Very interesting quiz! A few things I think require clarification. By alphabetically bordering you mean the country alphabetically immediately before and immediately after the country in question. That is, a country can border no more than two countries alphabetically.
Bordering countries are usually understood in Sporcle to mean countries that share a land border. From that viewpoint the North American entry is problematic since St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines do not share a land border. You could say that water borders are included but I think that complicates the quiz because water borders are not as clearcut as land borders.
The third problem is that it is customary in Sporcle quizzes (including the letter or word-based ones) to consistently use the common country name as usually displayed. So for example, Republic of the Congo is recognized as "Republic of the Congo" rather than "Congo, Republic of the." Likewise for Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a consequence of this convention, Republic of the Congo is considered to begin with R, not C; and Democratic Republic of the Congo begins with D, not C. Therefore, they are really not (in the conventional Sporcle sense) alphabetically bordering each other. There is no expectation on the part of Sporcle players to assume that you are using "Congo, Republic of the"; or "Congo, Democratic Republic of the", just as they are not expecting "Korea, North"; or "Korea, South" (which would be bordering each other alphabetically too).
parklife makes a good point about "alphabetically across ALL 195 countries" that would help clarify what you're looking for.
SpeziFish illustrates how the current instructions are confusing to players. Spain invalidates South Africa and Swaziland as alphabetically bordering countries. Canada invalidates Cameroon and Chad. Malta invalidates Mali and Mauritania. Estonia invalidates Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Finally, consider accepting:
CAR for Central African Republic
GB fo |
US States
Countries of Europe
Countries of Africa
