This is the frequently asked questions file for Quizilla. It is here to answer all the questions that are commonly asked by users. Ninety percent of the time, if you have a question, your answer will be found somewhere in this file or in the documentation.

Quizilla is what I like to call a quiz foundry. What that means in real terms is that it's a place to make Internet quizzes and also a place to take them. It encapsulates and automates all the things needed to make the sort of quizzes that are all the rage with the kids these days.

No. All the quizzes on Quizilla are made by individual users.

There's no difference to humans, but to your Web browser to it makes a world of difference!

To simply come to the site and take the quizzes and have fun, you don't need an account. But to do the more complex things like creating quizzes or customizing your views you need a user account for the purposes of storing your preferences, your quiz data, etc.

The criteria are very lax and the only thing that is generally required is a valid e-mail address. There may also be other stipulations required to comply with laws regarding age limits. For example, to comply with the COPPA, users of the site must be over 13 years of age. As well, users under the age of 18 should have parental permission before creating an account or using the site.

There's not yet a way to change your account name. We are thinking about adding this feature.

There isn't away to delete an account. But don't worry, leaving an empty account around doesn't hurt anyone. We may add this feature in the future.

You need to be more specific. What part are you having trouble with? There are one million things that fit the description of simply "can't login".

Any Web browser made within the last five-years supports cookies. If you're browser does not support cookies, chances are you can't access the site in the first place.

A lot of people are paranoid about cookies, and not without reason. But the simple fact is this is one of the best ways to create persistant logins. I have heard all the arguments and all the debates on the subject, but this is the way we have chosen to do it. Suggestions to use sessions, or some other similar technology without very persuasive arguments will be ignored.

There a number of reasons your login may end on Quizilla. If you do not click the "remember me" to switch in a login screen your cookie will expire in three days. You also may have changed Web browsers, or have had your cookies deleted. If you can login normally but are logged out at certain intervals then it is most likely a problem with your Web browser.

On very rare occasions we will ban the IP of someone who is abusing the site in some way. These bans are relatively rare, but they are necessary in cases were specific users intentionally try to disrupt or otherwise hurt the service for other users. Banning is used as a last resort, and bans are generally short-lived and temporary.

Using some automated system to load one million pages in minutes is a sure way to get banned. Severely harassing other users is another. As said before, bans are very rare but are necessary. If you feel you have been banned in error please feel free to contact anyone involved with the administration of the site to discuss it. We are very happy to talk about the situation. We don't like banning people. Playing bad cop is never fun.

You can't. That is, sad to say, the way the internet works. First-come, first-served.

The quiz editor is by no means perfect, and it is due for an overhaul. In fact, it is undergoing a rewrite right now. In the meantime there are many, many problems with it. Often these are from using incompatible keystrokes and characters or by using too much HTML in either questions, answers or results.

On Macintoshes please do not use the small enter key next to the space bar, it can cause problems.

You can try to remove HTML from your questions, answers, or results. This sometimes fixes the problem.

If you're using characters from a non English language these can sometimes also cause problems. Until the new version of the quiz editor is completed please use only Latin/Roman characters.

This is another bug in the quiz editor that is difficult to track down. We are working on it, but in the meantime try removing HTML from your results.

Many users have reported success in using nonstandard and non Latin characters, though this is not officially supported by the site. You're welcome to try, but there is no guarantee that it will work.

You may want to think about getting a new browser. The forms used in the quiz editor are very complex and some older Web browsers, such as those that predate the year 1999, cannot handle them.

Try removing HTML from your results; this is usually the problem.

Because size equals money. The bigger it is, the larger it is to transfer, and a more money it costs in bandwidth fees and storage space. With little trouble you can fill the entire screen with a 40 kB JPEG file, and you shouldn't be making files that fill the whole screen anyway.

There is an important difference between length and width dimensions and file size. A file may be less than an inch square but if it uses too many colors or the wrong type of format it can still be over the file size limit. You can try to fix this by saving it in a different format such as JPEG or PNG which have better compression over the older GIF format.

Because the majority of Web browsers cannot display anything but those formats. They're also much smaller in file size than other format such as BMP. Some browsers support the displaying of nonstandard image formats, such as the ART format for AOL, but no other Web browsers can see them.

You need a graphics program that knows how to save them in the appropriate format. That is another huge subject, but more well-known programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Ulead PhotoStudio and Jasc Paint Shop Pro can save files in the needed format. The version of "Paint" that comes with Windows XP also has the ability to save files in both the JPEG and PNG format.

To curb spam, abuse and to generally create a trail of responsibility and culpability. If any random person could send any other user an anonymous message on the system they would often use it to send abusive messages or spam to all the users. Also, there would be no way to reply to messages.

Go to your "your info" screen and then click the "no" option next to the "receive notification of private messages" text. Then click the "save" button at the bottom of the screen.

The private message e-mail system requires that you have verified your e-mail address. You can verify your e-mail address by going to the "your info" screen, make sure you have a valid e-mail address listed in the e-mail address field and then click the verify button on the right.

Because Quizilla does not offer e-mail accounts. The only e-mail accounts that exist are for the management of the site such as the Webmaster.

Because the private message system is not meant to replace e-mail. It is meant simply for short messages in the same vein as SMS on a cell phone.

Votes are a numeric rating based on a scale of 1 to 5 according to how good a user thought a quiz was.

They don't do anything really. They are used primarily for a personal barometer to see how well the quiz is received by the public. They're also used to calculate the "highest rated" list on the main page. But other than that they really don't mean anything.

This is because, to prevent people stuffing the ballot box, the system is limited to one vote per IP address. An IP addresses how computer is uniquely identified on the Internet. Sometimes however two computers may share one IP address at different times, so someone on a different computer was using your IP address before you and voted on this quiz, and the Quizilla system has no way of telling you apart. In such cases it errs on the side of caution. This is not a very good system, and designs are currently being researched to fix this problem.

There is no rule against this, but it is frowned upon. Sometimes when a quiz is found doing this they will be assessed a penalty and their total number of votes or value of votes will be reduced, though this is very rare.

The content rating system was introduced to allow people a chance to understand the content of a quiz before they actually clicked on it. While it is still based on the honor system in that the author of the quiz has to select their rating, it has mostly been a success.

It is important because of the wide age range of a users who come here, as well as the wide range of personal views in the world. Some people do not wish to see some sorts of content, or allow their children to see it. In the same way that movie ratings can give some indication of the content of a movie, Quizilla content ratings also hope to give some sort of notice about what sort of content will be in a quiz.

Please report it to the Webmaster and it will be reviewed and possibly changed.

If an administrator has reviewed a quiz and found that the rating it has is inappropriate it may be changed to suit the content. If you feel a content level has been changed inappropriately you are very welcome to contact the Webmaster to discuss it.

Because you probably did something very, very bad. There are a number of reasons an account may be suspended, and usually that reason is given when you try to login. Often these include harassing or abusing other users, repeatedly posting inappropriate content or other repeat offenses.

If is the first time this has happened is very likely that a situation can be worked out where your account will be reinstated. This generally involves a promise that the activity that caused the account to be suspended in the first place will be stopped. If your account has been suspended once or twice before it is very likely that you don't care about it being reinstated.

Please contact the Webmaster, we are always very open to discuss the suspension situations.

Please send your concerns to the Webmaster, and the situation will be reviewed. But suspension is a very drastic act, so it may not be appropriate for all situations.

That's probably because you abused the site in such a way that it interfered with other users. This includes using a robot for other automated software to download far too many pages in one day, or otherwise interfering or exploiting the site.

Firstly, because we'll create an unfair situation in the "most popular" list, possibly. If your quiz is on the top of the "most popular" list because you have used a script to constantly put your quiz on the top of the list it is fraudulent because it's rank is not based on the actual public interest.

Secondly, because it adds unfair and unnecessary load on the servers that run the web site. It also uses extra bandwidth which can cost quite a lot of money. Again, this is wrong because it is not actually users doing this, but one user who wishes to inflate their score.

Thirdly, in conjunction with the second reason is because it puts extra load on servers and consumes extra bandwidth however generates no income from the advertising on the site. So it does not only cause more expenses to be incurred, but it is also prohibiting income that the site needs to function.

Quizilla run on a fairly large army of servers. Originally, it started out using one small underpowered computer in the founders basement, but has now grown into using a vast array of technology and hardware. Currently Quizilla runs on:

• Primary Database server: Dual Pentium 3 1.26gHz, 2GB RAM, hardware SCSI RAID 5
• Secondary Database server: Dual Pentium 3 500mHz, 512MB RAM, software SCSI RAID 10
• Web server #1: Pentium 3 1.2gHz, 1GB RAM
• Web server #2: Pentium 3 1.13gHz, 1GB RAM
• Web server #3: Athlon 2200+, 1GB RAM
• Web server #4: Athlon 1800+, 1GB RAM
• Web server #5: Pentium 4 2.66gHz, 1GB RAM
• Web server #6: Pentium 3 1.2gHz, 1GB RAM
• Traffic Aggregator: Celeron 1.3gHz, 1GB RAM
• Image server #1: Pentium 3 1.0gHz, 1GB RAM
• Image server #2: Pentium 3 1.0gHz, 1GB RAM
• Cache Server: Via Cyrix 800mHz, 1GB RAM

The operating system that the servers run on is primarily Red Hat Linux. Derisive comments about Red Hat or Linux will be ignored. Suggestions to move to a different Linux distribution or other UNIX will also be ignored. Suggestions to move to MacOS X will be replied to with the address of where to send the checks for the Apple hardware. Suggestions to move to Microsoft Windows will be ridiculed, then ignored.

We/I use Red Hat because it's what I know. It's never a good idea to use a critical production server to learn a new operating system. Because there is no extra IT staff it is very important to use software that I am very familiar with. There's no reason why the site won't ever move to Debian, Gentoo or FreeBSD, but that is not today.

Apache is the Web server, and mySQL is the database.

The actual functional bits of the site were written mostly from scratch using Perl. Perl was chosen because it's what I know, and what I've been doing as a day job for the last four years. This is not to talk down about any other programming language on the Web such as PHP or Java, but simply that I'm a lot stronger in Perl than I am in any other language.

The source code for Quizilla is not available yet for a number of reasons. I would one day like to release all as open source, but that day is a long way off. The software is still tied very closely with the hardware, and is not generic enough for anyone to pick it up and modify it without a great deal of personal struggle and pain. If I ever get the time to develop it down to generic form and more make it more secure then there's a strong possibility will be released under some sort of open source license, but not yet. It's really not that good, anyway, and anyone with a Web server and a few weeks of spare time could write the same thing.

On an average weekday Quizilla serves nearly 1.5 million pages, most of these involving CGI code and database access. This figure does not include images, which can often surpass 10 million daily.

There are far too many reasons. Every browser has its own issues and complexities, and they are very difficult to plan for. Quizilla is generally written to support the lowest common denominator, but sometimes specific issues may come up with a specific browser. The site has been tested to run with late versions of Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, KDE Konqueror, Apple Safari and a number of text based Web browsers such as Lynx and Links.

Quizilla also hopes to support accessibility. If you have found a problem with the accessibility of the site and know how to fix it please don't hesitate to contact the Webmaster. We are especially interested in how the site interoperates with speech synthesis packages and braille terminals.

Right now, Quizilla is run primarily by me, only one person. Who "me" is, he'll have to figure out on your own. Hang around on the site for a while and you'll eventually pick up who "I" am. I deliberately avoid directly mentioning my name in these documents to prevent people from invading my personal business without introduction.

The name was thought up on the spur of the moment when I needed to quickly decide on a domain name for the Web site. A lot of the code was big, complex and hairy to the point it made me think of a large monster. So, at the last moment, I chose a variation on that theme, "Quizilla".

No, in no way. Quizilla is in no way affiliated with Godzilla or the owner of its trademark, Toho Co. Ltd.

Quizilla was first released into the wild at the very end of July 2002.

The kernel for Quizilla came to me when I was looking at ideas for expressing complex data structures in XML. I was mulling around the idea of a standardized format for quizzes and other things and I decided to make some CGI code to automate the idea for me. Then I decided to build more complex display layers around that core, and then I added user accounts, messages and everything else you see now.

The first reason is, of course, money. The site right now makes enough money to pay for its expenses and to almost pay for one full-time employee, me. Almost. Things have a long way to go before it makes enough money to hire another person, even part-time, or even to contract someone.

Second is how complex things are. Quizilla has grown in a very hodgepodge manner from its first inception, and so things are very complex and terribly hard to follow if you don't know what you're doing. Hiring anyone to do any sort of work would require several months of time simply to get up to speed on the structure of everything. And since time equals money, you know the rest.

One day I actually hope to have people to help me out on this, but that won't be for a while until I get my own self-management issues worked out, and the money issues figure out a way to fix themselves.

Thanks for the offer, but not right now.

It's not that I don't want the help, it's that it's not equatorial at this moment in time. In order to be an admin you have to have access to very sensitive parts of the system, and to do that I have to know who you are in a very personal way to give you that sort of trust. If you have access to edit other people's quizzes and to affect other parts of the system you could conceivably have the ability to destroy the entire thing and right now I can't sleep at night with that thought. Once I get some better administrative tools written, ones the don't require such levels of access, I'm very likely to open up a pool of a volunteer administrators; and when that happens the community will be alerted.

The same goes with working on the code. If any half decent programmer saw the code right now they would almost certainly see immediate ways to exploit it, and that's a scary thought. Security through obscurity is something when you can have it. Again, when things get a little farther down the road I will probably open up the code for community input.

And about the Web pages. That's really different, because it doesn't require any privileged access to give me a demo of what you think Quizilla should look like. If you want to, and you have what you think is necessary to do a decent page design you are more than welcome to submit one. It's very helpful if you have a demo page made of what you think it should look like as opposed to only describing it to me. I do, however, have some stipulations for any pages that are submitted:

A.) keep images at a minimum. Use CSS, text, and other tricks to make it look good as opposed to using images everywhere. There's nothing worse than an image that is nothing but a block of text. Obviously, some things have to be images, but not everything! Text compresses well which saves bandwidth and it's more compatible when written correctly.

B.) no flash. If you're going to submit a page design that is based on, or relies heavily on, Flash, then forget it. It's not that I don't like Flash, because I do and it has its place, but Flash's place is not in headers and footers on Quizilla.

C.) use stylesheets. I'm terrible with stylesheets, but I really like them. Any potential page design should use properly syntaxed CSS as opposed to simply expressing the style and color attributes in the document elements themselves.

D.) use XHTML. Don't be me, and use all polyglot of differing HTML syntaxes and styles. I'm a programmer, and consequently can't design proper HTML to save my life. However, if you want me to believe you are a competent Web designer, you'll do things in a cohesive manner using the newest possible standard. That standard, in this case, is XHTML. Fully verifiable XHTML.

E.) make sure it works in my browser. I primarily use Netscape Navigator 7.0 under Windows, KDE Konquerer under UNIX and Safari under MacOS X. If you send me a link to a potential design and it doesn't render properly in my browser then chances are I'm not going to accept it.

Whoa there, Sparky.

Just because it looks simple and sounds simple doesn't mean it will be simple. You're very welcome to submit suggestions and I'm very happy to consider them, but please stop short of making assumptions about the difficulty of implementing such suggestions unless you are a programmer. Often things that seems so easy really aren't when you look at them from a programmer perspective.

Too much. I could do you figures, but they very wildly from month-to-month and so as soon as you read them they would be inaccurate.

So, you wan to buy the site, eh? Well, like everything in life, it's not that easy. You have to make choices.

The first option is to buy the site with me included. Why, I hear you cry, would you need to buy me with it? Well, the site is very complex, hodgepodge and convoluted. It would take even an expert IT staffer weeks to figure how everything works, let alone how to fix problems of add features. That's where I come in. You can buy ownership of the site but keep it on basically as is, simply under new mangment, with me still at the helm managing the site the way I always have but letting you handle the gritty stuff like advertising sales and accounting. If you chose to go that route, and were willing to give me an attractive reason to work for the man again, a good offer would start somewhere over the top of $150,000 USD.

But what if you wanted to outright steal my baby out from under me and wrest control and utter ownership away from me? Well, in such a case you don't have to have me come with it (though I'd recommend it), but you'd still need to assist me in reconciling the pain of giving up my precious baby. Reconciliation of my grief would probably start at $300,000.

Of course, those are merely starting suggestions. If you offered me the baseline hundred-fifty for getting me plus the site I'll probably only mull it over for a few seconds before I say no; though if you offered, say, a 50% premium above baseline it would almost certainly make me cave.

That logo, the No. 2 with green arms and legs, is "Penny" the Quizilla pencil monster. When the site first launched I needed a logo to identify the site quickly, but I have no artistic skill when it comes to drawing. Instead, I loaded up The Gimp and clicked out a peculiar little image dot by dot in super zoom mode. It's not very good, but I've grown attached to it.

Right now, yes, Quizilla is supported completely by advertising revenue. I would like eventually to move to a 50-50 split of advertising and subscriptions, but right now it's all ads which means by extension that it's free for the end-user. In the end you, the user, end up paying for the site with your eyeballs, by looking at ads.

Some people think that, and maybe they would even be right to think that from a cursory perspective. People think that because they got 10 MB of free web space with their dial-up accounts that every Web site in the world should be free because theirs is. However, the unpleasant truth is that a site of any large size costs money to run, money to maintain, and money to expand.

Take Quizilla for example. The costs of the site are very straightforward and follow what you could call "the three B's": bandwidth, brawn, and brains. Bandwidth is, obviously, how much it costs to get the data from the computer for the Web site to your home computer. Brawn is the computers that run the Web site. Brains is the people behind the Web site. If any one of those three things as lacking, the site as a whole will lag. If you can't pay for bandwidth then people can't see your web site. If you can't pay for computers then people can't use your web site. If you can't pay for the brains to run the web site then problems will never be fixed, features will never be added and it will become stale and no one will ever want to come back. And each of these things costs money and the more popular the site gets, the more money they cost.

Of course, I'm not doing this as a purely altruistic venture. I like to do the web site because it gives me a chance to do very cool things using skills that I really like to use. But as much as I like doing that, I also occasionally like to eat and I really like to be able to pay rent. In order to give the site the attention and time it needs I basically have to work on it full-time, and to work on it time it needs to pay me enough to be worth it. And by "worth it" I mean enough to pay all the expenses.

Then by all means, please, send it in to the Webmaster!

It's not going to happen. Unless there is a super compelling reason to change, like Perl suddenly ceased to exist, I'm not willing to completely rewrite my entire code base from scratch just to vindicate someone in some language holy war. If it ain't broke...

I don't doubt it! First of all, see if you can replicate it. After that, send a message to the management with a detailed description of the bug and what you did to cause it/recreate it. You'll probably also need tell me your Web browser name and version and your operating system name and version. I need all these things or else I can't help you.

Please do! The only thing that is off-limits to link to is images not for the purpose of quizzes. By that I mean you cannot use Quizilla's image storage system to store pictures for your eBay auction and things like that. Images linked to must be directly related to quizzes that have been made on Quizilla.

But as for everything else, especially the quizzes themselves, you are more than welcome to link to them. In fact, we encourage linking to quizzes!

No, we don't. It's not that we don't want them, it's that I have no artistic talent in making one. However, if you think you're the artistic type and could make one for us I'd like to see what someone can come up with.

Yes, as long as it is used in conjunction with text about the site or for linking to the site. The the logo itself is still copyrighted, of course.