Think Different best practices

[9021amyers]

[*]Rankings with an arbitrary cutoff. If you're going to ask for the top X of something, make sure there's a big gap between the last possible answer and the first incorrect answer; perhaps even give the identity of the first incorrect answer and why it failed to qualify. Take particular care to peg your definition properly here.

Good stuff. To go along with this one, I'd recommend that hosts try to game out what the most common wrong answers might be to each of your questions. Then ask yourself, would you feel bad having to neg people who gave that answer? If the answer is yes, then find some way to steer people away from it. It can be as simple as stating it in the question text.

One thing I really like that people do in their TDs is if they ask something like "Name one of the 10 most populous cities in Maryland" and then add something like "the 11th most populous city is Westminster with a population of 20,000"

Note: Westminster's ranking and population are just numbers I pulled out of a rear orifice and should not be mistaken for anything that is even remotely accurate.

On a related note to that specific example: the laws in Maryland is rather restrictive when it comes to incorporating cities, so a question asking to name one of the x largest cities in Maryland would invite serious negbait in the form of all the larger and more recognizable suburbs of Washington and Baltimore that are unincorporated. I scrapped this exact question in favor of one about NCAA Division I schools in Maryland in TD 254 because of this.

[BobF]

On a related note to that specific example: the laws in Maryland is rather restrictive when it comes to incorporating cities, so a question asking to name one of the x largest cities in Maryland would invite serious negbait in the form of all the larger and more recognizable suburbs of Washington and Baltimore that are unincorporated. I scrapped this exact question in favor of one about NCAA Division I schools in Maryland in TD 254 because of this.

Right. I just read where Germantown (where jfrumkin lives and where I once lived) now has a population of over 100K, but I'm not even sure that would be a correct answer because I couldn't tell you for sure whether or not it's even incorporated. I'd have to look it up, which is, of course, against the rules.

[Tigershark]

Personally, I never offer a SHEEP option (automatically take the highest score). The only reason to have a SHEEP is if your questions are too obscure. Fix those instead.

I am guilty of doing the exact opposite of this. I vary the number of Sheep options available based on how obscure the questions are. I had one TD with a bunch of obscure questions, and I gave people the option of using four SHEEPs in addition to the DROP. I like to write questions that are somewhat challenging, but I still want people to enter, so I often will give extra SHEEP options if I think the quiz is challenging. I also like to give bonuses to people who don't use drops. It's just a personal preference. If I can answer all of the questions, I like to answer all of the questions, and often times I end up picking a random question to drop.

I do try and write the quizzes as tightly as possible so there is very little ambiguity, and usually I go with letter options. It takes much longer to write those questions, but it is a bit easier to score.

I do go back into the archives, because I do not like to repeat questions that have already been asked. There was one quiz where several people mentioned that my question had been asked before, so apparently I didn't go back far enough with that question.

The first quiz I ever hosted was a "niche" quiz, in which all of the questions covered one topic. I think those quizzes can be fun every once in a while. In order to make the quiz both accessible and challenging, almost all of the questions had choices that were very easy, medium difficulty, and very obscure. I got a decent amount of entries, but I got one entrant that knew a lot of the obscure answers and ran away with the quiz. It was a fun quiz, but it's not the most exciting reveal when after 8 questions, the leader has a score of 8.

[JonathanHenke]

To change the topic slightly: as a newbie to (this version of) the board, I would have found it very helpful to have a short intro to what a TD is. For instance: Is it (like LL) something you have to sign up for? Is there a season commitment? Are points cumulative? How is it scored? What's the time frame? How often are there new ones?

There are three pinned threads on the board, and none of them gives any real hints. In fact, none of them even says what "TD" stands for!

To avoid having too many pinned threads, I'd suggest adding a brief intro to the top of the "TD Queue & Archive" thread and maybe renaming to to "TD (Think Different) Intro, Queue & Archive". How about:

"Think Different" is a series of user-created trivia quizzes. Each is an independent quiz, with different hosts and (potentially) different rules. Anyone is welcome to participate in any quiz, even if it's your first time. There's no connection to Jeopardy!, so you can play even if you're not a regular J! watcher.

Quizzes typically have 5 to 15 questions, each with multiple right answers. The goal is to guess the right answer that the fewest other participants also guessed (i.e., to "think different"!) You typically get one point for each other person who guessed the same answer as you, and the lowest score wins.

Once the questions have been posted, there is typically a one-week window for participants to submit responses. Each TD quiz may have different rules and different scoring systems, though, so read the rules carefully.

Finding something like that in a pinned post would have been super helpful to me as a newbie; I imagine other newbies might feel the same way.

Thoughts? Feedback? Counter-proposals?

[dhkendall]

To change the topic slightly: as a newbie to (this version of) the board, I would have found it very helpful to have a short intro to what a TD is. For instance: Is it (like LL) something you have to sign up for? Is there a season commitment? Are points cumulative? How is it scored? What's the time frame? How often are there new ones?

There are three pinned threads on the board, and none of them gives any real hints. In fact, none of them even says what "TD" stands for!

To avoid having too many pinned threads, I'd suggest adding a brief intro to the top of the "TD Queue & Archive" thread and maybe renaming to to "TD (Think Different) Intro, Queue & Archive". How about:

"Think Different" is a series of user-created trivia quizzes. Each is an independent quiz, with different hosts and (potentially) different rules. Anyone is welcome to participate in any quiz, even if it's your first time. There's no connection to Jeopardy!, so you can play even if you're not a regular J! watcher.

Quizzes typically have 5 to 15 questions, each with multiple right answers. The goal is to guess the right answer that the fewest other participants also guessed (i.e., to "think different"!) You typically get one point for each other person who guessed the same answer as you, and the lowest score wins.

Once the questions have been posted, there is typically a one-week window for participants to submit responses. Each TD quiz may have different rules and different scoring systems, though, so read the rules carefully.

Finding something like that in a pinned post would have been super helpful to me as a newbie; I imagine other newbies might feel the same way.

Thoughts? Feedback? Counter-proposals?

This reminds me of the proposal I had once to make a sub forum for jboard games like TD and have them all there for ease of access instead of interspersed among game discussion, etc.; this could be the pinned post in that sub forum. That idea was voted down by the board though.

[Bamaman]

When I have asked a population question, I use the most recent census data for the city. While some cities may have more in the metro area than in the city itself, it is still a valid source.

I also avoid questions like "(Some group) ranked the ten best actors of all time. Name one". Now, most people could name ten people likely to be on the list, but any list like that is going to be subjective and no one can say that #10 was definitely better than #11 and unless you read the list, you have no way of knowing who is and isn't in the top ten.

[Vermonter]

When I have asked a population question, I use the most recent census data for the city. While some cities may have more in the metro area than in the city itself, it is still a valid source.

In my view, it's not finding a valid source that is problematic – it's dealing with all of the technicalities. I'm glad 9021amyers pointed out the whole incorporation issue, because that's another big source of headaches, in addition to the metro area/city limits thing.

I also avoid questions like "(Some group) ranked the ten best actors of all time. Name one". Now, most people could name ten people likely to be on the list, but any list like that is going to be subjective and no one can say that #10 was definitely better than #11 and unless you read the list, you have no way of knowing who is and isn't in the top ten.

With topics like this – and this could also work with population – I like what some people do: drop a hint about each of the correct answers. There's quite a range of what you can give away: from the year they won Best Actor (easily recognizable) to their birth and death dates (much less so).

[9021amyers]

When I have asked a population question, I use the most recent census data for the city. While some cities may have more in the metro area than in the city itself, it is still a valid source.

In my view, it's not finding a valid source that is problematic – it's dealing with all of the technicalities. I'm glad 9021amyers pointed out the whole incorporation issue, because that's another big source of headaches, in addition to the metro area/city limits thing.

When writing questions for this game, it's important to anticipate the wrong answers you expect to encounter. I don't think you should avoid negbait at all costs, but there are good ways and bad ways to address it.

If you ask any group of people to name a president who is pictured on American currency, it's a guarantee that several of them will say Ben Franklin...even if you're talking to a room of Ph.D candidates. It's an answer that would sound the klaxon onQI: obvious, but wrong, but wrong, and in a way an average person would know better. Klaxon answers are no reason to change a question: an average person could explain why Ben Franklin isn't a valid answer. In contrast, even most residents of Bethesda, Maryland, (pop: 63,000) wouldn't be able to tell you why their community doesn't make the list of the state's ten largest cities.

One of my questions on TD 252 asked to name a heavyweight boxing champion during the decade between 1977 and 1987. That's a timeline bookended by Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson and largely coinciding with Larry Holmes' prime; that's also roughly the timeline of George Foreman's first retirement of boxing before he eventually re-gained the title at age 45. That's all intermediate-level sports trivia. Foreman's name was going to come up from players whose boxing knowledge is just enough to recognize that he had a long career; however, it's improbable that someone who knows that much wouldn't also know who Ali, Holmes, and Tyson were, so I figured the big Foreman negbait would be fair game.

I was surprised that Foreman received more responses than any valid answer; it was very strong negbait, indeed. I don't regret including that question, but I now wish I didn't use it on such a dud of a game.

[econgator]

When writing questions for this game, it's important to anticipate the wrong answers you expect to encounter.

Along those lines, if you are using Top X lists or lists with a specific cutoff, make sure you check X+1 to ensure it isn't so close to the last on the list so as to make it unfair. I had a question in my 2nd TD asking about NHL players who had 650+ goals. Brendan Shanahan had just broken that mark making him the 11th player to do so. Unfortunately, 12th (at the time) was Jaromir Jagr with 646. Oops. Felt bad about that one.

[Magna]

If you ask any group of people to name a president who is pictured on American currency, it's a guarantee that several of them will say Ben Franklin...even if you're talking to a room of Ph.D candidates. It's an answer that would sound the klaxon onQI: obvious, but wrong, but wrong, and in a way an average person would know better. Klaxon answers are no reason to change a question: an average person could explain why Ben Franklin isn't a valid answer.

Well, Franklin was a president (of Pennsylvania, plus several organizations), so he is a correct answer. Now, had your clue specified President of the United States, he wouldn't be.

[9021amyers]

If you ask any group of people to name a president who is pictured on American currency, it's a guarantee that several of them will say Ben Franklin...even if you're talking to a room of Ph.D candidates. It's an answer that would sound the klaxon onQI: obvious, but wrong, but wrong, and in a way an average person would know better. Klaxon answers are no reason to change a question: an average person could explain why Ben Franklin isn't a valid answer.

Well, Franklin was a president (of Pennsylvania, plus several organizations), so he is a correct answer. Now, had your clue specified President of the United States, he wouldn't be.

That's classic TD pedantry there.

[CailinGaoilge]

To change the topic slightly: as a newbie to (this version of) the board, I would have found it very helpful to have a short intro to what a TD is. For instance: Is it (like LL) something you have to sign up for? Is there a season commitment? Are points cumulative? How is it scored? What's the time frame? How often are there new ones?

There are three pinned threads on the board, and none of them gives any real hints. In fact, none of them even says what "TD" stands for!

To avoid having too many pinned threads, I'd suggest adding a brief intro to the top of the "TD Queue & Archive" thread and maybe renaming to to "TD (Think Different) Intro, Queue & Archive". How about:

"Think Different" is a series of user-created trivia quizzes. Each is an independent quiz, with different hosts and (potentially) different rules. Anyone is welcome to participate in any quiz, even if it's your first time. There's no connection to Jeopardy!, so you can play even if you're not a regular J! watcher.

Quizzes typically have 5 to 15 questions, each with multiple right answers. The goal is to guess the right answer that the fewest other participants also guessed (i.e., to "think different"!) You typically get one point for each other person who guessed the same answer as you, and the lowest score wins.

Once the questions have been posted, there is typically a one-week window for participants to submit responses. Each TD quiz may have different rules and different scoring systems, though, so read the rules carefully.

Finding something like that in a pinned post would have been super helpful to me as a newbie; I imagine other newbies might feel the same way.

Thoughts? Feedback? Counter-proposals?

Loud applause from me for this proposal.

I've been hanging around here for a few months, and until this week completely ignored all those TD posts, because I had no idea what TD stood for, and couldn't see anything anywhere that explained it. Vermonter's thread of advice for question-setters shed a little light on the subject, and just this week I entered my first - and much appreciated patkav's very welcoming and helpful response which explained some of the rules which weren't clear to me. The above suggestion and outline explanation would have been very useful for me when I first joined, and even now has explained things I didn't understand.

[Caboom]

To change the topic slightly: as a newbie to (this version of) the board, I would have found it very helpful to have a short intro to what a TD is. For instance: Is it (like LL) something you have to sign up for? Is there a season commitment? Are points cumulative? How is it scored? What's the time frame? How often are there new ones?

There are three pinned threads on the board, and none of them gives any real hints. In fact, none of them even says what "TD" stands for!

To avoid having too many pinned threads, I'd suggest adding a brief intro to the top of the "TD Queue & Archive" thread and maybe renaming to to "TD (Think Different) Intro, Queue & Archive". How about:

"Think Different" is a series of user-created trivia quizzes. Each is an independent quiz, with different hosts and (potentially) different rules. Anyone is welcome to participate in any quiz, even if it's your first time. There's no connection to Jeopardy!, so you can play even if you're not a regular J! watcher.

Quizzes typically have 5 to 15 questions, each with multiple right answers. The goal is to guess the right answer that the fewest other participants also guessed (i.e., to "think different"!) You typically get one point for each other person who guessed the same answer as you, and the lowest score wins.

Once the questions have been posted, there is typically a one-week window for participants to submit responses. Each TD quiz may have different rules and different scoring systems, though, so read the rules carefully.

Finding something like that in a pinned post would have been super helpful to me as a newbie; I imagine other newbies might feel the same way.

Thoughts? Feedback? Counter-proposals?

Loud applause from me for this proposal.

I've been hanging around here for a few months, and until this week completely ignored all those TD posts, because I had no idea what TD stood for, and couldn't see anything anywhere that explained it. Vermonter's thread of advice for question-setters shed a little light on the subject, and just this week I entered my first - and much appreciated patkav's very welcoming and helpful response which explained some of the rules which weren't clear to me. The above suggestion and outline explanation would have been very useful for me when I first joined, and even now has explained things I didn't understand.

I have to disagree with TD's being hard to understand or gather information about. Most TD's have the concept and all the necessary rules stated in the first post of the thread. I don't remember having any problems understanding how they work when I first joined the board. That said, I agree that Jonathan's proposal is a good one and should perhaps be included in Randy's pinned TD post.

[Caboom]

It's much better to make the questions overly easy than to go for obscure or niche information. Ask yourself: can everyone playing this game give at least 2 or 3 correct responses? If not, I'd suggest ditching it, or refining it to make it more accessible. There have been several times when I started my entry for a TD, got hung up on one question, put it off for later, and forgot to submit.

I certainly agree with this. Usually if I don't enter a TD it's because there were enough questions where I didn't know any of the answers. I don't mind taking a couple of educated guesses, but if I have to submit blanks answers, there's no point really. I can only speak for myself obviously, but if there are more than 2 such questions (so I'd have to blank it after using my drop and a sheep), I'm out. Even though my knowledge base is more limited than many here, I assume I'm not the only one.

[BobF]

It's much better to make the questions overly easy than to go for obscure or niche information. Ask yourself: can everyone playing this game give at least 2 or 3 correct responses? If not, I'd suggest ditching it, or refining it to make it more accessible. There have been several times when I started my entry for a TD, got hung up on one question, put it off for later, and forgot to submit.

I certainly agree with this. Usually if I don't enter a TD it's because there were enough questions where I didn't know any of the answers. I don't mind taking a couple of educated guesses, but if I have to submit blanks answers, there's no point really. I can only speak for myself obviously, but if there are more than 2 such questions (so I'd have to blank it after using my drop and a sheep), I'm out. Even though my knowledge base is more limited than many here, I assume I'm not the only one.

What he said. Goes for me as well.

[Magna]

It's much better to make the questions overly easy than to go for obscure or niche information. Ask yourself: can everyone playing this game give at least 2 or 3 correct responses? If not, I'd suggest ditching it, or refining it to make it more accessible. There have been several times when I started my entry for a TD, got hung up on one question, put it off for later, and forgot to submit.

I certainly agree with this. Usually if I don't enter a TD it's because there were enough questions where I didn't know any of the answers. I don't mind taking a couple of educated guesses, but if I have to submit blanks answers, there's no point really. I can only speak for myself obviously, but if there are more than 2 such questions (so I'd have to blank it after using my drop and a sheep), I'm out. Even though my knowledge base is more limited than many here, I assume I'm not the only one.

What he said. Goes for me as well.

Me too. When it's supposed to appeal to a broad group but people have trouble coming up with enough answers, it's probably too hard.

There are also subject-specific TDs that are easy for people who know that subject but probably too hard for others. I think those are fine, as long as you are willing to accept a smaller number of entrants. If you opt for one of these, it's probably a good idea to pick something with a reasonably big fan base, like soccer, the Beatles, or Downton Abbey (which I think would make a terrific niche TD, btw).

[RandyG]

It's much better to make the questions overly easy than to go for obscure or niche information. Ask yourself: can everyone playing this game give at least 2 or 3 correct responses? If not, I'd suggest ditching it, or refining it to make it more accessible. There have been several times when I started my entry for a TD, got hung up on one question, put it off for later, and forgot to submit.

I certainly agree with this. Usually if I don't enter a TD it's because there were enough questions where I didn't know any of the answers. I don't mind taking a couple of educated guesses, but if I have to submit blanks answers, there's no point really. I can only speak for myself obviously, but if there are more than 2 such questions (so I'd have to blank it after using my drop and a sheep), I'm out. Even though my knowledge base is more limited than many here, I assume I'm not the only one.

What he said. Goes for me as well.

Me too. When it's supposed to appeal to a broad group but people have trouble coming up with enough answers, it's probably too hard.

There are also subject-specific TDs that are easy for people who know that subject but probably too hard for others. I think those are fine, as long as you are willing to accept a smaller number of entrants. If you opt for one of these, it's probably a good idea to pick something with a reasonably big fan base, like soccer, the Beatles, or Downton Abbey (which I think would make a terrific niche TD, btw).

Gee, I was going to write a TD expanding upon Learned League questions with less than a 10% get rate. D'ya think that might be too narrow and/or hard?

[RandyG]

For now, I've renamed the TD sticky post at the top of the board as "TD Queue, Hosting Tips & Archive" and included a link to this thread, which in turn links to a previous thread discussing TD guidelines.

[RandyG]

I added this Intro section to the sticky post:

TD INTRO
TD, short for "Think Different," is a series of user-created trivia quizzes. Each is an independent quiz, with rotating writers/hosts. The specific rules may vary somewhat from quiz to quiz, though the overall concept is the same.

Quizzes typically have 10 to 15 questions, each having multiple correct answers. For example: Name one of the twelve gifts and the number given in the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas." You might answer "12 drummers drumming" (correct) or "8 ladies dancing" (incorrect.) The goal is to guess a correct answer that the fewest other participants also guessed, i.e., to "think different"!

On each question, you typically get one point for each player who guessed the same correct answer as you. When you're the only player with a particular correct answer, that's referred to as a "singleton," while the most common correct answer is known as the "sheep," as sheep tend to flock together. There's an additional penalty for guessing an incorrect answer. Hosts usually offer a lifeline or two to use on questions that you have trouble with. Since you want to match as few others as possible, the lowest net score over the entire quiz wins.

Everyone is welcome to participate, even if you're new to the board. There's no connection to Jeopardy!, so you can play even if you're not a regular J! watcher or active JBoard participant. Once you get a feel for the quizzes, you're also welcome to write and host your own by signing up for a spot in the TD Queue (see below for the queue and hosting tips.)

Once the questions have been posted -- generally each Monday -- there is typically a one-week window for participants to submit responses to the host either via private message (PM) or Google form. Each quiz may have different rules and different scoring systems, though, so always read the rules carefully. Also -- does this even need to be said? -- be sure to always RTFQ (you can look that one up!) Note for newbies: you need to post somewhere on the board at least 3 times to enable your private messaging privileges.

[JonathanHenke]

I added this Intro section to the sticky post: ....

THANK YOU! That's great! Very helpful!