It's pretty basic, really, and I'm probably not the only one who does it, but I call it Wiki-hopping: I use Wikipedia's "Random Article" option, clicking from page to page until I find something that would make good trivia. That's pretty much it. It brings me to subject matter I wouldn't have thought to write about before, and it's educational for me, too. Of course, the drawback is that if it's a topic I don't know very well myself, I might have trouble gauging the difficulty level, but for Bucc Bowl, we started triple-checking each other's questions before the May game so that each of us with our very different areas of expertise has the chance to make recommendations before the questions "go live."
I end up clicking through a lot of useless sludge, but I also learn a lot in the process. All of the questions I wrote for the June Bucc Bowl except for the bonuses I produced this way, and it took me less time than usual. Some people question Wikipedia's accuracy, so I pay attention to the website's own cautions at the top of the articles and don't use entries that need brushing up. Even on articles without cautions, I'll sometimes seek corroborating information from other sources. And of course, there is always our triple-checking system. If Thorn or Lillian spots a problem, we revise and try again.
Here are a few I put together today by Wiki-hopping for your trivial pleasure:
1. Oscar-winning film and radio star Mercedes "Mercy" McCambridge was once called "the world's greatest living radio actress" by what filmmaker?
2. What country scored the most medals in cross-country skiing at the 2006 Winter Olympics?
3. What TV show was the first- and second-season character Janice Licalsi written off of because producers didn't want to have a murderous police officer as a central figure?
4. Mohammed Ali Hammadi is a Lebanese member of Hezbollah who was convicted for his role in the hijacking of an airplane from what airline in 1985?
5. Messali Hadj was a politician and activist who worked for his country's independence from France in the 1940s and 1950s. What country was he from?
Lotus, Orianne, Lette, Cerys at Lebn's trivia1. Orson Welles. McCambridge won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in All the King's Men. She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She worked with Welles on the film Touch of Evil.
2. Russia, with two golds, two silvers, and three bronzes.
3. NYPD Blue. The character, played by Amy Brenneman, killed a mob boss and his driver because the mob boss wanted her to murder her lover, played by David Caruso.
4. TWA. Flight 847 from Athens to Rome was rerouted and its passengers held hostage for two weeks before being released.
5. Algeria. Ironically, after Algeria won their independence in 1962, Hadj went into exile in France because an opposing party had taken Algeria over as a one-party state.
Of course, any of these answers could be found via google pretty easily; most likely, people will find the Wiki page I used right at the top of their searches. But first, even if one question were googled, the googler wouldn't then find all the others along with it, and second, I try to write questions in a way that will make it possible to guess if no one knows the answer right away. Even if you've never heard of McCambridge, Hammadi, and Hadj, you've probably heard of Welles, TWA, and Algeria, which means spamming filmmakers, airlines, and former French colonies will eventually lead to the correct answer.
Anyone who likes to is welcome to borrow or adapt this method. Yes, I know there are flaws in it, but pretty much any method has flaws. Methods that are based on the trivia writer's knowledge or access to specific sources will be biased in favor of players with the same general area of knowledge as the writer. This obviously does not make bad trivia, but unbiased trivia would be preferable. Just ask anyone who isn't from the U.S. how it is to sit through yet another game speckled with questions about states, presidents, and baseball. There will always be a balancing of strengths and weaknesses.
So if you like, please comment on your own methods or recommendations or what have you.
Also, sorry I've been so quiet in the blog this past week. I'll try to pick things back up for y'all soon!
I was really impressed by the trouble Chad and Shale take over thir questions. I'm running at 51 questions a week and I just don't have the time for painstaking research.
ReplyDeleteI have also used Wiki's random article to come up with ideas, though sometimes I get sidetracked by interesting articles that won't make good questions.
I write all my questions onto a Word document that is now 120 pages long. When the time comes to set up my notecard I C&P from the Word doc. Sometimes I think of a couple of questions and put them in then and there.
Other times if I have an hour or so I sit and work away at writing. Sometimes if I'm particularly inspired I can just get a series of questions out of nowhere.
Otherwise I have a card with about 30 subjects on it and work through the subjects, it helps me focus and also makes the mix more varied.
My family gave to me "The A to Z of Almost Everything" which was written for quiz setters and is a beautiful 1400 pages packed with facts. Sometimes I browse though there to get questions.
Confession time: I once lifted a question from Gogomodo. It was a really good question, but I felt such a cheat afterwards.
CHEEEEEEEEEEEEAT!
ReplyDeletehehehehe ;o)
I lift my trivias directly from funtrivia.com. Oh wait, I'm not Dakota.
ReplyDeleteThere are some wiki pages I think would have great facts for you to use, so what that I was the one who put the facts there.
ReplyDeleteI am not a huge trivia writer, as I generally ONLY write for the Bucc Bowl, which when I come to think about it, is kind of odd, since I kind of view it as a capper to the trivia month. Perhaps it ins't the place for a trivia writing noob to flex her grey matter. But then again, I'm not a stupid trivia writing noob, nor a am I in a bubble, and Lette and Thorn and I have the triple edit/proofreading/testing method, so we will hopefully NEVER have a bad question again. Ever. Thus far, my own method has been a combination of personal knowledge, overhearing things on NPR or whatnot that pique my interest and jotting them down then doing the subsequent research to back them up, and then last week for the first time, Lette's Wiki hopping method. Which, by the way, was incredibly usefull for filling out those last few questions in my batch, as well as keeping them from all being about Zombies and obscure language...
ReplyDeleteI have to say, the combo of the three worked for me. But then, I don't have to write the density of questions that many hosts do. I do admit that I have a bunch of stuff still rattling around in my head from the three huge 1000 page Trivia books my parents bought me when I was 4. I memorized them then, and read them till the covers fell off. They were the only things that kept Lil Lillian quiet in the back of the car.
Like Lotus I don't always get the chance to sit and research questions as much as I'd like, so I have a few really useful trivia books. These are a little out of date, so I do have to double check the answers, which is a great way for me to learn stuff too.
ReplyDeleteSome questions simply pop in to my had as well, and other times I'll see or hear something interesting and think that would make a good question.
I did do something similar to Lette's once at Moysies, where all the answers linked to the next question. This took a lot of time but it was very interesting reading about things which I wouldn't normally have bothered with. I think this a good way of question writing, but I just don't have the time to do that every week.
So for me its a combination of books, brain and generally picking things up.
Lol, I thought this great method of yours was going to be something else... ;) You're definitely not the only one who does this -- didn't Chadd and Rickson say they do this too? And Lotus. And I certainly do (though my questions are themed, so I don't use the random article). Wikipedia is my main source. I start with a themed topic (airships, pirates, etc.) and keep going until I find something interesting that I can make accessible but tie back to the theme (like Starship... lol). That's pretty much my whole process. Oh, and I avoid any opportunity for number spam when writing Qs, because 1) that uses zero part of the player brain and 2) I'm way too lazy to scroll through that crap.
ReplyDeleteJust to clarify, simply using Wiki in any general way isn't what I was referring to as my method. Chadd and Shale use a wiki of their own to collaborate on trivia, and Rickson uses a "Did you know?" feature in Wikipedia. It's *specifically* the random article hopping that I've been excited about since trying it. If you're not random articling, you're doing something other than what I was describing.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I make it a point to clarify this has to do with why I have been so happy for the time it's been saving me. Specifically: when I was trying to write trivia cold, I was trying to prioritize putting together a good range of topics. Even using Wikipedia as a reference to look up subjects I was unfamiliar with, this was a struggle because I'd keep reverting to topics I already knew. This is what I noted in the article is problematic because it carries with it a bias in favor of people with the same knowledge range as mine. But obviously, you won't write trivia about a topic it doesn't occur to you that trivia exists for. I tried a number of ways to diversify my questions more, like reading more magazines and such, but it ended up being more trouble than it felt like it should be worth.
The reason the random article feature was so helpful is that it brings the new topics to me, rather than me having to go to them. I don't have to struggle to think of things I don't normally think about. Bucc Bowl used to be the only game I wrote original questions for, and even that felt like a pain in the butt, though it only amounts to 15 questions a month. In contrast, I enjoy clicking through the random stuff so much that a larger number of questions for Chaos and Impromptu are likely to be original in the future, too.
I use Wiki a lot. If its a themed event, I will google particular items and see if I can find cool related sites for people to check out. I write what seems to be tons of trivia questions because they take me so darn long to put together. I would like to write narratives after each question and I have been for the most part but I think I will be cutting that back to the Thursday themed trivia only. All other events will most likely be just questions. I think I may be reaching a trivia burn-out when it comes to the writing aspect. This past week I started my new weekly event "recycled trivia" to make use of some of the work I have put into writing the past several years...then they will be deleted after being done a second time.
ReplyDelete