The only reason we have restricted subcategories is to encourage people to write quizzes on every subject because the only questions not asked yet are "What colour socks was Buffy wearing when she slayed ___?"

If, after proving you have grasped the fundamentals of creating quizzes on this site (by having 5 online), feel free to submit a *creative* and *original* approach to the restricted subcategories.

You know, I can kind of see the motivation behind suggesting that some quizzes get deleted after awhile. Certainly not every quiz after 6 months, but there ARE lots of quizzes in the restricted or closed categories that have been online for like 8 years that are poorly written, have no interesting information, etc. I think maybe it is worth considering that quiz authors writing today can, in general, produce much better quizzes than in years past, due in large part to the increasing quiz standards. I know all sorts of problems would come up with this (deciding which quizzes to delete, it would take out a lot of quizzes from popular categories, etc.) but maybe in some cases the notion of taking old quizzes offline isn't so absurd.

Nicely put, GG. See, there IS a way to get a point across without alienating half the people on the site. Looking at it that way, I agree.

A better approach than deleting quizzes would be to open closed categories up every couple of years temporarily for new quizzes, wouldn't it?

I was thinking of 'space saving devices,' I guess. That may not even be an issue, I don't know.

To be fair, GG did acknowledge that there would be problems with deleting quizzes. I think she was just playing devil's advocate by suggesting that the concept of quiz-pruning may not be completely absurd.

I think everyone would agree that they would not like to see a quiz they had authored deleted just because it was old. If this is taken up at all, perhaps one way to do it would be to only delete quizzes with the consent or at the behest of its author.

Right. I didn't articulate it well, but I meant some of the really old quizzes, written by people who were on the site for about a week to write that quiz, and then disappeared, never to be seen again. As well as people who have deleted their accounts, but their quizzes have remained online. jmorrow put it correctly, just trying to play devil's advocate. Some people may like to see changes like this, but are they necessary? No, of course not. Sure, I might think that I can write a better Mixed Friends triva quiz than half the ones that are online, but I don't HAVE to. There are lots of other open categories and interesting quizzes to explore.

GG, I know you didn't mean anything untowards. I too was just playing devil's advocate.

OK, Devil's Advocate here.

First off, I disagree that any quizzes should be indiscriminately deleted based on age. There are many older quizzes on here which are excellent.

However, when it comes to the quizzes written by one-and-done players: people who were on the site for 1 day (usually around the 2000-2001 time period), never scored even one point, and just threw up a quiz? Those should be given a hard look. While some are OK, most of them are quite mediocre. I would wager that they represent well over 2/3 of the correction notices sent in.

I don't think it's fair to just wipe them all off the books but at the same time, some of them could use some a bit of scrutiny and/or editing/deletion. But who has the time to put in the work to go through all those? On the other hand, the original writers are long gone so it's not as if they would complain. Plus, there is no interesting information section and if there is, it is usually of the "OMG, that was too kewl!" variety.

Tough call. Lot of work in editing those. Plus, all the hourly game/GC databases would also have to be updated.

There was a suggestion a while ago that older/neglected quizzes could be "adopted" by volunteers and spruced up a bit.
Many of the really early ones could be polished up with a bit of work, interesting info added or expanded, and they would be fine.

If I'm not mistaken, I think Terry raised the possibility of implementing an "adopt-a-quiz" program on the site, where volunteers could take on an unfinished quiz and complete it.

Perhaps something similar could be put in place for those older quizzes which are not up to snuff. If the main problem with these quizzes is the lack of interesting information, that should theoretically be fixable. I dare say many of the older quizzes can be salvaged in this way.

The adopter could then get co-author status together with the original author, if that's an issue.

This sounds like a great idea. The quizzes that could be targeted first might be those that receive correction notices and also do not have interesting information. This would be a way to standardize quizzes as needed and not a mass purge based on an arbitrary timeline with no regard to content.

The quizzes in question, could be set aside for a time, and then brought back with their new look. Even without the
'sprucing,' if taken out of the mix for a while, they would seem new. Especially, to recent joiners. Just like toys that kids get bored with!

If this was the case, though, they should probably also be temporarily pulled from the hourly game/GC databases as this is where they are the most visible.

Terry mentioned to us a while back that he has abandoned the "adopt a quiz" idea for now.

only just read his thread and am still giggling with the visual picture of "frisbee in the groin" from Terry! Nothing really constructive to reply except that I work hard on my quizzes and wouldn't like to see any of them deleted through lack of play or age!