thefivetownsquizleague.myfastforum.org

Guest · Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:18 pm Post subject: Second biggest city in Finland

OK I know it's not five towns quiz league, but it'll do.

Today, 1st July in the Wakefield League my individual question was "Of which country is Tampere the second largest city?" Stupid me said Thailand (The round was actually on Europe), and everybody had a good laugh and after saying "Well I would never have ever said Finland" we got on with it and lost by two points.

It vexed me because I knew I had had a good look at second cities in Europe & had never heard of Tampere, and immediately the quiz had finished I asked Barry too look up Espoo on his phone. Barry and Diane are so clever they told me Tampere was the second city and after all Barry is only on x grand a day and could hardly afford the triviality of a phone call, so he didn't bother. I had a bet with Diane at the end of the night that Espoo was second biggest

Its only a quiz innit, hells teeth, come on Steve, get a life, not worth losing sleep over and all that.

This is from Wikkipedia

"Espoo (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈespoː]; Swedish: Esbo, [ˈɛsbo])) is a city and municipality of Finland. With a population of approximately 240,000 it is the second most populated city in Finland. "

"Tampere is the third most-populous municipality in Finland, after the Greater Helsinki municipalities of Helsinki and Espoo."

"Common Name Alternative Name Year of foundation Population (2006)[1]
Helsinki Helsingfors 1550 56,5186
Espoo Esbo 1972 23,5809
Tampere Tammerfors 1779 20,6480
Vantaa Vanda 1974 19,0625"

Now granted, Britannica says of "Tampere is Finland’s second largest city"

But the cannonical source should be the statistics Finland website which states
Population Change, %
31.12.2008 1) 2008 1)
Helsinki 576 632 1,1
Espoo 241 565 1,5
Tampere 209 552 0,8
Vantaa 195 397 1,5

http://www.stat.fi/tup/suoluk/suo...sto_en.html#Largestmunicipalities

It should have been a spare, We could have bought it up whilst all the teams were still there, and sorted it out. The spare was Granite and I nailed it, we should have had three points and should have drawn the game. But we lost. And we deserved it as a team. And its a shame because we have such a good team in other aspects.

Losing doesn't gut me, it is that people don't seem to want to right wrongs, even if it would take minimal effort.

Official Simon · Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:23 pm Post subject:

The area of Tampere is 522.7 square kilometres. The area of Espoo is 312 square kilometres.

So, second largest cities, just run that past us one more time...

Which sounds to me like your answer es-poo...
_________________
The worst ever contestant in the history of Mastermind...apparently

Guest · Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 1:26 pm Post subject:

Are you saying that whenever asked for the largest city in a ftql set we can assume it means by area, as opposed to population?

Official Simon · Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 5:22 pm Post subject:

No
_________________
The worst ever contestant in the history of Mastermind...apparently

Guest · Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 9:24 am Post subject:

I'm sorry Simon, what are you trying to say?

I am trying to say the question as asked precluded me from ever having a guess at the right answer, because information (wrong information) was given which automatically would have made me assume the answer was definitely NOT Finland (might I stress , I am not being wise after the event here, I had a bet with Diane on the evening that Espoo was the second largest city in Finland, such was the courage of my convictions). I am trying to say we should have had a spare on the night. I am not trying to say give us it back now. I am trying to say my team could have done better prior to signing the sheets.

Official Simon · Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 1:17 pm Post subject: Defending the indefensible

How can you argue for a spare when you didn't even listen to the question! If you had given the answer which you are now saying was the right answer then you could maybe have argued the case for a spare (which wouldn't have happened anyway, because the Summer League has no provision for overruling the answer on the sheet, and secondly even if we had been playing under FTQL rules there wouldn't have been a spare either, because neither did we the opposition know about Espoo so the Captains wouldn't have been able to agree on the issue), but you didn't anyway, you gave a completely brainless answer through not paying attention to the round subject. You could only argue genuinely for a spare if the answer you gave was the one you are saying is correct or if somebody else had said "Hang on..." before your answer was offered. But how could they, they didn't know the answer on the sheet!

And even then the real answer was debatable, on the basis that the question didn't differentiate between by area and by population. Espoo is correct by one criteria, Tampere by the other, but whichever way round you look at it, whether Tampere is the second largest or third largest they're both in Finland not Thailand! Mildly badly worded maybe, but isn't Darren supposed to be your favourite question setter anyway? Referees make mistakes, question setters make mistakes, it's just unfortunately part of the game and there's no Hawkeye in quizzing...

Another case of Steve Kidd being determined to argue an indefensible postion!
_________________
The worst ever contestant in the history of Mastermind...apparently

Guest · Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:16 am Post subject:

Phew! Take it easy Simon. I think I have mentioned before about admins getting shirty, and when it happens it can easily lead to bad feeling through escalation.

Let's start from your last line "Another case of Steve Kidd being determined to argue an indefensible postion!" by breaking down what I was trying to say into bullet points

* the question as asked precluded me from ever having a guess at the right answer - I have reconsidered this and believe it to be absolutely true
* we should have had a spare on the night. - If the rules of the summer league are different from the winter one fair enough, I didn't know that. Whatever, I am pretty sure that any team I was captain of would have at least considered conceeding a spare in this situation to the opposition had the point been thoroughly explained. Whatever, ignorance of the rules is not stupidity, I do know that not everybody is au fait with the rules/etiqiuette of the game, as evidenced by the time two of your team, very much more experienced members of the league than I, were happy to let the least articulate member of their team propound a case for the landlady of the Golden Lion carrying the olympic torch for Scotland
* My team could have done better prior to signing the sheets - I think that could be said after most games, I am pretty sure that is not 'indefensible'

Regarding "Another Case Of" I would be careful here, as I happen to know the Committeeee is very strong on ad hominem attacks, and suggesting that any previous dealings of mine unrelated to this have any relevance to the validity of my thoughts upon it is an example of such a fallacy. Apart from that, if you are going to use such attacks, examples would be good (e.gs. Establish the rules before the season starts - now what other league has ever done that;Two up two down - how ridiculous; adhere to the published rules regarding the individual table - pah; share the questions with another league to reduce our costs - don't make me larf; Object to neanderthal morons lunking across the pub to offer me outside - (In a South Efrikaan accent) Eets a man's game is quiz, ef you don'y like eet, go ballet doncing)

Now to the beginning of your post. "How can you argue for a spare when you didn't even listen to the question!" I presume this is a question, so I will do you the courtesy of an answer - I did listen to the question, Although not an exact quote it was "Of which country is Tampere the second largest city?" I knew could not be Finland as Espoo is the second largest city in Finland. To use a more obvious example, if the round was Africa and the question was "Of which country is Douala the capital" one might guess one of the smaller countries, assuming that the list you learned three years ago was perhaps dusty or dated. One might be sufficiently confident in one's African capitals to know Cameroon was not the answer, and therefore give a country which was not African. Whatever, If one was then given the answer 'Cameroon' by the questionmaster, I am sure that both captains would agree on a spare as enough people would know the capital of Cameroon is Yaoundé. To suggest the question and answer should stand merely because Douala is in Cameroon is, I hope most rational people would agree, wrong.

On these three points, the defense may not be sustainable, but to dismiss them as indefensible is perhaps not allowing oneself to understand the imprecise nature of things.

I tend to agree with the bulk of what I think you are trying to say in the remainder of your first paragraph, although I still am curious as to why there are spare questions if what you say is true. In the context of your aggressive post when you call my answer 'completely brainless' I actually thought Thailand was not completely brainless, as I didn't know what the second city of Thailand was. I was pretty sure I had looked at a list of second cities in Europe and did not recognise Tampere, which may have been a contributory factor to me not picking a European country, but whatever, the only completely brainless answer is "pass". If "Completely Brainless" was in jest, ha ha, but it doesn't sound like it to me.

Darren is my favourite question setter and we are very lucky to have him.

Can we presume that when asked "What is the second largest City in...?" we can assume it means by population?

Isn't it nice that we can have this open and very visible debate without recourse to wasting valuable time and resources with registered snail mail. Is the pen mightier than the sword?

Steve

Official Simon · Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 4:29 pm Post subject:

Whatever.
_________________
The worst ever contestant in the history of Mastermind...apparently

Official Simon · Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 4:31 pm Post subject:

...and please don't bother with another response, of whatever length, because for me this conversation is now closed and I'm not going to.
_________________
The worst ever contestant in the history of Mastermind...apparently

peterpotato · Team Captain Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 101

Call it a sixth sense, but well well, look what I've stumbled upon !

I'll try my best to reason this through, since I also took part in this quiz.

1. Darren, the questionsetter, entitled this individual round "Europe". He often does this, and never suffixes each question with "In which European country......" etc etc. If you recall, a couple of rounds later, he had a round entitled "Beginning with the letter T....", and again never explained that each answer started with this letter. It was a given.

2. Consequently, you're answer of "Thailand" was strange. If you're annoyed that people laughed at you, well I apologise, since I tend to do the most laughing during a quiz. To be fair, it was nothing personal, as I also laughed at Barry, Diane, Diddy, Stuart and especially Simon that night. I don't discriminate !
3. My memory is usually pretty good, but I can't recall hearing during or after the quiz any murmurings that "you'd been robbed". So, who are you blaming ? Barry & Diane for not backing you up ? ; the question-master ? ; our team ? From our point of view, as Simon said ( Shocked

), our team had no idea as to the right answer anyway. Did the question go unanswered, as in ping-pong-ping-pong ? If so, which I think did happen, surely that indicates that nobody knew the answer, and nobody (apart from yourself) thought the question "wrong". Furthermore, nobody raised an objection at the time, so on we went, oblivious to your simmering anger, enjoying a thrilling game. Unfortunately, the pleasure of gaining a last-gasp victory against the best quizzers in Yorkshire has now evaporated. So........

Had you won on the last question, would you have raised this point ?
Had it been a team question, would you have raised this point ?
Had it been somebody else's individual question, would you have raised this point ?

Yes, I agree that the question lacked a small but important detail. The gist of the question though, was correct - Tampere is a pretty big and important city in Finland, which is a country in Europe. The pity for you was that it hadn't featured in your list-learning.

Like you, I also agree that Darren is the best quiz setter ever. I would not, therefore, wish to antagonise him by highlighting every minor factual /grammatical error. The upshot of this would be questions resembling mini-essays, with all kinds of qualifications, references to sources, and general waffle (not unlike these posts !). How many times during a quiz does the question-setter say "yes, you're close enough" or "yes, I'll accept that" after an answer which doesn't exactly match what's on the sheet. Similarly, how many times do quizzers mutter "that question's not quite right", etc. It's all part and parcel of quizzing. It's a game, we don't want an inquest and discussion after every question. It's meant to be fun. As some wise man once said,

"It's only a quiz innit, hells teeth, come on Steve, get a life........" !

Also, as I've intimated, maybe it's because your team lost on the last question. It is very annoying to lose by one point, so I feel your pain ! It happened to us, and to Featherstone Phoenix, very recently, and publicly, on Finals Night, but I can't recall any murmurings of "we've been robbed" from either team, or nit-picking of a "wrong question".

So, to conclude, in the familiar words of another wise man......

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same........

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son" !

Guest · Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 6:38 am Post subject:

Whatever

Guest · Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 6:38 am Post subject:

...and please don't bother with another response, of whatever length, because for me this conversation is now closed and I'm not going to.

Guest · Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 7:12 am Post subject:

Just joshing!!!! Funny eh?

I think if you read back Peter, I agree with a great deal of what you say, but if I might illustrate a couple of points about and answer some questions from your post; I think they are only minor and don't really add or take away from the issue, but ...

1. You say "Darren..never suffixes each question with "In which European country....." In an earlier question in the round he did - I think it was "Which European capital city is served by xxxx airport". I think this was in my mind when I recieved the question, but whatever, it doesn't matter that he didn't, I should have known it was Europe.

2.The question was passed over to Stuart and then returned to Diane for the point

3.You are dead right throughout the paragraph. You ask "So, who are you blaming ? Barry & Diane for not backing you up ? ; the question-master ? ; our team ?", I quote an earlier post of mine "My team could have done better prior to signing the sheets". (perhaps 'Blame' is the wrong word - too strong.) Jason and your team were impeccable throughout.

You ask three questions:-
Had you won on the last question, would you have raised this point ? - 80% yes, but probably not as vigourously
Had it been a team question, would you have raised this point ? Yes, I think so
Had it been somebody else's individual question, would you have raised this point ? Yes, I'd like to think so, even if had been one of yours. The qualification for a stout defense would be the naming of Espoo as the second city, not just Oh look I've looked it up and discovered the fact, if you know what I mean.

I agree absolutely with whatever remains of your post but when you say "The gist of the question though, was correct - Tampere" this is the whole point of what I am trying to say, in that the question itself was, if given 'second largest city' is assumed to be by population, WRONG! (Some Chris Jones capitals there!!). 'Gist' embraces subjectivity, and given your statement, does that qualify Wolverhampton as the second city of the UK, after all "Wolverhampton is a pretty big and important city in the UK, which is a country in Europe"? (I think that is what you call rhetorical, so you are not required to answer)

Thanks for reviving this thread Peter, it is most unfair to be told to shut up, even if there is a 'please' at the end of the request.

To summarise my part. There was a case for a spare, albeit perhaps more tenous than I imagine. I, previous form as a precedent, like to think given command of the facts I would have given a spare to the opposition in the same circumstances. My team could have found out if my case was reasonable before signing the sheets, but did not, by insisting Tampere was the second city in Finland. Which it is not.

Now, let's talk about "Dignified Silence" Two down two to go eh Peter?!

Delilahcat · Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 12:54 pm Post subject:

Just adding my two pennorth for what it's worth,

1. The round was announced as 'Europe' and notwithstanding the fact that one of the other questions started with 'In which European city' or something like that, we had all dutifully written down 'Europe' and Steve should have kept that in mind. However, we all make mistakes - I'm pretty sure that in the 'T' round more than one answer NOT beginning with T was mooted by my team (Barry?!?) and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the same hadn't happened on the Top House team.

2. The question as it was worded WAS substantially incorrect. I am the worst player on my team as far as geography is concerned but I had heard that Tampere was in Finland and I THOUGHT that I had heard that it was the second largest city. It's possible that both Barry and myself heard this in the same quiz, or maybe I've been quizzing for so long that it used to be the 2nd but has been overtaken by Espoo (not very likely!), or perhaps it's one of those facts that gets disputed a lot. I was so sure of the fact that I now owe Steve £10! So apologies again Steve, I should know that you are much better at geography than I am.

3. There is absolutely no question that the team which played best on the night won the match. Steve was in fact, the first person on the Wanderers team to say after the match that you had nailed several answers that we were nowhere near. Peter, please don't allow this interchange to affect your pleasure at winning the match. You won fair and square and no-one is suggesting differently.

4. It is only a bloody quiz. On the other hand, I personally do want to know if something that I thought was correct, is actually incorrect. So Simon, please don't be dismissive when people (or is it in reality one person in particular?) raises these points. We might all be in a quiz (possibly playing for big money?) one day and this very same question could crop up. Now I know I'm not going to make a prat of myself giving the wrong answer, and so do all of you. (So only another 72 million or so possible wrong answers to sort out now!!!)

5. I think it's likely that the rest of the league think that my team either is, or believes itself to be, more or less unbeatable. Absolutely nothing could be further from the truth. We have close matches all the time with 3 or 4 teams, we NEVER take it for granted that we will win any match and we certainly know that Top House are always going to be tough opponents. Not only that, but we honestly think it's good for the league that we can and do lose matches. I think the standard is getting better all the time and it's only a matter of time before another team is top of the league and/or winners of the cup.

6. I do just have to say in reply to Simon and Peter, that Steve is scrupulously fair and I am sure that had it been anyone else's question, including our opponents', he would still have raised the point. I think he's just pretty passionate about quiz/truth/fairness. There are worse attributes that one could have.
_________________
Dinna fesh, grab life by the nuts

Guest · Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 1:10 pm Post subject:

Thanks Diane & Pete for these posts, and Simon for setting up the facility to write them. Good on you all. I know what I write can hack people off, Diane has herself ticked me off before on other posts, and made me realise that what I write doesn't always appear to some people the way I intend it. I also realise I make mistakes, and could point straight to stuff I had written that is rubbish in terms of getting my point across, but sometimes I feel provoked too, and think and write irrationaly. I really don't think the answer is ignoring issues, as a disservice is done by those affected by the issues, not neccesarily the ignorer and the ignoree.

I actually think these boards should be an excellent vehicle for resolving differences, but as I have found on other sites, they can be corrupted into vehicles for propoganda. Don't ever let it happen here people, and never mind complaining to each other and not changing anything, get your views down. (Ha - probably Simon, Peter, Diane and I are the only people who have been here)

Michelle Bradley · Quiz Virgin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 7 Location: Venus