Quiznet

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 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.

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.

Unique online rules, quirks, and perverse strategies

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

Aspects that were common to QU Events

Chip's questions were extremely poor, trivial, absurd, riddles, or hoses; the quality of Quiznet questions, upon a later analysis, was lower than all other QU-produced events, even by the standards of the time.

Examples included:

"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

Season	Fall semester champion	Spring semester champion	Notes
1996	Downingtown	State College
1997	Henry Ford II	Syosset
1998	Millburn	Ridgewood
1999	Science Academy	Ridgewood
2000	IMSA	IMSA
2001	Millburn	IMSA
2002		Plano East
2003	Smithown	New Orleans Jesuit
2004	Pace Academy	Plano West
2005
2006	Northview	Plano East
2007	Syosset
2008	Plano West	Horace Greeley