An Experiment: Open Trivia.

Calin Leafshade · Fri 24/06/2011 22:44:23

Some AGSers and I were discussing the possibility of a Trivial-Pursuit-like online game and we decided that it might be some fun.
However it was pointed out that you would need a shit-load of questions to make it even a slight possibility.

SO! With that in mind i decided to try and crowd source the problem and made OpenTrivia.
Open trivia is a website which allows you to add trivia questions to a database and answer them. When you answer the questions you are given the chance to rate them and say whether or not you knew the answer. This allows the questions to be rated by quality and difficulty.

If you are logged in (which is entirely voluntary) the site links the question to your account and saves how many you have answered.

So, with that in mind, I humbly ask you to go and add/answer some damn questions!

The only requirement is that the questions be fairly well formed in terms of grammar and punctuation. If a question sucks or its too hard then it will be rated as such, which should take care of the problem.

So go and give it a try!

http://svn.thethoughtradar.com/trivia/

EDIT: fixed in Firefox

Ghost · Sat 25/06/2011 00:34:21

I'm on Internet Explorer 8 here... and it seems I can't enter an answer anywhere?

Calin Leafshade · Sat 25/06/2011 00:38:24

You dont 'enter' an answer. It just reveals it to you and you have to say if you got it right or not.

Also I refuse to support IE on account of the fact that it needs to die.

EDIT: Just tested in IE and it works as expected.

Ghost · Sat 25/06/2011 01:16:59

Quote from: Calin Leafshade on Sat 25/06/2011 00:38:24
Also I refuse to support IE on account of the fact that it needs to die.

Oh, I'm helping that cause, in my own special way.

Will eventually start to add some questions; sure sounds interesting enough! Im a bit unsure how exactly quality management can work there, though- if someone just happens to put a wrong answer to a question he's adding, for example- sounds to me that all that'll happen is that it gets "bad" ratings, and is removed?

Calin Leafshade · Sat 25/06/2011 01:22:14

The content rating system certainly needs work, yea. I'll see if i get any suggestions and try to implement them.

Wyz · Sat 25/06/2011 01:25:40

Sounds like a great idea! No that many questions in there right now but that will only increase I presume.

Works without btw, I'm using chrome.
Your welcome for every time it said thanks.

Maybe add the distinction to rate the answer and question separately?

Calin Leafshade · Sat 25/06/2011 13:47:16

Ok, off to a good start.

56 questions in the db
350ish questions answered.

I've added a 'Video Games' category. So there is no excuse not to add a question!

Eigen · Sat 25/06/2011 14:14:38

I'm sure this "bug" will be less noticeable once you have more questions, but make sure you don't show the same question two times in a row. Even with thousands of questions, there's a chance for that. But the idea behind the thing is excellent. I like it!

Also, there are some questions which may not be quite suitable for non-English speakers, eg. "What is a group of whales called?". This is not trivia but knowledge of English language, which isn't the same thing. "Are games art?" is definitely not a trivia question either .. In related, how many "no" votes does a question have to receive in order to be not shown at all, presuming it's a percentage of all votes cast?

Atelier · Sat 25/06/2011 14:16:29

This is brilliant. It would be even better if you could see a list of all the questions in the db, or to stop that from getting too long, you could select a category and see all the questions in it.

Calin Leafshade · Sat 25/06/2011 14:18:26

the "are games art?" question is someone trolling i think. The question is the most downrated on the site.

And yea i need to do something about questions repeating. The 'skip' button was a temporary fix for that but i need to do something more concrete.

Atelier: Yea, the questions will eventually be GPLed with the list being available for download by anyone.

monkey0506 · Sat 25/06/2011 14:34:50

There's a question about a mammal with four knees which states (or at least heavily imples) that elephants are the only mammals with four knees. Now maybe there's some special definition of "knee" being applied here, but Dictionary.com defines a knee as "a joint in the middle part of the leg." From that definition, it sure looks as though dogs and giraffes (the first two alternate examples I thought of, I'm sure there are more) also have four knees:

Atelier · Sat 25/06/2011 14:37:14

Hmm, perhaps it should have been phrased as kneecaps?

Alas elephant patella

Calin Leafshade · Sat 25/06/2011 14:38:10

It appears to be a myth:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_animal_has_four_knees

If a question is incorrect flag it as a bad question.

EDIT: Actually it's not clear if its a myth or not but it's a very common trivia question it seems.

Elephants are certainly the only animal that has 4 mid-limb joints that *all move in the same direction*

Buckethead · Sat 25/06/2011 15:52:15

I got asked which colours the rainbows are four times. Even two times in a row. Does this have to do with my sexuality?

ddq · Sat 25/06/2011 17:02:13

How long would a question lie "Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like" stick around with your current algorithm? And what about "Are Jews people"? If a question gets enough negative votes, is it removed entirely or just put into less heavy rotation? Maybe you should add an "Offensive" option to the "Is this a good question?" question to weed out trolls faster. It's a cool system though, and I'm enjoying answering and adding questions.

But the real question is, are you planning to integrate this into Nimbus?

Calin Leafshade · Sat 25/06/2011 17:16:28

*everything* gets added to Nimbus.

Currently the questions are not removed. The data is stored but i still need to add the logic to remove questions.

An Experiment: Open Trivia.

Ghost

Ghost