A rating system is there to enable members to rate as they see fit - not rate the way editors tell them to - otherwise there wouldn't be a rating system, and all we would have would be the 'editors thumb award' given to many quizzes that are rated by the members as BORING ie ratings below 50,000.

The rating system as it stands, and in exactly the way it is used, reflects what the MEMBERS think of a quiz.

A compliment from ten members, and rating in the sunglasses club above 10,000 is worth more to me (and others) than a dozen 'thumbs', because I'm not interested in pleasing ONE editor - I write quizzes to please the MEMBERSHIP.

<< If you honestly think that the question is too obscure, give it a poor rating. That's what the ratings are for. >>

<< I strongly disagree, and this is not what the rating system is for. You do not rate a question/quiz based on whether you know the answer or not. >>

The ratings concept is simple: if you think the question deserves to make its way into FunTrivia games, rate it well. If not, rate it poorly.

If you don't like statistical sports questions, then you have every right to rate them poorly. If enough people rate them poorly then they won't make it to future games.

Ratings are, by design, entirely subjective. It's how you FEEL about a question.

DG Dave
You drag up a thread that's three years old?

The site has grown considerably since then - it's now patronised by a HUGE global membership - people from all walks of life, all nationalities.

I find nightmares sig block to be patronising quite frankly - sorry buddy but I have no interest whatsoever in learning about Baseball - or any other American sport for that matter - write an interesting quiz, and I'll rate it highly, bore me with question after question on a subject I have no interest in, and I'm likely to rate it very poor - and that applies to ALL categories.

In a previous post dg_dave, I made reference to INTERESTING quizzes - which I will give a good rating to.
Questions taken from a baseball almanac which are nothing but statistics are BORING, and will be poorly rated by myself any many others.
Even Terry himself has said that the MEMBERS have a RIGHT to rate exactly as they see fit - and if a quiz is obscurely Americancentric then it WILL be poorly rated by this eclectic GLOBAL membership.

If you want a more relevant thread btw - try the one on Americancentricity of quizzes.

Nightmare stated in his post that he believes members don't understand his sig block - well I venture to suggest that what Nightmare doesn't understand, is that a significant percentage of the membership of this site is NON AMERICAN.

I like categories to be balanced and varied too.
But a disproportionate amount of questions in one particular category being in a new question quiz is not balanced or varied.
Rather like opening the packet and finding out all your jelly babies are orange flavoured. I prefer blackcurrant, for some orange may be their top choice.
Which is why a mixture is preferable to meet the needs of a diverse population.
And as for ratings? If a question is interesting to me, I rate it good. If it is uninteresting to me, I rate it poor. Irrelevant whether I got it right or not.

"Your quiz score is not important. What you learned from the quiz is! "

Agreed, but in order to learn something, I have to find it interesting in some way. Otherwise it's unmemorable and I've forgotten what the question or the answer was by the time I move onto the next question. And I won't remember the next time I see it either. That's how my brain works.

Leaving quizzes out of it for a moment, the Question Quest and New Question Game were introduced to all of us just recently, and everyone has the same opportunity to create and submit questions. So in the context of this game, the mantra "If you find there are too many American questions, write some non-American ones" really truly does apply! Even if Nightmare submitted 200 questions on aspects of baseball you found boring, you have had just as much opportunity to write 200 questions on a sport that you like and find interesting, but that doesn't mean a large portion of players will find them interesting. You could write 200 questions on how paint dries if you wish. They may not be rated well, but it will balance out baseball questions if that's your big concern.

Edited so that no one gets upset over what is really only trivia.

The signature doesn't say anything about playing a variety of categories... Even if one only plays Humanities quizzes, I'm sure on some of them there would be low scores and high learning value

I am going to try to stay impartial here and just go with the stats:

(Stats from the alexa website)

Funtrivia.com users come from these countries (Top 5):

55.0% United States
10.1% United Kingdom
8.8% India
3.4% Australia
3.1% Canada

Over half of visitors are American and 45% are from elsewhere. This statistic is for visitors in general, not for sports only I must point out. The second thing I will point out is that quizzes will only be written on subjects that members want to write about and as such are representative of writers in the sports categories. If anyone thinks the quizzes are skewed towards Americacentricity then seek to correct it by writing your own.

The onus isn't on say Nightmare (I hope you don't mind me using you as an example) to write less American sports quizzes because 45% of the membership/visitors to the site is/are not American, it is on the non-Americans to increase the stock of non-American quizzes. The stats are possibly on Nightmare's side as the majority of visitors are American and the majority of sports quizzes here are American and thus that is a fair reflection of the membership.

I recently created four quizzes in the tennis category as I didn't think the category had as many quizzes as it should have done. If say 24 other people decided to do the same then there is 100 tennis quizzes!

Sports quizzes by their very nature are statistical - an athletics quiz without statistics would be like toast without butter, yes you can eat it but it doesn't really go down well. If you think of it, all sports science quizzes do not belong in sports - they will be sent to crisw over at sci/tech, so that is one avenue closed off. Many of the basic rules of certain sports involve numbers (I really haven't a clue as to why people don't like numbers) 6 balls in an over, 50 overs in an ODI for cricket for example - which will not go down well with anti-stats question people. Sports and statistics are heavily linked and one of the great things about that relationship is the ability to see progress, as the human race pushes its boundaries - Usain Bolt for example. Not mentioning his sub-9.6 second run in Berlin recently would be neglecting a piece of history.

good grief charlie brown

In exactly WHICH part of nightmare's sig does he specifically mention american sports? When I look at that signoff I equate it with "live for the journey, not the destination". But that's just MY interpretation, we can't just ASSUME what meaning a particular quote or signoff has for the person who put it there. In any case, criticism of someone's "blurb" is highly irrelevant (not to mention rude) to this (or any other) thread of conversation.

And how is a thread that is "howevermanyyearsold" not important? Evolution is process. Every point along a timeline has an effect. So, in that line of thinking, archaeological evidence from say, 2500 BC is not important simply because it is now 4,509 years old?

If folks are really so adamant about certain things, they are certainly free to start their OWN website geared to their own specific interests (and many do - they're usually called blogs tho lol)... but , who would they complain to then? LOL

and Jabberwock? Nobody's prefect (especially not me so I'd be the last person to try to tell someone what to do.)

ANYHOO, going back to QQ now to enjoy the "gift" and hopefully find some inspiration to write new q's : )

We will not tolerate players continually insulting and disrespecting editors. After numerous (and I mean NUMEROUS) warnings, Delboy hasn't learned a thing.

The incredibly rude private message he just sent Nightmare, one of our longest serving and greatest contributing editors, was the last straw.

Delboy has been removed as a participant from these forums. As his sig stated, "part time nice bloke". Sorry, but "nice" is not optional on Fun Trivia.

If his continual insults continue elsewhere, his FunTrivia account will be closed too.

I didn't mean to be rude to anyone Jackeroo, or a prefect.
Nightmare said
"
It is unfortunate that some quizzers cannot comprehend the full meaning of my signature below."

So I responded with how I'd understood his signature, being the learning is more important than the points or badges.
If you want me to edit what I said, then I will as it obviously hasn't communicated what I meant at all.


I think I will.

Delboy's comments about Nightmare's sig were idiotic.

Nightmare's sig is incredibly simple, and I completely agree with it.

When I started this thread it had nothing to do with the quality of the questions or their obscurity and I am somewhat concerned that was hijacked to imply that it was. I was concerned for the New Questions Game, because continuing imbalance wouldn't be good for it. I've been a webmanager for many years and I know what internet users are like - one click and they're gone.

It doesn't actually matter to me that the questions were about sport and it certainly doesn't matter which country's sport, I would be equally concerned if the balance had tilted too much towards Music, or Movies, or Kyle's dreaded Video games, lol.

Anyway, my apologies to anyone who has been attacked - that was not meant to happen.

Flopsy, that's very sweet of you - even though you can't govern where the thread goes, and shouldn't be apologising for the indiscretions of others.

My meaning, when I say "too obscure" is not whether or not I know the answer, but whether the question would be significant within the community of those who are interested in the subject.

So, a baseball question about a forty year record being broken, say, seems to me to be a very valid question, and if written at all well, would get a "good" from me, even if I haven't a clue as to the answer. However, a question about the jersey number of some mid rated player in one particular season will get at best an "average", if it's well written. I do the same with questions that expect me to know details of one particular episode of a television show, or plot points of a particular book or movie. If I have to have been paying as much attention as the question author to some specific aspect of a narrow knowledge field, I don't think it's suitable for a general knowledge quiz, which the QQ is supposed to be. And will rate it accordingly.

Some explanation in the interesting info as to why those of us who know nothing about the subject should care, really ups my rating - you can tell me that some guy scored 400 points in one season and it means nothing to me, but if you also tell me that the next runner up only scored 53, then I realize what an achievement it was, and find it more interesting.

I think this thread is done.

To the original poster: yes, it would be nice to have a variety of questions. We'll aim to do that.