IWS #41 Results

[bryce]

We have a tie this edition - congratulations to ahbrady and EagleFan, who both got 100% possible. I have no idea how previous hosts have fit the spreadsheet into this message box, and it looks like .xls is not a valid attachment here, so I will TRY to change it to .txt and attach it. No promises, though. If it fails, someone step up and help a brutha out...

Anywho, the questions and answers:

1) Name a band from Texas:
Dixie Chicks 14
ZZ Top 4
Willie Nelson 2
Stevie Ray Vaughn 2
Buddy Holly 2
University of Texas Band 1 (Excellent answer, btw!)
Shania Twain 1
Lone Star 1
Little Texas 1
Garth Brooks 1
Beyonce Knowles 1

This question proved more useless than I intended b/c I had completely forgotten about The Dixie Chicks. I thought the votes would be split amongst ZZ Top, SRV, and Willie. Oh well.

Some people mentioned they struggled with this one, so as an FYI, here are some other possibilities that I halfway expected to see:

Steve Miller
Don Henley (lives in Dallas, though not from Texas originally)
Vanilla Ice
Toadies
Tripping Daisy
Flickerstick (of VH1's Bands on the Run fame)
Butthole Surfers
Jennifer Love Hewitt (a crossover with another question woulda be interesting)
Lisa Loeb
Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians
Waylon Jennings
Robert Earl Keen
Jerry Jeff Walker
Norah Jones (of the 5 Grammys fame - I'm surprised she didn't get a vote)
Kelly Clarkson (of American Idol fame)

2) Name an import beer:
Heineken 18
Guiness 7
Corona 3
Fosters 2

Just what I expected: we all love good heine. And the beer ain't so bad, either. ;)

3) Name a now-defunct professional sports league:
XFL 19
USFL 7
ABA 2
WLAF 1
AFL 1

I thought the USFL would be the front-runner, but I guess the XFL is still fresh on everybody's minds.

4) Name a girl you'd like to see pose nude but hasn't:
Britney Spears 10
Jennifer Love Hewitt 7
Natalie Portman 3
Daisy Fuentes 1
Christina Ricci 1
Liv Tyler 1
Laetitia Casta 1
Julia Roberts 1
Liz Hurley 1
Elisha Cuthbert 1
Cindy Crawford 1
Sarah Michelle Geller 1
Anna Kournakova 1

For the person who answered Cindy Crawford, may I suggest an internet search - I believe she has posed for Playboy at least 2 or 3 times. :)

5) Name a sports game designed for the original Nintendo:
Tecmo Bowl 13
Super Tecmo Bowl 8
Baseball Stars 3
RBI Baseball 1
NHLPA Series 1
10 Yard Fight 1
Mike Tyson's Punchout 1
Super Mario Bros 1
Excite Bike 1

This one got me in trouble b/c of the Tecmo Bowl/Super Tecmo Bowl issue. The way I handled it this: I owned Tecmo Bowl, but never even played Super Tecmo Bowl; thus, I considered them two different games.

6) Name a university heralded for both its academics and athletics:
Stanford 13
Notre Dame 9
Duke 7
USC 1

In retrospect, I should've asked for a *state* school instead of any school. I think that would have been more interesting, as Stanford really is the only one above that I would say is REALLY strong in both academics and athletics (if you consider all of the major sports).

[cuervo72]

Ugh. The XFL wasn't even a real league! Oh well. Good contest bryce :)

BTW, Casta has been nude, in 2 movies I believe (La Bicyclette Bleue, and Gitano), and also in various photos.

[MIJB#19]

If only I knew Texan music and, I would have been a top 5 player this time, oh well.

12 out of 30, who though I'd still have it in me, huh?

I guess I was correct on the Dutch beer question afterall, Buc, I mean, Anrhydeddu and cuervo...:cool:

Tecmo Bowl over Tecmo Super Bowl?
I thought I knew my classics...

[Abe Sargent]

Originally posted by bryce




2) Name an import beer:
Heineken 18
Guiness 7
Corona 3
Fosters 2

Just what I expected: we all love good heine. And the beer ain't so bad, either. ;)


4) Name a girl you'd like to see pose nude but hasn't:
Britney Spears 10
Jennifer Love Hewitt 7
Natalie Portman 3
Daisy Fuentes 1
Christina Ricci 1
Liv Tyler 1
Laetitia Casta 1
Julia Roberts 1
Liz Hurley 1
Elisha Cuthbert 1
Cindy Crawford 1
Sarah Michelle Geller 1
Anna Kournakova 1

For the person who answered Cindy Crawford, may I suggest an internet search - I believe she has posed for Playboy at least 2 or 3 times. :)




I'd like to point out that I don't drink, I don't associate with those who drink, and I had no clue as to wat an Import beer actually was. So I guessed Corona. Seemed un-American.

I also have no clue as to what women have and have not posed nude. So, I went with what I figured everybody else'd say - Cindy!

-Anxiety

[cuervo72]

Originally posted by MIJB#19
If only I knew Texan music and, I would have been a top 5 player this time, oh well.

12 out of 30, who though I'd still have it in me, huh?

I guess I was correct on the Dutch beer question afterall, Buc, I mean, Anrhydeddu and cuervo...:cool:

Tecmo Bowl over Tecmo Super Bowl?
I thought I knew my classics...

Eh - Tecmo Super Bowl was much better. And MIJB, I figured you'd nail Heineken :)

Anxiety - Corona would have been my second choice, so I think it was a good one.

Interesting that Cuthbert only had one vote, yet she won the Hot Chick Survivor. Britney on the other hand went out VERY early.

[Anrhydeddu]

MIJB, you did good, I'm proud of you!

[MIJB#19]

Originally posted by Anrhydeddu
MIJB, you did good, I'm proud of you! Thanks.
Now I hope I can get a top half streak going now, my best is 1-in-a-row so far...

And for those MMR's, I'll start googling from now on and try to outsmart you.:p

[EagleFan]

Finally, I nailed one. :D I was going to put USFL but then figured XFL was fresher in people's memory. I had no idea that Stanford would get the votes that it did, that was a complete guess.

[Wolfpack]

Damn, a second straight five-of-six. One of these days...

[QuikSand]

I knew I blew it with the Taxes question... I was just stumped. The Dixie Chicks didn't come to me as the obvious right answer until a day or two later, when I was recanting the questions to Mrs. Q, who is a big (albeit vicarious) fan of the IWS game.

[sterlingice]

MIJB#19- what's up with that showing ;)

Anyways, wow- I got it handed to me in this one. This is probably my worst showing but that's the great thing with IWS: there's always next time.

SI

[sterlingice]

This is the first one in a while that had high turnout so I figure I'd pass along some of what I've seen in an attempt to boost participation in future IWS's. I've ran a couple of these and had pretty high turnout so I'll try to share what I see as keys.

1. Easy questions. The reason some of the recent ones have flopped is that a lot of questions have been "uncommon" knowledge. This is "I'm with stupid"- no one wants to go google answers and feel even dumber. Plus it defeats the concept of common knowledge if you have to go look it up. Check point number 4 for more advice here. No one wants to play IWS and then not be able to come up with an answer: "I can't even come up with an answer for a game called I'm With Stupid" is a mental kick to the head.

2. Types of questions. I've deteremined that there are basically three types of questions:

Eliminators- these are the questions where there is one big answer. Anyone who doesn't guess the big answer is essentially out of the running to win. Sometimes eliminators have a second big answer that gets about half of the first so those people have a faint shot of being in it if you do the rest of the questions well.
Scattershots- A lot of hosts fall into the trap of making all scattershots. The thinking is "If I can't come up with answers, no one else can". The problem with this goes back to number 1: If you can't come up with 5 answers to your own question and then a reasonable guess about how people will answer then DON'T USE THE QUESTION. I realize it's IWS and extremely unpredictable: however, you did win the last one or else you won't be hosting so you can make reasonable guesses.
Splits- by far, the toughest questions to write- these have 3-6 answers with about the same number of votes. These are the ones that really sway the points and separate people. When you have a question that gets 6-5-4-3 for votes, it really delineates the scores for everyone. Splits are the hardest to think up because the other two questions are the extremes: it's easy to write a question with no easy answer or one answer but writing one that has 4-5 equally likely questions takes a real master.

3. Pick a good set of questions. Ideally, I like to put in two eliminators to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to say. Then split the rest among splits and scattershots. Because of the difficultly of writing splits, this isn't always possible.

The trap that a lot of hosts fall into is making all of their questions one type: either eliminators or scattershots. All eliminators makes it so that there are multiple winners, all with 100% whereas all scattershots make it so no one plays or the winner only gets 20% because he got 3 of the "common" answers as opposed to everyone else's 2 and 1 so the victory is a bit more hollow.

4. Try to avoid biases.
Don't use regional questions- no one outside of a 500 mile radius of NYC knows the best deli there is. However, if you said most popular landmark on the East Coast or the Texas musician question from this past one, it's possible because of its nationwide knowledge. However, again, you have to realize there is more than your part of the world answering these questions (this, in particular, is directed at East Coasters who seem to think they are the center of the universe at times).

Pick general questions: the best rapper question was difficult for some of us who don't listen to it, but a fair question we could answer. However, getting more specific would have been too brutal. Realize not everyone listens to your type of music, watches your tv, and lives in your part of the country.

Just a note/disclaimer: The USA bias is tough to avoid so an apology to international people, there's just no way around it. I try to throw international common knowledge questions in, but it's difficult since Americans, in general (myself included), are pretty unaware of international things so it weakens the type of question you ask

5. Make sure to advertise. Bump, bump, bump so the maximum possible people enter. There's a bandwagon effect here: if there are more people entered, more people will enter. Keep in mind that you need more questions

Hopefully this will help future hosts with IWS. :D

SI

[Anrhydeddu]

Nice job.

Pick general questions: the best rapper question was difficult for some of us who don't listen to it, but a fair question we could answer. However, getting more specific would have been too brutal.

Come to think of it, I believe it was a Hattrick question that made me stop playing IWS. :D

[tucker342]

To bad I don't Know any Texas muscians.... all well:D

[ahbrady]

I'm going to be out of town for a while, so EagleFan feel free to do the next one on your own.

[Alf]

Yeah : I'm last !

[MIJB#19]

Originally posted by Anrhydeddu
Nice job.



Come to think of it, I believe it was a Hattrick question that made me stop playing IWS. :D Somehow, I think changing nicknames has been a key element.

# of participations:
Buccaneer 19 (all from 1 to 11, 13 and 17)
Anrhydeddu 1 (29)

In fact, Buc's dropout was not an exception, the main dropout point was between #9 and #15: from 58 to 18 participants.
If people are interested, here is the complete list of IWS's and their participation numbers:

IWS#NR . PART . selected differences
iws# 1 . 41
iws# 2 . 46
iws# 3 . 45
iws# 4 . 44
iws# 5 . 48
iws# 6 . 52
iws# 7 . 47
iws# 8 . 55 (+8)
iws# 9 . 58
iws#10 . 52 (-6)
iws#11 . 41 (-11)
iws#12 . 40
iws#13 . 30 (-10)
iws#14 . 22 (-8)
iws#15 . 18
iws#16 . 22
iws#17 . 14 (-8)
iws#18 . 18
iws#19 . 17
iws#20 . 10 (-7)
iws#21 . 18 (+8)
iws#22 . 19
iws#23 . 21
iws#24 . 20
iws#25 . 23
iws#26 . 22
iws#27 . 23
iws#28 . 21
iws#29 . 30 (+9)
iws#30 . 19 (-11)
iws#31 . 33 (+14)
iws#32 . 21 (-12)
iws#33 . 23
iws#34 . 24
iws#35 . 27
iws#36 . 29
iws#37 . 25
iws#38 . 31 (+6)
iws#39 . 22 (-9)
iws#40 . 19
iws#41 . 30 (+11)


Note that at the biggest dip around #20 (ironically hosted by me) with 6 IWS below 20 participants, the release of FOF4 took place(wheter or not scientifically proven, there could be a reason.)

[EagleFan]

I'll work on getting one together by later tonight. Gotta do some TDCB simming soon and then I'll be out for a while.