I have ranted about this on previous occasions but again one of my favourite local quizzes has sadly descended into something of a farce when it comes to victory and placings. Its starting to ruin what has always been a cracking and busy quiz night and the annoying thing is EVERYONE including the Quizmaster knows whats happening but is powerless to act.
There are a few factors here.....One simple fact is that the pub is set out in a very odd way whereby the quiz is played in both the bar and the lounge. The quiz master is in the bar and has a speaker in the lounge so they hear them. Thus no staff see the lounge during the quiz. And guess where the cheaters sit??
What also contributes is the mere fact that there are about 8-10 20-something studenty types every week who make up the team. Now, if they played fair they may be able to stake a claim for victory given the team size but they have been seen cheating time after time and like I said the quizmaster is fully aware. In his own words though "what can I do??".
He is in a very awkward position. In a quiz with maybe 10 teams, with an average of 4 per team you are looking at 40 players and then the 8 in the cheating team, so for arguments sake say 48 people per quiz night. If he does anything to annoy the big team and they leave the quiz then that's a sixth of the nights audience lost.
Approaches that could be made include, making everyone sit in the bar and lounge but neither is big enough so this would reduce attendance. Refusing to accept their paper, disqualifying them etc risks driving them away....and they are big drinkers so much more vital to the pub than my team of two economically. Its a red tooth "mark your own" (with the tear off sheet) quiz as well so he cannot even mark them down.
I don't envy his position at all and until the 8 start driving away the other 40+ en masse nothing will be done about it. If it was a home grown quiz he could introduce speed rounds etc but the red tooth format is very very cheat friendly.
Last night our score of 46 was an honest one, higher than usual due to there being a Eurovision round for both the Top 5 list questions which is my specialist subject and a good chain on the Trivia Trail.....the winning team scored 55 and seemingly got 5 of the "hard to cheat" pictures wrong meaning a full house on the questions. Even the quizmaster made a joke in the bar that Google had won the quiz and they had been seen on phones all night but no action taken.
I am sure this is not an isolated case but it is a shame as this could be a good competitive quiz if one team were not taking the spoils unfairly week after week
Great post! You've said it all beautiful. I like this post.
ReplyDeleteFree Online Quiz Maker
Kevin - I bet you never even bothered reading the post !
ReplyDeleteYou know my views. It's not that the QM can't do anything, it's that he WON'T - which is the same thing.
* He could tell them - politely - that there have been complaints from some of the teams who believe that they are cheating using phones, and see how they react to it.
* He could impose a handicap on the previous week's winners, so that they can't win two weeks in a row, which would at least mean that someone else can win every other week.
* He could order them to sit right in front of him in order to prove that they are cheating - or not.
* He could set a maximum number of members per team.
* He could explain at the start of the quiz - anyone seen with a mobile phone out during the quiz will automatically be assumed to be cheating, and will be disqualified. All he then needs is to have someone quietly walk round checking while the questions are being asked. You'd only have to disqualify a couple of teams and it would stop for good.
* He could ban them from the quizfor a fortnight each time they cheat.
As I say, there's lot's you CAN do. But the problem is the will is often not there. I don't blame question masters that much. After all, you make a pub quiz for fun. You're not looking for a confrontation, and if you don't really know the people involved, then who's to say how someone would react to being caught cheating, if they are enough of a complete dickhead to cheat in the first place.
i am sick and tired of cheats ,and its not just phones,what about people coming up to a team and giving them the answer,and also the swapping of sheets given to mates in another team,and what about a biased landlord who "looks after" his regulars,if you know what i mean!
ReplyDeletethere is a machine that prevents phones from working as it blocks the signals
ReplyDeletelets start naming pubs that allow cheats to prosper
ReplyDeleteup the hammers
ReplyDelete