Worth more than lindens

Lette's most recent post about prize money generated lots of interesting discussion, and one point commenters made was that money is not the only motivator in SL trivia.

I want to look today at non-financial achievements in SL trivia. You know, titles and medals and things without intrinsic worth but sou

ght after nevertheless.

My take on this will be coloured by the events I go to. All sorts of things may go on at events when I'm in bed attended by people who only come out at night, so if I missed anything please let me know.

So Chaos first. If you don't know Chaos, it's on at 8.30pm slt and is basically Truth or Dare with some trivia to oil it (maybe not the best metaphor there). It's where the first person to get naked after the 9.30 watershed gets a wet T shirt and a thing. Lette and Reke stipulate voluntarily naked doesn't count, because certain persons display a keenness to show their pixels. I've never won this coveted T shirt, but if and when I do I promise I'll post a picture of me wearing it right here on Lotus-Pocus.

I was composing a picture of Lillian Shippe at Double Standards when Lette Ponnier walked into shot and made it even better

Just about everyone knows about Buccaneer Bowl. Thornton, Lette and Lillian's event has been blogged about and commented on a lot. Teams of four battle it out for big prize money and the BuccBowl Champs tags. I find the event very stressful but I also find it great fun. Almost all the best players are there, and with a possible forty others competition is fierce. And then there is the team thing, I always feel very much that I don't want to let my team down, as I once did by messing up a bonus answer when they had told me the correct answer. I'm lucky to be in a very tolerant team full of smart players. Next BuckyBowl is 29 August. It's looking like the Triviators may be at full strength.

Smartasstermind at Double Standards is based on the British TV quiz show Mastermind. Hummingbird Forster runs it, and contestants pay an entrance fee and have two rounds of questions in the black chair. The first round is on a self-chosen specialist subject, and the second on general knowledge. My one try at this was not an amazing success as I only scored five points on my specialist subject. This, I think, is a drawback with this format, because some specialist subjects are very narrow and some very broad. If you choose a single book or a film there are only so many facts you can be questioned on. If you choose, as Thornton did, World War 2, the possibilities for questions are almost infinite. Sour grapes Lotus, good players won it and I have to do better next time.

Zarita at my Early Birds and Night Owls

Lilly's event

Lebn Bucyk runs an event on Sundays at Barefoot. There are five rounds of five questions, and the questions seem - I think Lebn once said intellectual - compared with some other events. Each round has a different subject, and there is a bonus for a person who gets all the questions in a round, Lebn calls it running a round. When he started his event I thin he expected this to happen often, but it took a while for Anamaria Quintessa to do it for the first time on the subject of barbarians, and a round has only been run once since.

And finally T shirts at Lilly's. We run a challenge question at the end of the event, and if the winner gets it inside 5 seconds we give them a T shirt and lots of lindens. Probably we've had ten or so winners now. I like to make the questions hard (it's a challenge, as Nelly says), but not impossible. And I'always really pleased when someone does win, I like giving out those coveted "Too clever for Rickson/Karmel/Rev/Nelly and Lotus Trivia at Lilly's" shirts. WTG winners!

Before your linden bearing questions if anyone has been puzzled by short-lived picture question posts on this blog (Hilda and Luce especially) it's to do with my in-event new picture question format. I should have taken them down right away after using them, sorry for the confusion. I'm not sure how it's working, please let me know in comments. I can bear the truth, honestly.

So, lindeny questions. 10L for each first correct answer in comments, paid in world, please remember to give your avi name.

Replace the letters.

1. 6 FIAF

2. 1 MYBC

3. 7 SOR

4. 14 DIAF

5. 90 MIAFG

6. 78 CIATP

7. 112 PIAH

8. 100 DIF

9. 44 POTUS

10. 8 MA-M

1000!

Lilly's trivia host and event manager Lotus and Chantal

Well, I did it and I really enjoyed it. My 1000th question was asked, the Challenge was won but no T shirt, Sharon made lots of money out of my teh typos. And Nelly did come and ask a phobia question :)

I'm sorry to confuse people with those posts that disappeared quickly from my blog (Luce I'm thinking of you particularly here) : they were my experimental new format questions which I'm not sure worked all that well. I'd love to have your comments if you were there at the Lilly's event.

Oh yes, my poll of 11 people closed. 2 of you buy lindens at least every month, 2 less often and 7 of you never buy them.

If you weren't there my the 1000th question I wrote for Lilly's was: Elinor and Marianne Dashwood appear in which novel?

And the 500L Challenge was: Which sweet-scented climbing garden annuals belong to the genus Lathyrus?

I haven't done anything difficult for Lindens today. For 20L each please tell me in comments who won the 1000th question, what was the answer to the Easter Egg, and who won the Challenge question? The winners of 1 and 3 themselves are barred from entering. Answer in comments please, leave your avi name and I'll pay you in-world.

Back tomorrow!

Kitten Nemeth hosting at U21. The answer will be Tennessee

I don't know who anonymous is from my last lot of comments, but you're right.

I'm back hosting Lilly's tomorrow Wednesday 12th 12 noon slt. I'll be asking my 1000th question and I'm paying 1st 2nd and 3d for the whole event at 50/20/10.

And I'm going to try out my new question format. And look out for the Easter Egg.

Not only this, but the Challenge will be set at 500L with some T shirt or other.

And if Nelly Swindlehurst can be persuaded to come and ask a phobia question I'll pay 100/50/25 to the ones who get that right. So you better work on her.

And we're back 12 noon Friday for the usual event, and I'm doing Early Birds and Night Owls on Friday at 11pm.

No lindens today, you'll have to come along tomorrow for that.

Nothing new to say, just a puzzle for you

I just thought I'd give you a puzzle. I think this one's pretty easy, but 100L for the first correct answer in comments, paid in world!

The 5 houses are in a row, number them 1-5 from left to right, and each occupant has favourite music and a favourite drink.

Kaele Jinx waits for the trivia orb at 4-Play Roadhouse

In comments, please tell me who lives in which house? (Lotus lives in house 4 for example)

1. The person who likes Nickelback lives directly next to the person who likes Kaiser Chiefs.

2. Sharon lives directly next to the person who drinks water.

3. There is one house between Lette and Nelly on the right.

4. There are two houses between the house of the person drinking beer and the house of the person who likes Snow Patrol.

5. The fourth house does not belong to the person who like Snow Patrol

6. There is one house between Sharon and Sinnamon

7. The person drinking beer lives to the left of the person who likes Blur.

8. There are two houses between the house of the person drinking milk and the house of the person who likes Nickelback on the left.

9. There is one house between the house of the person who likes Blur and the house of the person who likes Snow Patrol.

10. There are two houses between the person who drinks water and the house of the person who likes Coldplay

11. Nelly drinks industrial alcohol

12. There are two houses between Mako and Sinnamon.

In which number house does everybody live?

Making the world go round

I mentioned to Lette yesterday that I was going to blog about money. She said she had the same idea, but when we talked we realised we were looking at different aspects of the subject. We were going to try and co-ordinate our posts, but my ISP has thwarted us, and Lette's post about prize money is right here.

I'm wanting to look at the macroeconomics of SL trivia. I realise after "macroeconomics" half of my readers have just skipped to the Linden-bearing questions at the end, but you've been kind enough to humour me and stay with me. Where do the Lindens come from to finance trivia events? This is something I did not understand all all until recently, and if I get my facts wrong in this post please be sure to tell me.

I'm not a business expert, but I've been doing some digging. Linden Labs (LL) is a private company and isn't obliged to publish its accounts. Bloggers seem to think its profit in 2008 was in the region of $40M on a turnover of something like $96M.

Current exchange rates: $1 US buys 250L, £1 buys 418L, 1 euro buys 359L

And LL's turnover comes from somewhere, and it comes from either corporate subscriptions or your credit card and mine. And the trivia economy is the same. Eventually the lindens come from someone's bank account.

I've heard it said often that people can make more money out of playing trivia than hosting it, and I can believe it. If you're good and can play Marine Park, it is almost certainly true. Lette touched on Marine Park, which seems to have a distorting effect on the SL trivia economy by giving out 16000L in prizes every event. That's a lot of money, and would finance 2 months' worth of Lilly's events. I know much of this money is recycled back into trivia, and when it disappears, and nothing in SL lasts forever, I predict trivia events and prizes will contract significantly. I admit to a little anticipated schadenfreude here. I've never played MP and almost certainly never will because it begins 3am UK time. I'm sorry about the schadenfreude, I know you can tell it's just envy.

For those who don't know, practices vary, but club owners often pay hosts with lindens to run events. Most or all of this goes on prizes, and what percentage of tips goes to the host varies, I think, from club to club. So the host usually makes something out of it. So far as I can tell the biggest losers in all of this are club owners.



Coco Sands adjusts her caffeine levels during her Shiraz event











Sometimes there is an indirect benefit to owners from trivia events. Attracting players to events boosts traffic figures, which in turn means that shops on the sim will come higher up when searched for, in turn hopefully boosting sales. If the venue is attached to a shopping centre, as with Double Standards and Shiraz, then some extra sales may offset the cost of the event.

Where there is no such income stream, for owners it's a labour of love. I've got no financial interest in any club, but, if you've got any spare Lindens, spare a thought for the venue owner who makes it all possible for you.

I'm fortunate enough to be able to buy Lindens. One of the great things about SL is that it brings together people of all nationalities and from all walks of life. I know some of you rely on making money in SL to keep going, and I'm certainly not criticising you for it.

One last thing: there is a poll at the foot of my blog. Unfortunately my colour scheme makes it eye watering to read, and I can't work out how to change it without making other parts of the layout look eye watering in turn. I'm sorry about that, but do take a look.



Linden time! Replace the letters with words, answer in comments please. Leave your avi name, first correct answer gets paid 10L in world.

1. 1 FOTCN
2. 2, 2 TLWB
3. 10 PIC
4. 52 CIAP
5. 27 MSOTEU
6. 8 MH
7. 221 BBSSH
8. 18 HOAGC
9. 12 DOC
10. 14 LIAS

Winning friends, influencing people

I've long thought that SL is like real life, only speeded up 50 times. Venues and events come and go, and old friends depart and new ones arrive. And somehow in a short space of time I have transformed from a complete noob knowing nobody into a senior member of the trivia community.

After I posted last time I had two conversations that set me thinking. In my blog I've quoted from IM conversations I had with Nelly, once directly and once indirectly. I then realised doing this was telling others about our private conversations, when I hadn't asked it I might do so. She told me she had no problems at all with what I had written, but still, I felt I had betrayed confidences.

The other conversation was very thought provoking. I won't say who it was with (see rule no1 below), but it was with someone who isn't a trivia regular. We were chatting about various things and he said that I had the power to destroy reputations with my blog. I'm sure he was not saying I had destroyed anyone's reputation, but I've been thinking about this since.

This is not the only SL trivia blog, and there are other excellent trivia blogs listed in the sidebar. But I want you to enjoy what I write, and look forward to new posts, and not to fear them.

Cinna, Devin and Jez on the ZooBar beach.

Somebody had given Cinna's Evil Titler a Triviators title. Chadd claims to have evidence that one of the Triviators is trading on our team name. Who can it be???

My experience of SL has been almost all positive. I've made some really good friends, and those I haven't got on with I can avoid. I want to keep it that way.

So I'm going to set myself some blogging rules, and I'll do my best to stick to them. Isn't it a bit late to set yourself rules in your 13th post, I hear you say? Well, better late then never, so here we go:

1. I won't repeat the content of IMs in my blog without permission.*

2. If I haven't got anything nice to say about someone I'll say nothing.*

3. My opinions are just that, and should not be taken as meaning I think everyone should think that way. Well spotted, that's a rule for you and not me!

4. I will never use this blog to settle scores, not that I have many to settle.*

* Except Nelly Swindlehurst

So that's it for this post, a blog entry about blogging, if you like, a first-order derivative post. You deserve questions for lindens.

Replace the letters with the correct words. Answer in comments, please, leave your avi name and I'll pay 10L in-world for the first correct answer.

1. 6 FOAC

2. 20 FOIAP

3. 12 AM

4. 32 POACB

5. ITVODRT 600

6. 10 GBHOTW

7. 99 RB

8. 27 BITNT

9. 14 JBD

10. 1805 BOT

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