Quiz-entrants' mentality

[Quizmonster]

Surely the point of participating in a quiz-competition is to establish whether you know - or, by research, can find out - what the answers are. What on earth is the point of just asking other people to tell you the answers? At a pub quiz, you surely wouldn't turn to the next table, hissing urgently: 'What's the answer to Number 16?' What conceivable pride could you take in winning by this method? Genuine questions, such as we normally see on AnswerBank, are a totally different matter. Let's hope we can get back to them soon and that the current flood of 'non-questions' rapidly abates!

[Headtime]

Whilst agreeing with you but playing Devils advocate though Quizzy, If I was stuck on a quiz question or crossword clue, I would be interested in knowing the answer, not for winning purposes, but just to satiate my curiosity.

I think Google is largely to blame as we've seen with Inf*ntigo et al. Anyone typing "Sunday Times Quiz", may well be brought to Answerbank.

It is however very blunt to just post a question as thus; "Sunday Times Quiz No 23 b & c also 25 a & e ", I think.

[xyzzy@bok]

that norfolk hoe is a toughie though, i thought it was a dance til i noticed the prongs [or tines] :-)
Yeah, Boo! to quiz wimps. They could also try looking in newsgroups; rec.puzzles for instance 128,00 threads there. http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF
-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&group=rec.puzzles

[Dede]

Having taken part in The Sunday Times Travel quiz I find posts like this very annoying. My family and I went through the questions and answered as many of them as we could. When we had exhausted our knowledge I looked on the Internet (and there is nothing wrong with doing this, despite what some people say, as it is still research) and in books. As a last resort I tried the Answerbank to see if anyone else knew anything. There is nothing wrong with sharing answers with people - would you rather I post saying 'I know that answer, but I won't tell you'? I like looking at the Answerbank and seeing if I can help with any of the questions (though the ones I know are usually already answered) and it is a resource to be used like any other. Yes, I agree, the quiz questions have taken over somewhat recently but by the 7th of Jan it will all be over and a few people will have been helped out. What is so wrong with that?

[brawburd]

Dede, that's fine for yourself, however other people have appeared to take whole quizzes and post them, which reflects Quizmonster's point.

[Buffy]

I like the number phrase questions, and my opinion is that there haven't been "too" many of them, so far. Finally, people are starting to list them all in a group, within a single question, rather than singly, and that is great-- I don't see any problem with it. The Answerbank is for any question needing an answer, and if you are going to get picky about quiz-type questions, then you should also get picky about News questions that are nothing other than chat opportunities, or Music questions about titles / lyrics that are easily solvable with Google instead, etc., etc. Choose your battles wisely! Besides Quizmonster, this isn't just YOUR site, you are not the dictator here, it is everyone's site. We all share it. And finally, your current question, above, also wastes AB space, need I point out?

[Ewood27]

I agree with Quizmonster on this. Speaking entirely personally, I have no problem with someone searching for the elusive answer to the last intractable question; it does seem, though, that some people simply ask the whole quiz in the hope that the rest of us will do the work for them.

[flirty41]

I think the problem is that a lot of the categories at the moment are being swamped by the same quiz questions, pushing non-quiz questions off the list much more quickly than normal. I have nothing against quiz questions as such, and I do sometimes enjoy the challenge of trying to find the answer, but I do find it annoying to see the same quiz question in 2 or 3 different categories on the site. Hence, why not have a category specifically dedicated to crosswords, quizzes, number phrases and the like, where quiz fiends can trawl to their hearts' content, and from where those who are not so interested can keep their distance? By the way, why is this current Sunday Times Quiz such a big thing?

[Janetex]

My sentiments exactly, QM. When is a question not a question?

[Quizmonster]

Buffy, You say my question "wastes space". I actually asked two questions above, neither of which you've answered, so just who's wasting space? Am I not one of these people who has a right to ask any question I like? I didn't claim - and certainly wouldn't want - to be 'Dictator of Answerbank'. Indeed, I have long been a staunch supporter of the "almost anything goes" approach here. However, please read my response to Dede below to see where I think the line needs to be drawn.

Dede, My post referred to quiz-competitions. As I do not take any of the newspapers apparently involved in inciting the current frenzy for 'labour-free' answers, I have no idea what closing-dates are involved. However - though this may well not apply to you personally - it seems pretty clear to me that people are still hoping to enter and perhaps win by using them.

I asked earlier whether you would provide - or even ask for - answers to/from other teams at a pub quiz. Well, would you? If you ever do attend such quizzes, you will almost certainly have come across one of life's most annoying bores. He's the guy at the corner of the bar who insists on doing what you seem to believe is OK..."sharing answers" loudly with all and sundry.

All newspapers publish the answers to their quizzes eventually, so why not just wait? If the curiosity to know them is overwhelming and genuine, why not wait until after the closing-date at least before asking around on sites such as this one? Doing so before that is clearly, at best, 'suspect', whether that fact annoys you or not.

(Internet research is perfectly acceptable, but I hope you're not suggesting that posting an AnswerBank question that reads: "What's the answer to Question 24 in the 'Sunday Times' quiz?" amounts to Internet research!)

[Janetex]

Yeah, Buffy, what he said with bells on.

[Maudlettice]

You are just creating a smoke screen, Quizmonster, because you cannot find the answer to the Norfolk Hoe question either.

[Quizmonster]

Dear Maude, I saw an excellent answer to the 'Norfolk hoe' question in another category on this site a day or two ago, but it appears to have been edited into oblivion. Certainly, it is the one I go for and let boring concepts such as tines and prongs go hang!

'Hoe' is a standard abbreviation among American rap-artists etc for a word meaning 'lady of easy virtue', though for them it appears to signify little more than a somewhat downmarket 'girlfriend'. In addition, Norfolk is a city in Virginia, USA, as well as an English county. I thought combining the two words/ideas was a brilliant concept. So, I certainly do know what a "Norfolk hoe" is as far as I'm concerned! Given that the OED has never heard of any such implement, I'm quite happy never to have heard of it either. Cheers

[Maudlettice]

Many thanks for giving it a thought,Quizmonster. I'm afraid, though, that your girls will have to come equipped with either (a) two prongs (b) four prongs (c) one blade, or (d) one blade and four prongs. The general concensus seems to be that it is (d), but no reference can be found. Can plough (pulled by horse or tractor) and hoe mean the same thing, do you think? If so, there might be another answer.

[Quizmonster]

Maude, There was a farm-implement in the 18th century called a 'hoe-plough', designed to be pulled by a horse. Long gone, of course, so I don't think that's what you're looking for.

[Maudlettice]

Thanks again, Quizmonster. Hear that you were the life and soul of the party round at Jinty McGinty'son New Years Eve, and that the police had to be called.

[owner2]

I was drawn to Answerbank by researching a quiz question and I've participated in the quiz ever since. I think you have to see the positive side of this in that I'm now a big fan of the site and will look at the site long after the quiz is over. People look at sites for different reasons. As a solution maybe there should be a separate area for people who are purely interested in quizzes. That way the Q&A people could still go about their business unaffected.

[woofgang]

I agree that its about time that we had a quiz category. I do also have a problem when the quiz has a prize as I feel that coming here (or to any other "brains trust" type website) and just asking feels like cheating. All of us who answer here got our knowledge from somewhere other than divine inspiration so the info is out there somewhere and I think if you are trying for a prize then you should work for it so there!!

[Quizmonster]

My point, exactly, Woofgang! Thanks to you and all who responded sensibly. Have three *** each.