New Scaratings

Welcome to the new Scaratings
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 6:36 pm

All times are UTC - 5 hours




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 24 posts ] 
Author Message
 Post subject: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 5:16 pm 
Offline
Lord or Lady Postsalot

Joined: Wed Jan 13, 2010 6:40 pm
Posts: 633
After 14+ years of playing and 10+years of on and off complaining about the saturation of pop culture in BT something new struck me last night - or at least struck me as more important than I had hitherto realized.

I've spent a lot of timing bemoaning question bias - the number of questions about PC topics. I still think it's a valid complaint as every sample I've ever taken has included well over 50% PC content long term and up to 90%+ short term.

But worse to the actual scoring impact is answer/distractor bias. Three questions from last night - paraphrased - should illustrate the issue

1) Which Roman emperor declared Christianity the empire's official religion in 325?
Good basic general knowledge question, right? You may know it. You may not, but you could have learned it from school, from reading, from church, from movies, from any number of places. But the four distractors were Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Caligula and Nero. Now straight away anybody who can read that question can probably eliminate 1 and 2 who were not Roman and two of the most famous names in history. Anyone with a smattering of knowledge on the subject even if they don't know the answer would probably know that Caligula and Nero came a couple hundred years or more earlier, so you have a 33% guess for a room temperature IQ and a 100% certainty for an average intellect even if they have no clue about the answer without seeing the choices.

2) Which recording artist wrote X (can't remember) and 634-5789? Now OK that may or may not be approximately as difficult for pop fans as the Christianity Q was for me but let's look at the distractors. Wilson Pickett Booker T Otis Redding and Sam Cooke. Now not only are all 5 options of the same genre and era but at least one of them actually recorded at least one of the songs. I THINK they mentioned Stax but how much help is that to anyone who doesn't know the answer - and 3/4 of the distractors recorded for them anyway. So the room temperature PC IQ is still at a 20% guess and one who does not know the answer but knows the record company stable (how likely is that??) gets a 25% guess compared to the 100% certainty even a sketchy knowledge of classical Rome gets you above. And as often said, the only way to know the answer is to be fond of and interested in this genre. It's not going to show up in as many places as Constantine does obviously!



3) Which Brady Bunch character starred on My Fair Brady? Now again forgetting for a moment how obsessed you have to be to even know or care about the latter show, what were the distractors? All five listed were Brady Bunch cast members and at least two of them also appeared on the reality show! A room temperature Brady IQ gets a 20% chance and even a possibility of being misdirected, and a sketchy knowledge stays at 20% unless they watched a short-run reality show on a minor channel ankle deep in cable wasteland.

These in short order got me thinking and I am nigh positive I have NEVER seen a stupid distractor (Tiefly, El Puko etc) on a PC question, and that I have always seen very silly distractors on most "academic" questions. EVERY PC question I saw last night listed a full slate of distractors that at least made general sense. If the Q was about an actor, all choices were actors and so on. How many times have Geography questions about Africa only listed 1 or 2 African places on the other hand, or science questions about metals listed three nonmetals?

To be equal to the first Q the distractors for the second question on the Stax writer should have included, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Henry Kissinger (two who were not even songwriters) and perhaps Elvis Costello and Tori Amos (two songwriters, but "200 years" away from the genre in question). The Brady question should have included two people who weren't even actors, and two actors who were not Brady stars.

Off base or not? Pay attention and let me know - tell me if you see as many patently absurd distractors on PC questions as academic ones.....

_________________
Please forgive any strange typos or grammar errors. I am typically using voice recognition software to enter text, and sometimes editing works differently from how I expect.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 5:52 pm 
Offline
King or Queen Postsalot

Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 12:17 am
Posts: 1140
Location: Northwest Chicagoland
Rhino wrote:
Off base or not? Pay attention and let me know - tell me if you see as many patently absurd distractors on PC questions as academic ones.....


You are not off base. I have noticed this myself. I have seen many "academic" questions where you would need to be illiterate not to eliminate the four wrong answers. My experience with "pop culture" questions is if you do not know the answer, you wont get any help from the clues or distractors. I will play closer attention in the future. I just heard on the radio that someone named LiLO went to jail for 90 days today. Do you think that might be a trivia question in a couple of weeks?

_________________
"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 10:29 pm 
Offline
Himself Fodder

Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:20 pm
Posts: 2291
You are not off base at all. I've noticed this crap for years in addition to other ways they've come up with to give the mental midget a fighting chance against a knowledgeable player.

Tonight they asked a good question where the answer was some war. One of the choices was Martian War. Whoever wrote that should be slapped upside the head. Paddy McGuidos was also a choice in some game tonight.

They just don't get the concept. Haven't for a few years now. Some at BT have an idea after perusing the BT forums, but I don't think they have any serious decision making ability.

Personally, I'm waiting until August and the two year anniversary of the shitstorm. BT gets a recap of what hasn't been rectified since that fateful day. I'll be very surprised if I hear any official response. I'll post it here as well.

BO


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 12:02 am 
Offline
King or Queen Postsalot
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:27 pm
Posts: 1558
They have done the same thing in STC for years.
Given a question about older players from the "big three" sports, there seems to usually be two or three silly answers from completely different sports and decades.
But if there's a question about hockey, I can guarantee that every one of the choices were not only hockey players but that they all played within a couple years of each other. :x

The other Eddie Floyd song was "Knock on Wood", BTW. Amii Stewart remade it into a disco hit in the late 70's.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 8:21 am 
Offline
Sir or Dame Postalot
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2010 11:47 am
Posts: 489
Location: Canuckian Cyberspace
Rhino wrote:

These in short order got me thinking and I am nigh positive I have NEVER seen a stupid distractor (Tiefly, El Puko etc) on a PC question, and that I have always seen very silly distractors on most "academic" questions.


I ONCE saw a question about a cowboy song where they wanted the player to finish the line "Black as the _________". "Lungs of Elpuko" was one of the distractors.

This was at lunch during the brief period when BTT replaced Appeateasers/LTT in the schedule.

Otherwise, I completely agree with your premise and analysis.

This is one of the main reasons the bulk of my game play is on Tuesday evenings or Thursdays (if the Topix interests me).

In addition to the bias you noted: During the BTT game, there has also been an increase in absurd questions like "Which of the following do you find on a beach? Answer: Sand"

Here is my take on the situation:

Previously, a significant number of Countdown/Wipeout/BTT players were nearly daily players who came into a site primarily to play trivia. They drink, eat and socialize but trivia is the main reason they are at the site.

Buzztime has decided to change their target customer for these games to someone who goes to a primarily to have a drink and/or a meal and socialize and plays the board absent-mindedly for a hour or so while socializing.

As the theory goes, these people don't want to have to wrack their brains and actually focus and pay attention to a questions involving "book smarts" if it means they have to stop , especially if they are with in the company of their equally clueless ilk.

The pop-culture questions don't appear to have the same "stigma" . For this crowd, it is "cool" to know the answer to a more obscure TV or music question.

If a Buzztimer shows up at Triviapolooza, could someone please speak to them about this...not that it will probably do any good


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 10:07 am 
Offline
Lotsa Posta

Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 1:03 pm
Posts: 785
Location: Delaware
While my gut wants to agree because I favor more academic questions, I wonder if confirmation bias might be playing a role here. I agree that the examples Rhino provided illustrate the differences I tend to perceive between the academic questions and the pop culture. It would not surprise me, though, if a pop culture aficionado might say that the opposite is true, with numerous examples of pop culture questions with ridiculous distractors and academic questions with plausible distractors. We wouldn't notice them as much because they wouldn't annoy us as much.

NOTE TO NTN/BT, IF YOU'RE LISTENING: This is not an endorsement of pop culture questions. There are still way too many of them. Please, please, gear them down.

On a side note, I thought the "Lungs of El Puko" distractor was cute, as it maintained the meter of the actual song quite nicely and fit the whole southwestern theme. (Blacker than night were the lungs of El Puko...)


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 10:27 am 
Offline
King or Queen Postsalot

Joined: Sun Jan 17, 2010 12:05 pm
Posts: 1513
Akbar71 wrote:
While my gut wants to agree because I favor more academic questions, I wonder if confirmation bias might be playing a role here. I agree that the examples Rhino provided illustrate the differences I tend to perceive between the academic questions and the pop culture. It would not surprise me, though, if a pop culture aficionado might say that the opposite is true, with numerous examples of pop culture questions with ridiculous distractors and academic questions with plausible distractors. We wouldn't notice them as much because they wouldn't annoy us as much.


I can only speak for the music questions, but just off the top of my head....the distractors for the music questions in Countdown/buzztime seem to be pretty solid most of the time.

The odd thing is that the distractors for the music questions in buzztime seem to be better in Countdown/buzztime than they are in Playback. I can't begin to tell you how many times a Playback question has come up something like "All of these were top 10 hits for Aerosmith except" or "Which Aerosmith video includes (whatever)" ... and then of the five answer choices, only one choice will be an Aerosmith song. I can't understand why buzztime does that in Playback. I could understand if buzztime did that for Countdown/buzztime, but not for Playback.

Now, granted, there are 51 questions in Playback...so with that many questions, there's bound to be at least a few softballs. But any time the distractors for music questions are better in Countdown/buzztime than they are in Playback, it's a head scratcher.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 4:09 pm 
Offline
Moderating Hobbit
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:17 pm
Posts: 1282
Location: Louisville, KY
Rhino wrote:

1) Which Roman emperor declared Christianity the empire's official religion in 325?
Good basic general knowledge question, right? You may know it. You may not, but you could have learned it from school, from reading, from church, from movies, from any number of places. But the four distractors were Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Caligula and Nero. Now straight away anybody who can read that question can probably eliminate 1 and 2 who were not Roman and two of the most famous names in history.


I would be willing to wager than 80% of people who go out to play trivia, and probably 90% of those who don't, have no idea that Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan were not Roman.

Quote:
Anyone with a smattering of knowledge on the subject even if they don't know the answer would probably know that Caligula and Nero came a couple hundred years or more earlier


Also highly, highly unlikely. I'd wage 98% of people don't know this.

Quote:
so you have a 33% guess for a room temperature IQ and a 100% certainty for an average intellect even if they have no clue about the answer without seeing the choices.


Not to go off-topic, but you're still erroneously conflating intellect with trivial knowledge. The vast majority of people have absolutely no reason to know, or if they did know, to remember, the things above, immaterial of the level of their intellect.

Quote:
These in short order got me thinking and I am nigh positive I have NEVER seen a stupid distractor (Tiefly, El Puko etc) on a PC question, and that I have always seen very silly distractors on most "academic" questions. EVERY PC question I saw last night listed a full slate of distractors that at least made general sense. If the Q was about an actor, all choices were actors and so on. How many times have Geography questions about Africa only listed 1 or 2 African places on the other hand, or science questions about metals listed three nonmetals?


That's because they're trying to keep your "average" person in the game (and, IMO, going about it all wrong). Your distractors may help people, but in likelihood won't help anyone but people with your level of knowledge, which far exceeds the average player -- so a few throwaways _may_ help them increase their score. They're more likely to know the entertainment or PC questions, so the distractors really aren't that necessary (to be fair, I've seen stupid distractors in many, many PC questions -- granted, not of the Tiefly Level). I can say with absolute certainty that of the 20 or so people I regularly play with, possibly 3 or 4 of us have the knowledge you're talking about -- and they're a group of players who will regularly Top 5 games.

To be pessimistic, it's also possible the people writing the questions are too uneducated to come up with five good answers, whereas on things they know (PC), they can come up with plenty.

Quote:
Off base or not? Pay attention and let me know - tell me if you see as many patently absurd distractors on PC questions as academic ones.....


I think you're not off base. I think there are far more in academic questions than in "PC" questions. By the same token, I don't think a lot of the things you think of as distractors are actually so for the average player -- and especially not for the type of player they're trying to get; they're more -- IMO -- a softball to the "good" players. That's not a knock against you at all -- you're very knowledgeable; with that knowledge unfortunately comes the tendency (or perhaps a variant of hope) to assume the rest of the public isn't as uneducated as you might fear they are.

Grab yourself some random people and ask them about Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, in whatever variant you want; I think you'll be surprised by their answers, or lack of.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 4:12 pm 
Offline
Moderating Hobbit
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:17 pm
Posts: 1282
Location: Louisville, KY
poman wrote:
Akbar71 wrote:
While my gut wants to agree because I favor more academic questions, I wonder if confirmation bias might be playing a role here. I agree that the examples Rhino provided illustrate the differences I tend to perceive between the academic questions and the pop culture. It would not surprise me, though, if a pop culture aficionado might say that the opposite is true, with numerous examples of pop culture questions with ridiculous distractors and academic questions with plausible distractors. We wouldn't notice them as much because they wouldn't annoy us as much.


I can only speak for the music questions, but just off the top of my head....the distractors for the music questions in Countdown/buzztime seem to be pretty solid most of the time.

The odd thing is that the distractors for the music questions in buzztime seem to be better in Countdown/buzztime than they are in Playback. I can't begin to tell you how many times a Playback question has come up something like "All of these were top 10 hits for Aerosmith except" or "Which Aerosmith video includes (whatever)" ... and then of the five answer choices, only one choice will be an Aerosmith song. I can't understand why buzztime does that in Playback. I could understand if buzztime did that for Countdown/buzztime, but not for Playback.

Now, granted, there are 51 questions in Playback...so with that many questions, there's bound to be at least a few softballs. But any time the distractors for music questions are better in Countdown/buzztime than they are in Playback, it's a head scratcher.


I agree -- the ones in Playback are absolutely asinine. Sometimes to the general level of:

"Which Aerosmith song yada yada yada?"

1. T. Boone Pickens
2. Apples
3. Janie Got a Gun
4. Lord of the Rings
5. King Kong

We get incredibly frustrated when we've nailed a good answer and the other four answers are absolutely ridiculous to _any_ person, no matter their level of knowledge on the topic.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 6:15 pm 
Offline
King or Queen Postsalot
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:41 pm
Posts: 2497
Dante wrote:
Rhino wrote:
so you have a 33% guess for a room temperature IQ and a 100% certainty for an average intellect even if they have no clue about the answer without seeing the choices.

Not to go off-topic, but you're still erroneously conflating intellect with trivial knowledge.

Couldn't have said that better.

Dante wrote:
The vast majority of people have absolutely no reason to know, or if they did know, to remember, the things above, immaterial of the level of their intellect.

While the following will likely offend not only the OP but also others, IMO the preponderance of allegedly more "worthy" academic trivia is just as useless, if not more so, than the allegedly "unworthy" pop culture/entertainment trivia is, with respect to what one who's gainfully employed needs to know to perform their paid/assigned duties, and further is usually good merely for playing trivia games, NTN Buzztime and otherwise.

Dante wrote:
That's because they're trying to keep your "average" person in the game (and, IMO, going about it all wrong).

Not trying to be confrontational here, but I'd be most interested to hear what your approach would be.

Dante wrote:
To be pessimistic, it's also possible the people writing the questions are too uneducated to come up with five good answers, whereas on things they know (PC), they can come up with plenty.

Notwithstanding that I should probably let whomever in the NTN Content Team speak for themselves (and, to say the least, also admitting to a significant amount of personal bias), I must take serious exception to this. IMO it is far more likely that the Content Team is being directed to write questions and answers in this way.

_________________
liljol, still residing in a humble lil abode in Buzztime's Backyard, San Diego County, in The Horribly Site-Poor Golden State, California...

<--805 NTN Buzztime sites visited as of 11/13/2018...

F CUBS!!!!! FBOSOX!!!!!

FPDRES!!!!! FCHGRS!!!!!


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 9:18 pm 
Offline
Lord or Lady Postsalot

Joined: Wed Jan 13, 2010 6:40 pm
Posts: 633
Sorry Dante I think you are being unreasonably pessimistic. I don't think there is more than 10% of the population who could possibly think Genghis Khan was a Roman, and no more than 20% who think Alexander was.

Silliness from other quarters about "worthiness" is worth less than the pixels it took to say it. The issue here is fairness of distractors, and until a question about Brady actors contains two distractors who are not actors and two people who ARE actors but only in action movies, the point stands.

_________________
Please forgive any strange typos or grammar errors. I am typically using voice recognition software to enter text, and sometimes editing works differently from how I expect.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 10:16 pm 
Offline
King or Queen Postsalot
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:59 pm
Posts: 2218
Rhino wrote:
Sorry Dante I think you are being unreasonably pessimistic. I don't think there is more than 10% of the population who could possibly think Genghis Khan was a Roman, and no more than 20% who think Alexander was.


I really wish you were right about this, but I'm afraid from what I've seen, I think your percentages are indeed optimistically low. I routinely give a quiz taken from U.S. Citizenship Test questions on the first day of my survey classes. Routinely, only about 1/3 get what would be a passing grade on it. Every single time, I get multiple people who miss questions like "What country did we fight in the Revolutionary War?" and "How many states does the U.S. have?" For questions like "What countries were our enemies in WW II?" sometimes close to half the class will get it wrong (and this is with me counting correct the students who only put "Germany and Japan" and leave off Italy). My colleagues tell me that when it comes to ancient history (or really, any kind of history outside of the U.S.), the incoming knowledge base is even more abysmal. And these are college students. I have no idea what kind of responses I would get from a random sample of non-college educated Americans, but I can't help but think the percentages would be even lower. So unfortunately, I suspect that more than 20% of Americans would not necessarily know that Alexander was not a Roman (ancient history) if an even larger percentage of college-level students routinely don't know who the U.S. fought in WW II (much more recent, and constantly in movies and on The History Channel).

None of this is to say that I disagree with you on your major point--I really do think distractors on "academic" questions in BT Trivia and Countdown on average do not approach the level of difficulty as I have seen on average in the pop culture content (country music questions, for example, always seem to have all country musicians as choices). I do not think it is too much to ask that, say, a question on Roman Emperors should at least have five Romans on the list, and preferably Roman Emperors.

_________________
Anon
"He may seem like Mr. Rogers but a dark spirit lies beneath."


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 7:47 am 
Offline
King or Queen Postsalot

Joined: Sun Jan 17, 2010 12:05 pm
Posts: 1513
ANON wrote:
Rhino wrote:
Sorry Dante I think you are being unreasonably pessimistic. I don't think there is more than 10% of the population who could possibly think Genghis Khan was a Roman, and no more than 20% who think Alexander was.


I really wish you were right about this, but I'm afraid from what I've seen, I think your percentages are indeed optimistically low. I routinely give a quiz taken from U.S. Citizenship Test questions on the first day of my survey classes. Routinely, only about 1/3 get what would be a passing grade on it. Every single time, I get multiple people who miss questions like "What country did we fight in the Revolutionary War?" and "How many states does the U.S. have?" For questions like "What countries were our enemies in WW II?" sometimes close to half the class will get it wrong (and this is with me


Gotta agree here. 2 out of every 3 Americans can't even name *one* sitting SCOTUS justice.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts2356


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 7:55 am 
Offline
Lord or Lady Postsalot

Joined: Wed Jan 13, 2010 6:40 pm
Posts: 633
Ah but remember there have been blockbuster movies about Alexander and Genghis Khan. Surely some knowledge percolates through there. Since when did WW2 movies show Italians as villains?

_________________
Please forgive any strange typos or grammar errors. I am typically using voice recognition software to enter text, and sometimes editing works differently from how I expect.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 10:49 am 
Offline
King or Queen Postsalot
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:27 pm
Posts: 1558
Rhino wrote:
Ah but remember there have been blockbuster movies about Alexander and Genghis Khan. Surely some knowledge percolates through there. Since when did WW2 movies show Italians as villains?


Has anyone even played Genghis Khan in a major American release since John Wayne butchered the role in 1956's The Conqueror?

John Lone played another Khan in The Shadow. But that's about as close as I can get you.

I'd be careful using Hollywood as the basis of knowledge of the masses in regards to accurately answering trivia questions.
People that primarily obtain info from movies, which is an alarming number I'm sure, come out of films like Troy thinking that the conflict lasted only a couple of weeks or so.
You're correct in that films can be of assistance, but I doubt they are as helpful as one would expect. You know Hollywood can't be trusted to get their facts straight. :D


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:38 pm 
Offline
Moderating Hobbit
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:17 pm
Posts: 1282
Location: Louisville, KY
liljol wrote:
[While the following will likely offend not only the OP but also others, IMO the preponderance of allegedly more "worthy" academic trivia is just as useless, if not more so, than the allegedly "unworthy" pop culture/entertainment trivia is, with respect to what one who's gainfully employed needs to know to perform their paid/assigned duties, and further is usually good merely for playing trivia games, NTN Buzztime and otherwise.[/color]


I would take it a step further. Understand, before I say this, I love history, art, philosophy, the sciences -- basically everything that is "nerdy." I have collections of books no one in his right mind would ever want to read. And I spend a good deal of my free-time reading about things no one will ever care about. And still I'm willing to say that for the vast majority of people the "unworthy" pop culture has more utility and meaning in their lives than any of the things I care about. I may love discussing Russian Literature, but at the end of the day, the vast majority of people I know will want to discuss what happened on Lost, what it means, etc. This is how they measure their world -- not by a stodgy classic that has very little meaning to them without hours of study that excludes them from their peers. And there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of pop culture is garbage -- to be fair, I consider a lot of "classics" to be garbage as well, propped up only become some snooty people who want to feel superior want to "read against the grain" their own interpretations into them. But some of pop culture is brilliant, touching, and as moving as any "classic" or "piece of history" or "work of art" out there. Pop culture is -- and always has been -- the main way in which most humans communicate meaning with each other. It's something anyone can understand -- even though it has layers beneath it that can be examined by the "academic." It's as far game as the "knowledge" so far removed from most peoples' experience.

I understand we all work really hard to obtain our own archaic sets of knowledge. I know these things are important to us. But because they are important to us does not mean they have to be important to everyone else. Trying to force that view on others is, frankly, one of the reasons no one cares about things that fall outside of pop culture.

Quote:
Not trying to be confrontational here, but I'd be most interested to hear what your approach would be.


I'm not sure what the best approach is. I view it a lot like the "best way to drive." I may not be able to tell you what it is, but I know driving 150 mph in the rain isn't it. Ideally, I would think Buzztime should try to segregate their games into different sets of knowledge as much as possible, and to heavily advertise to the individual target markets for those days and times. This would be sure to alienate some people, obviously.

In a general sense, I still believe Buzztime should spend half its marketing budget on academic teams in high schools and college, if they really want to obtain a new player base and keep everyone happy.

Dante wrote:
To be pessimistic, it's also possible the people writing the questions are too uneducated to come up with five good answers, whereas on things they know (PC), they can come up with plenty.

Notwithstanding that I should probably let whomever in the NTN Content Team speak for themselves (and, to say the least, also admitting to a significant amount of personal bias), I must take serious exception to this. IMO it is far more likely that the Content Team is being directed to write questions and answers in this way.[/quote]

I don't disagree. I don't actually believe that, just stated a possibility. Everyone I've spoken to from Buzztime have, for the most part, been educated and intelligent people, and I would be ready to believe they're being directed to do something than doing it because of their own failings.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 3:45 pm 
Offline
King or Queen Postsalot
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:59 pm
Posts: 2218
Rhino wrote:
Ah but remember there have been blockbuster movies about Alexander and Genghis Khan. Surely some knowledge percolates through there. Since when did WW2 movies show Italians as villains?


I'm pretty sure fewer than 10% of the US public saw "Alexander," which was considered a flop. Not sure how much edumacation could have happened with that. :)

_________________
Anon
"He may seem like Mr. Rogers but a dark spirit lies beneath."


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:31 pm 
Offline
Moderating Hobbit
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:17 pm
Posts: 1282
Location: Louisville, KY
28% of people could identify John Roberts as the Current Supreme Court Chief Justice:

Image


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:32 pm 
Offline
Moderating Hobbit
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:17 pm
Posts: 1282
Location: Louisville, KY
spotes wrote:
Rhino wrote:
Ah but remember there have been blockbuster movies about Alexander and Genghis Khan. Surely some knowledge percolates through there. Since when did WW2 movies show Italians as villains?


You're correct in that films can be of assistance, but I doubt they are as helpful as one would expect. You know Hollywood can't be trusted to get their facts straight. :D


Are you trying to tell me my William Wallace did not shoot lightning bolts from his arse?!


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 3:22 am 
Offline
King or Queen Postsalot

Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 12:17 am
Posts: 1140
Location: Northwest Chicagoland
Rhino wrote:
Ah but remember there have been blockbuster movies about Alexander and Genghis Khan. Surely some knowledge percolates through there. Since when did WW2 movies show Italians as villains?


Italians or Ities have been villains in several early British WWII films. The last movie I saw with Italians as villains was "The lion in the Desert" staring Anthon Quinn. Unfortunately maybe those early movies are not shown anymore because the are lost or not PC.

_________________
"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 4:04 am 
Offline
King or Queen Postsalot

Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 12:17 am
Posts: 1140
Location: Northwest Chicagoland
[quote="spotes"][quote="Rhino"]
Has anyone even played Genghis Khan in a major American release since John Wayne butchered the role in 1956's The Conqueror?
J/quote]
Omar Shariff played Genghis Khan in 1965. Telly Savalas was his sidekick. The John Wayne movie was better with Pedro Pedro Armendáriz, and Susan Hayward. I agree that was probably John Wayne's worse role. But I like the movie. I am nuts about old movies and maybe drunk.

_________________
"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 11:48 pm 
Offline
King or Queen Postsalot
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:27 pm
Posts: 1558
FrankC wrote:
spotes wrote:
Has anyone even played Genghis Khan in a major American release since John Wayne butchered the role in 1956's The Conqueror?

Omar Shariff played Genghis Khan in 1965. Telly Savalas was his sidekick. The John Wayne movie was better with Pedro Pedro Armendáriz, and Susan Hayward. I agree that was probably John Wayne's worse role. But I like the movie. I am nuts about old movies and maybe drunk.


Nice pick up Frank.
I'm surprised that I've never heard of that film, especially given the quality of the cast: James Mason, Stephen Boyd, Eli Wallach, Robert Morley, etc.
I'm going to have to check that out. How bad could it be?
Wait! Don't answer that! :D


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 7:13 am 
Offline
King or Queen Postsalot

Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:54 am
Posts: 1665
I have found my niche:

tiefly = stupid distractor


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Something just struck me about pop-culture bias
PostPosted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 7:55 am 
Offline
Lord or Lady Postsalot

Joined: Wed Jan 13, 2010 6:40 pm
Posts: 633
tiefly wrote:
I have found my niche:

tiefly = stupid distractor



Many times, Tiefly. Many times. Botfly too. Occasionally even at the same time!

_________________
Please forgive any strange typos or grammar errors. I am typically using voice recognition software to enter text, and sometimes editing works differently from how I expect.


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 24 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 5 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group