I linked to the quiz pages because, logically, questions about those topics you listed would be placed into them if they were in quiz form. If you had a quiz about Picasso's life, it would go into the People subcategory I provided. If it were a single question, it would simply go to People.

We hold our single questions to the same standards as quiz questions for the most part. If quizzes in TV didn't have titles and introductions, I'd be asking for the name of the show (and/or episode) in every question because each must be understood as a stand-alone creation. If the show is not mentioned in a single question sent to TV, it will be sent back; it'd be a bit silly for the author to assume that everyone gets what show it is based on the answer choices alone and (perhaps) a small bit of info. We're quiz-takers, not mind-readers.

The 'category rules' in the drop-down you mention were created by Terry years ago when the game began-- we have never been able to change these. They list off either slight restrictions (eg. no wrestling in Ent.) or they list off possibilities. As we've already said, 'Writers and Authors', their lives at least, go to People, so that's not wrong. (http://www.funtrivia.com/ql.cfm?cat=248)
Questions about books where authors are the answer go to Literature because your knowledge is being pulled from what you know about the work-- not the author's life.

If you're having a ton of trouble with guidelines in the single-question queue, I would highly recommend reading the guidelines for the category as a whole; most (if not all) of these guidelines still hold true. The only difference is that these questions stand as individuals while the quiz is constructed as a series of questions. As such you will need to provide enough info to answer the single question without being completely ambiguous.

Most of these issues can be solved by looking around through the particular categories, going to the quiz search bar on the homepage, and playing the quizzes on the same topic. We make a point of ensuring that the approaches are grouped properly because we want players to find quizzes where they expect them to be. While that's not going to be the same for everyone (some people consider Michael Jackson to be a musician, but he also acted and did charity work, for example) it's as close as we're going to get.

If there are any one-off exceptions, as we occasionally get her in this forum, or in the Author's Lounge, or via personal message, then they will be dealt with accordingly. There's no need for us to consider revising and we are trying to be as clear as possible.

But you are asked not to do that because it is not up to question/quiz taker to decide if someone violates the category rules, that is up to editors. We really on player corrections to let us know if a question is downright wrong (we can't know everything about everything and usually have to trust that the author was correct - players who do know about that particular subject are encouraged to let us know when something is factually wrong) or if there was a typo that was missed (it happens, everyone is human, sometimes 200 pairs of eyes are better than 2 pairs!)

Notice that we often use the word "guidelines" rather than "rules". This means that not all of them are absolutely set in stone all the time. Things are subjective and also a judgement call and that's why there are editors to make those calls.

Full circle: Quote: mehaul

Let's just say there is a lot of overlap in assignation possibilities and the final say goes to the editors. Sounds like a fair compromise to a difficult issue.

For those who are frustrated by inconsistencies in our categorization system - please remember that this site was not planned, from the beginning, to be as you see now. Rather, it just "growed". Choices were made years ago which, in retrospect, were unwise.

However, we've pretty much got to live with them now - in most cases restructuring the categories would be a massive job. Would you rather have the staff putting new quizzes and questions online, and trying to keep some semblance of organization in the system we have now, or putting quiz editing on hold and spending the weeks and possibly months it would take to move quizzes around into a more logical (but still, probably, not perfect) system? Even if categorization were a model of consistency, there would still be some fuzziness around the edges - it really is more of an art than a science.

Remember too that there are thousands if not millions of links out in the ether, all of which would have to be redirected if we were to undertake a thorough rationalization of our categorization system.

So - when placing a quiz, take your best shot at categorizing it, and then relax. You will not be penalized in any way for not getting it quite right. Often there is no "quite right" - in Music, for example, a quiz could perfectly reasonably go, often, into two or three different categories. I will frequently discuss the various options with an author as part of the editing process.

It's not possible nor even all that desirable to get the entire categorization process down to a cut and dried rule-driven experience, so why waste time and energy trying?

It does appear to be the case. I'm glad the thread exists though, and I am extremely grateful to kyleisalive for the detailed answers he provided here. It's been a real education. Thanks too to guitargoddess for clarifying the purpose of CNs for single questions. Not that I won't make any mistakes in the future on any of this, but I do feel better prepared to understand what to do.

A lot of the time it is a judgement call. I recently sent a question about an author over to People. The question listed a number of the author's works, and then asked about a literary award that the author had won. According to the guidelines for Literature quizzes, we accept one or two personal questions about an author in a 10-question quiz, especially if those questions pertain to the author's writing career. Was the author incorrect to submit such a question to Literature? Absolutely not. Would anyone think that it had been improperly categorized if it had gone online in Literature? Probably not. I changed my own mind about it a few times before eventually deciding that the actual question was about the author's life, not his works (the works were really hints) so it would be more properly categorized in People. The question did have elements of People and Literature, though, making it one of those "fuzzy" questions that's a little hard to place. But like agony mentioned above, we are aware that the categorization structure over the years has created much room for overlap, and authors aren't expected to know the site inside and out and be able to determine the absolute best place for a certain question. Even the editors sometimes have to work it out through discussion.

Thank you for all who took the time, to clarify the situation.

I can vouch for this regarding one of the challenge quizzes I did not too long ago, and I've been on the quiz side of the site for over 10½ years, so I am no newbie. From what I saw, I had it in "General" and had an editor in that category look at it (unsubmitted - I wanted to know if it "fit" there before submission), and he said he would think it would be better in "Entertainment" instead, so I moved it over, all while not submitting it at the onset. Once I got confirmation from editors in both "General" and "Entertainment," then is when I submitted the quiz. It drew a very fine line as it was entertainment-related, but also on a specific type of theme, i.e., "Thematic Fun" within the "General" category. I'll not reveal the quiz title here for reasons of the FAQ, but it ultimately ended up in "Entertainment," and I am happy it was approved.

These editors make a lot of judgment calls on a lot of quizzes every day, and sometimes while a quiz may "fit" in one section, it may "fit" better somewhere else. Like Kyle said, flying fish in "Religion" or "World" or putting an element quiz in "Animals" won't appease them, but using Charles Dickens, a quiz on him could easily fit in "People" or "Literature"; it just depends on what the majority of the quiz is over. Sometimes it is a fine line, and using the quiz I did, it went to the entire editorial staff before I submitted so that I could get it into the best place.

With regards to full quizzes, I usually combine two or even more categories, place the accent the most on one of those categories and submit it to that specific category. For example, I once combined classical music with geography (no kidding).

In single questions, one could think about it in the same way. Does the main issue touch this category or that one? But there will always be questions that might fit in both categories, or even more.