Inclusivity

This time I'm going to talk about new players. "We were all new once" is a cliche, but is true just the same. I'm sure we can all look back on our first weeks in SL and smile at the problems we had then, and if only we'd known then what we know now. Nelly Swindlehurst told me that she even started an alt because she didn't know how to take a hat off her main avi. That would not have happened to me because I couldn't work out how to create an alt for ages. Not that I'm an alty person, the last time I used my alt was to infiltrate The Village, from where I'm banned. For those who don't know and want to, I'm banned for associating with Nelly. Click the link and Lette will tell you the story.

And this is SL, where old friends leave and new ones arrive (hi there Hilda and Luce!), which sets me off wondering about our Trivia community and how inclusive we are.

Now I think we're pretty friendly, but when I get thinking some more we are also pretty exclusive. First thing is SL trivia isn't for everyone. I'm sure some people must try it and find the level of competition is just too high. We all know it's not enough to know the answer, you have to type it fast too. I'm sure we all find some events harder than others, and I think some hosts' styles suit some players. My function as an SL host seems to be to supply Anamaria with lindens. It took me months to get a question right at ZooBar, but I seem tuned into Lette's question style.

And then we have the group dynamics stuff. I'm well aware that catchphrases and jargon are great for bonding a community together, but insider knowledge is just baffling to newcomers. And I'm probably worse than most for this. My events are full of Cultural Bias Alerts (yes Lou I stole that off you), Easter Eggs, lindens for tehs and all sorts of other in-crowd jokes.

I think harlequinade is the right word here...

...Circe hosting at Inferno, I managed to chop Lothor in two

Most hosts try to welcome everyone by name, and myself I have made gestures to quickly explain some of what's going on. I also tried asking at the start of my events if there were any new people, and asking them to IM me if they needed any help. The problem is that I always have so many things to think about that I sometimes forget to do it, or then I can't deal with 4 IMs properly.

I really would like to know what you all think about this. And thank you for reading this far, your reward follows.

Replace the missing letters, the first to answer each one correctly in comments wins 10L, paid in-world. Please tell me your name or I can't pay you!

1. 220 YIAF

2. 55 DAP

3. 9.8 MPSPS,ADTG

4. 6 NBJA

5. 27 ATTUSC

6. 13 PATLS

7. 60 YDA

8. 147 MBIS

9. 22 DOCE

10. 7 HOR

Let's run that one again!

If there is a better entertainer in SL trivia I have yet to meet her. Sinnamon Sands holds court at her SinnDay event at [Monochrome]. Sinnday takes place 1pm Sundays.

After Mako's tour de force with my last set of questions, I'm going to try that again without the hard work of a new blog post.

So here's another set of questions like the last. Tell me what the letters stand for, each first correct answer is worth 10L, paid in-world. Answer in comments, and please tell me who you are. And I've made these harder, so I hope Mako and Cully don't clean up right away. They are so hard I had to write the answers down in case I forgot them myself.

Cinna combines hosting with ice cream at Double Standards!

1. 5.5 YIAR,POP

2. 23 POHC

3. 53 TLB

4. 4 WAAF

5. 10 DTSTW

6. 11 POACT

7. 11 SITCSA

8. 165 BIAR

9. 24 LITGA

10. 4 HOTA

Any questions?

"Lotus, where do you get your questions from?" People sometimes ask me this in-world, and so I thought today I'd share my question writing process with you. Lette has blogged about this already, but what's the harm in a bit of brazen plagiarism? She has also touched on this subject in her interview with Shale and Chadd,, and I was really very impressed with the trouble they take over question writing.

But in an average week I ask 16 questions in each of two Lilly's main events, and then another 20 if I do Early Birds and Night Owls, which is most weeks. So that's OMG, 52 questions every week to write. And with that number of questions my motto has to be "Pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap". I like to run at least 100 questions ahead, and that means I have to keep the questions coming.

So where do my questions come from? I stole one from Gogomodo, and two from a quiz book I bought. All the rest were written with my own fair hands. And, in spite of the impression I might have given you, I do like my questions to be accurate, and I do take some care over framing the question and researching the answer. Wiki I love you so, did I tell you today?

My questions spring from three main sources. Inspiration is good, and sometimes I think of a good question and I write the idea down to frame a question later. But for churning out 25 questions, nothing works better for me than sitting at my keyboard for an hour or two's focused question writing.

My first focused method is my subjects card. I have a card with about 30 subject headings on, and I work through them in turn. So we go history, fashion, exploration, TV, literature, booze, nature... you get the message. It works well for me provided that I don't make the fatal mistake of logging onto SL. SL and serious question writing just do not mix.

And my other method is this wonderful book. The author of "The A-Z of Almost Everything" is a serial quiz show contestant, and it's aimed at quiz compilers. I can just sit and work through the book pulling out questions... films, No.1 singles, fashion designers, bingo calls, sports, capitals, cocktails... and so much else. It's a British book so I have to declare a Cultural Bias Alert, but it gets my questions written.

Oh yes, let me tell you I wrote my 1000th question for Lilly's a couple of weeks ago. I haven't asked it yet, but when I do I'm going to do something special. I'm not sure how yet, but when I do it'll for sure involve lots of Lindens.

OK, I've had enough of her, I hear you say, when is she going to hand out some Lindens? And quite right too, answer in comments please, first right answer gets 10L, paid in-world. It might be a few days before I pay you, but pay you I will. I do, of course, need your SL name to pay you.

What do the letters stand for? (* denotes UK Cultural Bias Alert, **US CBA)

1. 24 HITD?

2. 7 COTR?

3. 10 DS?*

4. 50 WTLYL?**

5. 8 PIAG?

6. 1 RTRTA?

7. 1600 PA?**

8. 12 MITY?

9. 1066 BOH?*

10. 64000 DQ?**

11. 20000 LUTS?

12. 76 TITBP

13. 7 DS?

14. 1760 YIAM?

15. 10000 HIBL?* This one's hard I think, 60L if anyone gets it before I post a clue in 24 hours' time.

Another Challenge winner!

Neill shows off his unique "I'm too clever for Rev and Lotus: Trivia at Lilly's" shirt

I deliberately try to make the Challenge questions at Lilly's hard but not impossible. If you don't know, I ask a question, and if it's answered withing 5 seconds the winner gets at least 200L and a T shirt. I need to keep track of the T-shirt winners I think, and anyway a new winner always give me a chance for a new blog post.

So WTG Neill MCCullogh for winning last night's culture-fair Challenge question, or I thought culture fair for 50% of the population anyway!

And he is the first winner with a Rev and Lotus T shirt, and WD Neill!

And the question: what is the name of the protein-rich milk that comes immediately after childbirth? The answer is colostrum.

This time for Lindens I'm doing a hosts' self-referential quiz, where I want you to tell me which host you associate with:

1. Lollipops?

2. Donations are are *never* required but *always* appreciated?

3. The Wheel of Fortune?

4. Typo top 10?

5. Easter Eggs?

6. Running a category?

7. Johnny Depp?

8. Whipping out a question?

9. Kookbook?

10. Caboose?

11. Pelliculas?

12. Either/or? (It's called something else now, but if I said it would give it away)

Answer in comments please, 10L paid in world for each, no spamming so one guess per question per person please! The host's first name will do fine!

She's still about...

[7:08] Lotus Ceriano: oh yes and you haven't commented on my blog you have to do that too
[7:08] Lotus Ceriano: seeing as you get mentioned more than once
[7:08] Nelly Swindlehurst: haven't commented....but i have read it!
[7:08] Nelly Swindlehurst: I'll get to work on that too
[7:08] Lotus Ceriano: what do you think, you can be honest!
[7:08] Nelly Swindlehurst: I enjoy it... I think its good
[7:09] Nelly Swindlehurst: I'm always tempted to correct your typoes though :)

[7:22] Lotus Ceriano: i could blog about you but who would be interested?
[7:33] Nelly Swindlehurst: and i bet a blog about me would get you more comments than usual :p

Sooner or later I was going to have to blog about Nelly, and I'm sure many of my readers know her well. Like so many of my friends I met her at Sharon's Diner. She was telling everyone what a great place Canada is, and if she's dropped that subject ever I missed it. If I had not met Nelly my Second Life would have been so much duller. We're both Triviators at Buccaneer Bowl, and I hosted with her for a wonderful five months at Lilly's.

Nelly had hosted before, and she held my hand when I took my first faltering steps as a trivia host in January this year. And we are, I'm sure you'll agree, such different people. She's witty and sharp where I am not, and has an amazing talent of writing questions for events just before and event during it. She picks up my typos, and lets me get away with nothing. Her questions are about all sorts of stuff like Johnny Depp and the Simpsons that I know nothing about. And ... it was great! I loved it!







Krogare, Traian and Rain enjoying a chat because Cully and Angelo advertised their Melodi event wrong! It's a nice event when it does happen.






Because of RL issues Nelly has not been hosting recently. She's still on SL sometimes, and she is still a Lilly's host. So I'm hoping we'll see Nelly back to hosting sometime. And she will never admit it, but she is even better with Lotus.

And so your 50L question. First to answer in comments gets paid in world.

In which sport is play divided into chukkas?

Coronation Street, Marks and Spencer and Absolutely Fabulous

Stay with me please! With that title I've alienated most of my readers, if I have any, and I've hardly typed anything yet. I've put of this topic for a week or so, because I find it so difficult. I'm talking about culture bias in question setting and hosting, and my aim is to try and make my point without being defriended by other trivia hosts.

I'm just a wallflower at some events. If I listened to music or watched films I might get some answers at film and music themed events, but that's my problem. Please don't think I expect events to be run so I know all the answers.

But some events I just don't have a chance, and often it's because the event is so culturally biased that no-one who is not from that country can possibly get it. And, because the dominant world culture is American, it's always American themes. And I really really don't want to offend anyone in particular, but American ads, TV shows, that guy who used to say "Heeere's Johnny!", whoever Johnny is, and most US celebs are, well, just a foreign country to me.

Hey, I hear you say, pots, kettle, glass houses and stones! She's always asking all those Father Ted questions! So in a spirit of true British fairness and not a little trepidation I'll look at the last 100 questions I asked at Lilly's, asking which country the answer was to do with.

Hilda Static won the Lilly's T-shirt Challenge today, just beating Kiri to the answer, and winning 250L and a Karmel and Lotus T-shirt. The question was "what plant is absinthe and pastis  flavoured with?", the answer was anise.

And the results are now in: France 5, Canada 1, UK 21.5, Germany 5 , USA 13, Rwanda 1, Russia 3, Italy 0.5, Sweden 1, Turkey 1, Mexico 1, Paraguay 1, Australia 1. Many questions have no national bias at all.

So about 20% of my questions are British, but don't forget that I host with a Polish and an American cohost. Nelly and I used to run a bias count at Lilly's but we stopped because the USA was always streets ahead. Incredibly someone once accused me of being too American. If you host try it on your own questions. Sometimes I think the bias must approach 80-90%

Of course some events are so redeye for me I never go. I have no idea if New Zealanders and Australians fill 6pm slt events bitching about cultural bias. If there are only Americans and Canadfians on at that time then there is no point in playing to European sensitivities. Oh, and, by the way,  I have great admiration for players who hold their own when English is their second language (yes Bo, Krogare and Chantal, I mean you)

There is something that is particularly galling. We call blind canes white sticks over here, and soccer is football, and we have our own Monopoly board. I got in first with all those correct answers only to lose because I didn't do American. C'mon guys, give us a break!

Oh yes, Coronation Street is a British soap opera, Marks and Spencer is where we all buy our knickers as the rest of the world calls them, and Ab Fab was a 90s sitcom. You so wanted to know that.

And for 50L, answer in comments please, here's an American one to make it up to you.

Which American state was initially called Kanawha?

Triviators!

This time I'm not going to be quite as self-promoting as I was last time, but my Triviator friends deserve a blog post, and I want to tell you about them.

We're to do with Buccaneer Bowl. Lette, Thornton and Lillian run Buckybowl, and it's a monthly team event with lots of lindens at stake, and I think, is maybe the Derby of SL trivia events. She would say that, I hear you saying, but I did not say there would be no self-promotion.

The idea of Buckybowl is that teams of four compete in five rounds of questions, with a bonus at the end of every round to the highest scorer in the round. The team with the most lindens at the game wins and gets to wear the Bucc Bowl Champs tag for a month, not to mention a nice pile of lindens.


Mako made this composite, that's why it's so much better than my own pictures. Here's me, Nelly, Mako, Starla and Alanna.





A long time ago when Buckybowl was just a glimmer in Lette's brain, I said to Nelly that if there was ever team trivia in SL I'd want to be on her team. And when Buckybowl came up Nelly and I formed our own team. I came up with some hopeless names, and Nelly came up with the Trivators. And so the team was born.






The Triviators in T-shirts and low-ARC items at Buckybowl 3., where we came a close second to Boomfirecirceschism.







Starla we knew from events, and we were very pleased when she agreed to join us. We thought we had a fourth but she couldn't make it so we went into Buckybowl 1 with three players. And that's where we met Alanna. I can't remember where we came in Buckybowl 1, it might have been fourth, with Trumpton being deserved winners.

Next time Nelly couldn't make it, and Lette gave us a list of unattached players. And so we got joined up with Mako the Awesome. And since then we've won 4 out of 5 Buckybowls, and I've got to know three really nice people in Starla, Alanna and Mako. Please don't think Nelly is not nice, I knew her already!

Now I don't know about you, but Buckybowl does stress me out. There is all that organising and making sure we have a team, then I worry in case my teammates show up (they always do!), then with so many good players there I'm sitting with trembly fingers poised over my keyboard. But I love it! It's a two hour adrenaline fix, and I get such a buzz when I see a Trivator name first with the right answer!




Rach encourages me to use my heels on Mako the Kung Fu Master.











Next Buckybowl is 18 July, but I'm on holiday and won't be there, and I know they'll manage without me!

And, everyone, we're hosting a Triviators Special event at Sharon's Diner on 11 July, watch the Events listing for details.

So to finish with we need a question. If you answer first in comments you get a whole 50L in-world.

So here's one for the Janeites: which character does Emma Woodhouse try to match with the local vicar, Mr Elton? Character and novel, please!

Challenge Champs!

I'm just going to post a quick one this morning before I do early Birds and Night Owls. I thought from now on I'd tell you who won our Lilly's T-Shirt Challenge.

And last night's winner was none other than the dazzling Sinnamon Sands, and she won our first ever Karmel and Lotus T-shirt, with our 250L rolled over from our last event. Way to go, Sinn! I'll post a picture of her once I can persuade her to be seen in our T-shirt. She's got a Nelly and Lotus one too, but we still have Rickson and Lotus and Rev and Lotus shirts no-one has won yet.

Anamaria wearing the Nelly & Lotus version of the T-shirt

And here's our question from last night:
"Who left his plough in 458 BC to serve as Dictator of Rome?"

The answer was Cincinnatus, and an honourable mention to Less who got the answer within 5 seconds, but Sinn just got there first.

OK it's money for comments time, so for 50L tell me which actor links the BBC series "I Claudius" and Star Trek, and which characters he played?