It’s time for a bit of news. And this time I would like you all to read the post (I know it is long - groan), because we have made some minor but important rule changes. However, the most pressing news and the news that will probably make most of you happy is, that it looks like we have finally killed the bug on the website for real. At least I’ve stopped getting daily reports about difficulties with logging in, problems answering and wrong pop-up messages, when you have answered. Now this might be because by now you have all reported to me, that “something is up with the page” and there was no reason to do it again. If that is the case, please do send me a message about it again, because then we will have to dig even deeper to find out where that bug is hiding, but for now, we consider it dead and buried. Now that does not mean that you might not from time to time get a pop-up message reading “The quizmaster will evaluate your answer”, but that is simply because the system was not able to immediately identify the answer as being correct. In that case - yes, you’ve guessed it – I will evaluate your answer and give a strict (but fair) ruling.
Now what about the Android app that I have been talking about for months now? Well, we are close, but there are still a few things we need to finish before we can ship it off. That’s not because we have hit some unforeseen difficulty, but simply because “real life” (work, families, Christmas preparations, corona restrictions) demanded our attention. We will get there, I promise. But speaking of real life, we have decided to make a few changes to the current set-up to give me a bit more time to finish the seasons and prepare the new ones. For that reason, the final question of the season will now be posted at midnight of Day 14 – 7 hours earlier than you have been used to. The reason for this is two-fold. 1) It will enable me to activate a possible tie-break earlier than I have done before, and 2) it will give the eastern quizzers (from countries like Australia, Sri Lanka and India) more time to answer the last question before a tie-break is activated. European night hawks might also get an early jump on the last question.
That means that from now on – AND THIS IS AN IMPORTANT RULE CHANGE - the top contenders will have to answer the last question of the season at 16 CET (at the latest) if they want to activate the tie-break. And the tie-break will end at 21 the same day. That will give everyone at least 5 hours to respond to the tie-break and it will give me some time to prepare the posts for the new season.
AND AN EQUALLY IMPORTANT RULE CHANGE. The winner will also be found at 9 o’clock CET on the last day of the season. Answers submitted later than that will go on the leaderboard, but you cannot get a winning point after that time.
THE LAST IMPORTANT CHANGE is that the Clash of Countries scoreboard will also be locked at 9 o’clock so even if Team England this season had scored two more late points and gone past Team Denmark at the very end, Team Denmark would still be declared the winner.
And one more thing about real life. My personal work situation has changed a bit (which is the main reason for the changes mentioned above) and that will also mean that I will not be able to respond quite as quickly as I have done before to messages from you. This will mostly be done in the evenings and so will manual updates to the leaderboard. So if you have gotten one of those “The quizmaster will evaluate your answer” messages, the question mark might remain on the leaderboard for several hours before it is checked.
Finally, I would like to thank all of you for sticking by the quiz this past year. A lot of new things have happened, with (I must admit) some turbulence which sometimes made it quite a bumpy ride for you guys, so I really appreciate your loyal support for the Quizzypedia project. And a special thank you goes out to all the guest quizmasters who have been kind enough to supply me with so many great sets of questions over these past months. We honestly could not do this without your help and with the current changes in my personal life, it might not be long before I will be out again hat in hand begging you guys for more questions. I hope some of you will volunteer... some of you even for a second, third, fourth... time.
I would also like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year – I hope you will make the best of it, despite these very trying times. We are moving towards brighter times, I am sure. Okay, enough chitchat from me. The new season is almost upon us, and once again yours truly is behind the questions. I hope you will enjoy them.
Game on!