HQ Trivia

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seaborgium
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by seaborgium »

bigblue999 wrote: Thu Apr 12, 2018 10:41 pm
People were also melting down over this one:
Which candy company's name was formed from its founder's name and home city?
Hershey | Haribo | Necco
Spoiler
181 of 1,610 answerers said Hershey (it was Haribo, and there was a cascade of people in the chat insisting that Hershey, Pennsylvania, existed, which of course wasn't the question.
I actually thought it was Hershey too (I did a presentation on him in college) then I remembered that Hershey is a community, not a city.
Never mind that the place is named for the founder and the company.
seaborgium
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by seaborgium »

I like seeing how the HQ writing tries to screw up bots. Usually they have tacit, necessary layers of knowledge between the question and the answers. Today there was a good example of this: "The world's largest living single-stem tree is named for a soldier who fought where?" with Battle of Shiloh, Battle of Bunker Hill, and Battle of the Bulge as choices. So you have to synthesize knowledge of the tree with knowledge of wars by battle to get that right, which you may not get with a single Google search. There are pages saying the name of the tree, and there are pages saying what battles the person fought in, but there may not be any page connecting the tree to the battle.

But there have been other interesting stratagems by the writers this week. Here's one from Tuesday evening:
During World War I, what dog breed was widely renamed "liberty hound" in the US?
Golden Retriever | English Mastiff | Wiener dog
Spoiler
The results on this question surprised me, with over 150,000 getting out and some 36,000 answering correctly with wiener dog. I think that by using another alternative name for the dachshund, they threw the bots off the trail.
And from yesterday's big game:
Which of these describes the symbol for "NOT" in American Sign Language?
Crossed forearms | Index finger to nose | Thumb under chin
Spoiler
This one wasn't as bad as the other one, losing 71,000 and keeping 41,000, but a question about something that is more likely to be explained on the internet through images rather than text is going to be tough for text-based applications. More devious than that, though, is the choice of ASL word; one of the HQ bot creators explained that he programmed it to recognize the word "NOT" as a cue to reverse the rankings of the answer choices.
Between HQ and its two knockoffs I use, I only see HQ regularly trying to make bot-stumping questions. I frequently see questions in The Q where I think, "This is a human-impossible and bot-easy question." (And then over 90% of the remaining players get it right.)
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Woof
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by Woof »

Yeah, the question that convinced me of the prevalence of bots was one recently (in Cash Show IIRC) that asked how many provinces are there in Somalia. When something like 80% of the answers were the correct one of 18, I said to my son that a lot of bots were in the game as I couldn’t imagine many people who hadn’t served there in the military knowing that factoid.
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acthomas
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by acthomas »

seaborgium wrote: Fri Apr 13, 2018 12:43 am I like seeing how the HQ writing tries to screw up bots. Usually they have tacit, necessary layers of knowledge between the question and the answers. Today there was a good example of this: "The world's largest living single-stem tree is named for a soldier who fought where?" with Battle of Shiloh, Battle of Bunker Hill, and Battle of the Bulge as choices. So you have to synthesize knowledge of the tree with knowledge of wars by battle to get that right, which you may not get with a single Google search. There are pages saying the name of the tree, and there are pages saying what battles the person fought in, but there may not be any page connecting the tree to the battle.

But there have been other interesting stratagems by the writers this week. Here's one from Tuesday evening:
During World War I, what dog breed was widely renamed "liberty hound" in the US?
Golden Retriever | English Mastiff | Wiener dog
Spoiler
The results on this question surprised me, with over 150,000 getting out and some 36,000 answering correctly with wiener dog. I think that by using another alternative name for the dachshund, they threw the bots off the trail.
And from yesterday's big game:
Which of these describes the symbol for "NOT" in American Sign Language?
Crossed forearms | Index finger to nose | Thumb under chin
Spoiler
This one wasn't as bad as the other one, losing 71,000 and keeping 41,000, but a question about something that is more likely to be explained on the internet through images rather than text is going to be tough for text-based applications. More devious than that, though, is the choice of ASL word; one of the HQ bot creators explained that he programmed it to recognize the word "NOT" as a cue to reverse the rankings of the answer choices.
Between HQ and its two knockoffs I use, I only see HQ regularly trying to make bot-stumping questions. I frequently see questions in The Q where I think, "This is a human-impossible and bot-easy question." (And then over 90% of the remaining players get it right.)
I started blogging and tweeting a little bit about beating the bots on a new account a little while ago (@VoigtKampffQuiz, if you're interested) looking for cases like this, trying to classify questions according to the ways they can help beat the bots.

The project has stalled not only because I'm busy, but because I don't have the patience for the clearly-corrupt non-HQ games, and that HQ has been indeed getting really good at writing these, especially for the big games like this one.

Interestingly, as many of you would expect, the best way forward is with a bot-human hybrid doing sensible Googling and providing quick context. Googling the clue text alone will get you the ASL for "NOT" if you can see it on your screen, and the computer can do that part of it faster.
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boson
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by boson »

acthomas wrote: Fri Apr 13, 2018 1:12 pm
seaborgium wrote: Fri Apr 13, 2018 12:43 am I like seeing how the HQ writing tries to screw up bots. Usually they have tacit, necessary layers of knowledge between the question and the answers. Today there was a good example of this: "The world's largest living single-stem tree is named for a soldier who fought where?" with Battle of Shiloh, Battle of Bunker Hill, and Battle of the Bulge as choices. So you have to synthesize knowledge of the tree with knowledge of wars by battle to get that right, which you may not get with a single Google search. There are pages saying the name of the tree, and there are pages saying what battles the person fought in, but there may not be any page connecting the tree to the battle.

But there have been other interesting stratagems by the writers this week. Here's one from Tuesday evening:
During World War I, what dog breed was widely renamed "liberty hound" in the US?
Golden Retriever | English Mastiff | Wiener dog
Spoiler
The results on this question surprised me, with over 150,000 getting out and some 36,000 answering correctly with wiener dog. I think that by using another alternative name for the dachshund, they threw the bots off the trail.
And from yesterday's big game:
Which of these describes the symbol for "NOT" in American Sign Language?
Crossed forearms | Index finger to nose | Thumb under chin
Spoiler
This one wasn't as bad as the other one, losing 71,000 and keeping 41,000, but a question about something that is more likely to be explained on the internet through images rather than text is going to be tough for text-based applications. More devious than that, though, is the choice of ASL word; one of the HQ bot creators explained that he programmed it to recognize the word "NOT" as a cue to reverse the rankings of the answer choices.
Between HQ and its two knockoffs I use, I only see HQ regularly trying to make bot-stumping questions. I frequently see questions in The Q where I think, "This is a human-impossible and bot-easy question." (And then over 90% of the remaining players get it right.)
I started blogging and tweeting a little bit about beating the bots on a new account a little while ago (@VoigtKampffQuiz, if you're interested) looking for cases like this, trying to classify questions according to the ways they can help beat the bots.

The project has stalled not only because I'm busy, but because I don't have the patience for the clearly-corrupt non-HQ games, and that HQ has been indeed getting really good at writing these, especially for the big games like this one.

Interestingly, as many of you would expect, the best way forward is with a bot-human hybrid doing sensible Googling and providing quick context. Googling the clue text alone will get you the ASL for "NOT" if you can see it on your screen, and the computer can do that part of it faster.
Thanks for this acthomas. I agree with your suggestions: that un-google-able questions are the only way to beat the bots. However, they shouldn't have to have a leap in difficulty for the initial questions or they'll lose their real-person audience. I quit one of the clones last week when 80% of the "people" remaining got an obscure factoid question.

The apps need to remember that we - the eyes and thumbs that play the game - are the product they are providing to investors and potential advertisers. We can shut these apps down by not playing the games if they are corrupt. HQ can deliver 2+ million people to help promote the Rampage movie only if people believe they have a shot at winning. We need to call out cheaters publicly and quit games when it is obvious.

(ps. I'm a hockey fan and started learning about analytics recently. Weird to see you here/LL and also on various blogs/tweets/web pages. Enjoy the playoffs! My Sens aren't...)
seaborgium
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by seaborgium »

I've just found out that one of the people on the leaderboard who has exceeded J! semifinalist money was himself a J! semifinalist, in the College Championship in 2009. Scott Menke is #18* on the all-time leaderboard with $12,300 (and 13 cents). He's the lowest among those with five-digit earnings, but highest among those who have never gotten a five-digit prize (he was one of the six who each got $8,333 on Oscar night, and one of the 83 who each got $3,614 a week and a half ago when Dwayne Johnson co-hosted to promote Rampage).

*Ahead of him are the four people who split $100,000 in a Nike-sponsored game last month, the guy who won $25,000 in the first "winner-take-all" game, and the 12 people who split $250,000 in the Ready Player One promotion. (No sign on the leaderboard of the player who won the third winner-take-all game for $50,000, and someone else has that username now. I assume the HQ PTB vacated his win after the fact, which is why they had a $75,000 game the following week.)
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Re: HQ Trivia

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teapot37
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by teapot37 »

HQ has implemented a friends list. There is a small icon in the upper left of the home screen. You can swipe left during the game and it will tell you if your friends are still in.

If anyone wants to add me, my name there is the same as here.
Not many people can say they've lost four times on Jeopardy!.
seaborgium
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by seaborgium »

A notification of a friend getting eliminated also appears in the chat, but it scrolls by pretty quick; most of the time I only see it well after the fact, when I look back through the screenshots that I take of each question's results.
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by Ironhorse »

I usually close out the chat, though last night it was funny seeing hordes of people complain that Los Angeles must be further west than Reno.
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by Ironhorse »

teapot37 wrote: Sun Apr 22, 2018 3:00 pm HQ has implemented a friends list. There is a small icon in the upper left of the home screen. You can swipe left during the game and it will tell you if your friends are still in.

If anyone wants to add me, my name there is the same as here.
Stupid question, but where do you add somebody on there?

I'm Ironhorse2 if anybody wants to add me.
seaborgium
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by seaborgium »

Ironhorse wrote: Sun Apr 22, 2018 6:52 pm
teapot37 wrote: Sun Apr 22, 2018 3:00 pm HQ has implemented a friends list. There is a small icon in the upper left of the home screen. You can swipe left during the game and it will tell you if your friends are still in.

If anyone wants to add me, my name there is the same as here.
Stupid question, but where do you add somebody on there?

I'm Ironhorse2 if anybody wants to add me.
Go into the "lobby" (the home screen of the app, the main window that stays up when there's not a game going on) and click the person icon with the plus sign in the top left corner. Then you can search by username.
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by Ironhorse »

Strange, for me, there's nothing in the upper left corner of the screen. Oh well.
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boson
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by boson »

Ironhorse wrote: Sun Apr 22, 2018 7:25 pm Strange, for me, there's nothing in the upper left corner of the screen. Oh well.
Me neither - and I just updated my Android app. Maybe just for Iphone?
teapot37
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by teapot37 »

According to this: https://www.popsugar.com/news/How-Conne ... a-44754014 , it was rolled out on April 17. Although the article doesn't mention a difference for Android, I do note that all the screenshots showing the friends function are of iPhones.
Not many people can say they've lost four times on Jeopardy!.
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badgerfellow
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by badgerfellow »

So...drinks on dhkendall tonight?? Congrats!
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plasticene
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by plasticene »

OMG! Great job, dhkendall!
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by Bamaman »

badgerfellow wrote: Sun Apr 29, 2018 9:17 pm So...drinks on dhkendall tonight?? Congrats!
That late flag question helped. Congrats!!!
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TheyCallMeMrKid
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by TheyCallMeMrKid »

Joining in the chorus of congratulations, dhkendall!
Sheepin' it real.
teapot37
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Re: HQ Trivia

Post by teapot37 »

Nice job!
Not many people can say they've lost four times on Jeopardy!.
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