Pointless 08/04/13 (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

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Guy Barry
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Pointless 08/04/13 (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Post by Guy Barry »

Well done to the contestants who won £11,500 yesterday by guessing "enzymology" in the category "words beginning with a vowel and ending in -ology", particularly as I didn't think it was a word (and they weren't sure either). But did anyone notice that Alexander Armstrong asked them what they'd do with the money before their first guess rather than after it? We're told that AA doesn't know either the questions or the answers in advance, which suggests that he must have been told by the production team that it was a pointless answer as soon as they got it. Is that likely?

Also it would be really useful if a complete list of the pointless answers could be put online somewhere if there's not time to read them all out, as happened on this occasion. I thought of "epistemology", "ontology" and "eschatology" but none of them appeared in the list, so I'm none the wiser as to whether I'd have succeeded. I'm guessing the BBC probably doesn't have the resources to do this but it can be a bit frustrating.

Richard briefly mentioned at the beginning of the programme that people are polled randomly online. How does one come up with a truly random online sample?
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Matt Morrison
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Re: Pointless 08/04/13 (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Post by Matt Morrison »

Guy Barry wrote:Well done to the contestants who won £11,500 yesterday by guessing "enzymology" in the category "words beginning with a vowel and ending in -ology", particularly as I didn't think it was a word (and they weren't sure either). But did anyone notice that Alexander Armstrong asked them what they'd do with the money before their first guess rather than after it? We're told that AA doesn't know either the questions or the answers in advance, which suggests that he must have been told by the production team that it was a pointless answer as soon as they got it. Is that likely?
It's not at all unlikely, put it that way. Osman, in a Twitter Q&A the other day that I accidentally stumbled upon, mentions how neither he nor Alexander know the scores/correctness of answers before it is revealed, so there is that. But believe what you will. One thing to be aware of is that I used to have the same theory about you (call it a "suspicion" rather than an actual theory) but I remember once AA doing the "what would you do with the money?" question in the same position, before answer 1, and they didn't win the jackpot. I may have misremembered that but there we go.
Guy Barry wrote:Also it would be really useful if a complete list of the pointless answers could be put online somewhere if there's not time to read them all out, as happened on this occasion. I thought of "epistemology", "ontology" and "eschatology" but none of them appeared in the list, so I'm none the wiser as to whether I'd have succeeded. I'm guessing the BBC probably doesn't have the resources to do this but it can be a bit frustrating.
At a guess, definitely not, probably not, and probably. We went for oology, anesthesiology, and ichthyology. Joyfully the first two were shown, but I think we might have hit the third too.
Guy Barry wrote:Richard briefly mentioned at the beginning of the programme that people are polled randomly online. How does one come up with a truly random online sample?
Must admit I start every episode at 5 mins on Sky+ to miss out some of the bullshit, but did catch the end of this. So can't help, but didn't he also say something about "if you watch Pointless, you can't take part"? Surely this can't be policed very well.
Guy Barry
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Re: Pointless 08/04/13 (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Post by Guy Barry »

Matt Morrison wrote: Must admit I start every episode at 5 mins on Sky+ to miss out some of the bullshit, but did catch the end of this. So can't help, but didn't he also say something about "if you watch Pointless, you can't take part"? Surely this can't be policed very well.
What Richard actually said was "it's a complete cross-section of the population, they don't know they're being polled for Pointless". He was answering people who'd asked if they could apply to be part of the panel. I think the point was that you couldn't volunteer to take part in the survey, not that you couldn't take part if you watched Pointless - after all it gets a couple of million viewers per episode and out of a random sample of 100 you'd expect about four Pointless viewers on average.

In fact this was commented on in a fairly recent episode where Vanuatu came up in one of the country rounds and scored about two points - Richard mentioned that a couple of years ago it would probably have been pointless, so there's little doubt that Pointless viewers are influencing the sample. In fact on another forum I suggested that this may be one reason why it seems to be harder to win the jackpot these days - it only takes one person to turn a winning answer into a losing one, and that person may well have got their information from Pointless!

Great quiz by the way - probably the best one to have appeared on TV in the last few years.
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Re: Pointless 08/04/13 (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

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Matt Morrison wrote: It's not at all unlikely, put it that way. Osman, in a Twitter Q&A the other day that I accidentally stumbled upon, mentions how neither he nor Alexander know the scores/correctness of answers before it is revealed, so there is that. But believe what you will. One thing to be aware of is that I used to have the same theory about you (call it a "suspicion" rather than an actual theory) but I remember once AA doing the "what would you do with the money?" question in the same position, before answer 1, and they didn't win the jackpot. I may have misremembered that but there we go.
The same thing happened yesterday, and they won the jackpot with their first answer. I think it's a bit much to be coincidence.
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Matt Morrison
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Re: Pointless 08/04/13 (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Post by Matt Morrison »

I'd be interested in seeing stats for when it is mentioned and if/when the jackpot is won, believe me. Just not ready to call it a full blown conspiracy quite yet (although I probably once was).
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Re: Pointless 08/04/13 (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Post by Guy Barry »

Well, just as a data point, it happened yesterday and they didn't win the jackpot (19th-century prime ministers).

Only four pointless answers by the way - I'm wondering if there ought to be some sort of minimum standard for questions. Would they set a category in the final where there was only one pointless answer?
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Re: Pointless 08/04/13 (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Post by James Robinson »

Guy Barry wrote:Well, just as a data point, it happened yesterday and they didn't win the jackpot (19th-century prime ministers).

Only four pointless answers by the way - I'm wondering if there ought to be some sort of minimum standard for questions. Would they set a category in the final where there was only one pointless answer?
In the first series, there was a category of "Dragons in Dragons' Den", and there were only 2 Pointlesses (Simon Woodruffe and Doug Richard), but with the fact that there were only 10 answers at the time, not too surprising at least............
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Re: Pointless - polling methodology

Post by Guy Barry »

[how are the 100 people chosen?]
Guy Barry wrote:What Richard actually said was "it's a complete cross-section of the population, they don't know they're being polled for Pointless".
I've looked into this further and neither of the two statements above appears to be completely true. The polling is done by a division of Redshift Research called Crowdology. They mainly carry out market research for companies like Amex, Aviva, Boots, Dove and so on but their site clearly says "if you're a fan of the quiz show Pointless, you might have noticed our name pop up in the credits as we poll the 100 people". Panel members are paid for their participations and anyone can register - you just have to fill out a questionnaire giving various demographic details like gender, marital status, date of birth and nearest major city. The samples are presumably weighted for these factors but they're ultimately self-selecting - if you're not registered with Crowdology, you won't be polled. I don't know whether many people have registered with them with the specific aim of being selected for a Pointless survey but I'm sure it must happen.

If enough people cotton on to this it has the potential to completely ruin the game. Richard has already pointed out that the "classic" pointless answer of Central African Republic now always gets one or two points whenever it appears. How long before quiz show fanatics start filling up the surveys with deliberately obscure answers?
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Re: Pointless 08/04/13 (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Post by Philip Wilson »

I hope I'm putting this in the right place, it follows on from whether AA knows about the answers in advance.
I watched an episode the other night, [I am about 3 weeks behind btw so this was from the first week of June, and one or two shows before the change to the final game]. Anyway, in the head to head round as the second team's answer was being scored, I was slightly amazed to hear AA say,"will it beat 16?" Amazed because the first team had scored 20, and the second team's answer did infact score 16! So he must have known what was going to be scored.
I wish they'd refilmed that bit :cry:
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Matt Morrison
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Re: Pointless 08/04/13 (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Post by Matt Morrison »

Great info Guy.
Guy Barry
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Re: Pointless 08/04/13 (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Post by Guy Barry »

Thanks. You might be interested in seeing some comments from people who've taken part in the surveys.
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