Nelly and Lotus do Triviathon

Cully has announced the 24 hour Triviathon, so I can feel free to blog about it. It's a 24-hour SL trivia event on Saturday 7th to Sunday 8th, and the proceeds will go to Relay for Life.

So she's been inviting as many trivia hosts as she can think of, and naturally Nelly and I don't want to be left out, so I'm pleased to tell you that Nelly and I are hosting together with a 2 hour slot from 4pm to 6pm SLT Saturday. I do know Cully still has six slots left to flii, so if any of you want to take part, IM Cully Andel in game and we'll see you there!

I hope you know by now that we like to put on a good show, and we do not want you to go away disappointed, so we're going to make a special Nelly and Lotus effort.

Fiz Laval at Clancy Huckleberry's Shiraz event

First thing is we're putting up 13K Lindens in prize money. We're hoping a most of that comes back in donations, but how much you give is entirely for yourself to decide. We'll be hitting you with 40 questions instead of our usual 30, and Nelly will have a Nelliminator for you, and I'll work up a Countdown and some dingbats . And if we think of anything else before then we'll put it in.

Oh yes, one last thing. Whatever you give during our event, I'll match the amount and donate it to UNICEF. And can I just say that UNICEF is a really worthwhile charity. Your money goes to providing third world children with mosquito nets against malaria, with AIDS treatments, with clean water, and other basics that those of us fortunate to be born in rich countries take for granted. There! I can get off my soapbox now.

Josh behaving himself right now, Rach and I look the other way

Mako has finally made me get onto Plurk, and I've missed out all this time! If you're not on Plurk do not delay, click the link at the top of the sidebar and get Plurking!

And now for your dingbats. 10L for the first person to get the word or phrase, paid in world. Answer in comments please.

Do get it right, Lotus!

I know I'm not the most assiduous of researchers, and Chadd and Shale put me to shame, but even though I get through 50 questions every week, I do like to get it right. Sometimes you come up with alternative correct answers (and I do love those!) and for sure I sometimes miss the right winner, but you all keep me right, and I hope I always put things right with you where I get it wrong.

Nelly always says I should not do spam questions, because I so often come up with the wrong winners, and I do admit to finding it hard to keep up with fast-moving text and pick out a correct answer, but maybe that's just me getting older.

But it's really embarrassing when I get it completely wrong, as I did at EyeQ last week. The question I asked was "What was Abba's last No.1 single in the UK Chart", and the answer I gave was "The Winner Takes it All" in 1978. Which is, I'm sorry to say, wrong, as Carrion pointed out at the time, and the right answer was "Super Trouper" in 1980. I must have misread the Wiki entry, but I really hate to get something as wrong as that, and I should have researched the question better.

Nelly, Lotus and Kiri at Sharon's Diner. The beaver on the vote box has thankfully been greyed out

I am speaking only for myself here, but I do like it when you come up with alternative correct answers, and if you do think I've got it wrong, please say so in local chat or IM me! I'm only too pleased to look into it and pay you if I think you're right. Please don't think I'm worrying myself into an early grave over getting one question wrong, and I do not want a post-mortem after every question, but I don't mind at all if you keep me right. Nelly does it, why should you not?

Cully Andel and Krikra McMillan at AnaMaria's Monday event at Moysie's

I put a poll about alts on my blog a couple of posts ago, and I've got the results for you here. It doesn't suggest to me that most of you have any problem with alts. I was Option 4: I don't use them but I don't have a problem.

OK everyone, it's Linden time. Ten dingbats for you, answer in comments please, 10L for each first correct answer, paid in game.

About alts in SL:

I use them and like them	10 (41%)
I use them but I wish alts didn't exist	2 (8%)
I don't use them and I wish they didn't exist	2 (8%)
I don't use them but I have no problem with them	4 (16%)
I just don't care at all	6 (25%)

I've put a new poll on for you this week, I'd like to know how you are finding my dingbat questions at events. Some of you seem to be having loading issues, and I want to know if I should keep on doing them. This time you can choose multiple answers.

The Quest for the Perfect Event

I've been hosting quiz events since January, and I'll let you into a secret! Not all my events have gone as smoothly as I would have wanted, and I'm going to look at why this might be sometimes.

Readers of this blog will know that I think that there should be more to trivia events than asking questions, but today I do want to look at questions themselves, and in particular question register.

I mean by question register setting questions right for my audience. I'd really like everyone to come away from one of my events saying to themselves that they enjoyed it. And that means my questions have to be right for you! If only it were so easy.

First we have the Scylla of easy questions. If I asked for the capital of France, the speed typists would get the answer every time, and knowledgeable people who aren't fast typists will not be in with a chance. Veer too much towards difficult questions, and the Charybdis of Google swallows me, or worse still, the lingering death of hint after hint until the penny drops, and somebody finally comes up with the answer.

I'll never make an SL photographer! I managed to take this photo of Rhea Neiro and Cinna Yaris at Monochrome with my HUDS included. So we also have (clockwise from top right) Rain's What? HUD, Rudi's Green Tool Radar and SEMations AO HUD.

With peak time events like EyeQ and Lilly's 12 noon events, I tend to know the players, and I can at least match my questions with my estimate of players' likely strengths, are likely to know, and I do try to avoid questions where I know certain particular strong players will know the answer. We should not have the same player winning every time, should we?

Early Birds and Night Owls at 11pm on Fridays is much harder. The unusual time means, I think, that people are less likely to come every week, and will tend to come if they're online at that time. I sometimes find myself changing questions in mid-event once I have a feel for the players, and I might take out questions that I think too hard, or too culturally biased, and replace them with easier ones, or questions directed to particular cultures. Since I've been doing Early Birds I've realised that there are some really good players in SL who don't come to mainstream events, but who clearly are smart trivia players. One day I must ask them what they find in SL that's better than trivia. Perhaps I'm missing out on something?

My question register for Cully and my Great British Pub Quiz is,, if course, entirely different. Here my questions should have a cultural bias, with a strong British and Irish flavour. I enjoy writing for this event, because I can use questions I'd never dream of asking at international events. We were really pleased when we ran this event first time to find that so many people came along, and that there was so much interest in a British and Irish event. We're doing another event on Monday 5 October at 1.30pm SLT.

JoshStephen Schism, Lucinda Dollinger, Lotus Ceriano and a zombified Lette Ponnier at Monochrome, sorry [Monochrome]


I'm sitting here thinking that it's just impossible to get it right! When all is said and done, SL trivia is competitive, and it's right that the best players should do well. I just hope that enough of you have fun to make it worthwhile coming along!

I've got some lindeny dingbats for you, but first here's a link to some really annoying Flash games, Semantic Wars and Cargo Bridge. Needless to say I'm hopeless with both, but I don't see why you should not have your time wasted too.

For your dingbats, 10L to the first correct answer in comments, paid in world. Good luck!