The 95th Semi-Annual Williams Trivia Contest

Rules of the Contest

Here are the official rules for the January 2014 Williams Trivia Contest. See the Introduction Page for instructions on registering and getting started, and a less formal overview.

General

• The contest runs from 10pm on Friday, January 17th to 6am on Saturday, January 18th.
• The website for the contest is www.williamstrivia.com . This is your portal for everything.
• Teams must register before answering their first question. Click on the Register your team link on the homepage to register. When you do, you have the option to post a link to a picture. If you do, and the picture is either a photo of your team or something which evokes your team's name, then we will award you one point.
• Teams may be of any size. The more the merrier.
• By registering and playing you agree to the sacred covenant of Trivia:

  If you win this contest, you will create and host the next contest.

  The next contest will be on the night of the last day of classes in May. It's a great honor and a great thrill, but also an obligation.

On-Air Questions

The heart of the contest is a set of questions asked throughout the night over the audio stream.

• At 10pm, we will ask a question over the stream, and then play a song. Teams have the duration of the song to send us the answer to the question and to name the song and artist. One point is awarded for the trivia, and one point for the song and artist.
• You'll send us your answer through your personalized chat room, where all your team members can gather. Once you register and log in, you'll see a link to it in the upper-left corner of the webpage. A member of our team (your "handler") will join you there to receive answers and give hints.
• That pattern of question/song will continue throughout the night. Occasionally there may be three-point plays, where a piece of trivia is worth 2 points, and the trivia and song together are worth 3 points.
• There will often be some connection between the trivia question and the accompanying song. This may help. Or it may not.
• Important: You may use the internet to answer on-air questions. HOWEVER, you may NOT use it to Google song lyrics. You must identify songs the old-fashioned way. This is on the honor system. But come on, how much fun is Googling lyrics, anyway? Really.
• You can ask for hints for both the trivia and the song. Traditionally you can also ask any yes-or-no question of your handler, and he/she will usually answer it. Usually. Remember to be nice to your handler - he/she is a real person, a volunteer, and has wide discretion over how you are scored!

Boni

In Williams Trivia, the plural of "bonus" is "boni". There will be 4 types of boni in the contest. General scoring rules:

• For each hour and super bonus, you may either use the internet or not. If you choose "not", then you may use any other resources, e.g., books, friends, professors. But not a friend who looks stuff up for you on the internet.
• Boni are worth more points if you don't use the internet. So whenever you submit a bonus, there will be a place to say whether you used the internet or not. This is on the honor system.

Hour Boni

At the beginning of every hour, a link to an hour bonus will appear on the website. The bonus will contain a set of questions on a particular topic. Teams have until the end of the hour to submit their answers, using the answer sheet linked to on the web page. Hour boni are worth up to 15 points if you don't use the internet, and up to 9 points if you do, unless a different scoring scheme is written on the bonus.

Super Boni

At 10:00 and 2:00 we will release a super bonus, which is bigger and badder than an hour bonus. Teams have four hours for each super bonus. It will be worth up to 30 points if you don't use the internet, and 18 if you do.

Action Trivia

Action Trivias are scenes which teams act out and film. There will be seven of these. You will have an hour and twenty minutes for each, and they are worth up to 6 points. You may use the internet with impunity. Some of the points will be awarded for knowledge of trivia, and some for style and whether you make us laugh.

Ultra Bonus

There will be one ultra bonus. It will be in 8 parts. The first set of clues will be released at 10pm, and your objective is to tell us what they have in common. Another set will come out at 11, and then at midnight, etc. All clues together lead to one thing, and you get points if you tell us what. Guess as many times as you like. The value of the ultra depends on how early you get it:

Hour	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Score	34	21	13	8	5	3	2	1

You may use the internet "at will" on the Ultra bonus.

Finally...

Have fun!