Article by Arul Mani

Arul Mani of Karnataka Quizzing Association has a very nice article on quizzing in general and his personal experiences. Do read and share.

Why we don't do questions on this blog

A quiz blog that doesn't purvey questions may seem like the story in a Monica Bellucci film: unnecessary. But then quizzing isn't all about the questions, or so we think. There are a number of (good) blogs that provide a regular dose of questions for trivia-vores, but we are not like them. This wasn't a conscious choice to differentiate ourselves from the rest, but truly a reflection of those who run this blog. A few reasons:
1. With Occam's razor held to our throat, we may confess that the simplest reason is laziness. Typing out questions and posting them regularly demands effort, attention, and diligence, which are qualities that automatically disqualify us.
2. We are quizzing geeks and prefer little else to making inane chatter on the peculiar sub-culture of quizzing. Most of this has had a negative contribution to the intellectual progress of mankind, but we're too busy to notice.
3. We are perhaps the first, and (almost) uniquely so, to take our post-quiz tête-à-têtes online. You will see feverish discussions, nay reviews, about quizzes we attend. We think this helps our understanding of this sport that we enjoy so much.
4. A quiz is not a mere summation of its questions, but something that is a mix of the quiz-setter's choices and compositional skills, a function of its teams' abilities and personalities, and the context of its setting. You can't quite tell how a quiz was, just from its questions. As if it is possible to reconstruct an innings by a sequence of runs scored. A quiz is a complex creature, and no quizzer's experience of it is similar to another's. This may sound an overdone examination of a simple hobby, but then you don't have to buy into this.
5. Given our size and history, we have been inclined towards experimentation in formats, presentation, and questions, as well as possessing an unreasonable amount of enthusiasm in writing about views about our infatuation with the sport. Which is why there are essays on formats, on setting quizzes, on analyses, and dil-dehlaadene-waalaa angst.
This post came about because I saw a comment on an earlier post impatiently asking for questions to that quiz. Sorry, you're quite unlikely to get a list of questions for your favourite < insert high paying quiz name> quiz here. You will have better chances elsewhere. So why bother reading this blog? We didn't say you had to bother. Even some of us don't.

BCQC – December 2008 newsletter

BCQC – December 2008 newsletter

After his first Grand Slam victory, asked if he was 6"3' tall, his mother replied he was 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4. Name this Olympic champion.

Happy New Year, or like some of us like to call it, Happy Great Gregorian Calendar Convention Conspiracy.

A cold December saw subdued activity at the BC, but there are a couple of things to mention. Here goes.

Quizzes

1. IIT Bombay's Mood Indigo (20-23 Dec) Some of the BCQC College quizzers took part in several quizzes at Mood-I 2008. Most notably, they won both the General Quiz (Aditya Gadre & Suvajit Chakraborty) as well as the Sports Quiz (Aditya Gadre again, this time with Aniket Khasgiwale).

2. BC “Requiem for a Theme” Business Quiz Suvajit conducted the Business Theme quiz as part of "Requiem for a Theme". A tough elims and a somewhat undercooked final resulted from it. The next set of themes are likely to be on English music, History, and Geography, depending on availability of quizmasters.

3. BC Quizzes
BC quizzes were conducted by Suraj Menon, Yash Tamaskar, Aditya Gadre, with contributions from others.

Upcoming Quizzes in January

1. BC Infest 2009 – Jan 4th: Quizzes on Religion, Science and Philosophy (Ganesh Hegde), Comics and Cartoons (Yasho), and General (Aditya). Details here.

2. SIIB Clairvoyance 2009 – Jan 10-11th: As part of Ignisense 09, the Symbiosis Institute of International Business is organizing a business quiz for B-School students and to be conducted by Dhananjay Shettigar. Two member teams from the same college. See their website for details.

3. VIT’s Quiz-o-Mania – Jan 30th: VIT’s Annual General Open Quiz. Watch this link for details. Previous quiz reports here.

4. The next BCQC Open Quiz is likely to be held on the 1st of Feb. Please let us know if there are other quizzes/exams scheduled around that time.

I've started so I'll finish

* Questions from the making of Balls, Ballots, Bollywood are now available. Read this to know how to get them.

* The next edition of the Pune Landmark Quiz is scheduled for the 21st of February. We’ll keep this post updated as details emerge.

* The Odyssey Quiz, one of the biggest open quizzes in India, was scheduled to be held on the 26th of Jan in Chennai. The event has been cancelled.

* The industrious Rohit Nair has a bigger list of upcoming quizzes from around India.

* If you are organizing a quiz and want to let people know about it, write into us ("contact"-at-"bcqc.org") with the salient details and we'll put it up on our website.

* We love to hear comments about quizzes, especially those that we do. Use the comments sections on our blog posts to do so, or write to us.

Happy third day of January to everyone!

Answer to Oblig Question: Boris Becker (after his 1st Wimbledon; he won the Olympic doubles gold with Michael Stich in 1992)

Previous BCQC newsletters here.

BCQC - October and November 2008 newsletter

Oblig Question: (1637, Original) French: "Je pense, donc je suis"; Latin: ?

A round up of the last two months of BCQC quizzing. October saw several quizzes, including a BCQC Open Quizzing Day, while November was very, very quiet thanks to a lot of people having to answer more boring questions in exams and such-like.

Quizzes

1. Oct 02 – Oct 04: Mindspark

Mindspark is the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP)'s annual science and technology college fest. Three quizzes, set and conducted by COEP quizzers, were held as part of this, its 2^nd edition.

a. Chakravyuuh: The 9^th edition of Chakravyuuh was held on the 2^nd of Oct. This, an open general quiz, is COEP biggest quiz of the year. Read this report for results.

b. Torquest: This is a Science and Technology quiz only for college students which was won by Abhishek and Raghav. A summary of results here.

c. Barqing Mad!: The report of this open Entertainment quiz can be read here.

2. Oct 12: BCQC Open Quizzing Day

Every two months or so, the BCQC organizes two open quizzes in a formal setting. The morning quiz is usually based on a theme, or is specifically for schools or colleges, or is simply just unconventional. The afternoon quiz is an open General quiz. A list of all these BCQC Open quizzes is available here on our website.

As part of this series, two quizzes were conducted in October.

a. Balls, Ballots, Bollywood: This was an India quiz on politics, cricket, and Hindi films, conducted by J. Ramanand. A full report and analysis can be read here. The quiz-creator assures that the questions will be made available before the year is done! :-)

b. BCQC October General Quiz: A report of this quiz conducted by Apurva and Akhil can be read at this link.

BC Quizzes

We had fewer BC quiz sessions in the last couple of months and no theme quizzes as part of "Requiem for a Theme". Expect this to change in December. BC sessions are informal quizzes in an unusual setting - by the riverside at COEP.

Upcoming Quizzes

The plans for December consist of one or two theme quizzes as part of BC sessions. These will be announced on our mailing lists. December also will see one of India's biggest college events, IIT Bombay's Mood Indigo (20-23 Dec). The website suggests there are a couple of mainstream quizzes (General, Sports) and some fancier ones (Food and Beverages, Travel and Places, and 3 short Lit quizzes).

I've started so I'll finish

* The BCQC was covered by the Times of India. The article can be read online here. Do not, I repeat "do not", take the utterances contained within too seriously. We quiz, we joke.

Incidentally, this story involves what we call a "fox paws". Members of the BCQC were interviewed back in August for this story. A story featuring our photos appeared the next week in this article, with only one tiny problem: the featured group was one with the noble aim of raising voter awareness among Indians. Some of our friends inquired if the BCQC had finally got around to doing something constructive with their time, but we're happy to reassure you that's not quite the case. We do urge you to participate in the electoral process, but if you just want to quiz, that's fine by us too. It's a democracy, after all.

* Curious to know how a quiz is put together? You might be interested in reading about the making of Balls, Ballots, Bollywood (parts one and two).

* If you are in Bombay and looking for quizzing succour, drop by our friends at the Bombay Quiz Club.

* If you are organizing a quiz and want to let people know about it, write into us ("contact"-at-"bcqc.org") with the salient details and we'll put it up on our website.

* We love to hear comments about quizzes, especially those that we do. Use the comments sections on our blog posts to do so

See you at the next quiz!

Answer to Oblig Question: Cogito, Ergo Sum ("I think, therefore I am":: Rene Descartes)

Faux Pass

So this is not uncommon. Yasho (that Hashmi-like molester of unsuspecting horses) speaks ruefully of being led by years of quizzing which gives you that immensely dangerous tendency to make wild stabs at questions en passant, Don Quixote style.

(He also mentions that story of Salil saying"pass" in an exam.)

I had the same experience once. Fresh from losing COEP's annual Chakravyuuh (the first of our four glorious bridesmaid trophies there), I found myself at one of the few competitive exams I have ever had to take. Having felt that I was overly cautious at that quiz (leading to our loss), I went in, tilting at the windmills, like Shahid Afridi chasing a half-volley to the ends of the earth.

It ended badly. Very badly. The fact that I now quote "quizzing-as-philosophy" amply illustrates that.

Ganesh, former BC regular, reopens his blog with a post on quizzing.

Why there are so many chestnuts in quizzes

Look at any of our reports, and chances are that you will find a few complaints about "chestnuts". Since this is a quiz blog, a question before we proceed:

In “The Broken Sword”, a forgotten melodrama by William Dimond (1816), one of the characters, Captain Xavier, is forever telling the same jokes, over and over, with slight variations.

As he repeats a certain joke involving a tree, this time making it about a cork tree, Xavier is corrected by his companion Pablo, who says, “A ---. I have heard you tell the joke twenty-seven times, and I am sure it was a ---.”

What?

Question from Amnesia 2006

BTW, apart from being the answer, the above question itself has become somewhat of a 'chestnut', i.e. an oft repeated question. Since most people think of chestnuts as nice questions that simply show up from time to time, let us also expand the scope to ordinary "repeats", which true to their name, have a nasty habit of showing up at the very next quiz.

1. Roach quizzers
Like international cricketers, the average age of local quizzers has gone up considerably. Earlier, most participants would be in college and once released into the real world, the concerns of a livelihood would ensure their graceful withdrawal from the scene. However, these days, quizzers keep coming back for more, and some are into their 2nd or 3rd decade (of quizzing). This means that many participants are very experienced and have accumulated quite a bit of memory trash. Most complaints of repeats would emanate from this lot. They are not dinosaurs as they can still be fleet-flooted and also possess a sharp set of teeth, and can make life tough for the newbie quizmaster.

2. Newly evolving quiz-setters
On the other hand, the number of first-time quiz-setters remains steady, which means that the number of people discovering a chestnut for the first-time remains constant. It reminds me of the first time I did a quiz at the BC. Scarcely had I uttered 3 words that people gave out the answer, and to rub it in, they also predicted the rest of the question and told me exactly what was wrong with it. Just a routine matter of history repeating itself. There's an easy way of getting around it (which is what I did): attend as many quizzes as you can, especially when you're young and willing to expose yourself to the rubbish that passes for many quizzes, and you will learn what to pick and what to leave behind in the shell. Unfortunately, it has been my observation that not enough quiz-setters do this. It is fine if you aren't crazy enough to want to travel to Tristan da Cunha for a quiz, but it may expose you to the risk of repeating questions when in your audience is the crack team of "Tryst of the Cunhas".

3. Too many open quizzes
Allied to problem 1. Open quizzes leave the door open for ancient riff-raff to hobble through. In Pune, most decent quizzes tend to be open quizzes, which is nice for the avid quizzer who no longer commands a frayed identity card, but can be difficult for newbie quiz-setters who just don't have the range or experience to keep these geriatrics at bay. Most open quizzes, locally, started off life as college quizzes and evolved into opens since quizzers wanted to keep coming back and also because quiz-setters do want to have these so-called "good quizzers" attempting their quizzes. This can be a mixed bag.

4. Laziness
Admit it: when it's 4 am in the morning and you have just 5 hours left (assuming sleep is an optional accessory) before your quiz begins, what do you do? You filch. Or else, you scrape wikipedia. With the former, seeing why repeats happen doesn't require borrowing neurons from Holmes. With the latter, I think the chances that you will search for something about which you are are already aware of is pretty high, unless you really get lucky with Random Page. You end up on something interesting which a few millions (ok, tens) of people have just heard last weekend. The solution is simple: finish setting your quiz well in advance and don't treat it like any average academic assignment.

5. Just don't have the range of interests
Similar to 4, but more pardonable. Many quizzers, especially in a given circle, share very similar tendencies, either by virtue of being quizzing-oriented or by picking up and sharing interests. As a result, their questions tend to swim in the same part of the ocean, leading to a lot of inbreeding (sometimes leading to the birth of freak connects!) As a result, their quizzes are liable to stagnate in repeats or variants there of. Breaking out is not easy and may require a conscious effort to genuinely broaden one's horizons, while deepening one's knowledge of familiar ponds.

6. Culture and geography
Over a period of time, certain quizzing circles become fond of certain subjects. People from outside these circles may not, therefore, share the depth of common knowledge that ages into chestnuts, and could therefore unsuspectingly inflict a repeat. This is hard to avoid and unless you can visit quizzes in other lands, or at least get hold of those questions, there isn't much to cover your rear here.

7. Weak sources
If you set a lot of questions from current affairs or use similar sources to others, you're setting yourself up for deja vu. It's easy to see why. Like in 5, go find other things to ask, different avenues to pursue, newer aspects to explore. New and interesting pieces of trivia are born each week, but I've seen some people waste them by asking them too early. I tend to hang on to these, and try asking them when they've aged a bit and started to sidle out of people's heads. I've noticed that the older it is before people discover them, the more interesting it seems to get - because that piece of trivia has been out fanning itself in the sun under everyone's noses, you may provoke that rare expression of joy: "darn, I didn't know this about that!"

8. Not enough creativity
It is possible to ask a known piece of trivia if you can be a little more clever with how you "remix" it. There are many possibilities: connects and visual forms, to name a couple.

9. Sheer bad luck
Almost every quiz-setter who has been hugging an interesting question close in anticipation of asking it next week has felt the deflating emotion of seeing the question show up today. One even groans unfairly: I could have done it better. This happens all the time and sometimes there just isn't an explanation. It's like all those scientists who wait a thousand years before figuring out a new theory within minutes of each other and spend the next millennia squabbling over credit. The worst case that I have known was when we had a BC session a couple of hours before Niranjan's Mensa quiz in 1999. About two or three questions from that session showed up in the finals to everyone's (perhaps apart from the quizmaster's) amusement.

The same happens when people feel that the questions seem to suspiciously emanate from a source. Even if there isn't a conscious effort to filch, perhaps the source for both was the same. If indeed there is no smoke without fire, don't worry about this one.

In summary, without repeating myself, repeats will happen. A fundamental trait of quizzers is that they also tend to be cribbers. The cribbers, especially experienced ones, could probably show some leniency if some of the reasons are traced to pardonable offences. The quiz-setters could, in turn, take every possible pain to avoid the common pitfalls listed above if they are really serious about avoiding repeats. I hate going to quizzes where most of the quiz is reincarnated, for one does not get anything out of that experience. Furthermore, it turns the outcome into a lottery, depending on which team gets a chestnut to swat away directly. I strongly feel that several open quizzes, especially those done by colleges, should not be "open" to all - less experienced college quiz-setters should joust with their counterparts instead of having to contend with the more experienced. One could argue that the better quizzers do come out stronger but I think it also affects the development of others, including the sometimes scalded quiz-setter. But I don't see it changing any soon. So if your quiz is open, then be prepared to be measured on the same scale as other open quizzes.

(Written with not-so fond memories of the COEP first year workshop, where the threat of the nightmarish "repitt" cast a pall over the semesters. Also, I have also surely indulged in the kind of 'cribbage' criticised above.)

Making quizzes popular

We at the BC are constantly asking questions: what makes quizzes good, what made a *good* quiz good, why do we quiz, why don't more people in Pune quiz, and what can we do to help spread the fun and cheer that we get out of this sport.

One such introspection provoked this post by Salil, which received a lot of feedback. A discussion amongst some of us much later also elicited a lot of comments. Salil has put together some of the key extracts of the later discussion (featured below; read the link above for the original set of comments). As you may know, we organise open quizzes once in every two months and we'd like to know what you think of the content in our quizzes, whether you find the quizzes interesting, and what you look for in quizzes. General suggestions welcome too.

---

Following are from a thread of discussion on attracting more people for our formal quizzes and making them more popular.

Shamanth:

If I were a first time quizzer, I'd expect to be able to answer a few questions, and at least be able to relate to most of the others. Now, judging from the low scores of first time teams in BC quizzes past and present, I'm afraid not too much of that is happening.

If we want people to come back for our quizzes, we'll need to make the quizzes more answerable. Now, I've set aam-junta quizzes – quizzes for first timers a couple of times – and I'm clear that to set a quiz that everyone can enjoy, answer and relate to, does NOT necessarily involve dumbing down of questions – you do NOT have to ask 'how many sisters-in-law does Mrs Agarwal have in KKKKusum?'. You can ask a question about KKKusum/Himesh/pop-culture and still keep it workable. That would be something a KKusum/Himesh fan would appreciate the same way that BC regulars would applaud a involved-literature/history/60s-movie question.

To reach out to a first timer AND pique his interest, we need put in questions that aren't obvious, aren't direct, but are in the area of his interests, and are such that he can figure the answers out very easily, so he at least stays back for the finals, and comes back to the next quiz.

We need to look at who we are setting questions for. What I'd suggest is to have(in the prelims), say, 20 questions targeted at regular BC quizzers, and say 15 at newcomers – the latter comprising of nice, easily workable, non-factual questions on topics that would still interest a non-quizzer – say cricket, Indian history, politics, current affairs, non-intricate business. I know our quizzes comprise questions on these topics already, but most questions aren't easy enough for a first timer.

Yes, there're going to be voices that we're pandering to aam-junta, that we'll become populist, and that we don't need to give 'grace marks'. But hey, quizzing is a two way activity – like I said, we always need to keep in mind who we are setting the quizzes for. And besides, we aren't altering our style of quizzing, we're still staying true to our essence, which is to ask workable questions and stay away from factual recollection based questions.

We need to convey to people why we enjoy quizzing, and for the same reason we think they will enjoy quizzing too. Yes, we can merely say let-them-come-if-they-are-interested, but they simply wont show up if they cant make head or tail of the first quiz they go – I myself remember being almost put off while watching a greek-and-norse-myth filled quiz back in my first year of college.

Besides, 'elitism' is overrated – a lot of the times, all it entails is recollection of a petered funda, that we simply happen to know because we've been quizzing for a long time. First timers who are well read, but simply haven't quizzed before wouldn't do particularly well in a lot of our quizzes, simply because they aren't in touch with our quizzing repertoire.

In the comparison with Bangalore-Chennai we could look at the Landmark-Odyssey quizzes, that regularly see 500+ teams taking part(of 3 members). They've 40 question prelims, and at least 10 of those are the sort that everyone can answer. Finals of course are different, and comprise what we at the BC would call standard questions. However, finals still have some quantity of local/pop-culture questions that are tough to figure out, so the audience relates to it once the answer is out.

I don't know if you should call it a dumbing-down as much as a setting-questions-for-the-audience-you-cater-to.

Abhishek:

I agree with Shamanth.
[...]
A common question I ask is, has my mom heard about the answer while setting a newbie quiz - and that helps me remove some biases that are natural once one has quizzed for a long time.

Shamanth:

Yes - this is a nice way of looking at it. It's a very good criteria for picking newbie questions. Perhaps, in addition to this - 'Would my mom be able to answer this question? If not immediately, at least after some prompting and clue-dropping?' would do well.

Harish:

A thumb rule like this can and should be applied to all questions and not just the newbie questions.
Any quiz which does not cater to the lowest common denominator of the audience is not a good quiz. And this has nothing to do with dumbness etc. There are so many Qs in Niranjan's quiz which are in the so called areas of specialities of so many of our 'recognized' quizzers...you can check how many were actually cracked by those guys.
[...]
Having only seamless rounds with infinite rebounds, while being fair to quizzers on stage is not very audience friendly - it is drab. Rounds like the Chakravyuh round or buzzers or negatives make it interesting. I know it is difficult for such suggestions to pass through the standard format of our quizzes.

Siddharth Dani:

One of the toughest things to do is to try and convince a non-quizzer that he would prolly enjoy going to a quiz because he will prolly increase his knowledge of topics he may not have too much knowledge about or that he will get an ego boost by seeing that he really can answer a few "up his alley questions" or just happen to pick up a nice goodie or some cash. (The goodie/cash thing does work sometimes).

Shamanth:

[I]n Landmark/Odyssey, you do not have 500(or even 300) teams of quizzers. Of these 400-500 teams, only 40-50 will have quizzed with some amount of regularity - most of the teams are family teams - parents and a kid or dad and two kids types.

They just come because they think it's a nice way to spend a weekend afternoon. Now that impression is inculcated simply because Landmark used to put publicity(and majorly) in schools and colleges. Also, people like it because it always has questions that they could answer and get a few right, and win audience prizes - there's lots of audience prizes in it. Besides, there're prizes like best team name and best school team prizes, so hajaar junta show up.

It clicked because they put in enormous publicity the first time, and made a lovely quiz. The first edition, I'm told, did not see that huge a response. Because it was a brilliant quiz, people told friends, who showed up the next year and it grew.

Speaking for me personally, it was a major influence - to see that sort of crowds, and that number of people having fun, and finally being able to answer questions in my first attempt at quizzing drew me. My first Landmark quiz was in my first year when I hadnt done any sort of quizzing, when hostel junta who'd quizzed in school told me to try it and that it'd be fun. I was pretty overawed by the entire experience.

I dont see why that sort of thing cant be done here. Get crowds - make sure they enjoy themselves, and they'll not only come back, they'll bring friends along.

Kunal Thakar:

I am not very sure about this (above mentioned) approach of asking questions.

If we stick to asking questions where the answers are known, this is going to stagnate the quizzing scene for sure. There will be more depth but the questions will heavily favour the zeitgeist. Asking new trivia or venturing into new areas which aren't known to everyone isn't a bad thing.

Having said that, I do believe that we need to make our quizzes more audience friendly. IMO, the most popular quizzes I have seen in Pune have been conducted by [...] Derek, Pickbrain and Parnab. Whatever be said of their questions, it can't be denied that the audience loves the stupid humour, the excitement created by the jumping QM etc. Infact, Parnab quizzes are super arbit but they ensure good turnouts because of his excellent dramatic skills.

Sudarshan:

1. Question topics and wording:

I had feedback from a total newbie, non-techie person this time :
My wife. Though she's a cricket buff, her reaction to nearly all of the questions was that 'they simply go over one's head' because of the cryptic phrasing.
We need a few simply-worded, straightforward questions in both the elims and finals. They don't have to be easy to *answer*, just easy to *understand*.

One suggestion : Let's have two people organizing each open quiz. There are definitely enough people willing to do it. There'll be more questions to choose from, some amount of editing and reviewing, and some checks on questions that look simple to the creator but are verbose/abtruse.

2. Getting more people :

I second Shamanth's point about the massive publicity and word-of-mouth generating the crowds. Look at Crossword's so-called 'sale' which features a single shelf of books at 10% off - but look at the publicity they give it, and the people that go consequently. We need something to make new people know about BCQC.

3. Making quizzes more enjoyable overall :

- Make it a point to have questions with humorous answers/fundas, and more straightforward audio-visuals. Audience interest needn't be generated by jumping up and down or needling the participants - accessible humour, movies, and music are more longlasting ways.

- Abhishek, your flash template for quizzes is really good. Do you think you can add some bits of animation in there? Such as fades between questions, perhaps flashing numbers when the score changes, a special screen to dislpay scores ?

- Audience questions are definitely a good idea. Audience questions with straightforward A/V identifies are easy to do and are best to pull people in.

- Let's also think of different prizes for people rather than throwing normal chocolates at them. Keychains? 10-buck coupons for pepsi? Pens? Comic books? Think cute, fun, envy-inducing on a low budget.

Ramanand:

* Acc. to me, I'd like to help popularise quizzing as "a intellectually stimulating recreational sport". I don't know how many people are inclined towards something like this - re: the point that Dani makes. But in general, IMO, the most enthusiastic quizzers are "geeks", where geeks are defined as people who are passionate about something in great depth. It may be sports or films or music or books, but talk to them and soon they're spouting love-poems to their favourites. Some of my friends, non-quizzers, are in this category and I find them being fascinated by certain aspects of quizzing when I share questions with them. We need to at least attract and retain these. We also learn a lot from these people in turn.

* I feel we should "enable" everybody who wants to quiz or thinks they can quiz to participate. Our model of no fees, walk-ins etc. is perfect for this. But mere enabling is not sufficient as you have all pointed out. We will continue to tweak our "offerings" - hopefully, every change is designed to achieve something.

* I don't like the idea that we have to necessarily dangle carrots-on-steroids to get >100 teams. [D]o we really want all those ppl who come in only for prizes? Not IMHO. But we do want to make it a happy activity for those 80 coming for the content. We really want to be the pleasant domestic life of quizzing in these parts, not an annual one night stand. If we can also get to do the grand-nights-of-passion sometime, then fine - but I won't lose sleep over it.

* In addition to quizzes having some questions even for the (lowest common denominator), I feel the overall quiz should be pitched at the average participant, not at outwitting the (alleged) best participants.

* It should ideally have topics from a wide range AND the quiz host should be good at those topics - enough to be able to speak about the question and related context. This is hard to achieve. We know that many of us cannot claim wide-ranging interests. But we cannot get the few who seem to have wider ranges to do quizzes each time. So, if you want to be a good QM, then you have got to genuinely broaden your own horizons. Ensuring breadth by picking up questions from elsewhere won't help for long.

* Let's face it: we know exactly what certain QMs are likely to ask. And the QMs exacerbate this "incest" by hardly changing their pet themes over different quizzes. In fact, QMs must take pleasure in outwitting participants who think they know exactly how this pitch is going to behave.

* My personal subjective requirements from quizzes these days:
- breadth of topics (some familiar topics, some new that I can learn about)
-indulging pet themes of QMs fine, but only if the expectation from the quizzer is of fairly universal things to think about
- occasional reusability of old things - old wine in new and astonishing bottles
- workable, but not very esoterically so
- elims reflecting finals
- as far as possible, equidistance of topics to new and old quizzer alike - v. hard to achieve
- lack of sitters - but qm needs to be "aware" of recent quizzes
- Niranjan's idea of survivability of qn - a balance of clues to be given out and held back

* I'm not so concerned abt the number of people showing up increasing each time. [...] But we need to do the "retention" bit. I think colleges and schools should continue to be our highest priority for I feel that grown-ups have already now settled into some sort of recreational pattern and there's not that much of a dent possible unlike with the kids.

My suggestions:
* Give out trivia quizzes/trivia puzzles during the finals. Let audience guys look at that when they're bored. Perhaps the content can be related to the elims/finals questions. They can take it home, mail in answers, and we give prizes.
* What are your views on the Theme Attic thing? I think it's a mistake to get people to write down answers all together. Perhaps we should have ppl call out answers for each qn instead? Person doing it can pick the newbies first instead of oldhands, and give them chocs. Otherwise, ppl may snooze off.
* We should get more feedback from participants. Perhaps we should put up a feedback form on the website too.

* I've noticed ppl, especially kids, leave qns blank. Since guess-work is the framework of most of our successes, perhaps we should incentivise this somehow (look at me spout economics ;-)) - perhaps have -ves if no. of blanks exceeds 5. Yes, ppl will probably write nonsense, but perhaps some will be forced to think +vely

:: Salil

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