IWS#197 - The Results

[spleen1015]

We managed to get 32 entries this time around. I was pimping for more entries because... well, you'll see for yourself!

1. Which do you have more interest in, the Winter or Summer Olympics?
27 - Summer
5 - Winter

I was hoping this would be closer to 50-50.

2. What country will win the 2nd most medals in this year's Summer Olympics?
21 - China
5 - Russia
2 - England
2 - Germany
2 - United States

I thought the answers would be a lot more varied here. I went back and looked at Olympic history and there didn't appear to be an obvious choice to finish 2nd behind the United States.

3. Who will win the Silver Medal in the Men's Basketball event in this year's Summer Olympics?
29 - Spain
1 - Brazil
1 - England
1 - France

I didn't really think this question through. Had I done any research, I would have found that Spain was an obvious choice for this question. I was surprised there wasn't at least 1 United States vote here.

4. How many gold medals will Michael Phelps win in this year's Summer Olympics?

12 - 5
12 - 7
2 - 0
2 - 3
2 - 4
2 - 8

I liked this question. With Ryan Lochte challenging Phelps in a few events this Olympics, I was hoping to get more varied answers. Also, Phelps hasn't looked as dominant this year.


5. Name an event that is part of the Decathlon.

11 - 100 Meters
11 - Long Jump
4 - Pole Vault
2 - 1500 Meters
2 - Javelin
1 - High Jump
1 - Target Shooting

6 of the events were covered with these answers. Target Shooting?

6. The long jump qualifications take place on August 3rd. You have from now until then to train for the event. How far will you jump?

8 - 10 feet
7 - 20 feet
5 - 15 feet
4 - 5 feet
3 - 25 feet
3 - 5 meters
1 - 2 meters
1 - 4 feet

I remember in HS, when we did the Track & Field portion of PE, I was able to Long Jump almost 18 feet. I would have answered 10 feet now.

THE RESULTS

Should probably just stick with NFL Football and skip the Olympics
EagleFan 720

The Waterboy for their HS track team
claphamsa 11,600

These folks are on the HS track team strictly because they look good in those short shorts
CrimsonFox 97,020
MizzouRah 127,600
Dark Cloud 137,808
ntndeacon 142,560
DaddyTorgo 197,316

These folks are HS State Champions
finketr 200,970
nilodor 258,390
Lathum 263,088
larrymcg421 375,840

These folks are NCAA Champions
Barkeep49 1,033,560
digamma 1,052,352
Suburban Rhythm 1,381,212
Subby 1,653,696
jbergey22 1,808,730

These folks at least competed at the Olympic Trials
albionmoonlight 2,170,476
stevew 2,532,222
britrock88 2,762,424

These folks made the Olympic team, but failed to medal
wade moore 3,157,056
Logan 3,946,320
panerd 4,134,240

These folks won a Bronze Medal!
DanGarion 6,511,428
bhlloy 6,511,428
MIJB#19 6,511,428
TRO 8,681,904
RPI-Fan 10,852,380

These folks won a Silver Medal!
General Mike 15,193,332
Chief Rum 15,193,332

























And the WINNER of the Gold Medal is.....

Well, there are 3 of them....

Pyser 17,363,808
PurdueBrad 17,363,808
sterlingice 17,363,808

We ended up with a tie because questions 4 & 5 had 2 answers tie at the top. I was really pushing for more entries today because I was trying to get rid of the tie. This morning, there was only a 2 way tie. As more entries came in throughout the day, there wasn't a tie, then there was, then there wasn't, then there was. It was fun to watch as things progressed.

I don't know if there has ever been a 3 way tie before. Maybe you guys can handle the next 1 with 2 questions each or something.

Thanks for participating everyone. I feel as though my questions are the reason why we ended in a tie. If I had better questions, there wouldn't be a tie.

[Young Drachma]

Nice work spleen

[PurdueBrad]

Great questions Spleen! Glad to end up, even if it's three-way, in first. Now I just need the other two bastards to cover up some crimes so that they can vacate this victory.

[Grover]

ISW results, eh?

Congrats to the three-way participants! (giggidy)

[Pyser]

woohoo! i felt good about this one. happy to participate 2 questions to the next one with SI and purduebrad.

[MizzouRah]

I really do stink at these things!

[stevew]

fuckin Michael Phelps...otherwise I'd have finished nearly perfect.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I really do stink at these things!

-In a 50/50, always take the first example
-When in doubt, such as the decathlon answer, figure that most people will pick up on "long jump" as used in question 6.
-round numbers, always
-I'm assuming most googled the 2008 medal results, hence the runaway Chinese answer.
-it seems like the runaway phelps answer was to just choose how many medals he won last time....can't believe i biffed that up.

[EagleFan]

Went with winter because it is the better of the two. Totally over thought the rest.

The host country always does well so i used them for 2 answers.

Went 1500 as it's the final event, from what I remember of the old decathalon board game.

Sure this wasn't MMR?

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by PurdueBrad

Great questions Spleen! Glad to end up, even if it's three-way, in first. Now I just need the other two bastards to cover up some crimes so that they can vacate this victory.

John Calipari doesn't post under the name PurdueBrad does he?

I guess this means we need to come up with a theme via PM

SI

[wade moore]

Ok, so. Not trying to be mean here and didn't want to taint things early on.

I think this IWS is a lesson in the kinds of questions not to ask. When you ask limited set questions (particularly ones with only two answers), you're going to tend to get a lot of bunching of people. No offense to spleen, because I know coming up with questions are hard, but I think this was actually a fairly poorly constructed IWS. I think it was pretty easy to predict that 3-4 of the questions would be "eliminator" questions where a large majority would get the answer "right" and if you missed it you're toast.

It could be argued that questions 1-5 were all such questions. Granted, the decathlon one was a set of 10 without an "obvious" answer, but still.

Just a note for the future. Limited set questions are going to naturally limit the number of potential answers. Having these needs to be considered, especially having more than 1/2 of the questions in this style.

[spleen1015]

I agree with what you're saying. I think some folks are better at coming up with questions than others. I've done this twice and both times I don't think the questions were very good. Sometimes, I think it is hard to judge what is a bad question until you start to see the answers rolling in.

I will definitely avoid questions like the #1 if I get the chance to do it again.

I was going to send my questions out to some folks and get some advice and opinions, but I didn't think it would be fair for those folks to participate.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

I agree with what you're saying. I think some folks are better at coming up with questions than others. I've done this twice and both times I don't think the questions were very good. Sometimes, I think it is hard to judge what is a bad question until you start to see the answers rolling in.

I will definitely avoid questions like the #1 if I get the chance to do it again.

I was going to send my questions out to some folks and get some advice and opinions, but I didn't think it would be fair for those folks to participate.

FWIW - I've done it once and after I saw answers coming in I thought they were the dumbest questions ever, so I feel your pain. It's much more art than science for sure.

It's also one of those where it's a lot easier to judge what other people have done than to do it yourself .

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by wade moore

Ok, so. Not trying to be mean here and didn't want to taint things early on.

I think this IWS is a lesson in the kinds of questions not to ask. When you ask limited set questions (particularly ones with only two answers), you're going to tend to get a lot of bunching of people. No offense to spleen, because I know coming up with questions are hard, but I think this was actually a fairly poorly constructed IWS. I think it was pretty easy to predict that 3-4 of the questions would be "eliminator" questions where a large majority would get the answer "right" and if you missed it you're toast.

It could be argued that questions 1-5 were all such questions. Granted, the decathlon one was a set of 10 without an "obvious" answer, but still.

Just a note for the future. Limited set questions are going to naturally limit the number of potential answers. Having these needs to be considered, especially having more than 1/2 of the questions in this style.

I think at one point I made a post about the concept of eliminators, splitters, and shots in the dark or something like that with regards to IWS questions but I can't seem to find it now.

SI

[Logan]

Originally Posted by wade moore

Ok, so. Not trying to be mean here and didn't want to taint things early on.

I think this IWS is a lesson in the kinds of questions not to ask. When you ask limited set questions (particularly ones with only two answers), you're going to tend to get a lot of bunching of people. No offense to spleen, because I know coming up with questions are hard, but I think this was actually a fairly poorly constructed IWS. I think it was pretty easy to predict that 3-4 of the questions would be "eliminator" questions where a large majority would get the answer "right" and if you missed it you're toast.

It could be argued that questions 1-5 were all such questions. Granted, the decathlon one was a set of 10 without an "obvious" answer, but still.

Just a note for the future. Limited set questions are going to naturally limit the number of potential answers. Having these needs to be considered, especially having more than 1/2 of the questions in this style.

You're just pissed you finished one spot behind me .

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Logan

You're just pissed you finished one spot behind me .

haha - nah. I'm pretty traditionally terrible at this game, even though I enjoy it - so my placing doesn't bother me at all .

[bhlloy]

If I hadn't got meters and feet confused I would have been up there. Oh well.

[stevew]

I liked the spirit of the game and even the thoughts behind the questions. And I always appreciate when someone runs a game cause I know it's a pain. I agree with Wade, but wasn't going to say anything. I suck bad at this game, so if I feel really good about questions, the game is too easy.

[MIJB#19]

Thanks for hosting, Spleen!

Nearly perfect, if not for my second thoughts on the long jump question "10 feet? Nah, that's way too short" and going with the 'round' answer 25 feet.
D'oh.

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

Thanks for hosting, Spleen!

Nearly perfect, if not for my second thoughts on the long jump question "10 feet? Nah, that's way too short" and going with the 'round' answer 25 feet.
D'oh.

I had a very similar thought process. I decided 10 feet was just too short so I went to 15.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by stevew

-In a 50/50, always take the first example
-When in doubt, such as the decathlon answer, figure that most people will pick up on "long jump" as used in question 6.
-round numbers, always
-I'm assuming most googled the 2008 medal results, hence the runaway Chinese answer.
-it seems like the runaway phelps answer was to just choose how many medals he won last time....can't believe i biffed that up.

Yeah, I don't think about anyone but my own answers sometimes.

I did pick long jump though and I just figured with all the heat we have had in most parts of the US, most would pick winter games.

[DanGarion]

Of course stupid doesn't use meters, we are in America. Fucking stupid!

[RPI-Fan]

Originally Posted by stevew

-In a 50/50, always take the first example
-When in doubt, such as the decathlon answer, figure that most people will pick up on "long jump" as used in question 6.
-round numbers, always
-I'm assuming most googled the 2008 medal results, hence the runaway Chinese answer.
-it seems like the runaway phelps answer was to just choose how many medals he won last time....can't believe i biffed that up.

Your last point is off-base. Phelps won eight gold medals last time. He is competing in seven events this time, but is expected to win no more than five golds. So Stupid not only didn't just rely on last go-round's count; he researched the question and gave the two most plausible answers in abundance.

[General Mike]

lost again

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by RPI-Fan

Your last point is off-base. Phelps won eight gold medals last time. He is competing in seven events this time, but is expected to win no more than five golds. So Stupid not only didn't just rely on last go-round's count; he researched the question and gave the two most plausible answers in abundance.

Heh...that would seem to be the case, eh? And maybe for most of Stupid, it was. But I arrived at 5 completely differently.

My first thought was, of course, "9!!!". Because isn't it natural to want to beat your own record? But then I decided it was unlikely there were even nine events for Phelps to compete in. I also threw away 8, figuring that was a once in a lifetime effort--he was probably in less events (but not much less).

Then I figured in the other guy. Locke? He seems to be pretty good, too, and I figured he would take away a gold or two.

So that left me figuring the number would be somewhere between 3-6. As awlays, Stupid will go with a divisible of 10 (nice round number). Failing that, Stupid will go with either a divisible of 5 or with the most simplistic ("0" or "1"). Since the most simplistic seemed entirely unlikely, 5 became the "obvious" answer, stupid.

[Chief Rum]

Oh, and I don't know about the rest of you, but at the time of me doing my answers, I would guess I followed that entire line of thinking in about two seconds, tops.

[britrock88]

Originally Posted by General Mike

lost again

- I say Winter, but Stupid says Summer, no doubt about it.
- Surprised China ran away with it, because Russia has been traditionally stronger since the USSR breakup. China got a huge boost by hosting last time around.
- I really enjoyed the decathlon question, actually. Went with the 1500 because it's the final event... I guess that line of thought didn't carry much weight.

[finketr]

i went with winter because summer's too boring.. just kidding, wasn't thinking much about it...
decathlon, i went with the first event.

[sterlingice]

We've been kicking this one around all week and I suspect we'll have IWS #198 for next week. I think we've settled on a theme and quite a few possible questions but need to winnow them down and then organize a little more.

SI

[sterlingice]

For anyone who didn't see the new thread:

IWS #198: Fantasy Football 2012 - Front Office Football Central

SI