05 July 2010

Player requests more flexibility regarding "weekday" definition

We just received this email from a player:

"Hello All, The initiative is very nice, instructive and entertaining. But there is a small problem with those of us for which week-end means Friday+Saturday, rather than Saturday+Sunday (in Israel for example). And, unfortunately, we cannot always access the computer on week-ends, due to various reasons. So, a most welcome enhancement would be to allow for a few days more for completing each quiz, instead of "closing" it the same day. I'll be grateful if you could consider favourably such an enhancement, just to open the contest for "a wider world" ! Thanks & Best Regards and Many congratulations for the initiative!"

Sigh. I can definitely see how this could cause some problems for players in Israel. I wonder if this is an issue in other countries? Please reply to this blog if you have a similar difficulty. The number of players from Israel does seem low, given the amount and sophistication of Oracle development in that country.

As for what we can do about it: I am really not sure. Allowing multiple days to answer would require many changes in our website and backend. And then it would no longer be a daily quiz.

We are looking at ways to build some "forgiveness" into the system, so you could miss some quizzes and not be penalized quite as badly. We are also considering offering different levels of play (daily quiz, 3 times a week, etc.). If you really could not answer five times a week routinely, you might consider playing at a different level (different "league"). But that is all still in the future.

What do our other players think about this?

Regards, SF

4 comments:

  1. Why not a quiz every day (or workday) and you could answer till 3 days more...
    The ranking and the answers would only be public afterward (after 3 days for instance). that would allow people miss two days (they would answer next day to three questions) and also make the new ranking and anti-cheating better.
    As I also suggested (by feedback button) I think that "no answer fast" was ranking too high and maybe an option like "non of the others" should be an answer in several question but maybe not in all. I explain: sometimes we are not thinking like PL/SQL developers (solving a puzzle) but only trying to figure out if there is an error in the question. I think that the answer(s) should be selectable (not allow "no answer") to make sure that typo errors in the questions are understood by everyone to be typo error and not a "trap" (unless it's real a trap but one of the answers would say that).

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  2. I suggest it should be daily, as in 7 days a week. Sure, the Sat+Sun questions might get a little less traffic, but with the "forgiveness" in the system for missed questions it should pan out.

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  3. Blogspot is having problems with comment moderation and is wiping out comments, so I post this for Jeff:

    I suggest it should be daily, as in 7 days a week. Sure, the Sat+Sun questions might get a little less traffic, but with the "forgiveness" in the system for missed questions it should pan out.

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  4. Having Friday's question open until Midnight Sunday GMT would help those of us a long way East of Greenwich (London) where Midnight Friday GMT is actuall mid day Saturday and where Friday afternoon is always a rush to wrap things up for the week-end.

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