Upcoming changes in Season 2

We bring you a lot of improvements this season.

From the ratings provided by 19 of the many participants/readers who took part in the first season of the EMU Quiz League, we have a received an average rating of ~7.7 out of 10 (median = 8, min = 2, max = 10). This is evidence that we had a rather successful Season 1 of the EMU Quiz League, despite all the issues that plague the first season or instalment of any initiative. We fixed a lot of these issues during the season. However, the limited time we had every week to address such issues was not sufficient to fix all of them. So, we will be fixing them before the second season.

We have received a lot of feedback from the players and the readers (both positive and negative). We take all such feedback very seriously. And that’s why we are changing up a number of things. And some of the changes are thanks to the feedback we received from the late Vikram Rajan (CR), who unfortunately passed away soon after the end of Season 1. Here is a list of changes you can expect from the second season of the league:

Note that we are also planning on a major change in the online infrastructure which we will not reveal or confirm until it is checked and verified to work by the time season 2 starts. UPDATE: See this article for the big change.

Since this is a very detailed and therefore, long article, we are providing a Too Long Didn’t Read (TLDR) version (we prefer that you read the detailed version):

i) For season 2, we are offering alternate methods by which one can participate without paying a single rupee/cent/pence!

• Three free tickets and one ticket with 60% off, are available to those in need, between the ages 18-20. The first people to apply gets them.

• 10 promise-based tickets, i.e. tickets given in lieu of a promise that the players will read 6 games to cover their League cost, are available. First come, first serve.

• ANYONE (participant or not) can earn League Credits and/or cash by inviting people to play in this league, and getting referred by the registrants in the registration form.

• Education and/or age based discounts: i) 40% reduction in the base price (!) for participants who are under-graduates (doing their Bachelors or equivalent) OR of the ages 18, 19 or 20 ii) 20% reduction in the base price for participants who are post-graduates (doing their Masters or equivalent) OR of the ages 21 or 22.

ii) Cut-off age for participants will be 18 years.

iii) We are automating the email delivery of the payment details, to reduce delays.

iv) Privacy policy update: images/text of registration transaction details from the players will be retained, even after a season is over, but you can get it deleted through a request.

v) It will be mandatory for you participants to have/create a Gmail account for better privacy and security.

vi) We are removing scheduling inefficiency by clubbing and emailing the four players within every game in the fixtures every game-week.

vii) We are removing the annoyance of having to add the reader to the scheduling email thread by sending an automated email to the four players and their respective reader.

viii) Each game-week duration will be a strict 7 days and 6 hours.

ix) 65 minutes to spare every game-week will be a mandatory requirement.

x) We are making the method used in fixtures setting public and updating the process.

xi) In the Scheduled Games sheet, you can view games scheduled for a specific date together.

xii) We have made our question formatting more consistent and error-free, as well as made the editorial process thorough. This includes reduced and strict word lengths and hint delivery.

xiii) We will have no questions which have answers with no direct link to the themes of the quiz league.

xiv) We are doing tighter editing to make the audio-visuals not excessive.

xv) We are replacing the theme ‘Home and Hobbies’ with the theme ‘Wildlife’.

xvi) We will be creating sets that can easily be played within 50-55 minutes. Total game duration, including reading spares would likely fall within 52-58 minutes.

xvii) We will be having more stricter prompting rules.

xviii) We are introducing severe consequences to cheating in the EMU Quiz League.

xix) In addition to the existing social media presence, we have recently started a YouTube channel and an Instagram page.

xx) We are shifting to the Spring platform, which solves a lot of issues for setters, readers and players. Read this article to know more.

Here is the detailed version:

i) Let’s start from the beginning. For this League (like any other mimir quiz league), you have a pay an amount to participate. This time around, we are offering alternate methods by which one can participate without paying a single rupee/cent/pence! Irrespective of the method, all players are eligible for earning League Credits and/or cash by reading games. ID proof, which will be mandatory for some of these methods, will be permanently deleted from our database after verification. We will not publicly reveal which type of ticket a participant is using. That information will be strictly confidential. So don’t be shy to apply for the opportunities. Anyone who has any pending payments at the end of the season and does not pay the pending amount within 2 weeks of the end of the season, will be not be eligible to join any of the future seasons. See Terms of Use for more details. Here are the methods:

• kiran k and John Liu has generously donated all the League Credits they obtained by reading, from the last season (₹3,400 and ₹200 respectively) for students who are hesitant to join or unable to pay for the registration. Since the base price (amount with one mandatory read) is ₹1000 (equivalent: ~$13/~£12/ ~€13) for Season 2 (same as Season 1), we have enough League Credits to support 3 players for free and give a 60% discount for another player (all with one mandatory read).

  So, the first four students of the ages 18, 19, or 20 to fill and submit the registration form, will receive free tickets or a 60% discount. Note that if the player chooses to not read the mandatory game, they have to pay 20% of the base price as usual. ID proof is mandatory. Please apply for these tickets only if you really need it, so that we can support people who can’t afford the price.

• We are introducing promise-based tickets. In return of a promise that the players will read 6 games to cover their League cost, we will allow registration without paying a registration fee. Since there will be a fixed number of games to read, the number of such promise-based tickets will be limited to 10. So, register first to avail it.

  ONLY apply for this if you are unable to pay the registration fee. This is also something we are introducing on an experimental basis. If any one of the participants break their promise, we will be discontinuing it from season 3. So, use it with honesty, and future participants who are in need of such opportunities will be benefited.

Note that for the first two methods, you should register when the registration form OPENS ON July 13th, at sharp 6 PM (1800 hrs) Indian Standard Time. So, keep an alarm or reminder for this.

• Like last time, we are offering a referral reward system. But unlike last time, ANYONE (participant or not) can earn League Credits and/or cash by inviting people to play in this league, and getting referred by them in the registration form. You can use it to buy a ticket or keep it for yourself (ideally the former). The referral reward is double that of last time i.e. 20% of the base price! The neat part is there is NO CAP on this. You can earn as much cash and/or League Credits as you want by getting maximum number of interested people to join.

  Seeing that this opens up a chance that it may get exploited, there are some ground rules: i) We will not allow circular referrals (person A referring person B, and B referring A). ii) This offer will only be valid from 15 days after the registrations start so that people who have joined directly through our communication channels, and likely to register first, can’t give references for others. Note that we will reimburse this reward by the end of July or within the first week of August.

• Since we didn’t see many student participants last time, we are are offering a 40% reduction in the base price (!) for participants who are under-graduates (doing their Bachelors or equivalent) OR between the ages of 18 and 20 (including 18 and 20) even if they are not doing undergraduate studies. We are also offering a 20% reduction in the base price for participants who are post-graduates (doing their Masters or equivalent) OR of the ages 21 or 22 even if they are not doing postgraduate studies.

  Note that we are doing this on an experimental basis for Season 2 to see if it is feasible. It will become feasible to continue this only if we get a good number of student participants, many of whom are also interesting in reading games. Also, if you can afford to spare the registration fee, even if you qualify for this discount, kindly pay the full price so that we can accommodate more people who can’t.

ii) Since we had a poor turnout and poor attendance of players under 18 years of age in the first season, we are keeping an age cut-off of 18 years (interchangeable with ‘adults’) for the next season, unless there are a good amount of requests from players under 18. This will also allow us to use content that is unsuitable for non-adults. Note that if the age of adulthood in your country is higher than 18, if you sign up, you can’t hold us liable for any inconvenience caused or for any legal issues.

iii) This time around, to avoid lag during the registration process, we are automating the email delivery of the payment details. Once you complete the registration form, you will immediately receive the payment details (instead of waiting for a day or more), and you will have to complete the payment and submit the payment completion form at that time itself (if payment is required). So, only register on the same day you are going to make the payment. Ideally don’t keep the registration till the end, and instead complete the registration as soon as possible so that we can have an idea about the number of participants, and plan accordingly.

iv) We have updated the Privacy policy to include the fact that we will retain the images/text of registration transaction details from the players even after a season is over, but you can get it deleted by sending us a request. All such details will be highly confidential (and already non-compromising since it won’t contain any revealing bank details), with only up to three people from our core team having access to it. We are retaining all such transaction details for the purpose of archival, in case they are needed in the future for reasons such as auditing.

v) Starting season 2, it will be mandatory for you to create a Gmail account so that we can make the Scheduled Games (and other Google sheets) private, which will provide privacy for players and additional security against anyone from outside the league messing up with the readers sign up column. It will also help us share the sets to the players using a Google drive after the end of each game-week. This move is to provide all participants the privacy they deserve, and have transparency in editing of the readers sign up column. While we are not fans of Google due to their unethical monopolising and privacy-invading behaviour, we need to make this step mandatory since we care about the privacy of our participants, and the security of the league. If you have any issues with this change, please write to us.

vi) In season 1, at the start of a game-week, we sent one email individually to participants, from which they click the link to the sheet containing the draws for the game-week, search and find who they are matched with, copy-and-paste their emails, create an email and send them. We will be removing the need for these unnecessary steps and will be directly mailing the four people matched for the game-week with the announcement of the game-week as well as their game-details. This way, we can feed two birds with one scone. Besides, the amount of unnecessary emails, as well as delay in scheduling will be reduced. That brings us to the next change.

vii) Another annoyance is the requirement of the players to find the signed up reader of their respective games from the Google sheet, and add the reader of the scheduling thread. In some cases, due to lack of time, laziness or forgetfulness, players forget to do this, and the reader has to send an email. Starting this season, we are removing this headache for both the players and the readers, by sending an automated email to the four matched players and the reader who signed up to read their game. This way, the players don’t have to look at the Google sheets (except maybe to confirm that their scheduled game has come up in the sheet) at all throughout the game-week. All the major information they need comes in their inbox. This also adds accountability for readers back off in the last moment without informing, leaving the players in an terrible situation. This also means that in such cases, the players can know in advance if there is any cancellation by the reader in the last few hours, and contact us so that we can find a new reader.

viii) Since we have streamlined the scheduling process more, we are not going to provide 8 or 9 days in a game-week, but a strict 7 days and 6 hours (and a maximum of 6 hours for us to create fixtures, and other changes, for the next game-week). A large number of games seem to be concentrated during the weekends, which is contained within those 7.25 days game-weeks. We have realised that only a few games exceed day 7 of the game-week, and that is due to slow responses and scheduling conflicts. The first is something that can be completely avoided by the players, and the second is something we realised that can’t be avoided for a few players, and it’s better to end the game-week early rather than drag it on in the hope that they finally all schedule their game. And this brings us to next change.

ix) We will be explicitly asking every participant who registers to confirm that they have 55 minutes (for the main game) + a buffer of 10 minutes in case of any unforeseen and unavoidable delays to spare every game-week. This is a mandatory requirement. The buffer can also be used to play spares (mandatory, if game ends within an hour). We will not allow you to register if you cannot guarantee that you have 65 contiguous minutes to spare every game-week (which coincides with the availability of others), barring unforeseen circumstances like health or family-related emergencies. While EMU is a fun league at its core, it is also a highly professional, international, and competitive quiz league. We cannot maintain the standards if people i) try to hurry the reader as well as the players to finish the set as fast as possible (our sets are made to be enjoyed at a regular place), ii) people join late, or ii) do not turn up for the game resulting in a sub-optimal experience for other players. We will be blacklisting players who repeatedly do any of the three things mentioned above, and will ban them for one succeeding season, depriving them of one season of fun and excitement from this League.

x) We are making the method used in fixtures setting public and updating the process for faster and optimal scheduling, considering things like ‘Who are more likely to read a game?’, ‘Are the players in time zones with little overlap in availability?’, ‘Have the players matched up before?’ etc. You can find extensive details week-wise, in the 'Fixtures’ section in the ‘League Format’ article.

xi) What was one minor thing that annoyed many people the first season? It was likely that the Scheduling sheet didn’t have the games listed chronologically, although it was colour-coded to show whether it was completed, happening today, or tomorrow, or later that week. But, we are taking it upon ourselves to make it easier for you to see games scheduled for a specific date together. So one more minor annoyance avoided.

xii) We have made our question formatting more consistent and error-free, as well as made the editorial process thorough based on the feedback collected from setters and readers at the end of the season 1. Before, moving on to these changes, let’s see the infographics based on them (questions for feedback given above each image):

Q1: What do you think of the question length?

Since more than 50% of the people who gave feedback said that question were too long, we have cut down on the question length. In the first season, a majority of the quads had questions lengths nearing or exceeding 100 words. During season 2, of the 12 quads that will be featured every game-week, 8 of them will be ‘normal quads’ with the question lengths of 51-80 words, 2 of them will be short quads with lengths of 30-50 words, and 2 of them will be long quads with question lengths of 81-100 words.

For better understanding, the portion marked in italics in the above paragraph will be the average length of a short quad question. The portion marked in italics+bold will be the maximum length of a ‘normal quad’ question, and the entire paragraph will be (almost) the maximum length of a long quad question. Note that the word ranges maybe slightly exceed by a few words only for labelling or giving any instructions.

Q2: What do you think about the clues/hint?

Q3:

Since the vast majority of the players/readers who gave feedback thought that there was an adequate amount of hints, and liked the type of hints, we will not shy away from giving a generous serving of tangential clues. However, since around 25% of the feedback suggest that there were too many clues, we will be limiting the number of the clues in level 3 and 4 questions (based on difficulty). Paul has a devised a strict standard for difficulty levels, which will ensure a proper distribution of clues. You can find the details of the exact nature of such clueing here. There were two grievances about clues being misleading (which is unintentional). We will be thoroughly editing the questions to avoid those as well.

xiii) Starting from season 2, we will not be having questions which have answers irrelevant to the theme of the quiz league i.e. while we will have lots of pop culture or non-theme related connections in the questions, the answers themselves will always be relevant to the themes of nature, science and technology. For example,

This microbial artwork by Frederik Hammes, featuring flowers of the genus Helianthus was inspired by a series of works by which Dutch artist? It was created using bacteria from his washroom. https://imgur.com/g5HUTSN.jpg © Frederik Hammes

While the question is directly related to microbiology, the answer is not. The answer (Vincent Van Gogh) has no relevance to the themes of nature, science or technology. If the question was asked as “which genus of flowers”, then it would fit within the themes.

On the other hand, if the question is about a painter who has a direct connection to nature, science and technology, we could ask the name. For example,

The article (see image) describes the significant maturation of an Italian artist in his scientific method, over the course of his life (from 1452 to 1519), through his sketches and notes. For example, an early sketching of human head by him illustrates the medieval doctrine that the vertical and horizontal axis of the skull must cross at the site of the sensus communis, or common sense, where all perceptions were believe to be gathered. While anatomically detailed, his early sketches drew from previous misconceptions. Identify the artist, whose most famous work can be found in Louvre Museum in Paris. https://imgur.com/PigDli4.jpg (article); https://imgur.com/FE74sNz.jpg (sketching)

The answer being Leonardo da Vinci. We can also ask questions which have a partial nature, science or technology connection. For example,

In 1981, when Aleksey Yekimov first created the quantum dots that showed size-dependent quantum effects, it was published in a Soviet scientific journal. But it was difficult for researchers outside Soviet Union to access this because of what barrier, with a metaphorical name containing a metal, which divided Europe into two? This was why Louis Brus, unaware of Yekimov’s discovery, independently created quantum dots in 1983.

The answer “Iron curtain” has an element’s name in it, and fits within the themes. So, it’s not all black-and-white, and editorial discretion is used to determine whether the answer falls within the themes of the EMU Quiz League. This change means that the theme-wise information for a player at the end of the season, can be used a rough aptitude test of that player for the 12 themes of this Quiz League. Note that the themes are very broad and it is not indicative of individual subject strengths (e.g., a geologist may not get any points in metallurgy, but both come under the them of ‘Chemistry’).

xiv) We are doing tighter editing to make the audio-visuals not excessive. From the feedback received, an average of 5.12, and not 7 audio-visuals (audio/videos/gifs) were preferred by players/readers. So, we will take a middle ground here and keep one video quad (4 questions with videos) and one quad with 2 audio/gif visualisations OR a quad with three or four audio clips/gifs but with a very short duration. For every game-week, we will not exceed 2 minutes in total for all the audio-visuals combined (barring rare exceptions, if any).

xv) We are replacing the theme ‘Home and Hobbies’ from Season 1 with the theme ‘Wildlife’ in Season 2 for several reasons:

• By the end of season 1, it was becoming hard to find interesting and appropriate quads within this topic.

• We were finding ways to include the theme of wildlife within ‘Home and Hobbies’ theme since that was more interesting. This is attested by the fact that 4/8 quads from this in Season 1 were wildlife/wildlife-adjacent themed - ‘Gardening and gradient studies’, ‘Philately of Mangroves’, ‘Photography in naming of organisms’, and (not even attempting to hide the bias here) ‘Bird homes (nests)’.

• We heard a feedback that plants were poorly represented. So, the theme of ‘Wildlife’ will give us more space to have more botanical-themed quads.

• We took a poll amongst question-setters and all of them preferred ‘Wildlife’ over ‘Home & Hobbies’.

Yes, Wildlife will overlap with Biology in that all Wildlife questions will likely be Biology questions, but not vice versa.

xvi) We had taken feedback on the preferred duration of the game, and people are split in their preferences, but a majority prefer games that are between 50-55 minutes, with an average of 56.2 and median of 55 minutes. Since the average question length is being reduced for season 2, we will be creating sets that can easily be played within 50-55 minutes by default, and an additional 2-3 minutes for playing the spares. So, total game duration, including reading spares would likely fall within 52-58 minutes.

xvii) We are adding more rules for proctors based on the feedback, so that the experience every player gets is similar. One is based on the question below:

Around 2/3rd of the feedback indicates that prompting should be lenient, with only a third preferred strict prompting rules. But we have realised that leniency in prompting leads to more chances of readers messing up, and we don’t want to put readers in such a position. So, we are instituting a change here - we will restrict the prompts to those that are given in our answer keys, and will provide an exhaustive list of prompts for each question. BUT, we will also let the readers choose to prompt if they believe that we have missed adding any crucial prompts on our answer keys. This way, both reader errors and player complaints about prompts can be eliminated, or at least reduced. Another change is formalising how much time a player gets after a prompt is made by the reader. A player will get exactly 5 seconds after the prompt is made to answer, after which it is passed. They will not receive any leftover time after the prompt, from their normal time for answering (for example 10 seconds out of their 30 seconds on directs, or 3 seconds out of their 5 seconds on pass), if they choose to answer early. Readers will be required to use the timer or accurately count 5 seconds. This avoids the issues such as some readers giving a large amount of time (like 10-15 seconds) after prompt.

xviii) We are introducing severe consequences to cheating in the EMU Quiz League. If we receive irrefutable evidence that any player or reader has engaged in cheating, they give us the authority to publish their name in public blacklists, add their name and photo/video (if taken in any of our recordings) to a dedicated 'Wall of Shame' section on our website/blog/elsewhere, and share their name with other quiz leagues so that they too can blacklist them. And we will remove them from our Quiz League without any refund, and permanently ban them from any events hosted by us.

xix) In addition to this Substack, WhatsApp community, Facebook group, Telegram channel, we have recently started a YouTube channel which contains games from every game-week of the last season (if you had participated in the last season, you game might be there), as well an Instagram page where post questions from the previous season (have a look at the engaging visual design).

xx) We are shifting to the Spring platform, which solves a lot of issues for setters, readers and players. This article provides the details of the change. We will be updating our Instructions for Readers based on this change, soon.

Since we talked a lot about changes, we must also comment on things that will remain the same:

i) Our attention to detail. You will not find another quiz league with the level of documentation for each and every aspect of the league (whether it be explanation of the format, instructions for players or readers, assignment of difficulty levels for questions, description of the team behind the League, payment details, privacy policy, terms of use, game-week analyses etc.). We can guarantee that. This ~4450 word article is itself a testimonial to that.

ii) Adjusted Differential Scoring (ADS) system. We can confidently say that it is objectively the best scoring system in existence for measuring the standing of a player against ANY other player in a mimir quiz league, without reliance on outcomes that rely heavily on pure chance (such as wins and losses), and dependent on the outcomes of individual games, rather than all the games played within a game-week. It is also extremely adept at matching players of the same strengths for matches. After the second season, we may consider introducing a Bayesian factor to account for the role of chance in the first one or two game-weeks.