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As discussed in my last post (edit: last-but-one post), there are now separate Northern UK and Southern UK teams for the forthcoming Croco-League online puzzle league. UK readers, both teams have vacancies if this is of interest at all; sign up according to whether you feel Northern or not. The Czech and Austrian teams look very strong, as do some of the regional German teams; I'm sure there could be many extremely strong Canadian and US teams if the North American puzzle infrastructure were prepared to break the language barrier and dive on in. ( Read more... )You've seen how much I go on about an online chess league in another country; you can guess how excited I am about actually taking part in a league further down the line.
I've also been taking an interest in, and am surprised to read that I haven't actually ever blogged about, Learned League, an online quiz league that has been running for fifteen years. The core activity is based around a series of twenty-five daily six-question trivia quizzes, more or less spread over the weekdays of five weeks. You are told your opponent in advance; each day, not only do you have to attempt to answer the questions correctly, but you also have to predict which questions your opponent is most likely to struggle with and so determine which are most and least valuable for them to answer. This gives a sense of attack and defence, common in so many sports. The competition proceeds as a series of single-round-robin divisions, roughly once per quarter, with lower divisions often being run through the Swiss system.
Testament to how well the core activity works is the league's history and its growth. Over its first roughly ten years, it has grown by a factor of seven from 20 entrants in the first season (and also its fourth season upon return from a hiatus in 1999) to 140 in the thirty-fourth, and it has grown by another factor of about seven, in just under five years, to having almost a thousand participants at the moment. Most impressive!( Read more... )
At present, participation in the league is free. There is a fund-raiser a couple of times a year; the invited levels of donation are sociable and carry with them some elements of swag and some degree of (tastefully done) non-gameplay advantages. However, the organiser has announced that henceforth players will have to contribute an annual membership fee in order to play in the league, beyond their first season. The organiser is doing this on a "pay what you like" basis and has expressed a desire not to exclude participants, which shows his heart is in the right place.
It is clear that running the league has generated a lot of good for the world at large over the years, and I certainly am happy that someone who does this much for the world at large gets rewarded for his labour, if he wants to be. The decision that he has taken (and confirmed) seems to slightly jar, for a couple of reasons.( Read more... )
Nobody gets it right all the time, and nobody should be expected to; I don't recall the pithy saying, but if people only ever did things for which they could expect not to receive criticism, nobody would ever do anything at all. The continued strength and growth of Learned League, and its popularity with its competitors, indicate that the organiser is getting far more right than wrong. Conversely, the extent to which the Croco-Puzzle UK ladder that I have run for fifteen months has struggled and not caught alight in the manner that I had hoped it might - not least, inspired by the strength and success of Learned League - may indicate flaws in my design or my moderation.
Nevertheless, the organiser has not previously taken such a decision to change the necessary relationship between himself and his players, and this may be a more fundamental alteration that may have a more significant change in the mood of the competition than any that comes before it. I hope that the test of time proves that the organiser has read the mood correctly, and balanced things against the demands in his own life as effectively as possible. I look forward to writing about the league again in future as not just an isolated but interesting Internet quiz, but as one of the the highlights - in terms of quantity as well as quality - in all of online mind sports.
I've also been taking an interest in, and am surprised to read that I haven't actually ever blogged about, Learned League, an online quiz league that has been running for fifteen years. The core activity is based around a series of twenty-five daily six-question trivia quizzes, more or less spread over the weekdays of five weeks. You are told your opponent in advance; each day, not only do you have to attempt to answer the questions correctly, but you also have to predict which questions your opponent is most likely to struggle with and so determine which are most and least valuable for them to answer. This gives a sense of attack and defence, common in so many sports. The competition proceeds as a series of single-round-robin divisions, roughly once per quarter, with lower divisions often being run through the Swiss system.
Testament to how well the core activity works is the league's history and its growth. Over its first roughly ten years, it has grown by a factor of seven from 20 entrants in the first season (and also its fourth season upon return from a hiatus in 1999) to 140 in the thirty-fourth, and it has grown by another factor of about seven, in just under five years, to having almost a thousand participants at the moment. Most impressive!( Read more... )
At present, participation in the league is free. There is a fund-raiser a couple of times a year; the invited levels of donation are sociable and carry with them some elements of swag and some degree of (tastefully done) non-gameplay advantages. However, the organiser has announced that henceforth players will have to contribute an annual membership fee in order to play in the league, beyond their first season. The organiser is doing this on a "pay what you like" basis and has expressed a desire not to exclude participants, which shows his heart is in the right place.
It is clear that running the league has generated a lot of good for the world at large over the years, and I certainly am happy that someone who does this much for the world at large gets rewarded for his labour, if he wants to be. The decision that he has taken (and confirmed) seems to slightly jar, for a couple of reasons.( Read more... )
Nobody gets it right all the time, and nobody should be expected to; I don't recall the pithy saying, but if people only ever did things for which they could expect not to receive criticism, nobody would ever do anything at all. The continued strength and growth of Learned League, and its popularity with its competitors, indicate that the organiser is getting far more right than wrong. Conversely, the extent to which the Croco-Puzzle UK ladder that I have run for fifteen months has struggled and not caught alight in the manner that I had hoped it might - not least, inspired by the strength and success of Learned League - may indicate flaws in my design or my moderation.
Nevertheless, the organiser has not previously taken such a decision to change the necessary relationship between himself and his players, and this may be a more fundamental alteration that may have a more significant change in the mood of the competition than any that comes before it. I hope that the test of time proves that the organiser has read the mood correctly, and balanced things against the demands in his own life as effectively as possible. I look forward to writing about the league again in future as not just an isolated but interesting Internet quiz, but as one of the the highlights - in terms of quantity as well as quality - in all of online mind sports.
