Audio and Video Quizzes

We have been getting reports of some problems with some of Sporcle’s quizzes which contain audio clues. We are hoping to get to the bottom of things, but first we need to do some troubleshooting.

The audio quizzes are embedded from YouTube. If YouTube videos don’t normally work for you, they won’t work on Sporcle. A good way to test this is to try playing the clip below:

If the above clip doesn’t play, then it is likely there is a setting in your browser that is preventing embedded YouTube clips from playing.

If it does play and you are only having trouble on Sporcle, then we need to know your browser type and version, what OS you are on, and any other relevant information you can give us.

One more thing to keep in mind is that clicking the start button the Sporcle quiz will only start the timer, you must also click the play button on the audio bar to play the audio.

Thanks!

Getting your games played

We are a couple weeks into have the user generated games available and so far things are going well. A few folks have written in and want to know what it takes to get a quiz noticed or played. Here are a few tips we can pass along.
Quality
The surest way to get your game played is, well, to make a good game. Original, topical, and playable games will bubble up to the top. If nothing else, the Sporcle Admins are more inclined to publish games that are of high quality. So what makes high quality? Here are a few guidelines:
  • A credible source.
  • Good game layout.
  • Playability and accepting plenty of alternate acceptable answers.
  • It’s fun to play.
Posting
If you feel that you have a high quality quiz on your hands, there are mechanisms out there to get your quiz noticed.
Here are a few ways in which you can ratchet up the plays on your quiz:
  • Post it on your blog
  • Post it to relevant user forums of sites that might be interested.
  • Put it on your wall on Facebook
  • Tweet it on Twitter
  • Email it or text it to your friends
What not to do:
While trying to get your quiz noticed, keep in mind there are sure fire ways to NOT have your quiz published. These include but are not limited to:
  • Don’t attempt to artificially inflate your quiz by posting a ton of comments on it or trying to game the system.
  • Don’t email the Sporcle admins demanding that we publish your game.
  • Don’t spam the comments of other unrelated games with your quiz.
At the end of the day, we ask that you basically be a good Sporcle citizen.
Lastly, hang in there. This is a new feature and we have a lot planned on the horizon. We have ideas on how to make games more discoverable, so stay tuned.
In the meantime, I hope this helps. If you have other ideas, please post them in the comments to this blog.
It would be great to hear what other tools and ideas people have.

Game Creation

It has been a long road, but we are happy to announce that the private beta of the Sporcle Game Creation tools is now public!

Things to know:
  • You can contribute up to 7 quizzes each month.
  • Quizzes are published to your user page at Sporcle.com.
  • These are live URL’s so you can send your quiz link to friends, Facebook, your blog, Twitter, MySpace, etc.
  • Some quizzes may be selected to be featured on the Sporcle home page.
Again, this is a public beta of these tools, so they are still in active development. Don’t be surprised to see changes over the coming weeks and months.
We will be posting some more blog posts on tips and tricks and best practices to help those interested in creating games.
Enjoy and let us know if you have questions, comments, or problems.