This is a repeat of my 2019-10-16 introductory posting with some
updates. The first few paragraphs are mostly new, but if you were
already familiar with the content, then there's no real need to
reread behind that.

On the other hand, you know, it wouldn't hurt to.

* Introduction

As most of you will remember, the Canadian Inquisition was a team
trivia league that played in Toronto pubs. When COVID-19 began
to reach Toronto in March 2020, all pubs were shut down for the
duration. Partly because a lot of our players are of such an age
that they are more susceptible to the disease and therefore cautious
about groups of people in enclosed spaces, and partly because of
natural attrition during the long delay and an absence new players
joining, the league been slow to restart play even now that the
pubs have been open for some time.

This month we did restart, but there are only about half as many
teams as we had at the shutdown. The first season will be only
9 games long, plus a Final (which will have only 10 questions in
each round, as there will only be 2 teams playing in it). I hope
there will be no problems or surprises that will prevent a second
season this year, but how the long term will go remains to be seen.

Our league is a cooperative one, whose teams take turns to write
and ask the questions that the others answer. In the current
season, May-July 2023, the questions are being written by the Bloor
St. Irregulars. I have obtained their permission to post to this
newsgroup the questions from this seasons, to be tagged QFTCIBSI23
in the subject line. Before posting them here, I'm editing some of
them for various reasons -- for brevity, to clarify their intent,
to avoid issues raised on protests, for suitability in this medium,
and so on.

The next team writing questions is scheduled to be my team, the
Usual Suspects, so I'll be posting our questions here in due course,
assuming that there is indeed a next season.

(From here on this introduction is unchanged.)

As you may remember, the league's season consists of 10 regular
games and a Final. A regular game contains 102 questions. Most of
the game is in rounds of 10 questions on a specific topic within
a different general area. For example, one game in 2008 included
a geography round on former place names, an entertainment round
on Morgan Freeman movies, and a sports round on things that
happened during Toronto Blue Jays games. Round 1 is always a
current-events round; Round 5 is always an audio round; and Round
10 (the "challenge round") normally contains 12 questions, 2 each
on 6 different subjects.

I won't be posting audio questions (except if I think they can be
answered without the audio), nor will I post the video questions
that sometimes occur in the Final.

* Scheduling - Regular Games

My intent is that for each quiz you'll get about 3 days to answer,
plus or minus a few hours, but I'm not going to set exact deadlines;
I'll post the answers, cutting off further entries, at whatever
time (after 2 days and about 21 hours) that it's convenient for
me to do the scoring and post the results, or if I'm late, then
when I remember.

One series of postings will consist of rounds from a single game:
normally those will be Rounds 2-4 and 6-10. I will normally post
the questions as four sets of two rounds each: Rounds 2-3 in one
posting, Rounds 4 and 6 in the next, and so on. In the Final, most
rounds have 15 questions, and these I'll post one round at a time.

For each game, I'll keep a cumulative score over the group of
postings, counting your best 6 rounds out of 8 (or 5 out of 7,
etc.) -- that way if you miss a set, or if there's a subject you're
weak on, you still have a chance to finish well. Each game will
be totaled after the last round is posted and scored.

In a normal game usually one round is Canadiana (this may also
fall under another subject such as history or geography), which
those of you in distant places may have some trouble with, but I am
including them in the posting series anyway. This is your chance
to shine by displaying your knowledge of Canadiana. However, if
*nobody* in the newsgroup scores *any* points on a round (which
has happened with Canadiana occasionally), then I will score as if
that round had never existed.

* Scheduling - Current Events

I will also do a separate series of postings consisting of
current-events rounds only, also to be posted two at a time.
These will all appear while they're still reasonably current --
normally within a couple of days of the second of the two original
games. For this series I'll accumulate scores over all the games
from the season, similarly counting the best 9 out of 11 games.
So there will be an overall current-events winner for the season.

I'm posting current-events games independently of the posting
of other games, so there will normally be a regular game running
concurrently with each set of current-events questions. Current-
events questions from the current season have already started
being posted, and the next set should be in about 2 weeks from now.

Current-events rounds generally refer to events that took place the
week before the original game, sometimes also the week before that.
If answers have changed since the date of the original game due
to newer news, you are still expected to give the answer that was
correct *as of the game date*.

* Procedures and Scoring

The usual rule in our regular league games is that each question
goes to an individual who can answer for 2 points without
assistance, and if he misses, he can consult his team and try
again for 1 point. If the quizmaster judges that an answer is
incomplete, she can ask for more details before ruling the answer
right or wrong.

To maintain the spirit of these rules, I will say that you can
give two answers on every question. But I will penalize you if
you give both a right answer and a wrong answer. My scoring is:

4 points - if you answer once and are right (or twice, both right)
3 points - if you guess twice and are right only the first time
2 points - if you guess twice and are right only the second time

Bonus points may occasionally be available and will be explained in
the relevant round.

If you give only one answer, but with only some sort of additional
comment, please make it clear that that's what you're doing.
If there is any doubt I'll assume that you are giving two answers.
If I see more than two answers, the third and any later ones will
be ignored.

Although there is no rule like this in the Canadian Inquisition,
where it makes sense I will accept answers that I think are almost
close enough (*more than half right*), with a 1-point penalty.

But I will reject answers that I do not think are sufficiently
specific, since there is no opportunity to ask for clarification
when answers are posted in the newsgroup. If I anticipate the
possibility of insufficiently specific answers I will try to
provide guidance in a way that does not spoil the questions,
such as a note in rot13 to be read after you have answered.

You must, of course, answer based on your own knowledge and
nothing else. You must post all your answers in a single posting
(Except in case of technical difficulties, when emailed answers
or multiple postings will be accepted.)

Where a person's name is asked for, *normally you need only give
the surname*. If you do give another part of the name and you're
wrong, your answer is wrong.
--
Mark Brader | "(I've been told that I suffer from rampant narcissism.
Toronto | Just to confirm the accuracy of this character assessment,
msb@vex.net | I have now shared it with the whole world.)" --Laura Spira

My text in this article is in the public domain.