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    Have we done "Pointless"?

    Good luck Giggler.

    And if they tell you how they choose the 100 idiots to answer the questions, do let us know. I'm still baffled about that Guy Fawkes score.

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      Have we done "Pointless"?

      Good luck Giggler. For a while I've thought the best use of time in the final is to pick one category each depending on the relative strengths within the pair, and then each silently brainstorm for say 40 seconds, then reconvene and spend the remaining time conferring and whittling down to three answers. Might be against the rules though on the grounds of not very exciting to watch.

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        Have we done "Pointless"?

        Sam wrote: Good luck Giggler.

        And if they tell you how they choose the 100 idiots to answer the questions, do let us know. I'm still baffled about that Guy Fawkes score.
        I've always assumed that they (and Family Fortunes) didn't bother actually asking 100 people questions and just made up some semi-feasible looking figures. Takes quite a bit of time and effort to sit with 100 people, wait for them to name countries beginning with T only to find that 2 people have gone and named them all leaving no pointless answer. Obviously you can filter out 1 or 2 contributors who are too clever but seems a lot easier to take the list and say Tuvalu pointless, Tajikistan 2, Togo 4 etc.

        Good luck Giggler. I've always thought Sporcle would be a good place to practice for Pointless.

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          Have we done "Pointless"?

          Wouldn't it be highly risky if they randomly made up these scores? It takes one disgruntled employee to make that secret public, and robbing the show of all credibility.

          And wouldn't there be serious legal issues if they did that with the final round, where money is at stake?

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            Have we done "Pointless"?

            “In the show’s early years, surveys were taken among viewers who volunteered to be on the show’s mailing list — a self-selected group whose collective opinion was swag.

            Today, the show employs a polling firm, Applied Research-West, to conduct the surveys by telephone. The company’s operators follows standard survey practices: They use random-digit dialing; try to ensure their sample is representative of the U.S. population, according to Census data; and dial cellphones to reach the growing landline-free population. The surveyers don’t disclose that the questions are for ‘Family Feud.’ A typical phone survey includes 30 or 40 questions, culled from 100 submitted to Ms. Johnston daily by writers and consultants for the show. Topical questions may air as soon as three weeks after the survey responses have been collected and compiled.”

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              Have we done "Pointless"?

              whose collective opinion was *what*?

              Seriously, WTF does that word mean in that context?

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                Have we done "Pointless"?

                Giggler, good luck.

                If you have any problems, have a word with the guy who is doing the lighting at 11:15 on that list...

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                  Have we done "Pointless"?

                  Yes, my reaction to
                  a self-selected group whose collective opinion was swag
                  was "their opinion was what?" as well. I've read that sentence four or five times now and still can't quite make any sense of what they're trying to get at. Can we have a leftpondian translator to help out here, please?

                  Oh, and best of luck to Giggler, of course. Will look forward to trying to identify you in episodes airing around January 2018.

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                    Have we done "Pointless"?

                    Yeah, one more request for a translation of that.

                    seand wrote:
                    Originally posted by Sam
                    Good luck Giggler.

                    And if they tell you how they choose the 100 idiots to answer the questions, do let us know. I'm still baffled about that Guy Fawkes score.
                    I've always assumed that they (and Family Fortunes) didn't bother actually asking 100 people questions and just made up some semi-feasible looking figures. Takes quite a bit of time and effort to sit with 100 people, wait for them to name countries beginning with T only to find that 2 people have gone and named them all leaving no pointless answer. Obviously you can filter out 1 or 2 contributors who are too clever but seems a lot easier to take the list and say Tuvalu pointless, Tajikistan 2, Togo 4 etc.
                    I'll take it back to the example I posted a year or more ago, which was a question along the lines of 'which building did Guy Fawkes attempt to blow up in 1605?', and which only got 60 out of 100. On the one hand I find it astonishing that forty British people didn't know that, but on the other if they were going to make up a figure for that question it would surely be much higher, wouldn't it?

                    Also I'm not sure what the 'wait for 100 people to name countries beginning with T' means. They give them one minute to come up with as many as they can. It wouldn't take that long at all given that the production company presumably have access to computers.

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                      Have we done "Pointless"?

                      Yeh, I guess with all this 'modern technology' like these fancy 'computers' I keep hearing about there's no need to actually interview 100 people for a minute each per question!

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                        Have we done "Pointless"?

                        Even writing it down, wouldn't you just put 100 people into a large hall with desks and ask them to write stuff down exam style? That's how I assumed they did it. Do it in a student city and offer £25 for an afternoon and you'd get loads of people willing to do it.

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                          Have we done "Pointless"?

                          seand wrote:
                          Originally posted by Sam
                          Good luck Giggler.

                          And if they tell you how they choose the 100 idiots to answer the questions, do let us know. I'm still baffled about that Guy Fawkes score.
                          I've always assumed that they (and Family Fortunes) didn't bother actually asking 100 people questions and just made up some semi-feasible looking figures. Takes quite a bit of time and effort to sit with 100 people, wait for them to name countries beginning with T only to find that 2 people have gone and named them all leaving no pointless answer. Obviously you can filter out 1 or 2 contributors who are too clever but seems a lot easier to take the list and say Tuvalu pointless, Tajikistan 2, Togo 4 etc.

                          Good luck Giggler. I've always thought Sporcle would be a good place to practice for Pointless.
                          Didn't Family Fortunes ask previous contestants and applicants as their "100 people surveyed"?

                          So do Pointless do something similar?

                          Comment


                            Have we done "Pointless"?

                            I've just checked "swag" on Urban Dictionary.

                            I would provide a link or do a copy and paste... but I don't want to taint this board. Trust me, it's not good.

                            Comment


                              Have we done "Pointless"?

                              In the episode aired yesterday Richard made an almost throwaway comment about the one hundred people surveyed being an online thing.

                              Comment


                                Have we done "Pointless"?

                                In which case variations in typing speeds must affect the results. In a question on European capitals say, it's not that only 8 people know Budapest, but that only 8 people got round to it before their time was up, after typing out the ones that tend to spring to mind first.

                                Comment


                                  Have we done "Pointless"?

                                  Same would apply if it was a handwritten studio thing. It's reasonable that people will leave out a good number of European capitals. I reckon your average Joe can't rattle them all off just like that. And the 12 who didn't say Paris tried to go for a few less obvious ones.

                                  But I'm worried about the four people who are asked specific question, like "In each pass we'll give you seven currencies. Name the countries in which they are the legal tender (and by country we mean etc)", and get the answer for "Pound Sterling" wrong.

                                  Comment


                                    Have we done "Pointless"?

                                    Precisely, G-Man, which is where the Guy Fawkes question I mentioned comes in. It's a question with one correct answer. It staggers me that 40 people got it wrong or weren't even able to hazard a guess.

                                    Comment


                                      Have we done "Pointless"?

                                      seand wrote: Yeh, I guess with all this 'modern technology' like these fancy 'computers' I keep hearing about there's no need to actually interview 100 people for a minute each per question!
                                      Just to be pedantic, the 100 people get 100 seconds not a minute. Alexander Armstrong says this every episode so I suppose it's easy to miss it.

                                      It would be interesting to know how the people are selected. If it's random there's bound to be at least one smartypants who spends the time trying to think of obscure answers. That would be me or, I suspect, most of those on this thread.

                                      Comment


                                        Have we done "Pointless"?

                                        Sam wrote: Precisely, G-Man, which is where the Guy Fawkes question I mentioned comes in. It's a question with one correct answer. It staggers me that 40 people got it wrong or weren't even able to hazard a guess.
                                        It's the nation that votes Tory, opted for Brexit and decided that "Please Mr Postman" is its favourite Carpenters song.

                                        I suppose the 40 might have guessed the Tower of London, St Paul's, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.

                                        Comment


                                          Have we done "Pointless"?

                                          Capybara wrote: It would be interesting to know how the people are selected. If it's random there's bound to be at least one smartypants who spends the time trying to think of obscure answers. That would be me or, I suspect, most of those on this thread.
                                          For which reason it'd also be interesting to know whether they're told which show it's for (I mean given some of the scores you have to assume a large number of them will be too thick to work it out).

                                          Comment


                                            Have we done "Pointless"?

                                            3 Colours Red wrote: I've just checked "swag" on Urban Dictionary.

                                            I would provide a link or do a copy and paste... but I don't want to taint this board. Trust me, it's not good.
                                            I just did the same.

                                            I can understand why you wouldn't link to it here, but I'm none the wiser as to what it means in the context used above.

                                            Comment


                                              Have we done "Pointless"?

                                              G-Man wrote:
                                              Originally posted by Sam
                                              Precisely, G-Man, which is where the Guy Fawkes question I mentioned comes in. It's a question with one correct answer. It staggers me that 40 people got it wrong or weren't even able to hazard a guess.
                                              It's the nation that votes Tory, opted for Brexit and decided that "Please Mr Postman" is its favourite Carpenters song.
                                              I suppose the 40 might have guessed the Tower of London, St Paul's, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.
                                              Or perhaps the Shard, the Gherkin, the Olympic Stadium and, I don't know, Nelson's Column.

                                              And Jesus, was Please Mr Postman really the #1 Carpenters' song in the programme broadcast a week or two back? I only saw roughly 13-9 and saw a few good ones ticked off, but I thought there must be a stone cold classic waiting at the top.

                                              Comment


                                                Have we done "Pointless"?

                                                It was quite odd. I had guessed Close To You at 1, followed by We've Only Just Begun and Rainy Days And Mondays. I was delighted that This Masquerade made the top 3, and I was right about We've Only Just Begun.

                                                Richard Carpenter's only comment on Please Mr Postman was how much he resented the Disneyland video of it. He must have thought, "Of all the intricate arrangements, imaginative interpretations and painstakingly conceived harmonies, these idiots go for that?"

                                                Comment


                                                  Have we done "Pointless"?

                                                  And "Mrs Brown's Boys" won a poll for best 21C sitcom.

                                                  Comment


                                                    Have we done "Pointless"?

                                                    Kevchenko wrote: And "Mrs Brown's Boys" won a poll for best 21C sitcom.
                                                    I seem to recall 20 odd years ago Men Behaving Badly was voted Greatest Comedy ever.

                                                    Comment

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