Quiznet - Revision history

Joseph Feldman at 09:11, 11 August 2026

2026-08-11T09:11:51Z

David Reinstein at 19:34, 25 July 2019

2019-07-25T19:34:25Z

fix>QBWikiBot at 00:32, 25 January 2010

2010-01-25T00:32:06Z

New page

An online contest held by [[Questions Unlimited]] since fall of 1995, using the [[NAC]] four-quarter format minus the sixty-second round. Ten to twenty schools compete in each round, with the overall top teams going to a semifinal and then a final to determine the semester's champion. The winners of each round qualify for the NAC, while the tournament champion sometimes receives a prize such as free travel for one team member to the tournament.

The cost has ranged from $140 to $190 per team. Previous years' top NAC finishers sometimes received free entry as a prize. Winners usually receive a free entry for one of their players at the NAC.

==Unique online rules==

Unlike the [[Quizbowl IRC Chat]], all non-bonus questions in Quiznet have every team entering what they feel to be the correct answer into the chat. Beall awards an insignificantly higher number of points to teams that buzz in first (with the exact, properly spelled answer that he is looking for) and every other team that buzzes in before his arbitrary and subjective time limit typically 5 less points than the first team.

Thus, it is possible for a team to not know any of the answers in a match and simply have a strong typist and some luck and finish on top. Typing speed and spelling abilities, therefore, play a very large role in Quiznet, sometimes more so than knowing the answer to questions.

On bonus questions, any team is able to try to answer a bounceback on a bonus. However, Chip only awards points to the first team who bounces back on a bonus. The team that gets points is the team that answer first after Chip calls "time" or "incorrect". This means for bonuses where many teams know the answer (and have it already fully typed into the IRC client waiting to press enter), the team that is awarded points (which can be as high as 20 points for the last part) is usually determined by lag and luck.

Chip does award "solo shots" for teams that answer a question without any other teams getting the answer. This leads to all sorts of stupid strategies about not buzzing when you know it but well after the entire question has been read in order to try to get "solo shot" points.

Quiznet is known for using current event questions on things that transpired just a few hours or days before the match. For example, when the D.C. Sniper was caught, Chip had a question later in the afternoon on "Where was the D.C. Sniper caught?"

==Non-Unique (to Chip) Aspects==
Chip's questions are either ludicrous or ridiculously unfair hoses. Examples:

"My dog got into my bag of Halloween candy and ate some it, but left pieces of the wrapper. I'll show you a "candy wrapper," you tell me what candy it belongs to. Part 1: SNCKRS"

"A musical about the career of Frank Valli and the Four Seasons won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Musical. If that was ''Jersey Boys'', what other ''Boys'' won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Play?"

==Champions==

{| border="1" cellspacing="0"
! Season
! Fall semester champion
! Spring semester champion
! Notes
|-
|1996
| [[1996 Downingtown|Downingtown]]
| [[1996 State College|State College]]
|
|-
|1997
| [[1997 Henry Ford II|Henry Ford II]]
| [[1997 Syosset|Syosset]]
|
|-
|1998
| [[1998 Millburn|Millburn]]
| [[1998 Ridgewood|Ridgewood]]
|
|-
|1999
|[[1999 Science Academy (TX)|Science Academy]]
|[[1999 Ridgewood|Ridgewood]]
|
|-
|2000
|[[2000 IMSA|IMSA]]
|[[2000 IMSA|IMSA]]
|
|-
|2001
|[[2001 Millburn|Millburn]]
|[[2001 IMSA|IMSA]]
|
|-
|2002
|
|[[2002 Plano East|Plano East]]
|
|-
|2003
|[[2003 Smithtown|Smithown]]
|[[2003 New Orleans Jesuit|New Orleans Jesuit]]
|
|-
|2004
|[[2004 Pace Academy|Pace Academy]]
|[[2004 Plano West|Plano West]]
|
|-
|2005
|
|
|
|-
|2006
|[[2006 Northview (GA)|Northview]]
|[[2006 Plano East|Plano East]]
|
|-
|2007
|[[2007 Syosset|Syosset]]
|
|
|-
|2008
|[[2008 Plano West|Plano West]]
|[[2008 Horace Greeley|Horace Greeley]]
|
|}

[[Category:Chip Beall antics]] [[Category:Quizbowl on the internets]]
[[Category:Original QBWiki Page]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-An online contest held by [[Questions Unlimited]] since fall of 1995, using the [[NAC]] four-quarter format minus the sixty-second round. Ten to twenty schools compete in each round, with the overall top teams going to a semifinal and then a final to determine the semester's champion. The winners of each round qualify for the NAC, while the tournament champion sometimes receives a prize such as free travel for one team member to the tournament.
+Quiznet was an online contest held twice a season by [[Questions Unlimited]] from 1995 until the early 2010s. It used the [[NAC]]'s four-quarter format with the sixty-second round omitted. Ten to twenty schools competed in each preliminary round, with the overall top teams going to a semifinal and then a final to determine the semester's champion. The winners of each prelim round qualified for the NAC, while the tournament champion usually received free travel for one team member to the tournament. Entry fees ranged from $140 to $190 per team, and teams that finished highly at the previous year's NAC sometimes would have their fees waived as a prize.
-The cost has ranged from $140 to $190 per team. Previous years' top NAC finishers sometimes received free entry as a prize.  Winners usually receive a free entry for one of their players at the NAC.
+The event, while popular in its early years, was near-universally derided, even by teams who often went to the NAC, and teams typically competed solely for the shot at nationals qualification. As the qualification rules loosened over time, Quiznet faded, and it was one of the first longtime Questions Unlimited products to be discontinued, disappearing entirely no later than 2015.
-==Unique online rules==
+Played over IRC, the online rules were often arbitrary and were very easy to game; as such, perverse strategies were common. It is most notable as the first large-scale online Quizbowl competition, but is largely forgotten.
-Unlike the [[Quizbowl IRC Chat]], all non-bonus questions in Quiznet have every team entering what they feel to be the correct answer into the chat.  Beall awards an insignificantly higher number of points to teams that buzz in first (with the exact, properly spelled answer that he is looking for) and every other team that buzzes in before his arbitrary and subjective time limit typically 5 less points than the first team.
+==Unique online rules, quirks, and perverse strategies==
-Thus, it is possible for a team to not know any of the answers in a match and simply have a strong typist and some luck and finish on top.  Typing speed and spelling abilities, therefore, play a very large role in Quiznet, sometimes more so than knowing the answer to questions.
+All non-bonus questions in Quiznet had every team entering their answer into the chat. Beall awarded a slightly higher number of points to the team that answered first; the answer had to be exactly spelled, and had to be the one on paper.  Every other team that buzzed in before the time limit typically would receive 5 fewer points than the first team. The time limit was not defined in the rules, and was usually entirely arbitrary.
-On bonus questions, any team is able to try to answer a bounceback on a bonus.  However, Chip only awards points to the first team who bounces back on a bonus.  The team that gets points is the team that answer first after Chip calls "time" or "incorrect".  This means for bonuses where many teams know the answer (and have it already fully typed into the IRC client waiting to press enter), the team that is awarded points (which can be as high as 20 points for the last part) is usually determined by lag and luck.
+It became possible for a team to know very few or no answers and win rounds due to the speed of their typist's copying of the first answer and their ability to spell. This strategy became increasingly well-known and common as time went on.
-Chip does award "solo shots" for teams that answer a question without any other teams getting the answer.  This leads to all sorts of stupid strategies about not buzzing when you know it but well after the entire question has been read in order to try to get "solo shot" points.
+On bonus questions, any team was able to try to answer a bounceback. However, unlike on tossups, points were only awarded to the first team who answered the bounceback correctly. This resulted in nearly all bouncebacks, with answers pre-typed into the chat by the teams and the typist's finger waiting to press enter after "incorrect" or "time" was called, being determined solely by connection speeds and the attendant lag, often considered to be pure luck.
-Quiznet is known for using current event questions on things that transpired just a few hours or days before the match.  For example, when the D.C. Sniper was caught, Chip had a question later in the afternoon on "Where was the D.C. Sniper caught?"
+"Solo shots" were awarded for teams that answered a question without any other teams getting the answer. Combined with the other rules, this led to perverse strategies: as the extra points awarded for being first were low, and solo shot points were significant, teams would type the answer into the chat, but then refrain from sending it until they predicted "time" was just about to be called, preventing anyone else from getting it and giving them the higher point value if they predicted correctly.
-==Non-Unique (to Chip) Aspects==
+Current Events questions would often ask about extremely recent events, to the point that events that occurred as little as an hour or two before the event were asked about. A notable example was that, after John Allen Muhammad was apprehended, a question read "Where was the D.C. Sniper caught?"; the question was read less than 12 hours after that occurred, as it was announced at 3:30 AM on October 24, 2002, was likely seen on the news by the writer no earlier than 6 or 7 AM that day, and was in a game sometime in the early afternoon.
-Chip's questions are either ludicrous or ridiculously unfair hoses. Examples:
 "My dog got into my bag of Halloween candy and ate some it, but left pieces of the wrapper. I'll show you a "candy wrapper," you tell me what candy it belongs to. Part 1: SNCKRS"

@@ Line 96: / Line 96: @@
 |}
-[[Category:Chip Beall antics]] [[Category:Quizbowl on the internets]]
+[[Category:Chip Beall antics]] [[Category:Internet]]
 [[Category:Original QBWiki Page]]