We Want to Crush Your Head

Regarding extra people - Murphy's trivia night allows extra people on a team for $1/person, up to a max-sized team of 8. Max team of 8 might be too big for Old P since two teams of 4 could work in that instance, but a team of 7 that contributes more to the pot sounds reasonable to me.

As for cell phones and how to handle accusations... Teams will be more receptive if they're approached privately with a gentle reminder of the rules rather than an accusation. I think it's also reasonable to say in the beginning that a team requiring more than X reminders can be disqualified from the cash prizes.

Yeah, we should have handled that better. Sorry.

You make excellent points. Last week, Seth and James did not figure out until too late that we could've handled the cheating complaints last week by pointing out that the teams were nowhere near winning. Seth, in fact, mentioned that to one of the teams that complained, and that cooled them down.

We don't really know, actually, how teams would like accusations handled. We do ask at the beginning that tables with more than 5 people playing designate people to sit out and not converse during the quiz. When other teams notice a table breaking that rule, should we a) disqualify the team, b) ask that table to follow the rule, or c) tell the complaining teams that the supposedly cheating team isn't winning?

When we notice teams using cell phones, we ask them to leave the table while doing so. Again, how should we handle that?

Obviously, people want to socialize. People want to be able to take messages from home or elsewhere.

And none of the guys hosting quiz night like asking people to follow the rules, especially when we're pretty sure they're not doing anything dishonest.

So, in all seriousness, what would people like to see happen? We do depend on the honor system, but what should happen when another team feels the honor system is being broken or abused?

I'm sorry your evening was ruined last week. Trivia night should be fun, and I'm sorry we weren't better able to finesse your situation.

I hope there isn't inconsistency on how people accused of cheating this week.

Example: Complaints about a team using their cell phones to look up answers one week are handled by the coordinators dismissing it and telling everyone else "They're not winning anyway!"




Example: On a different week, a team has friends who are meeting them at the Old P to hang out. The excess people at the table who are not participating are asked to leave because of complaints. The team is nowhere near winning, but the fun gets ruined for that team because they aren't allowed to interact with their friends.

The integrity of Triva night must be maintained, but before starting to alienate teams, be consistent with how issues are handled. Remember that it also depends on the honor system -- two teams could collude when correcting papers such that one always wins, but we have faith in people to not do so. Just like we have faith that regular attendees to Trivia night to not act unfairly, and to ensure their friends do not either.