weekly quiz (are other languages just more fun?)

[Peter Michaux]

Hi,

Perl and Ruby have weekly quizzes to challenge programmers and show
each others different styles of coding. Has anything like this been
tried here? Could be a fun and educational alternative to worrying
about who is top posting or not quoting properly.

<URL: http://rubyquiz.com>
<URL: http://perl.plover.com/qotw/>

Peter

 

[Lee]

Peter Michaux said:

Perl and Ruby have weekly quizzes to challenge programmers and show
each others different styles of coding. Has anything like this been
tried here? Could be a fun and educational alternative to worrying
about who is top posting or not quoting properly.

Most of the initial posts already serve that exact function.

A formal quiz would require a single person taking responsibility
for posting the quiz and taking flak about the "correct answer".

Keeping some level of control over top-posting and quoting is
actually much more important to maintaining the usefulness of
this newsgroup than a competition would be.


--

 

[Matt Kruse]

I couldn't possibly disagree more.

Peter Michaux said:

Most of the initial posts already serve that exact function.

A formal quiz would require a single person taking responsibility
for posting the quiz and taking flak about the "correct answer".

Keeping some level of control over top-posting and quoting is
actually much more important to maintaining the usefulness of
this newsgroup than a competition would be.

 

[Lee]

Matt Kruse said:

I couldn't possibly disagree more.

Oh, well.


--

 

[Randy Webb]

Lee said the following on 12/21/2006 1:57 PM:

Peter Michaux said:

Most of the initial posts already serve that exact function.

Unintentionally but true nonetheless.

A formal quiz would require a single person taking responsibility
for posting the quiz and taking flak about the "correct answer".

Much like one person editing/maintaining the FAQ :=\

Keeping some level of control over top-posting and quoting is
actually much more important to maintaining the usefulness of
this newsgroup than a competition would be.

Not sure I agree with 100% but I partially agree. If you are replying to
the post itself and trying to answer, then say something about the
quoting. When people reply to a post to simply say "Don't top-post"
without even bothering to answer the post, then that is a bigger waste
of time than any quiz ever would be.

When the request is made such as in the thread today about "hide string
in javascript" then it is appropriate. When the only reply is to say
"Don't top-post" and nothing more, it is a ludicrous waste of time.

If you want to make the point of top-posters, simply ignore them and
after about 10 times they will ask "why isn't my post answered" and
*then* you can answer it.