course that errors can be introduced into a quiz some time after it originally went on line.

Often, if you receive no acknowledgment, it is because the quiz author no longer visits FunTrivia. As an editor, I will sometimes fix minor spelling errors on such quizzes, without sending a note to the person who reported it. If the error reported is one of fact I try always to thank the person who caught it. If the correction note is itself in error, I attempt to explain the reason for this to the person who sent the correction.

In short, no, correction notes are not being ignored, no matter how long a quiz has been online.

I send a lot of correction notes from the hourly quizzes and really don't require a reply back when something has been corrected. By that time, I don't remember what the question was anyway.

This is why is it always a good idea to include as much information as you can in your correction. Obviously, if it is something that can easily be checked, such as a spelling, or a song lyric, this isn't necessary. But, for something more obscure, the more you sound like someone who knows what she is talking about, the more seriously you are taken. Remember, roughly half of correction notes are not in fact correct, so editors do take them with a grain of salt.
If I see a correction like this: "yer wrong!!!! That nevr happened" which is then countered by a reasonable-sounding explanation from the quiz author, citing episode numbers, etc, I'm likely to believe the author. (AG, I know that your corrections don't look like this!)

I've only just found this one (I can't be everywhere, though I sometimes try ), but had to reply to Serendipity's reluctance to use the correction note system.

I know a few editors who can often edit for a few hours a day in their own time without corrections. It's far easier for the last knockings of errors of what is often highly obscure information to be mopped up by the actual players of the quizzes, and be a joint effort, rather than stretch the editors even further.

To give an example from the quizmaker's side, I had a glaring error sitting on one of my few quizzes for about 80 plays before I was lucky enough for a player to actually notice it and allow me to get it off the quiz. Otherwise even more people would have thought Denmark still used local car licence plates, which was simply due to me mixing up a couple of pages in my reference book and then not noticing when I checked it all. It's almost impossible for the odd error not to get through when anyone makes a quiz, and ditto for editors picking them up. Therefore the correction notices are an essential back-up and there to be used.

I can understand you're not specifically having a go at editors, but the correction system is such a simple and effective one that trying to put the whole responsibility on editors, who are only members like you and me, is a bit unnecessary, especially considering how much work they do already for nothing. It is a lot easier to contact quizmakers directly when you spot something especially as the editors are alerted to it as well. And of course, correction notices aren't always right either, just like the debates in Ask at times. That's why posting links to confirm facts is encouraged, and is also the same for disputed corrections, when it happens. I've seen many officially published books etc. (and don't start me on newspaper articles) with more mistakes than you'll ever find in a Funtrivia quiz. It's called being human and fallible, and that's why all the members pull together to keep the standards up.

satguru - I had a simple mis-spelling in a FITB question that for *two years* went without me getting a correction notice on it. And more than half of the players got marker 'correct' for the question!

Finally, a kind player noticed I was spelling the actor/character (I forget what the question was)'s name wrong and sent a correction notice. Now keep in mind that this wasn't a normal mis-spelling, this was switching around two letters like Johnson -> Johsnon, a spelling that wouldn't look right!