Well kids, it's been 10 months since we introduced the registration quiz, so I thought it was about time I looked at the statistics produced and see if they showed anything interesting.
The results for the number of times each question was answered wrongly are as follows:
1. You are having a problem getting SetAreaLightLevel, a script command, to work properly. Which forum should you post it in?
133 wrong answers
2. And how should you title the thread?
92 wrong answers
3. You are just starting out, and you have a technical question you feel is too simple to ask. What should you do?
105 wrong answers
4. You are looking for team members to work with you on your great new project... what should you do?
67 wrong answers
5. You want to ask for hints for an adventure game, such as Larry Vales. Where should you post the question?
124 wrong answers
6. You have just decided to start work on a new game, and you want to tell us all about it. What should you do?
232 wrong answers
7. You notice that your user title is "Newbie", but you're not a n00b! What do you do?
88 wrong answers
8. You notice that your user title has just changed from "Newbie" to "Member". What should you do?
29 wrong answers
9. Someone has posted a piece of artwork in the Critics' Lounge that you don't really like. How should you reply?
57 wrong answers
10. No-one has answered your post in the 2 hours since you posted it. Should you:
14 wrong answers
11. Someone replied to your question, but they didn't quite give the answer you were looking for. Should you:
15 wrong answers
12. Quake and Counter-Strike are adventure games.
33 wrong answers
13. You feel the need to reply to a thread, but you don't really have anything to contribute - what should you do?
65 wrong answers
So really, my question is, for the questions that a lot of people appear to be getting wrong, do we need to rephrase them or somehow make it clearer what the point of the question is?
Input from newbies who got these wrong the first time would be welcomed here.
Also, any opinions on whether any of the questions should be removed, or any new questions we need adding?
Instant bans for everyone that get 7 12 and 13 wrong.
I think the number of questions we have is fine.
As for rewording, keep in mind that the questions were meant to be a "test" to understand the rules of the forum.
If they don't understand the "test", they don't understand the rules.
Also, I think if you lurk here unregistered for a while, you tend to get all the information you need on the first go.
Perhaps, minor rewording might be needed to emphasise the right answer based on the rules.
I think that it's important that the questions require you to at least have lurked a little bit, and at least to have read the "IMPORTANT: READ BEFORE POSTING" threads. Otherwise, what's the point of having the test?
I think the questions are pretty straight forward for someone with common sense that hasn't even read the rules.
What percentage of questions do you need to get right to become a member? maybe something more along those lines (depending whether you want more or less members)
or possible pre-requisite questions
otherwise, the people getting those questions wrong shouldn't be here or where just trying to be a smartarse with their answer.
and *bingo* I think Timmy's hit upon one of the major problems. Smart Arses.. I'm guessing at least 1/2 the results are the byproduct of someone thinking, "Well... I just HAVE to put this.. it's just too amusing.. even if it only amuses myself in some simplistic/moronic way."
They made me think... but maybe different random questions, cause when it says you got 1 wrong you can press back and try all the answers till you get it right (if you that dum)
I got the one about the simple question wrong cause I rushed and didnt see the last answer... I put Beginer forum
I got one question wrong I can’t remember which one, but on the second attempt I got two wrong! DOH! the second time I rushed through it, the test is slightly intimidating having never done one before to join a forum, but it doesn’t stop the smart asses.
I’ve got to say some of the†read this first’s†are a bit long, and its easy to assume one applies to the whole forum, I personally have a nasty habit of reading what I need to know, which I admit has shown on a few occasions.
woodz
I had no questions wrong... So, people with wrong questions can enter in the community? What about netural selection, ban them! ;D
Well, just kidding, as my smiley shows. I think the questions were smart and work quite good in their task to show newbies that posting is serious, in some way... But the better way to learn what to post and what not to post it to test carefully what can the community accept and what not.
BTW, I encourage all to post their oppinions if they feel they´re going to be interesting or just funny, we won´t bit nobody (Well, maybe Helm will...)
I typed this really great and funny post that was going to win a pulitzer prize, hit the preview button...
and then I hit the back button... ::)
Anyway. I think it would be nice to put everyone's score under their name while they are still at "Newbie" status. Also, get rid of the going back and changing answers part. If you post a short blurb before the test starts about how the results will be posted under your title maybe some people will take it seriously.
All in all I really like the test and don't think it should be changed. Minus missing one or two questions I really wish there was a way to ban people but then we would be "Facists", right Chris? Perhaps a "try again in 24 hours" ban if they miss more than 50%?
eh,
-junc
Just to clear up how it works, you can only register if you get all the questions right.
Of course, people simply go back and try again until they do get them all right, but the idea is that if they get a question wrong they will think about why their answer was wrong.
The real aim of this is to make people think, not punish them.
But yes, I really hope the 33 people who got question 12 wrong were just trying to be funny, otherwise I think I give up on humanity right now ;)
lol, yeah, everyone knows CS and Quake are adventure games ;D
jking
Quake is a great adventure game.
Hey I'm not a n00b anymore!!!!
Zing!!!!!! ;D
HELLO!!! IS ANYBODY READING MY MESSAGE?????
I never took the qwiz!!!!!
Have it so that you can only register if you input your Name, and Location. When the user clicks next, it then checks to be sure that the name and location match up. If so, give the test. If they fail the test, "someone", will go over there, and kill them. If the name and location don't match up, they are banned.
I say we change it so instead of answering questions, they must complete... THE THREE TRIALS!
They must beat the Sword Master (Helm) at an insult contest.
They must steal a fabulous idol from Chris' house.
And they must dig the treasure of the AGS Forum (Hidden porn! Just leave enough for everyone! :) )
Maybe you should make it so that after tabulating their score, you say why the reasons were right or wrong, and what may be a consequence of not adhering to those set rules.
Of course, most people might be prone to ignore everything and take it until they get it right. So perhaps you should make it so that after they take the test, there is one or just a few last questions where the answer is given somewhere in the answers of the test. Like blue plus red is equal to 13. Something random, where if they chose not to read the text, they'll be forced to read it to register anyway.
If that doesn't work it's five page essays about sierra's point and click interface vs. the lucas arts verb coin.
-MillsJROSS
What about sending a very dangerous virus to teh ones failing all the questions?
kding...
Why are there still questions about titles like "Newbie" and "Memeber" since everyone is a member except CJ, Mittens and Moderators?
I got them all right, so you don't need to rephrase them.
I have an idea. A cunning idea, at that.
How about removing the entrance test, and let everybody register, but with the title "Beginner" or "Apprentice" or something. Then, at any time, he or she could take the "Big test" that will reward them with the title "Authorized user" or simply "Full member" or something whatever.
This test, of course, is much harder than the entrance test is at the moment. There could be at least thirty questions demanding both common sense, forum etiquette and some history knowledge.
This would of course just affect the member status, but I think that is enough incitament - people don't want to be taken for newbies forever.
Also, this authorization could be removed afterwards if the member kept behaving badly or doing inappropriate things.
I would gladly help designing such a test.
MMM... why we don´t make a jury (maybe Andail, M0ds, Helm, Aga, CJ...) that will set up the member status to somebody reaching X number of posts? For example... Farlander reaches 200 posts, and teh jury says... "mmm... we´ve seen your posts, and you´re not funny at all, and your very inmature!" And then, I´ll have to wait to another further trial.
That could be funny, because with a jury we could judge weird conflicts between members. It would be a step more that the moderators system we have here.
Surely part of the point of the forum quiz is to stop people from posting if ther'e just going to put adverts or loads of one-line posts saying "me too" or something. So I think the questions should stay. On the other hand, I think that anyone with over, say, 240 posts should be given the title of "Supreme Grand Poobah" instead of just "member".
Of course, this just encourages people to post silly messages to reach the target. Maybe one could rate posts like some BBs do and you have to have a number of good posts. Or you apply as Farlander says, to the clique of the elite modertors to have a particular title. But then, who cares about titles when you have your avatar, signature and whatever you call that bit of text under your avatar...
EDIT:
By the way, has anyone else noticed that the "hide" directive doesn't work on these forums in preview mode or in the "most recent 10 posts". This is a real shame, cause you can get spoiled...
I had a look at the past pages for the Gen Discussion forum and compiled some stats.
For example, the number of locked posts for each set of 10 pages:
1-10: 4
11 - 20: 8
21 - 30: 12
31 - 40: 12
40 - 50: 4
51 - 55: 3
As you can see it hit a high amount of locks, and now has fallen again.
However, the types of current locks appear more understandable, for example:
- One about a link for GK2 (Understandable, as there wasn't any piracy/abandonware rules).
- A second Matrix post (which I should have merged instead of locked, but didn't know about the merge command until later)
- Mitar's goodbye (A clearing-the-air post -- some things in that thread had to be said, I guess, but it's a shame that it has to end like it did)
- The LEC is no more/"fake yahtzee" causing probs thread (annoying, but handled well in the end)
From this, I think the maturity level has risen in the Gen Discussion forum.
I also think this is indicative of the forum entirely -- however, to get an accurate understanding you'd need to know the number of locks from all the other forums -- though, I'd guess they'd be similar.
And I also think more games are being developed (I'm only guessing this -- to find out, I'd need to measure the number of games released in the Announcement forum on a monthly basis).
This indicates to me that the questionaire works as something to subtly teach the rules of the forum.
This leads me to my opinion: the questionaire only needs emphasis that it is only something to teach, and not a deterant.
In other words, we need to be clear that we are not trying to shoo away 'n00bs', but at least trying to show them the system of respect that has been built around here and ask that they follow it.
And that's one of the key things this forum has been built upon: respect.
Perhaps just an additional message is needed for the questionaire -- something like "Note: This questionaire is not meant to block people from the forum, but to teach them how our system of respect works."
That's how I see the questionaire: An educational tool, instead of a security measure.
Quote from: SuperScottishHero on Mon 09/06/2003 15:07:58
I think that anyone with over, say, 240 posts should be given the title of "Supreme Grand Poobah" instead of just "member".
Of course, this just encourages people to post silly messages to reach the target.
That´s why I told that to win the title you must pass a trial.
I dunno.. I think more rules and stuff might discourage newbies from joining the forums. I know that we don't want a lot of crap posted here all the time, but must we be positively elitist?
Maybe if we just leave the questions.
As far as "rank" or whatnot, I think a moderator should be able to come up with a sufficient title for each. Something denoting how helpful someone is, what their specialty is or even just off-the-wall stuff.
but with helpfulness, we added the little icons to say that what they can help with.
I like Andail's idea, it's interesting.
But then, as SuperScottishHero says, the point of the test is to make registering a bit of extra effort, to put people off who might only register to spam the boards.
From experience, IMO ranks are more hassle than they're worth, and just keeping the 'Member' we have at the moment is fine.
But then, I would say that, cos I get my own :P
Quote
Perhaps just an additional message is needed for the questionaire -- something like "Note: This questionaire is not meant to block people from the forum, but to teach them how our system of respect works."
It does already sort of say that, but maybe it needs to be made clearer.
Anyway, from this thread I haven't seen anyone objecting to any specific questions on the quiz, so I'll leave it as is. However, I will remove the Newbie vs Member questions, since they aren't relevant these days.
Since the point is too make them think about their answers, you could make it so it doesnt tell them what one they got wrong....
That seems like a good idea to me.
Quote from: Farlander on Mon 09/06/2003 18:11:01
Quote from: SuperScottishHero on Mon 09/06/2003 15:07:58
I think that anyone with over, say, 240 posts should be given the title of "Supreme Grand Poobah" instead of just "member".
Of course, this just encourages people to post silly messages to reach the target.
That´s why I told that to win the title you must pass a trial.
I actually dont think that such a bad idea...prehaps if one is really dead set on cool little titles by their name, they can take an extra test, on prehaps difficult scripting questions, or what not, or something. maybe a dumb idea...maybe not.
Hmm yeah, interesting point. I'm not sure, that might just frustrate them into clicking random boxes all over the place until it works, which kinda defeats the point.
Anyway, I have now replaced the user rank questions 7 and 8 with two questions about nationality. You can see the registration quiz here: http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/?action=register
Quote
7. You wonder if anyone else from your country reads the forums. What should you do?
* Post a new thread, asking 'is anyone here from Russia?'
* Nothing at all. The internet is a multi-cultural place, there are forum members from all over Europe, the Americas, Australia, Asia and the rest of the world, and more than likely there is someone from your country. Besides, why does it matter?
Woah, just don't make it too darn hard for them, CJ :)
I still like my idea. Maybe I'll just implement it on my own, if you don't agree with me!
Quote from: Andail on Mon 09/06/2003 21:10:20
Woah, just don't make it too darn hard for them, CJ :)
LOL well yes, but this way the fact that they have to click on that answer should make them read it, and thus avoid the threads we've had started on topics like that recently :)
a bad thing with titles by the number of messages is the spam that some people would post everywhere to become the supreme...
Quote from: Andail on Mon 09/06/2003 14:00:36
I have an idea. A cunning idea, at that.
How about removing the entrance test, and let everybody register, but with the title "Beginner" or "Apprentice" or something. Then, at any time, he or she could take the "Big test" that will reward them with the title "Authorized user" or simply "Full member" or something whatever.
This test, of course, is much harder than the entrance test is at the moment. There could be at least thirty questions demanding both common sense, forum etiquette and some history knowledge.
This would of course just affect the member status, but I think that is enough incitament - people don't want to be taken for newbies forever.
Also, this authorization could be removed afterwards if the member kept behaving badly or doing inappropriate things.
I would gladly help designing such a test.
ahhh, I like this idea more then mine actually. prehaps it might be a good idea to write 45 questions, and only display say, 30, with a randomizer. this prevents a user from just clicking again and again
Quote from: Andail on Mon 09/06/2003 14:00:36
How about removing the entrance test, and let everybody register, but with the title "Beginner" or "Apprentice" or something. Then, at any time, he or she could take the "Big test" that will reward them with the title "Authorized user" or simply "Full member" or something whatever.
The alternative to this would be to have a karma-type setting on the board, where you can vote other people up or down. If somebody got 20 positive votes then their title would become "Respected member" or something. Probably unworkable, but it might encourage people to behave more sensibly in the quest to get the title ;)
doesnt slashdot have their source code for that system up for download?
Hay uummm i've been watching you guys post a whole bunch I new there was something I could put to try and help so here it is. I think you should keep the registration quiz how it is but depending on how good a video game they make they makes them promoted... just a thought. ::)
Quote from: furrylilkreature on Wed 11/06/2003 16:04:19
Hay uummm i've been watching you guys post a whole bunch I new there was something I could put to try and help so here it is. I think you should keep the registration quiz how it is but depending on how good a video game they make they makes them promoted... just a thought. ::)
But making good games doesnt necesarily (sp?)mean that they are helpful to the community, and vice-versa.
good point I forgot, how about we just keep the test but keep an eye on everyone
Quote from: CJ on Sun 08/06/2003 17:11:38
Just to clear up how it works, you can only register if you get all the questions right.
What!? you mean that as i see this quizz only one time it is because i answered all the question correct the first time.
Me?!with my poor english
I thought it was some bluff and everybody was able to join this forum whatever the answers they input
"Hey mum I got an A+ for my english quizz!!!"
Pétaglair