Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

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BigDaddyMatty
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by BigDaddyMatty »

konstava wrote:Golf, I think it is a case of glass half empty/half fool.
This is Freudian gold.
konstava wrote:You see Everyone here except for me sees the opinions I was given here in one way, I see them differently.
FTFY
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by triviawayne »

konstava wrote:triviawayne, you don't have to beat Ken Jennings in the format we discuss, you just have to be better than average contestant more than 50% of the time.
If I said Roger Craig, would that make you feel better? Point is, I would have to beat players I have near zero chance of beating to win the top prize; and well 2nd place is the first loser.

No matter what numbers you want to throw out there, those SUCH AS Ken Jennings would play as long as they know they will come out ahead; and everyone else would fall by the wayside and your spiral to imminent failure in this endeavor would be complete.

I spent two years working on a system to play blackjack and come out ahead. I knew I would likely fail, but wanted to try anyway. Never once did I walk into a casino as there was no way I was throwing away money to find out what I already knew. For those curious, I will say after two years, I ended up in the hole, but the number was close to zero in the long-term.

And yes, I am better than average 50% of the time, but not better than those that would be on the site because they know they will gain money from the game.
Total game show career losings = $171,522
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by triviawayne »

konstava wrote:J.M. , no, I will not pursue the project if as a result of this discussion if it'd be clear that it's not worth pursuing. I cannot make a conclusion on such a small sample size though, so hopefully discussion will continue constructively

HOW IS THIS NOT YET CLEAR?

On legalily: Residents of more than 40 US states would be able to participate.
In those states Trivia as a disclipine is resognized as a game of skill. The issue could only be with a format, but the one I'm offering is legal.

MMM...Fantasy Football is a game of skill as well, much like typing or knowing how to use spellcheck or figuring out how to quote and respond multiple times in one post.

On me not being a trivia guru: As we know from history, being an industry outsider often proves to be an asset.

Even Jeopardy makes the occasional error, now imagine what you'll have to deal with when (not if) you make yours.

On entree fees: $5 is just an estimate of a reasonable fee. It can be lowerer or increased.

you have trivia diehards here telling you they won't pay it...looks like lower


Please remember I am not here to advertise any finished product, I am here to talk to peoople, like yourself, who would benefit from it.

See the previous four pages of posts informing you very few to none of use would benefit from it.

So, which factors would give the new pay-to-play daily online contest enough credibility so YOU, as a competitive trivia player, would be willing to try it? There must be an answer to that!
not in a million years.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by dhkendall »

konstava wrote:J.M. , no, I will not pursue the project if as a result of this discussion if it'd be clear that it's not worth pursuing. I cannot make a conclusion on such a small sample size though, so hopefully discussion will continue constructively
It seems that the discussion here is saying exactly that though, everyone has commented that your plan is just not feasible (people that collectively (and often individually) have way more knowledge about the "trivia biz" than you.). It does seem like you're intent on going through with this no matter what we say, it looks like all that's left are the "told you so"s.
konstava wrote:On me not being a trivia guru: As we know from history, being an industry outsider often proves to be an asset.
Actually, history has shown the exact opposite! For example, one of the criticisms levelled at Trump is that he has no political experience. While he (and his supporters) claim this is an asset, history shows that almost every single president had some kind of political background first. (Exceptions being Taylor, Grant, and Eisenhower, who had key leadership roles in recent wars). Even another politician that constantly is criticized in the media, Ted Cruz, at least has political experience. Experience is required for undertaking any venture - I don't want to go to a surgeon that knows nothing about medicine, I don't want my house built by someone "outside the industry" of architecture, like a gardener or an accountant, the list is endless.
konstava wrote:Please remember I am not here to advertise any finished product, I am here to talk to peoople, like yourself, who would benefit from it.
And you're not listening to us. We already have one TPH (and we don't like it when he doesn't listen to us either), we have less than zero appetite for a second.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by grindcore »

This thread is hilarious.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by tiwonge »

Some more numbers.

If you're looking at a daily game, something akin to daily fantasy sports, then we can take a look at that to see how much a draw daily betting would be.

According to a quick google search, just over 50 million people take part in fantasy sports. (This includes US & Canada, so let's just call it 50 million in the US.) These are people who already play fantasy sports, and not just sports fans. This is probably equivalent in the trivia model to the 100K people who take the Jeopardy! online test, and not the 1 million people who watch Jeopardy! So, already, we're dealing with a population that's about 1/500 the size of sports fans.

(Of these, about 60% belong to a fantasy league where a fee is required. This is sort of the model that I suggested, and not a daily game model.)

I'm trying to see if I can find some estimate of the number of people who play daily fantasy sports. The closest thing I can find is an estimated million players. (I doubt this is 1 million a day, but I don't know what the breakdown is. Some may be daily players, and others, more occasional.) So, of the people who are interested enough in sports to take time out to do something competitive about it (the fantasy players), only 1/50 will participate in a daily pay game. If apply this same ratio to those who are interested enough in trivia to compete by taking the Jeopardy! online test, you'd get about 1/50 of 100K, or about 2K possible players, playing at varying rates.

Even so, the model has enough differences that I don't know that you could apply it. With fantasy sports, if you lose, you chalk it up to a player having a bad day, or some sort of luck, and you might still try again. With daily trivia, if you lose, it's because you're not good enough. I don't know that you could have enough repeat business from losers to continue the game. I think the market will eventually dry up as the bottom of the pool keeps losing.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by BigDaddyMatty »

tiwonge wrote:Even so, the model has enough differences that I don't know that you could apply it. With fantasy sports, if you lose, you chalk it up to a player having a bad day, or some sort of luck, and you might still try again. With daily trivia, if you lose, it's because you're not good enough. I don't know that you could have enough repeat business from losers to continue the game. I think the market will eventually dry up as the bottom of the pool keeps losing.
This. Online poker and daily fantasy sports both have two things going for them that a pay-to-play trivia contest does not. The first is a significant (apparent) luck factor that obscures differences in skill between players, leading mediocre players (i.e., suckers) to continue to plunk down their money. The second is a costless supply of playing material. An online poker game can use the same virtual deck/shoe literally forever, and fantasy sports merely repurposes freely available athletic statistics. A trivia game like the one being proposed here can basically use each question once. Questions are expensive.

As, by the way, are lawyers. The fact that you are sure that your game is legal won't save you from having to defend that proposition in court.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by rouquinne »

konstava wrote:If we never get selected for the show, does our knowledge add any value to our life? It won't help us to get a better job. Is it even worth mentioning outside of this board?
Having been online dating for as long as I've been writing the on-line test, I have found some value.

It's allowed me to weed-out those who are intimidated by smart women.

:lol:

My profile states that I am very, VERY good at trivia. It brings out challengers. So I find myself at a bar playing Buzztime against an opponent who says to me that I shouldn't hold back - and I don't. And I win about 80% of the time.

Which is how I find myself as The Incredible One-Date Wonder!!!

:mrgreen:
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by rouquinne »

Woof wrote:My ability with trivia was not obtained by poring over compendiums of trivia at night. It's the result of a lifetime of reading and a freakishly good memory. Have those skills added tangible value to my life? You bet your sweet bippy they have :mrgreen:
This! All of this!!!
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by goatman »

My pub quiz team has already won TWO regional division championships and taken home $2000 split five ways, which is a bag of groceries, a six-pack and bragging rights!!!

Mostly we do this for FUN and Self-Improvement. I found that while recovering from serious brain trauma with a depressed skull fracture a few years back, pub quiz prep and J! study helped me enormously to regain my scattered, broken memory and improved retention from a few minutes to weeks, then months. Still nothin' like it used to be, but a lot of time has slipped away, and I find the grey-haired old codger in the bathroom mirror vaguely resembles me but must be some poor relation... cuz it sure ain't Goatman!! :o
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by konstava »

I appreciate all the comments & as I promised, I listened to them.

So, 2 main factors that shall sink the project are:
1. Impossibility to prevent cheating
2. Poor user retention as a result of
-ppl who always lose would leave the platform very soon
-cheating, cheating, cheating


Ok, putting the whole pay-to-play format aside, can anyone please recommend some great material (ideally, an online resource) on
1. difficult trivia questions (the ones that are worthy of the best trivia players)
2. trivia questions for general public (questions on common knowledge that most of the people should know the answer to)

Thank you
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by TheSunWillComeOut »

konstava wrote:I appreciate all the comments & as I promised, I listened to them.

So, 2 main factors that shall sink the project are:
1. Impossibility to prevent cheating
2. Poor user retention as a result of
-ppl who always lose would leave the platform very soon
-cheating, cheating, cheating


Ok, putting the whole pay-to-play format aside, can anyone please recommend some great material (ideally, an online resource) on
1. difficult trivia questions (the ones that are worthy of the best trivia players)
2. trivia questions for general public (questions on common knowledge that most of the people should know the answer to)

Thank you
1. LearnedLeague
2. Jeopardy! itself, at least the questions that come up in the first 1-2 rows on each board.

However, just in case it's not readily apparent, should you wish to use these exact questions for a project of your own, you should know in advance that trivia questions are legally the property of whomever wrote or commissioned them, and exact reuse would be considered plagiarism.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by Lampy »

A: Yes
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by 1981MLF »

As I'm new to the board, I can't even say that anyone here would care about my trivia knowledge... :)

But I can say that my local pub quiz league cares somewhat! The folks I play with appreciate it, I think, considering that we often get to eat and drink for free.

I'm not into trivia for the tangible rewards, I just think that learning stuff is neat, and if there is free beer and food to be had, all the much better. Getting on Jeopardy would be nice, but eh, if it happens, it happens. The only reason I tried out is because one of my pub quiz friends told me that the tryouts were coming up and I thought, "What the hell?" Frankly, I just think that it's fun to play trivia, and that's ultimately all that matters to me; having a good time with my friends.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by Pineapple Joe »

Honestly, what other measures for success are truly meaningful other than one's knowledge and understanding? While "trivia" knowledge may not itself be useful, it is generally a manifestation of a lifetime of learning -- in particular, interests across a broad spectrum of topics and a great deal of reading.

The real question is how you apply this knowledge. Being a pedant or using it to attempt to make yourself appear smarter than others is not going to promote career success. Most professions require very deep, specialized knowledge; devoting oneself to a single area of inquiry is unlikely to be pursued by someone with many interests.

I think of M. Gandhi's quote when considering all the things floating around in my brain: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” In the end, I think this is what defines us as human beings, and is the best measure of a life well spent. I don't subscribe to the whole winner paradigm that is based on accumulation of wealth.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by bpmod »

Pineapple Joe wrote:Honestly, what other measures for success are truly meaningful other than one's knowledge and understanding? While "trivia" knowledge may not itself be useful, it is generally a manifestation of a lifetime of learning -- in particular, interests across a broad spectrum of topics and a great deal of reading.

The real question is how you apply this knowledge. Being a pedant or using it to attempt to make yourself appear smarter than others is not going to promote career success. Most professions require very deep, specialized knowledge; devoting oneself to a single area of inquiry is unlikely to be pursued by someone with many interests.

I think of M. Gandhi's quote when considering all the things floating around in my brain: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” In the end, I think this is what defines us as human beings, and is the best measure of a life well spent. I don't subscribe to the whole winner paradigm that is based on accumulation of wealth.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by pinkfreud »

konstava wrote:...there is no market for our skills. There is no mechanism in this world where we can exchange our type of knowledge for a reward every day, like lawyers or doctors do.

Just imagine for a second if there was.
There used to be a market for my type of knowledge. I was a researcher under contract to Google Answers for four and a half years, ending in 2006 when Google shut down the service. I earned between $500 and $2000 a month answering questions for paying customers, on subjects ranging from "What color is penguin poop?" to "What did Richard Feynman and John von Neumann think of each other?" Some of my answers were obtained by the use of search engines, but many answers (particularly the "identify this book/movie" ones) came from my mental collection of facts, factoids, and triviata.

There are still a few paid research websites, but there's currently nothing quite like Google Answers, where a mind full of previously useless information could earn a sizeable number of quatloos.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by dhkendall »

pinkfreud wrote:
konstava wrote:...there is no market for our skills. There is no mechanism in this world where we can exchange our type of knowledge for a reward every day, like lawyers or doctors do.

Just imagine for a second if there was.
There used to be a market for my type of knowledge. I was a researcher under contract to Google Answers for four and a half years, ending in 2006 when Google shut down the service. I earned between $500 and $2000 a month answering questions for paying customers, on subjects ranging from "What color is penguin poop?" to "What did Richard Feynman and John von Neumann think of each other?" Some of my answers were obtained by the use of search engines, but many answers (particularly the "identify this book/movie" ones) came from my mental collection of facts, factoids, and triviata.

There are still a few paid research websites, but there's currently nothing quite like Google Answers, where a mind full of previously useless information could earn a sizeable number of quatloos.
TIL that Google Answers had decent questions asked that were answered by intelligent people. I honestly thought it was nothing but questions like "how is babby formed?" with equally vapid answers answered by whatever random person wanted to. It's too bad I didn't think higher of it when it was around.
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by FireAntsDefense »

"There's a daily cash prize of $1000 and" you know the rest
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Re: Does anyone outside this board care about your trivia knowledge?

Post by Johnblue »

My trivia team has made it into the finals for our area but the finals are Saturday & im leaving the country on Friday! Had I only known, I'd have delayed my trip until Monday. I'm also missing the Super Bowl.
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