Introduction
Some months ago, I wrote a long piece on the nominations board that the system was in dire need of reform and I offered some potential changes which could be implemented to improve the system. Unfortunately, it has been over a year since I posted my feelings and suggestions and very little has happened.
Stewart promised a blog to 'generate discussion', however this hasn't happened yet. I completely understand if he is busy with other things in his life, so I will take it up myself to make this the official unofficial discussion thread for tweaks to the nomination board.
I will outline some key issues and potential solutions, some of which are mentioned in my comment, some I have seen from others (I will credit ideas) and some new ideas I have recently thought of. Anyways, let's get right into it!
The Issues:
Let's look at the issues facing the nomination board atm and why they are problematic.
1. The same quizzes are stuck in purgatory at the top
The issue here is that because quizzes are only being featured on a weekly basis as well as only one quiz a week likely receiving that feature, there are still quizzes which racked up loads of nominations back in the early days of nominating such as
this one from 2016,
this old Relessness quiz from 2016 and this Jiaozira quiz from 2021. The last five featured quizzes (at time of writing) were all created in 2021 or earlier, with one quiz from 2016!
NB: This was written in 2024, 2 of the above quizzes have been featured but the point still stands!
2. New quizzes have almost zero chance of getting anywhere near the first page
This point refers to the impossible mountain new quizzes have to take to reach the first few pages of the nominations board. There are great quizzes being created weekly and even daily but will likely have to wait 2+ years at least to get onto the first page. Even a Spotlight, a sought after feature for many users doesn't have a significant effect on nominations. For example, I recently had a
Spotlighted. quiz for one of my newer quizzes (Thank you for the Spotlight, it is greatly appreciated btw). However, despite the Spotlight, it only got 7 nominations. Another example recently: This amazing
Stewart quiz was recently Spotlighted but only has 8 nominations so far. And this
Insaniot quiz has been Spotlighted (quite possibly multiple times) but has 48 nominations, which for context, only makes the quiz on the 3rd page. I think some of these quizzes are fantastic but appeal to a more niche audience, hence they get fewer nominations. However, it doesn't mean they don't deserve the recognition!
This great quiz was recently created (when I wrote this), but currently only has 4 noms
3. Not enough quizzes are being featured through the nominations feature
From 2019-2021, multiple quizzes were frequently featured via the nominations feature with some weeks seeing as many as 5 quizzes being featured. But for whatever reason, the number of quizzes featured weekly has almost always been a solitary quiz with the occasional exception. I am aware that QM has other priorities and managing a website must be incredibly challenging but I hope that this issue can be addressed soon. There are some quizzes that are pretty easy to feature on the nominations board and there are other ways to ensure more quizzes get featured via nominations, thus clearing some of the backlog that has been created through the lack of nominated features.
Only 1 per week in 2024 so far
5 per week during early 2021
4. Older quizzes tend to be at the top, making them susceptible to errors
This is related to the first issue in that there are quizzes at the top of the list or have lots of nominations but because the user is inactive, the quiz's data is out of date or inaccurate. For example,
this quiz hasn't received any updates for 4.5 years and is likely inaccurate. This is because Quizzer6794 is not as active anymore with no non-featured quiz updated since January of this year. Again, this quiz by
relessness has many nominations but because the user is no longer active, the quiz is out of date in terms of its data having not been updated in 8 years.
All of these issues devalue nominations and make them seem almost pointless to use even on quizzes between 50-100 nominations. There isn't any point on using a nomination on a quiz with 35 nominations if you aren't going to be alive to see it featured via the nominations board!
Some solutions!
I don't want to be all negative! Here are some ideas myself and others have offered which could be implemented.
1. Feature more quizzes through the nominations system, particularly the simpler non SVG quizzes
If one of the issues is not enough quizzes being featured, surely the solution is to feature more? Well, it isn't that simple and we have to re-evaluate how to solve this problem. We can't just ask to feature quizzes willy nilly in the same way that banks won't just give out low interest/interest free loans out to everybody regardless of their ability to pay it back. More quizzes should be featured but it would work better if the most nominated quizzes which are incredibly easy to feature like
this quiz,
this quiz and
this quiz are all high up the board and shouldn't require huge lengths of time to fix and prepare for the front page. I think there is hesistancy to feature due to the high number of SVG map quizzes which are more difficult to manage. This moves straight into my next point.
2. Pick a random quiz(zes) each week at the 50-100 nominations mark
Why not? There are so many quizzes that can be picked like
this one that probably deserve a feature but get lost in the list. I suspect QM is already featuring these types of quizzes already so perhaps this is a less valid point.
3. Let us see who is nominating our quizzes
This is something that I feel seems like such an obvious addition. Only the creator should see this at most. With this feature, users can report fake nominations and creators can see who appreciates their quiz. If someone see for example that a quiz user in the Top 50 ranking has nominated one of their quizzes, that could both motivate them to make more and also highlight to other users that their quiz is highly respected.
4. Introduce a Supernomination similar to the Spotlight
I think there should be a sort of middle tier between nominations and spotlights. Spotlights should still remain the main way to have a quiz gain attention, but perhaps the idea of a supernomination in which a person gets 3 nominations (maybe less or more) instead of one from a user could more easily boost well respected quizzes to the top. Give it to users who have reached Level X like the Spotlight and only offer it to users on a random basis like the Spotlight. I've only received 2 or 3 spotlights since it was introduced so some similar frequency I think will work.
5. When a quiz meets a certain nomination threshold (Eg: 150), it should immediately be sent for review
This suggestion was made by
Neodymium and I think it is a fairly reasonable one. Especially if a quiz is way out in front of any others, it continues to gain nominations despite these effectively being wasted nominations. As well as this, quizzes at the top are effectively guaranteed features within the next few weeks so it becomes a competition to see which gets featured first. This removes nominations away from the quizzes with fewer noms which makes it harder to get up the list. By sending quizzes immediately for review as soon as they meet a certain threshold, it will mean that people will have to use their nominations on quizzes lower down and should hopefully mean fewer wasted nominations. Only about 1 quiz a week would meet a hypothetical threshold of 150 and some weeks have seen no quizzes break this mark. I think a slightly lower threshold than 150 would be a little more ideal.
6. Randomly show quizzes with fewer nominations on the first page to users
Why not something like YouTube's recommended feature in which you see a quiz that it more tailored to you? I understand there might be privacy concerns but I am sure that there are ways to set up a system in which any form of 'tracking' is turned off by default/easy to turn off. I think if a user clicks on a quiz that they like, to keep them interested they should be offered similar quizzes with fewer nominations to incentivise them into taking and nominating such quizzes.
I'm thinking something in line to this but on the nominations board
7. Categorise the lists and add filters (Map, Multiple Choice)
Just like we can filter our own main pages, we should have a filter on the nominations board to make it easier for users and creators to see what type of quizzes are popular. It might also help the board look a little less clustered as someone can filter multiple choice quizzes (maybe that is what they want to play) and they will see a quiz that is on 45 noms that would be on page 3 normally but is found more easily when filtering the list. Essentially, it will make quizzes which have 20-70 nominations much easier to find.
A filter like this on the nominations board could be useful and fairly straightforward to implement
8. You can use multiple nominations on the same quiz, but not your own quiz
I think this idea is similar to the supernomination, so I won't go into it.
9. Feature more exceptional quizzes with a niche appeal
I understand that this site is predominantly a geography site and I don't seek to change that. However, there is a severe lack of quizzes in sections of topics which could easily gain mass appeal. There is a quiz by Momillo on the parts of a Plant Cell which is fantastic but because it has a niche appeal, it only has 30 nominations. I don't see any issues with featuring such quizzes. Sure, most of them will not get as many takes as the more standard geography and history quizzes but it is always wise to diversify your portfolio. Every once in a while, there might be a quiz which may not look like a popular quiz on paper, and it turns out to be a smash hit with the community.
Conclusion
To conclude:
The Nominations board is fantastic and I would love to see it thrive
However, there are some key fundamental issues affecting it success
We need to figure out a way to ensure that more nominated quizzes get their plaudits
I hope my solutions have offered some inspiration, and I hope we can generate some discussion in the comments.
I wrote some of this in mid 2024, so some of the examples may be 'out of date', but the points can be applied to other quizzes
I want to hear your ideas, many of my ideas could end up being terrible!
Critical feedback is the best way to get high quality ideas. I am looking forward to hearing your suggestions!
I think the fact that JetPunk is much more popular has made the nominations table a little out of date and it does need some tweaking.
The fact that we have so many users now is a factor in quality. Someone could make a fantastic quiz that is worthy of a feature, but it gets lost amongst the myriad of low quality quizzes about random music artists or sports teams that are incredibly niche and not mainstream. A decent quiz submitted in the morning could be on Page 3 or lower by the evening. Unfortunately this just makes JetPunk a victim of it's own success in a way. There isn't an easy answer.
I think as a community, we could choose to nominate a specific high quality quiz. That way, said high quality quiz would actually have a chance to get featured via nominations, especially if it already has a few. Perhaps once a month, someone could make a message board thread to inform users which quiz to nominate. Basically, spotlighting, but on a lower scale.
Something bothers me in the analysis given of the issues here though. In my humble opinion, among all the problems you listed, there is one cause, all the rest being consequences of this same cause. What is this cause? The third point. Before, we had sometimes up to 5-6 quizzes featured through nominations each week. Now it's one. And it's understandable: nominated quizzes are most of the time a lot more complex and developped than classic featured quizzes, and so requires a lot more work for QM to update or make them featurable. From this starting point we get all the rest: since only a few quizzes are featured through nominations, the same older quizzes stay longer at the top of the leaderboard (1, 4), so new quizzes have low chances to reach it.
I extremely disagree with 4. It wouldn't change anything and would generate stupid childish drama about who nominated or didn't nominate the quizzes of someone else. We don't really need that. All the nominations have the same value, whoever gives them.
(Also, QM is already doing 2.)
With regard to 4, I would suggest only the creator of the quiz should see who is nominating their quiz to minimise conflict and moderation (in a similar manner to commenting) can be done to ensure people don't go wild.
There are 2 very important things here which are being overlooked massively. One was mentioned by toowise, the other by baptiste:
1. JetPunk is too popular now and newer quizzes aren't visible
2. Proportional, nobody uses or cares about nominations.
To explain the 2nd, almost no quizzes get more than, say, 200 nominations in their lifetime. JetPunk has 1000 new users created every single day, and over 100,000 active daily users. Over a week, less than 0.1% of users with an account use a single nomination. That usage is completely abysmal.
Which then leads to a point that, if you increase the features (your primary suggestion) why should such a small tiny minority dictate a large proportion of the featured quizzes each week?
Also all the examples you gave of should-be-featured quizzes are your opinion and statistics suggest not featurable.
Is there a way to make nominations more accessible and better known to new users?
It feels a bit defeatist to say there is no solution other than abolishment.
I'm not sure what can be done about new users. Because after all 95%+ of takes on JetPunk come from featured quizzes and not unfeatured ones. And I reckon a good 98% of users don't even know unfeatured quizzes exist, let alone take them.
I think the issues do exist and can perhaps be done with a little tweaking here and there as overhaul would be costly, time consuming and benefit a small minority of people.
The fact I wanted to post this blog many months ago and only got round to it now just further emphasises the point about the lack of relevance the nominations I guess they have (due to JP's popularity and its niche community of nominators).
I feel a bit like a guy shouting loudly to an empty room! 😂
Anyways, I appreciate you and others taking the time to listen to my arguments and highlighting the issues. Discussion is the best way to progress! If nothing changes, the system may well be (to paraphrase Churchill) the best system of a bad bunch of systems and I won't get upset about it. It is nonetheless better to speak out rather than stay silent.
Besides that, if it's unfair to other users - Why keep it as the only way to let users decides on what to feature?
https://www.jetpunk.com/users/helloisgone/charts/cumulative-of-featured-quizzes-from-nominations
https://www.jetpunk.com/users/helloisgone/charts/number-of-featured-quizzes-from-nominations-per-month
https://www.jetpunk.com/users/helloisgone/charts/nominated-winners
(dont wanna right too much html and get my commented mod'd)
A feature is not intended to be a blue ribbon for quiz creation.
It’s intended to be a quiz that’s FUN for the people who take it.
Unfortunately many quizzes that reach the top of the leaderboard appeal more to diehards than to regular Jetpunkers.
#8 though, that would probably be hacked pretty quickly. It seems like the kind of thing people would scramble an alt account up for, then give whichever quiz they want featured hundreds of nominations. QM would see through it but it would create extra work, like having to ban users from the old DTC leaderboard