Interview of a JetPunker #3 - Yev

baptistegorce: Hello Yev! Ready for the interview?

Yev: Yes, of course.

baptistegorce: Let’s start this interview! First, could you present yourself on JetPunk quickly for our readers who don’t know you?

Yev: Hey there! Well, I go by Johanna and I am turning 18 next year. I have been using JetPunk for 4 years now, mostly making french quizzes, although I tend to create more english quizzes nowadays. This website is where I spend the vast majority of my free time, when I am not on the JetPunk Discord server. Come to think about it, I may be addicted...

baptistegorce: You are the first JetPunker interviewed in this blogs series who is not active the most of his time on the English JetPunk section. Do you think there are many differences between English and other languages on JetPunk? Should something about it be changed?

Yev: I would say it is almost impossible to compare English with other featured languages, since JetPunk quizmakers and quiztakers do not use the website in the same way at all. For instance, french-speaking users are more likely to take unfeatured quizzes than others, and of course that is a great thing. English traffic relies heavily on the frontpage, and many quizzes go unnoticed because of how flooded the Recent User Quizzes page is. I am not sure whether this is something admins can prevent and I am pretty sure it used to be even worse, but I feel it is our duty as users to publish quality content, make sure our quizzes are not duplicates, and so on and so forth. Furthermore, I believe some languages have more original creations than others. As far as I am concerned, I find a lot more pleasure in taking german quizzes than spanish ones for that reason. German-speaking users (such as Gassu) tend to be more creative from what I have seen, whereas spanish quizzes are mostly just translations that I would take for points. If something had to be changed, I think it would be the proportion of original quizzes amongst features. I am well aware that this is a hard thing to do, since admins do not speak all featured languages, but I try to send some good french quizzes to Stewart and he ends up featuring some of those.

baptistegorce: What do you think about the JetPunk French section in particular (recent quizzes, active quizmakers,…)?

Yev: My favourite thing about the french-speaking section is the dedication of its members. Most users stick around for a while and stay somewhat active throughout the day. Whenever I check the recent user quizzes section, I can be sure it will be entertaining. Nevertheless, the quizzes I take are rarely rigorous enough to be featured, in my humble opinion. I understand that french users would rather make quizzes that their friends could take rather than difficult ones. On the one hand, it may be what brings in new users - what do I know? But on the other hand, it would be very much appreciated if quizmakers could mention their source in the caveats and double check their spelling for more rigour. Moreover, I believe it would be great to see original SVG quizzes from time to time, for instance. If I had to name a drawback to french quizzes, it would definitely be that they get few comments. In fact, I rarely see people congratulating or just constructively criticising others. Of course there is some bragging and ranting, but it is not too excessive either.

baptistegorce: You got a very important task on JetPunk: take care of the punkfrançais account. Is it difficult? Did it change something in your JetPunk experience?

Yev: Indeed! I have been benevolently taking care of that account for six months now. I am not part of the website's staff by any means, but it is always an honour for me to help Dan and Stewart expand the french section a bit more. Apart from my daily task, which is translating “Country Quizzes” and adapting them to suit a french-speaking audience, I also correct and update older quizzes when needed. I try to answer comments as much as I can, and I do my best to grant our french-speaking users a better experience on JetPunk. This is not a difficult task, albeit demanding. In fact, it is very rewarding, and I would say I now feel more fulfilled than ever. For the time being, my tasks will essentially consist in providing more translations, but in the long run, it may potentially include more ambitious projects, such as a rework of tags on french quizzes (it is the only foreign language that has tags!).

baptistegorce: What is the most important event in your own life of JetPunker?

Yev: My original account's statistics recently skyrocketed thanks to nominations. One of my quizzes, namely Random Point on Land to Country, got featured thanks to the community. It later became the most taken user-created quiz in the span of 24 hours, with no less than 16,880 takes on its frontpage day! This achievement means a lot to me, and I would like to thank everyone who made the unlikely happen. At the current pace, it is estimated that “Randomloc”; as I like to call it; could reach 50k total takes before Sylvester. That is just insane, considering I published it in July 2020.

baptistegorce: Do you have big projects of quizzes in preparation (on your original account)?

Yev: I have not been very active on that account lately. The main reasons to this are that I was focusing on punkfrancais, and that I am snowed under with countless assignments and commitments due to the fact that I took up engineering studies this year. Now France is on lockdown again, I am probably going to spend some time creating original quizzes when I can. My current goal is to make sequels to Randomloc. Each one of those takes a few days to create. You can find the US States version here. Next up are Europe, French Departments, then perhaps Asia and Africa. I have another project in store, which is “Name a Valid Song by Every Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Member“. It has about 50k possible answers in total, which makes it a long and exhausting task. I am not even sure many people will be interested, but at least I get to listen to great music while working.

baptistegorce: If you had to choose just three JetPunker for their quizzes, who will it be?

Yev: This is a really tough question... I think I am going to exclude Stewart because I am probably too biased towards him, although he is undoubtedly number one. I feel obliged to pick IAB, because he has always been a major inspiration of mine. His subdivision quizzes are amongst the best on the website, although they are probably the hardest ones as well. Simon1006 also makes great subdivision quizzes, but if I can only choose three quizmakers, I guess I would need some variety. My second pick would have to be Jiaozira. Quoting NinjaQKk, “Jiao is probably the most underrated quizmaker”. Although I agree with Ninja to a certain extent, I think one could argue that elijahwade or dug28 are even more underrated. My third pick would be Gassu, because if I were to play quizzes from only 3 creators for the rest of my life, I would rather have access to the ton of quality quizzes he made in multiple languages. He is also one of the most intelligent people I ever met, and I am pretty sure it is blatant to anyone who ever took his quizzes.

baptistegorce: And for their blogs?

Yev: Once again I will be working with exceptions, Stewart as I said before, and baptistegorce because it would certainly appear as hypocritical flattery. Nobody can deny that Malkiboy was the most creative of all bloggers, and I hope he will come back soon. Even though he is not currently active, he clearly deserves to be part of my top 3. The “most useful blogger” award would go to Pandora49, who has been helping other users numerous times. His tutorials and other blogs are pure gold. Third place would go to my personal firm favourite, harlemglobetrot. She has been writing (or rather, typing?) about very important topics, and I hope it will cause a rise in awareness, especially given the fact that there are many preteens/teens on JetPunk. Please keep going!

baptistegorce: What are your passions in life, except JetPunk?

Yev: I am a very curious person overall, always learning about miscellaneous topics whenever I can. My main passion is mathematics, but I doubt that is what normal people have in mind when they ask about hobbies. So amongst more common pastimes, I play Paradox video games a lot, especially Europa Universalis IV. I mentioned Rock & Roll earlier, in fact I spend hours listening to music every day. My genre of predilection is metal (black, death, doom, thrash, technical, progressive,...) but I can always appreciate a good artist when lyrics are well-written. Apart from metal, some musical acts I often listen to are The Smiths, Elliott Smith, and Pixies. No, not Will Smith. Sorry, I know I ruined it. I also spend a lot of time talking to my friends on Discord, especially on the JetPunk server.

baptistegorce: You are in the JetPunk Discord server. Is it a good experience? Why?

Yev: Honestly speaking, joining this server may be the best decision I ever made online. Without this, I would not have met people who changed my life for the better emotionally and socially speaking, starting with Stewart of course, but also other friends, like Saturn, ABritishCat, Fuse, TheLetter4, RedLightning and all those I do not have time to enumerate. Some members made me grow to a certain extent, they taught me things, they gave me ideas... Stewart again (I think I am obsessed), IAB, Gassu and MiracleMax to name a few. It would be a true pleasure for us all to meet you readers on the server if you wish to join!

baptistegorce: What do you think about the new JetPunk minigame?

Yev: I had the chance to be one of Geography Snap's beta testers, the day before it came out. I have been hooked on it ever since. It is a great minigame which is highly replayable and enjoyable, whether you know flags and shapes yet or not. If you want to learn them or consolidate acquired knowledge, you should give it a go unhesitatingly! I look forward to seeing what Stewart has in store for us next!

baptistegorce: What do you hope for JetPunk development in the next months?

Yev: I do not have many ideas as to JetPunk development, however I know Stewart keeps track of all good suggestions that were submitted to him in a to-do list. I hope those will be added as soon as possible, when our admin finds enough time for this in his very tight schedule. I am convinced he is able to surprise us like he did with the SVG update. If you want to share website improvement ideas, the Discord server is the right place for it.

baptistegorce: It's the end of this interview. Thank you a lot, Yev!

Yev: You're welcome!

I hope you enjoyed your reading. In the previous blog in this series, you wrote in comments that you wanted more blogs like this one. I'm sorry, but I was very busy, and holidays are almost the only moment when I can write it. I hope you understand.