I should have made this clear from the start but as I didn't, I think it's time that I clarify my stand on this issue now that it has become more apparent to me.
The Guess The Drama? game is intended to be a fun way for players to gauge their knowledge of J-dramas. Although there's a small perk at the end of it where you stand to win a token of appreciation from me for your participation, it's not really meant to be competitive or something which you have to go all out to win. My assumption all along was that players would try to guess the answers first on their own before resorting to Googling by the time I released the hints. At least that was how we played the game when the blog was still in the form of the forum more than 10 years ago. However, from what I've understood from some of you recently, it seems that Googling already began from the time when the question was announced. This probably is a sign of the times when we turn to Google on instinct for everything under the sun.
As this game is not an exam which is conducted under controlled conditions, I have no way of dictating how you wish to play this game. Nor do I want to make it so that you are so stressed about not knowing the answer and yet you can't search for answers online based on my hints. However, if everyone is to begin Googling right from the start, that defeats the purpose of the game in the sense that it becomes a measure of who is good at researching rather than who is well-versed in the world of J-dramas.
Personally, I think the satisfaction of arriving at an answer on my own is more than if I get it from Google but I'm not sure if everyone feels the same way. Inevitably, it is also unfair to those players who try on their own at first and arrive at the correct answers only later when they start Googling based on my hints. These people would get a lower score because they arrived at their answers after the hints were released as compared to those who got a higher score because they Googled before the release of the hints.
Although I've received suggestions that people who Google from the start should be disqualified, I have no intention of doing that at the moment. Like I said, this is supposed to be a game where we have fun together in order to commemorate this special 10th anniversary year for the blog. I really don't want to go to that extent and start accusing people of cheating because I didn't ban Googling in the first place anyway. Besides, I designed this game with consideration that people should be Googling from the time when the hints are released.
As such, I hope that you can kindly consider the following suggestions for the future rounds of this game going forward so that it will be fair to all players in this game:
- Please kindly refrain from Googling in the first 12 hours of each round because that's when I haven't released any clues. If you answer correctly without any hints, you definitely deserve the full amount of points for that particular round. If you have no idea about the answer, please kindly wait for the first and second hints coming in usually at 12 noon and 6pm (GMT +8). If you are unsure, you can still provide your answer since I won't deduct your points if you get it wrong. Who knows if your guess might be right after all?
- Googling is definitely allowed for this game. However, I would strongly suggest that you start doing this once the hints are released rather than right from the start so as to be fair to yourself and others.
Thank you very much for your participation so far and I hope that you can enjoy the rest of the game and challenge yourself during the process!
The Guess The Drama? game is intended to be a fun way for players to gauge their knowledge of J-dramas. Although there's a small perk at the end of it where you stand to win a token of appreciation from me for your participation, it's not really meant to be competitive or something which you have to go all out to win. My assumption all along was that players would try to guess the answers first on their own before resorting to Googling by the time I released the hints. At least that was how we played the game when the blog was still in the form of the forum more than 10 years ago. However, from what I've understood from some of you recently, it seems that Googling already began from the time when the question was announced. This probably is a sign of the times when we turn to Google on instinct for everything under the sun.
As this game is not an exam which is conducted under controlled conditions, I have no way of dictating how you wish to play this game. Nor do I want to make it so that you are so stressed about not knowing the answer and yet you can't search for answers online based on my hints. However, if everyone is to begin Googling right from the start, that defeats the purpose of the game in the sense that it becomes a measure of who is good at researching rather than who is well-versed in the world of J-dramas.
Personally, I think the satisfaction of arriving at an answer on my own is more than if I get it from Google but I'm not sure if everyone feels the same way. Inevitably, it is also unfair to those players who try on their own at first and arrive at the correct answers only later when they start Googling based on my hints. These people would get a lower score because they arrived at their answers after the hints were released as compared to those who got a higher score because they Googled before the release of the hints.
Although I've received suggestions that people who Google from the start should be disqualified, I have no intention of doing that at the moment. Like I said, this is supposed to be a game where we have fun together in order to commemorate this special 10th anniversary year for the blog. I really don't want to go to that extent and start accusing people of cheating because I didn't ban Googling in the first place anyway. Besides, I designed this game with consideration that people should be Googling from the time when the hints are released.
As such, I hope that you can kindly consider the following suggestions for the future rounds of this game going forward so that it will be fair to all players in this game:
- Please kindly refrain from Googling in the first 12 hours of each round because that's when I haven't released any clues. If you answer correctly without any hints, you definitely deserve the full amount of points for that particular round. If you have no idea about the answer, please kindly wait for the first and second hints coming in usually at 12 noon and 6pm (GMT +8). If you are unsure, you can still provide your answer since I won't deduct your points if you get it wrong. Who knows if your guess might be right after all?
- Googling is definitely allowed for this game. However, I would strongly suggest that you start doing this once the hints are released rather than right from the start so as to be fair to yourself and others.
Thank you very much for your participation so far and I hope that you can enjoy the rest of the game and challenge yourself during the process!
2 comments:
In addition to Googling, I guess you're aware of Shazam -- this is a music-recognition app that can identify songs from just a few bars of the tune (it 'listens' to the song via your smartphone microphone). For example, it easily identifies the tune in Round 1 as "熱海の捜査官のテーマ".
But it cannot identify everything: it relies on the song being in a public database. Some drama themes were specially composed and recorded just for the drama, and are consequently not in any database: those ones Shazam can not identify.
So you might want to choose "Shazam-proof" tunes for your musical clues.
But anyway, as you say, the point is to have fun and test your knowledge -- not get into a competitive internet-searching exercise. But some people just cannot help themselves...
Thanks for your comment. Like you said, even the BGMs can be "searched" through apps like Shazam so it's really not entirely possible to prevent people from searching for answers rather than guessing them. I guess technology advancement has made it second-instinct for us to search rather than think. ^__^
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