Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

It doesn't really mean much of anything. We just like the sound of it.

You don't need one to play on Sporcle but here are six reasons why you want one.

Having a Sporcle account lets you:

Track your game plays, see your best scores, and challenge your friends

Earn badges

Comment on and rate games

Follow users and see how you compare to your friends

Create quizzes to share with your friends or the world

Get email alerts for new and popular games

And hey, it's free and easy, so go ahead.

Yes! You will need to have an account and be logged in for us to keep track of your results. It's easy to create a free account. Results are recorded for quizzes when you complete one of the following actions:

1. Get all the answers right
2. Run out of time
3. Click the 'Give up' button (after entering at least one answer)

If you leave a game page before one of these things happen, your results will not be recorded. When your score is recorded, your best score will also be displayed at the bottom of the page, along with the scores of your friends!

Yep there is the flagship Sporcle app as well as a Sporcle Live app. You can see all of our apps on this page.

The Daily Dose is your destination for quick diversions every day. You can find an outline of our current formats here. New quizzes of these types will be made available every day, so make sure to come back each day to find them.

Sporcle Groups are the best new way to get to know other Sporclers. You can post topics or quizzes to a group and interact with other members of the community.
You can find popular groups at our Groups Dashboard page.

Sporcle Editors are usually selected from the top quiz creators and commenters on the site. Their duties include looking for the top quizzes within their category for Editor Picks, making sure published quizzes are up to date, tagging quizzes and making updates to published quizzes. Sporcle is always keeping an eye out for the next great Editor, so keep making great games and helpful comments, and we may contact you when we have an opening.

A Curator is someone we believe is an expert in a particular subcategory and gains the ability to make 'Curator Picks' that show up on our subcategory pages. Check out our current curators and subcategory openings on the Curator page. To apply to be a Curator please drop us a note at our feedback page whenever you see an opening in a subcategory you are interested in!

We sure do! You can read all about it on our blog where we ask: What is a country?

Sorry, it is not possible to change your username.

If you need to delete your account, drop us a line and we'll take care of that for you. As we are always trying to improve, it would definitely help us to know why you wanted to delete your account.

This tracks the number of consecutive days you have played a quiz on Sporcle. FYI: It doesn't apply to Trivia Bingo.

A trophy on the user profile gives a distinctive emblem for certain accomplishments and milestones on Sporcle. These include trophies for the number of years on Sporcle, play streaks and the number of plays a user's quizzes have received.

"Connect with Facebook" is a feature from Facebook that lets users use Facebook's login system on external websites such as Sporcle. Instead of creating a Sporcle account by entering your email address and password, you can just click on "Connect with Facebook" and everything is done automatically. You can also connect your Facebook to an existing Sporcle account - but make sure the associated email addresses match!

Users can follow each other on Sporcle to get notifications and see activity. You will automatically become friends with another user when you both follow each other. You should be able to see who is following you on your profile under the 'People' tab.

A full weekend of trivia and puzzle based events in Las Vegas designed for individuals and teams of all skill levels. $50,000 in cash prizes will be awarded throughout the weekend. Find out more here.

Entry to every event scheduled for all three days of TriviaCon, giving you the ability to win your share of $50,000 in cash and prizes throughout the weekend. Each ticket also includes ten raffle tickets for prizes to be given away at the conclusion of the event.

The first event takes place at 4pm on Friday, April 3. The event will conclude no later than 8pm on Sunday. The majority of the big cash events take place all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

No sorry, not at this time.

This event is designed for you to come and go as you please. You can stay and play with us all weekend or simply hit the events that interest you the most.

All events will award either cash or raffle tickets. $50,000 in cash will be given away throughout the event.

Many events are designed to award cash prizes to different skill levels and not just the top players. This weekend is also more about a celebration of all things trivia and puzzle and you don't have to be in the top echelon of trivia players to enjoy that.

All team events that award cash prizes will have a strict limit of six players per team.

Don't fret. We've had teams of two win our tournaments in the past. However, during registration, you'll be able to indicate if you want us to help find you a team.

Absolutely. There are several individual based events happening over the weekend and for Battle of the Brains, we can help find you a team if you so desire.

Your team will be required to take a placement quiz at some point throughout the weekend. There will be four different opportunities to do so. Your placement in that quiz and whether or not your team has anyone that has won $10,000 on a TV game show will determine your tier.

You'll automatically be placed in the lowest prize pool tier.

The conference area of the Rio is conveniently located near several bars/restaurants and a Starbucks. During bigger events, we'll offer beverages/concessions in the show area.

Send an email triviacon@sporcle.com with "Trivia Pros" in the subject line to indicate your interest and share what makes you a trivia pro.

Check back to www.sporcle.com/triviacon in July as we open up submissions.

If you plan on competing in other events over the weekend, you will need to purchase a ticket. If you only plan on presenting, you will not need a ticket.

Employees of Sporcle are not eligible to win prizes at TriviaCon. We may allow them to compete in certain events if space allows, however, it will be on a "just for fun" basis.

Send an email triviacon@sporcle.com with "Sponsorship" in the subject line for sponsorship opportunities.

For cash events, we will have a minimum of one staff member working the floor per five teams competing. We will have a strict no cell phone policy during play.

Your team at TriviaCon will get to compete in the Sporcle Live Pub Champions Trivia League National Championship event. This is the only event all weekend that requires pre-qualification. Everyone on your team still needs to have a ticket in order to compete. There is a $10,000 prize pool for this particular event.

Definitely not. You are free to play with whomever you'd like at any given event.

Sporcle Orange is our premium membership program. With Sporcle Orange you see zero ads, get extra features, and support the site. You can sign up here.

Once you have signed up for an Orange account, you can update your credit card information by visiting the Orange panel on your accounts settings page. You can click here to access that information.

If you have signed up for Orange and no longer want it, you can cancel your subscription at any time by visiting the Orange panel in your accounts settings, accessible by clicking here.

If you signed up for an Orange account and it expired, odds are that your credit card was declined for some reason. The most likely reason for this happening is that your credit card has expired. If that is the case, try signing up again here with a different card. Otherwise, you can always file a report on our Feedback page (accessible here) and a staff member will look into it.

In all probability you have signed up for an Orange membership and this charge is the cost of the subscription. If you are signed up for Orange, you will see it on your profile. If in doubt, drop us a line.

First you'll need to make sure you are logged in. Then navigate to the Game Creation Center and click the orange ‘Create a Sporcle Quiz’ button. From here choose which type of quiz you want to make and off you go. Check out this handy video to guide you through the process on how to make a quiz.

Go to the Game Creation Center and find the quiz you want to edit in the list of quizzes under the 'Contributed' tab. Click the edit icon.
Here you can make changes to the game. It might be a good idea to take the game offline if you are planning major changes. This can be done under the 'Finish Up' tab. Make sure to use this feature and not 'Make Quiz Private'. After the changes have been made, return to the 'Finish Up' tab and click 'Put Game Back Online.'

There sure is! Check out our quiz creation guides on the Sporcle blog. You can also get help from others in the How To & Tips group on Sporcle.

Classic quizzes are the original Sporcle quiz type. They involve users typing answers to written questions.

The clickable game type allow users to play a game without using the keyboard. These games pose a question or series of questions and the answers are selectable in the area below. Be warned, some games may include decoys. You can get help making a clickable quiz with our blog post on the topic.

Grid quizzes are a format that allows users to make crossword puzzles, Sudoku, or various other games played on a grid. Here's a guide to making grid quizzes.

A slideshow quiz is a quiz where users typically identify people, places, or things in a series of images, or, in some cases, answer questions about those images. If you'd like to make one, check out this blog post for a handy guide.

A multiple choice quiz, as the name implies, involves the player choosing the correct answer out of a set of options. You can find our guide to making multiple choice quizzes on the blog.

Picture Box quizzes present users with a set of images laid out in grid format. Users must correctly type an answer that corresponds to each image. Here's a nice little tutorial on how to make one.

Map quizzes require users to type in answers that coordinate to points on an image - usually a map. We've written a guide on making map quizzes to help you make the best possible quizzes.

Picture click quizzes involve users clicking on different regions within an image based on questions or hints. For help making picture click quizzes, check out our blog post on the topic.

Use a video editing program (such as 'Windows Movie Maker') where you can import the audio file and add an image. For the image, we highly recommend these Sporcle logo options - there's a dark version and a light version. Export it as a video and then upload on Youtube or another video hosting site.

Copy the embed code and place it into the Embed code box on the 'Game Info' tab of the game creation tools page.

Be sure to review the terms of service of these hosting sites to ensure that embedding content in a 3rd party site does not violate their terms. Violation of terms will result in your quiz being removed.

A wrong answer quiz is a special type of quiz on Sporcle where a quiz's bonus answers are actually marked as incorrect. To create bonus answers in quizzes put 'ee' in the last (extra) column. Move these answers to the last rows of the quiz. For wrong answers, you must check the appropriate box in the game creation center, and make sure all of your hints match just like a quiz with headings. We've also created a more detailed explanation over at the Sporcle Blog.

Ordinary users (i.e. those who are not Editors/Curators) get to release 50 public quizzes in every calendar month, which resets on the 1st day of each month.
One caveat - no more than three in an hour.

If one of your quizzes is published to the front page, you get six extra bonus quizzes, but these expire at the end of the month. You can make up to 100 private quizzes in each month.

The Quizmaster Score is a score given to a user based on quiz contributions. The higher the score, the greater the participation the user has had in the Sporcle community.

The score is based on a number of factors including (but not limited to): the number of quizzes created since the public launch of Sporcle's quiz creation tools, number of times those quizzes have been played and the rating attributed to quizzes by other users. The score can fluctuate up and down each day as quizzes are created, played and rated.

Click here to see a leaderboard of the top 100 users.

A variety of factors are involved in what is published on Sporcle.com. Here are some factors that we consider:

1. The quiz idea should be original.
2. It should include a valid source (if applicable).
3. Fits into our current cycle of quizzes.
4. It has been well received as a contributed quiz.
5. The quiz is topical.

Private quizzes do not show up on search or your profile, but you can still use the link to play your game, send to friends, and see results. Games marked as private will not be featured or published by Sporcle. Only Sporcle moderators and admins can make a quiz public if it has been contributed as a private quiz. If you want your quiz to be made public, write in to feedback with a link to the quiz or post it in this group and a moderator can help you.

You cannot fully delete a contributed quiz, but you can archive it. To do so, you will need to navigate to your Quiz Management Dashboard. Find the quiz in the ‘Contributed’ quizzes list, and click ‘Edit Quiz’. From there, go to the ‘Finish Up’ tab and click the ‘Take Game Offline’ button. Once you’ve done that, the quiz will move back to ‘Drafts' in the Quiz Management Dashboard. Quiz drafts can be archived by clicking the ‘Archive’ button that appears when you hover over the far right section of the row the quiz is in.

A playlist is a group of quizzes that are linked together and can be viewed from playlist pages or quiz pages. They can be used to save quizzes in one place and track progress. They can also be shared with other Sporcle users.

You can create a playlist by going to your Playlist Dashboard. From there you can make up to 100 playlists on anything you want!

You can create up to 10 new playlists each month. Each playlist can have up to 50 quizzes, which you can order however you'd like.

Embedding allows you to take a featured quiz (or one that you have created) and post it on a web page outside of Sporcle. Click HERE for a nice little example.

In the game information box for each embeddable game is a link that says 'Embed Game'. Click on this link and in the window that opens, you'll see a field containing embed code for the quiz. Copy the code and paste it into your blog or website.

You can embed most classic, clickable, and multiple choice quizzes. Image quizzes and matching clickable quizzes can not currently be embedded.

A showdown is a competitive way to play quizzes on Sporcle. When you press the "Find Opponent" button on most quizzes, it will find you a showdown where you can compete against another player in real time. You can also visit the Showdown Hub to play a Showdown against other users in particular categories.

Challenges and showdowns are two types of competitive quiz playing on Sporcle. In a challenge, the two people in the challenge play the same quiz, on their own time, and whoever has the better score after both people have completed the quiz wins. In a showdown, the two people in the showdown play the same quiz, at the same time, and whoever gets more correct answers before the timer runs out wins. Both count as a quiz play for badges and overall quiz stats.

The hub is a page that shows Showdown activity. This is a good place to find matches that other users are actively queuing for, as well as see the daily leaders and recent history across Sporcle. This page is constantly updating, so keep checking back for new action.

A Showdown 'party' keeps you connected to your opponent, and allows you to play together for as many quizzes as you want. You can party-up from within an active Showdown OR from the dropdown in the chat box from your friends list. Your panel will persist across all Sporcle pages and you can chat with that opponent until you decide to leave the party.

You can Showdown against your friends by inviting them to party up from the chat box. (Note, this means your friends will have to be active on Sporcle at the same time you are.) They will get an alert that says you're ready to party!

The number next to your username is your rating. Your rating updates after you play against other users. This rating will appear on your profile stats page and during play against other users. Your rating will start at 1400, and then you gain and lose points depending on the rating of your opponents. For example, winning against a higher-ranked opponent will gain you more points than winning against a lower-ranked opponent.

Challenges give you the chance to see how you stack up against your friends.
On a quiz page, you have the option to 'Challenge your friends'. You can challenge other Sporcle users or enter in emails of people you know. You can also manage your challenges on the Challenges page. You can see your wins and losses, challenge others, check received challenges, and get challenges from the Sporcle Bot.

Yes! You can hide your Showdown activity from your profile by going to the Privacy tab in your settings page and unchecking the 'Allow anyone to see my showdown activity' option.

Showdown is currently in a Public Beta phase. We've been working on this for a while and it is a solid product, but it still has some bugs and needs some overall refinement. Your feedback will help us get there. If you find a problem, please let us know here.

Sporcle Live is our bread & butter bar trivia experience. Want to learn more, find out more on the how it works page.

As long as you provide your host your team's league number, you can name yourself anything that floats your boat at your show. The team name you initially registered online will display on your venue's scoreboard. If you would like to change your team's name on your venue's scoreboard please send that request to league@sporcle.com.

During regular season play there is not a team size limit. During the Venue Tournaments and League Championships, there will be a team size limit of five players per team.

Sporcle Live is free to players, come and enjoy.

The Pub Champions Trivia League lets your team compete for nerdy supremacy at your favorite Sporcle Live bars. At the end of each season you get a chance to compete in regional, state and national championships for large cash prizes.

Email us. league@sporcle.com

Both teams would have the right to RSVP for a Semi Final or State Championship on the Monday following the regular season's end.

If you're a registered team you can retrieve your league number by looking it up here, via the original email sent to your league captain that registered your team or by emailing us a request for your number.

No. In the event you play multiple venues on the same night only your team's lowest score is credited towards league standings. It is a strict violation of the rules to log more than one score per night.

If a state has a Semi Final, all teams are required to compete in those first. If a state does not offer a Semi Final, teams can RSVP directly to the State Championship.

No. The members of your team that you play with on a regular basis should regularly play under one registered team name.

During each weekly night of play there is not a size limit. However, during Semi Finals and State Championships teams are limited to five players.

The team that was in first place at the point of cancellation will be considered the venue champion. However, they must still complete a minimum of 8 shows during the season in order to RSVP for a semi-final or state championship.

You may RSVP under the same criteria as every other team to any other state's Semi Finals and/or State Championship.

Email us with your team name, team number, the show date, and your score and we'll verify with our host, then have it updated. All discrepancies must be reported within two weeks of the show in question.

Our typical rule of thumb is if a state has 30 or more shows they start to receive Semi Finals.

No. It's free of charge, however, we do ask that you support the bars/restaurants you attend as they do pay us for this service.

The number of teams at Semi Finals will vary based on size, but expect an average of 20-30. State Championships will typically have 32 teams, pending space at the venue.

Prize pools are allocated to states with at least five regularly scheduled weekly shows at the start of a season. The more shows a state has, the higher their prize pool is.

Our hosts are encouraged to play during weekly play at shows other than their own. However, all Sporcle employees are ineligible to play on a team competing in the Semi Finals, State Championships or National Championships.

Semi Finals will be spread out in each state based on where the majority of players are. State Championships are moved around each state each season, but typically we host them at venues that can hold a larger number of teams.

No, you must compete in the state in which the majority of your scores were logged. There are some minor geographical exceptions, but you should email league@sporcle.com if you have questions. Teams in states without any championship events are eligible to travel to other states.

The team in first at the end of the season will be crowned that venue's champion, however, they must have competed at least 8 times at any show in order to RSVP for a Semi Final or State Championship.

No.

You must play at least one full game (one-hour show) in order for a score to be logged. Incomplete games will not count towards your overall shows played count.

Yes. Each team that qualifies for State Championships at Semis is required to state on the spot if they will be participating the following weekend in State Championships.

No. We have eliminated the Bar Hop in order to place all teams on an even playing field.

Our pricing is one of the more unique things that we provide to our partnered venues. Instead of charging you an arbitrary flat rate (like most trivia companies) – no matter how many butts they are putting into your seats - Sporcle charges you based on how many people are playing trivia that night. This means it is more reflective of your sales that night and incentivizes us and the host to work harder to make that impact on your revenue. We do have a minimum and a ceiling (maximum rate) that you would never go above and would be happy to share the exact numbers in a one-on-one conversation.

We do have a 12 week service agreement, that relates directly to how long we feel it takes to build a show, but it is just for the first 12 weeks. After the 12 weeks is up we continue on a ‘handshake” – no additional service agreements or extensions are required. Based on our experience of 9 plus years, we have found that it takes about 12 weeks to grow and develop your show. We want to make sure we are all committed - us, you, and the host - to growing your revenue and this agreement hold us all accountable to do just that.

Our trivia hosts have everything they need to run a successful show – sound equipment, game supplies, and their top-notch entertainment skills. They will get there early, typically 30-45 minutes before the start of show to get set up and walk around to get people signed up. We understand you have your business to run, so we want to make this as easy on you as we can!

We have put together a separate Pub Owners FAQ here.