Quizardry.com

Where do I go to create QMinis?

You can create QMinis by clicking on the Create your own QMinis link from the QMinis Home Page

QMinis Editor: How do I create/edit the Title and Description?

This page allows you to set up the title and description of your new QMini as well as defining a few other parameters. Here is a description of all the fields on this page.

Title
As you might expect this is the Title that you give your QMini. It can be up to 128 characters in length, but if you want it to get noticed, then short and sweet is definitely the way to go (on some of the lists on the home page only first 25 characters are displayed).

Description
This is a more in depth description of your QMini, including any special instructions that people might need in order to answer the questions. e.g. telling them what format their answer should be in.

Quiz Type
Your QMini can be one of two types. Public QMinis are ones that you want everyone to see on the site.
However, if for example you want to do a QMini about the members of your family, then not too many people are going to know the answers, or be particularly interested. These sort of QMinis you can mark as private and they will not appear on the site, but you can mail them to your family and friends (see below).
One important point about the difference between Public and Private QMinis is that when you submit a Public QMini it will first have the content checked before it is added to the site (obviously to avoid people adding offensive material to the site). Private QMinis will be released as soon as you are ready - but we may still remove them at a later date if they contain anything offensive.

Quiz Categories
Each QMini is divided into Categories - mainly to make it easier for people to find QMinis on the topics they prefer. This is only really relevant for Public QMinis. You can either assign a suitable category yourself, or leave them empty and let us do it for you.

Mail Quiz to
Once you have released your QMini, you obviously want people to know about it. When a QMini is released the email addresses that you enter here will be informed that the quiz is released. Sometimes emails don't make it through or are blocked for whatever reason. Don't worry, you can still mail it to other people after it has been released.


Save Changes/Save and Create new question
When you are happy with the fields you have entered on this page you can save your progress. If you just want to save and stay where you are then Click on the Save Changes button (typically you would use that if you have already completed your QMini, and you are just making corrections.
If you want to add a new question at the end of the QMini and immediately start creating that question then use Save and Create new question.
NOTE: if you leave the page without saving any changes you made will be lost.

If, for some reason you have to go away or are accidentally logged off, then you can still continue with your quiz. Simply log back in and go to "List your QMinis". You will find you 'work-in-progress' quizzes at the top of the list, and you can continue editing them from there.

QMinis Editor: How do I create/edit a Question?

Each question can be one of two types:

[url]How do I create a Multiple Choice Question?[/url]

[url]How do I create a Written Answer Question?[/url]

QMinis Editor: How do I create a Multiple Choice Question?

First of all you need to check that the question is set for Multiple Choice.

If at the top of the question it says "Written Answer Question" and there is button labelled "Switch to Multiple Choice", then you need to click on that button.

Once you are in multiple choice mode you should have the following fields:

Question X
Where X is the question number that is being edited. Your question can be anything up to 256 characters in length.

Media File (optional)
If you wish to you can have an image, audio or video file to accompany your questions. Click on browse to select a file from your hard-drive. This file is not uploaded until you save your question.

Correct Answer
This represents the correct answer to the question. There can only be one correct answer in Multiple Choice and you must enter one.

Alternative Wrong Answers
You must enter at least one alternative wrong answer. There are the other answers that will appear in the final question as part of the multiple choice. When the question is displayed to the user these and the Correct Answer will be displayed in a random order.

Clue
Are you feeling generous, then supply a clue for the question. This can be anything you want, but bear in mind that it will take them to a search engine. This allows you to either give more information about the question, or simply give a good search string that will allow people to find out more for themselves.
If you want your QMini released quickly, then it is worth adding the clues yourself - otherwise we will add them - it just takes us a little longer to process the QMini before releasing it.


Below is an example of how you might create a multiple choice question. In this QMini (which you can access HERE) you are required to name the episode of The Young Ones from it's description. There are four possible answers (Cash, Time, Bambi, and Sick) of which Cash is the correct answer.

The author has also supplied a clue which tells you that the episode is from Young Ones Series 2. In this quiz this will take you to a search for 'Young Ones Series 2' from which you can easily find an episode guide in order to get the correct answer.

QMinis Editor: How do I create a Written Answer Question?

First of all you need to check that the question is set for Multiple Choice.

If at the top of the question it says "Written Answer Question" and there is button labelled "Switch to Multiple Choice", then you need to click on that button.

Once you are in multiple choice mode you should have the following fields:

Question X
Where X is the question number that is being edited. Your question can be anything up to 256 characters in length.

Media File (optional)
If you wish to you can have an image, audio or video file to accompany your questions. Click on browse to select a file from your hard-drive. This file is not uploaded until you save your question.

Correct Answers
Our quizzes are pretty much unique in that you are allowed to have more than one correct answer per question. See BELOW for more details

Close Answers
Our quizzes allow you to enter a number of 'Close' search strings which allows you to tell the person playing the quiz when their question is 'nearly right' or 'Close'. See BELOW for more details

Clue
Are you feeling generous, then supply a clue for the question. This can be anything you want, but bear in mind that it will take them to a search engine. This allows you to either give more information about the question, or simply give a good search string that will allow people to find out more for themselves.
If you want your QMini released quickly, then it is worth adding the clues yourself - otherwise we will add them - it just takes us a little longer to process the QMini before releasing it.


Below is an example of how you might create a Written Answer question. In this QMini (which you can access HERE) you are required to name the film or films that the people appeared in that were released after their death. In this example there are two possible answers, and as the question states you can name either or both to get a correct answer.

The author has also supplied a clue which tells you more about the actor in question. If that still doesn't help then clicking on the clue allows you to search to find out more.

QMinis Editor: How do I enter Answers for a Written Answer QMini?

Using the same example before we will show how to create the perfect set of answers for your questions:



In this question there are two possible correct answers, so we want to allow the person answering the question to get a 'CORRECT' if they get either correct answer, or both.

First, it is best is we explain a couple of things about how answers are checked.

1. Each answer is converted to lower-case and has all it's not alphanumeric characters removed before comparison.

2. Where an ampersand character (&) is used to link two works then it is replaced by the word 'and'.

In this example the two correct answers are the films "Canadian Bacon" and "Wagon's East". As we don't need to worry about capital letters or punctuation, then these have been entered as "canadian bacon" and "wagons east". If someone gives the answer "Wagon's East" then they will still get a correct - as per item 1 above.

I now want to include both possible answers as well, and the most common ways for people to do that when the answer the question is one of the following:

"Canadian Bacon and Wagon's East"
"Canadian Bacon & Wagon's East"
"Canadian Bacon, Wagon's East"
"Canadian Bacon/Wagon's East"

Thanks to item 2 first 2 are identical, and thanks to item 1 the last 2 are identical. However, we also need to allow for people entering Wagon's East first, so we need them both ways round.

As you can see in the example we have entered answers that will match these 8 possibilites.

QMinis Editor: How do I enter Closes for a Written Answer QMini?

Using the same example before we will show how to create the perfect set of Closes for your questions:



The most important thing to know about 'Closes' is that it uses it as a search in the user's answer.

That means that if you put the single letter 'a' in as a close then it will match every single possible answer that contains the letter 'a'. Therefore, closes need to be long enough that they will uniquely match a genuine attempt to ge t the correct answer, without giving all sort of other answers as a close.

There are really two types of 'Closes' that you can give - those that try and trap the incorrect spelling of the correct answer, and those that give other answers, that are not quite right.

In this example you could include the film "Hostage for a Day" which was made and released just prior to his death. It isn't right, but some might consider it close.

However, in this example we have tried to match genuine attempts to get the correct answer, that may simply have been mis-spelled.

For example, if you answer "Cnadian Bacon" then you would get a close, thanks to "nadian" being included as a close.

The general rule for Closes is when you add one to think about the probability of someone entering a completely unrelated answer and getting a Close when it really isn't.

For example, if the answer required here was the name of the actor, John Candy then it would not be a good idea to enter the name "john" as close, because there are thousands of actors who's name is 'john'. However, you could enter "John C" as a close, which would only match actors whose first name is "John" and their second name begins with the letter 'C'.

If you are really in doubt about the best way to add Closes, then simply don't add them, and we will do it for you.

QMinis Editor: How do submit my QMini to the site?

Once you have created your QMini and you are happy that it is ready to go, then you can click on the "Save & Submit" button.

Assuming you are creating a Public quiz, then once you have confirmed that you want to Submit your quiz, it will be added to a queue for processing, and once ready it will be released to the site (and mailed to the people you requested). This process could take a few minutes, or several days depending on how much work is involved in checking the QMini and what time of day it is...most of the time the former will be the case.

Help! How can I delete a QMini that I started to make, and then realised it was all going horribly wrong?

I don't want it on my creating list anymore

Sorry nemish. I didn't spot this. Unless you plan to never ever ever create another QMini ever....then there's really no need to delete it....just re-use it next time you create one.

Of course if you never ever plan to create one, then there's no need to worry about it being there in the creating state...

I am trying to create some new picture quizzes but when I test the quiz the pictures lose some quality & appear quite fuzzy. I have tried saving the pictures as a jpeg file & as a bmp file but this doesn't seem to make any difference.

Has anyone got any tips on how to improve the quality?

The pictures I have saved are only 4kb for a jpeg file & around 30kb for a bmp file so they're not very big.

thanks

Paul

The images are resized to fit the box shape that we have defined. The best way to avoid distortion is to have pictures that are of a similar dimension on the same row.

For example, if you have a picture that is 400x400 pixels then you would want the 3 pictures on the same row to be similar in shape, i.e. square. So images of dimensions 300x300 or 600x600 would go well with it.

It might be useful if you send me the images you are using (i.e. the source images) and I can then work out the best sort of sizes to use. Send me a PM and I'll give you an email address to send them to.

Hi,

I'm in the process of creating a QMini.

I finished entering the questions and answers, but how do I enter the clues?

In the QMini Tutorial (V1.0) pdf-file, it is stated that you can enter a clue for each question in the bottom cell, but in the template, I do not see the "enter clue" cell.

Am I missing something here?

Hi Meaty, we now do the clues differently using a database of existing clues, so you don't need to create them yourself.

At some point I'll get round to changing the FAQ. Sorry for the confusion.