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Well, the initial SearchWrap's Q & A contest is now history; we can now go to bed and sleep at night. If it was the intention to create a friendly competition, then Bruce Horst's initiative was a stirring success because it created a spirited sense of community involvement and developed camaraderie among the writers in the community.
I don't know what triggered the actual decision to create the competition, but certainly the end result must have been gratifying for Horst. I have not had the opportunity to talk or interview him since he ignored an e-mail request. I never did find out about the purpose of the contest or if his goal objectives were attained.
From my personal perspective and analysis, there must have been a great deal of satisfaction with the end results. It was a close race up the very end with the top two contenders vying for points and switching places in the last week of the competition.
Well almost. With the ending at midnight on the 15th, only two days left there was an eerie silence in the contest. For a period of time nobody was asking any questions. Sandra and Jeff were separated by only 6,700 votes and nobody was giving anyone the opportunity to increase their scores.
I checked on Monday the 14th, it was 11:00 a.m. and more than 9 hours had past since the last question. Tension was mounting.
First it was Ryan then Sandra asking - questions were now being posted. It was as if we were in a Las Vegas casino, where gamblers don't care if they win or lose they just want the action.
Then Ryan Stroud made his move. I was sure there would be a strategy emerging to win the game and I had already figured how it would happen. Because I didn't know how to ask the questions and mark the correct answers I did not participate. Stroud spent some evening time making out 200 maybe 400 questions and once they were asked and answered he was on his way towards the lead.
I just didn't know if his questions would be boycotted and then he would not receive any points. I waited to see if the two top point gatherers would participate. They did, because like I said, they just wanted the action. When they responded the game resumed. Great move Ryan you would make an interesting military strategist, unfortunately your gambit fell way to short.
On Tuesday, with only twelve hours to the end of the contest, there was a complete shutdown on questions. Only a few had been posted by 6:00 am. Nobody was asking anything and there were a lot of points to be awarded for previously answered questions. Everybody was playing it coy and waiting.
Out of the blue, Sandra opened up with a quick 20-question barrage but by 1:00 pm (EDT) the website went silent. People scrambled to get their points but there didn't seem to be any desire to see the top leaders pad their lead.
Strategies seemed lost and only time was left to determine the winner. At mid-afternoon, Sandra posted a cryptic statement about new questions. There was silence on the website; the game was over and all that remained was the counting of the points. It was apparent that the final three contestants would each garner over 100,000 points.
For the rest of the week, it provided a plethora of questions on varying subjects to test knowledge and humor.
To our ultimate champion Sandra E. Graham, a great big hug and my sincerest congratulations for an outstanding job. She displayed consistency and a depth of trivia knowledge in both her questions and answers. From a personal viewpoint, I don't care what contest I ever get involved with again be it a cooking contest, a spelling contest, a gun fight or a football game I want Sandra on my team.
Our runner-up, Jeff Brown, is a fierce competitor with a keen sense of timing and an ability to keep it close. Jeff will be a great "champion in waiting" if Sandra cannot fulfill her duties or if a scandal emerges about a tryst with former Arkansas Attorney General, William Jefferson Clinton. I am sure that Donald Trump will explain this more fully at the news conference.
To the rest of the participants, especially those who garnered more than 20,000 points, a job well done and I am sure this contest helped bring us closer together. During the contest many honest, strange and downright eerie responses were offered to the various questions.
We learned a great deal about some contestants and had some fun-poking jest at them. That also helped us acquire a sense of community. Interestingly enough the popularity of the top eight participants didn't seem to be affected by their participation. I guess the old adage is true that if you want something done, see someone who is busy; they always find the time to do extra projects.
I don't think Bruce ever imagined that the winner would ultimately attain a score of over 150,000 points. In fact that is mind-boggling. This contest was purely contestant driven both in questions and in answers.
There was little fanfare about the Q & A contest and very few details on how to participate; that required searching and analysis. Some finer points needed explanation and the rules were woefully lacking.
To answer a question it was simple and was fully explained. All you had to do was follow the instructions and you knew you would receive 10 points for leaving an answer. If you answer was declared the best answer, you were told in advance how many points you would receive.
On the other hand, if you asked a question the rules were not explained very well. Apparently at some point in time if you asked a question, it was your responsibility to pick the best answer and award the points accordingly. That was never fully explained, nor the timeliness of a response explained.
You were apparently awarded points if you asked a question but again this was never explained. I don't think a lot of thought went into this part of the Q & A program and it needed further basic explanation. This could be one explanations for the lack of participation by many potential contestants.
I asked only one question and by the time I was advised how to pick the winner, more than 300 questions had been asked and my question disappeared from the view screen. So nobody initially got those points. Then near the end of the contest a box appeared telling me to pick a winner for that question. Since I had already destroyed the e-mail with the instructions I had to ask for instructions again; despite the instructions, I never did figure out how to choose the winner.
Overall, as we look forward to the future in SearchWarp, I think all of us in this writers community can be confident that we are in good hands with Bruce at the helm, as he continues to challenge our minds, leading us to that promised land of success.
Congratulations on a great job Sandra and kudos to my fellow writers. I am proud to be a member of this community.
JP Bender is a retired award winning investigative reporter with 35 years experience in the profession. He spends his retirement living mostly in the Cayman Islands and often travels around the United States reporting on issues of national interest. His peers claim he does not fully understand the meaning of “retired.”
Hi JP, this is a great account of the Q&A competition. We're glad you enjoyed it, I know a lot of people enjoyed reading your answers.
The goal of the Q&A section is the same as most things we do on SearchWarp: To make SearchWarp more of a community for writers, and for this I think it has been a great success.
What makes SearchWarp great is the great people here, and my job is to give those people a platform, and ways to interact so we can help each other become better. I remember years ago thinking that if I added the ability to leave comments on articles, it would encourage writers to start interacting. Then I thought if we could leave comments on comments, it would really allow interaction.
Along the way we added fan clubs, status updates, the readers' club, the little blinky thing that tells people when you're online, birthday wishes, and on and on. Each of these things helped interaction to some degree, but the Q&A section seems to be a pretty big leap forward.
So what's next? Private messaging? "Team" articles? Calendars? Book promotion? A book that we write together? Podcasts? Customized neighborhood web sites for each of us to manage? I don't know, these are all possibilities, with the biggest limitation being the time I have to invest in these new features. At least now we have a mechanism in place to ask everyone what they would find useful so I can set some priorities.
SearchWarp, without the community, would be just another article dump, and the Internet already has more of those than are needed. JP, you have more writing experience than just about anyone on SearchWarp, and we're all proud to have you as a part of the community!
Thanks for your feedback Bruce. While I didn't get the opportunity to interview you for the article, I did assume the facts correctly. Your leadership in developing this contest is oustanding. I too am glad to be on board SearchWarp. JP
Great review of the Q&A experience JP! And congratulations for getting a prize - a pretty fantastic result given that you didn't ask questions (and asking questions is where the big points are most easily obtained).
It was great fun, and helped us all get to know each other a bit better.
Because asking a question, or answering one, doesn't take long it gives it more of a "real time" interactivity compared to commenting on articles (I don't think any of us have managed to write or comment on hundreds of articles a day, but we have managed to interact with several hundred Q&As a day, and by doing that we are interacting with the question asker as well as the other answerers)
Glad you liked the article Ben. I enjoyed paticipating in a fun contest and really enjoyed your competition with you funny questions and answers. I look forward to more interactivity with you. JP
A long long time ago long Before Sandra and Jeff I was doing great. I knew if I had my chance I could win the Q and A. But the last minuet made me shiver ever answer I deleive. Bad news on the doorstep I didn't win.
Anyway no idea why I used American Pie. I don't know what happend I was doing great and then along came competiton and i had no chance.
Connor - yeah competition has a way of doing that. I think you did great and were competitive - and I will watch you in the next round. Best regards, JP
You guys are cracking me up! I appreciate all the smoke blown my way, since everyone knows I can only have ideas... I can't actually make them happen... gotta have a programmer for that.
I enjoyed your blow by blow account of the competition. You got it right on the money so far as I could see. I just hope that now that it is over, people will continue to ask questions ... and maybe more thought provoking questions because I like those the best.
Thanks Dianne for reading the article and commenting. I too hope that in the future Bruce (or Jean) comes up with another interesting program to bring the community together. JP
Doggone it! Makes me feel bad that I wasn't more involved in the Q & A! I agree with others JP, this was a great account --- I sense a bit of the sports reporter leaking out of your persona :) This was an excellent read JP --- but then again, that's your way!
Thanks Edward - but actually I never really did cover sports - but I did have to admire how they came up with 1000 ways to tell their readers that the guy got a hit in a clutch moment. Glad you liked the article and if there is another contest, I look forward to seeing you participate. JP
This was a great article, JP. And thank you for all the compliments and congratulations (same to you). I was always confused how you collected so very many points only by answering questions, while I was spending hours answering and asking and barely stayed ahead of you! I guess it was all in the wit--and you won that, hands down! It was great to really get to know you through this contest. I can't imagine you having four ex-wifes---who could not love you!! Maybe your wit was just more than they could handle. Thanks again for a wonderful time and good luck in any future endeavors.
What can I say that hasn't already been said? I agree with all of the above and I figured it had to be Jean's idea :-) We need you here, I am glad you are happy to be here. You challenge us in many ways! Blessings to you - JP!
Marijo - Yeah Yeah Yeah - can't use that excuse. I joined SW on August 13th, after you (-:, You are correct thouth that there was no announcement. Maybe Bruce could have the Q&A box blink if he uses that venue again. That would be a great signal and I look forward to seeing you participate. I unfortunately will not participate again unless I can figure out how to award points to the best question. JP
When you've asked a question, and its 24 hours old, and you're logged in to Searchwarp, when you go back to view that question, you will see a Select As Best Answer link in blue text next to each answer. Just click that and the points will be yours (and the lucky Best Answerer will get some too) :)
Hi JP thank you for this article, what with me having to pull out of the competition while in second place because I was in Spain left me without knowledge on how the contest was going. Your commentary on the competition has told me in great detail everything I wanted to know. I loved every minute of it and wished I could have stayed in the running, however it wasnt not meant to be, but what was - was being able to communicate with some great people.
Kacy - you were not only a formidable opponent, but I had already figured you to finish no lower than second. I really was sorry to see you leave the contest, but Jeff and I benefited by your withdrawal. I hope you can fully participate in any future contest. I enjoy the challenge with bright people. JP
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