The whole "winner take all" stance appeals to a certain side of me: the rough, jungle-hewn, rippling side - all gnashing jaws and powerful, poking fingers. But I think it also adds a note of futility, for those who happen along a bit late. Even though more than once, the big winner has happened along late and still been the first one to get it right, still, if the puzzle has been open for hours, you may tend to feel "why bother? Surely someone else has gotten it by now." So in the end, you're discouraged from posting at all.
That's why I'm tweaking the scoring. Being the first correct guesser is still the only way to win big - the whole point. But now, or rather, but going forward, a tardy correct guess counts for something! 0.3 of a point!
A half a point for a late guess would be too much. Throw the scoring dynamic out of whack.
Wrong guesses, or guesses that merely hint around at the song without actually naming it, still count for a big zero (0) points.
Hey that looks like a boob. Kind of. Maybe not.
OK! So to recap, then, and subsequently charge forward! Previous setup was:
Note: questions will be posted each Wednesday at noon Pacific Time, 12pm. Submit your comments NAMING THE SONG that is being paraphrased. Answers will be posted after 5pm! First correct answer wins!
Beginning next week:
Questions will be posted each Wednesday at noon Pacific Time, 12pm. Submit your comments NAMING THE SONG that is being paraphrased. Answers will be posted after 5pm! Once answers are posted, scoring is closed. Scoring is as follows:
First correct answerer gets: 1 point!
Tardy correct answerer gets: 0.3 point!
In this way, even if you know you are probably too late to win the top score, you can still get partial credit for guessing right (right up until the answers are posted).
I'm not going back and making it retroactive. You can't change the rules backwards. That's unprincipled.
3 comments:
I thought changing the rules once the game started was democracy. Could be wrong, though.
I'm hanging my reasoning on the fact that the rules thus far have been per-installment. Each installment has had the rules posted, with tweaks and refinements as we go.
That's why I can't abide the idea of a retroactive change - the answers were submitted under very clear and specific rules! It would assault my sense of fairness to change it after-the-fact for that given post.
When we play pool Thursdays, and somebody asks if some shot was legal, they all look at me for some reason. I'm all like, "What, is my name HOYLE?"
But I can usually come up with a good clean justification. Even if it usually takes me a minute to work out the justification first (generally talking out loud), before I decide what to think on the question.
My main goal is to get Seanibus and some of the other guessers back into it! I figure if people think they can make some headway even on a late guess, it's better than nothing.
Shoot, I haven't even announced the prizes yet. What if the prize is a MS Paint Portrait of the band Def Leppard, drawn by me??? Holy cow!!! How awesome would that be? An announcement like that would be one way to create excitement.
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