The Sporcle Curator’s Guide

Congratulations on becoming a Sporcle curator!  This guide will lead you through your new responsibilities and privileges that are now available to you on Sporcle.  Review it at your leisure and keep it handy to refer back to as questions arise.

We also encourage all curators to take some time to review the Sporcle Curator’s Guide Supplement. This will provide many more tips, suggestions and recommendations to support you as you begin your curatorship.

Requirements for being a Curator

• We strongly suggest that you make a minimum of 1 pick per week or 4 picks per month. We realize some categories may have a small amount of content and may be seasonal. The availability of quality quizzes, which can vary depending on the subcategory, should dictate the number of picks. However, assuming that there are quality quizzes available, making regular picks is key to being a good curator.
• When commenting in others’ games, your comments and criticism must be both supportive and constructive.

How to make a Curator Pick

The most important responsibility of a curator is choosing games as Curator Picks.  Making a game a Curator Pick separates it from the dozens of other games that are contributed each day and tells the rest of the Sporcle community that it’s a game worthy of their attention.  Curator Picks maintain higher visibility, increasing the number of plays a quiz may get and giving them a higher profile.

Option One:  Advance Scheduling

1) Located to the far right on your Quiz Management Dashboard, is the “Toolbox” which contains a blue link called  “Curator Pick Quizzes”:

This is really essentially a Pick Scheduler.  Once a quiz is “picked” it is added to the Schedule, and the pick goes live automatically at the scheduled time.  Click on that blue link to access the Curator Picks dialogue box.

NOTE:  If you have multiple subcategory Curatorships, your first one alphabetically will automatically appear.  To access a different subcategory, click on the one showing, and you will then see a drop-down menu. Click on the specific subcategory for which you want to make the pick:

2) Copy and paste the Url of a quiz you want to add to the Pick Schedule, which will automatically trigger the Quiz Title appearing immediately below:

3) Click on the Title of the quiz, which will result in the Quiz Title alone appearing in the top box.

4) Adjust the “Date for Pick” (and time) for when you want the actual Live Pick to occur:

5) Add a Blurb if you wish (optional).

6) Click on the green “Pick This Game” button:

Note: “Pick This Game” really means “Schedule This Pick” there. The pick itself won’t occur until that date and time, automatically.

7) Confirm the Quiz appears below on the Schedule for that Month.

If the pick is for a future month, click on the right arrow on the “Today” button, until you are at the Month you want to find:

Make sure the Date and Time are what you wanted.

8) Click on the word “Today” to restore your screen to the Present Month conditions.

9) Previous picks which have already gone “live” will appear in blue beneath remaining quizzes scheduled for the month.

10) To review Past Months’ Live Picks, click the left arrow on the “Today” button. (The following example shows previous year picks from December 2017):

11) To Edit the Date or Time after a quiz is scheduled, hover your mouse over the quiz title and click the blue edit pencil which appears:

Manually edit the data (month/day/time) you wish to.

SAVE your change, and the pick will appear at its adjusted place in your schedule.

12) To Delete a Scheduled Pick, hover over or click on the quiz title and then click the Trash icon at the far right. 

Option Two:  Spot Scheduling

You can also make picks directly from a quiz page. Down in the tags section, you’ll see a link labeled “(pick)” to the right of your subcategory tag:

Click on “(pick)”, and in the pop up window, schedule the desired month/day/time and then click on the Confirm button:

Other Notes:  

• There are no notifications sent to you (as the curator) when a scheduled pick goes live.
• Quizzes can now only be scheduled at the half-hour intervals provided. Remember that the time can be set to Eastern Standard Time only.
• If a quiz receives an Editor’s Pick it will remain on your pick schedule as is. You receive no notification, but if you happen to notice this occurring you can still reschedule your CP out in the future.
• If a quiz receives a Publication, you receive no notification, and it will disappear from your list and can no longer be picked.

How to Find Curator Picks

Picks should not only be made because “you liked it” but also whether the quiz is well-constructed, and accurate. “Would this game be appealing to players attracted to the subcategory?” is the key question. Occasionally, games which are more geared to experts can be rotated into your picks.

Here are four ways to look for quizzes which might be suitable candidates for a CP:

1. Review the games recently released which appear on your Subcategory Tag page.
2. Review the games recently released on the main Category pages (i.e. Categories where games with your subcategory  are usually released).  Quite often, contributors do not apply tags to games which clearly fit a given subcategory, and may be worthy of a CP.  Scanning the titles of recent games, you’ll occasionally spot some of these – and if they are CP-worthy, you can add the appropriate tag (Click on ‘Tags’ under the Extras heading at the bottom of the game page.)
3. Periodically scan through archived quizzes within your subcategory tag to see if any worthy games may have been overlooked.
4. It is OK to periodically CP your own games, provided the game in question is worthy of a Curator Pick, and not  merely a way to promote yourself.

In addition, it may be worthwhile to peek at quizzes which were previously published, EP’d, and CP’d. This way you’ll be able to avoid duplication when you are considering making picks; and you may get a good idea of what types of quizzes were subsequently well-received per their comments and ratings.

Other Curator Duties:

1. Providing solid, helpful and supportive feedback.  New users may look to Curators for assistance in formatting quizzes and improving their experience in game play.  Try to make your comments positive and instructive where possible. It’s ok to proactively make some simple “tweaking” suggestions to a contributor if you feel they are a necessary prerequisite to making a pick. Be sure to bookmark those games so you can follow up.
2. Mentoring. This is not a requirement of the position, but it IS an inevitable by-product of the manner in which you comment in games, or how you respond if you are contacted via site message or e-mail (which is optional; if you’ve posted it on your profile page). Many a “newbie” has become a talented and prolific contributor partly owing to assistance they received from curators early on.
3. Make suggestions.  We are constantly striving to improve the experience of people taking quizzes and making quizzes at Sporcle.  Your feedback on ways to improve that experience is very helpful.

Staying in touch:

There are a number of ways to maintain contact with Sporcle HQ and with your fellow Curators.  Among them are;

1. Sporcle Groups: As a curator, a great way to connect and share ideas with other curators, editors, and staff is through Sporcle Groups. All curators should join the Sporcle Curators group here. Curators should also monitor any key groups related to their curatorship. Once you acclimate yourself to Sporcle Groups, feel free to jump into conversations, make suggestions, and offer any ideas you might have.
2. Email: Milan (gazzso) can regularly be reached by Sporcle message or email at milan@sporcle.com.