Rare Entries Contest MSB63: first reminder

This is the first reminder of the current, and possibly last, Rare
Entries contest in the MSB series. Everything below this point is
the same as in the original contest posting.

As always, reply ONLY BY EMAIL to msb@xxxxxxx; do not post to any
newsgroup. Entries must reach here by Friday, September 4, 2009
(by Toronto time, zone -4). See below the questions for a detailed
explanation, which is unchanged from last time.

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0. Name a prime number smaller than 25. (Positive integers
only, the usual mathematical meaning of "prime".)

1. Using a single unhyphenated noun in English, name a type (not
a brand or model) of flying machine that *is not* an airplane.

2. Name a country where it is possible for a couple of the same
sex to get married and for this marriage to be recognized
as legally valid.

3. Name a child, grandchild, or great-grandchild of King Henry
VII of England who at some time was, or was claimed to be,
the king or queen of England.

4. Name a city where the modern Olympic Games have been held
more than once. This refers to the primary host city of
either the summer or winter games.

5. Give a single word in English that is a noun meaning
a person who commits or has committed one or more crimes.
Words that imply a specific type of crime are not acceptable.

6. Give a surname shared by two or more people who each have
individually won an Oscar (see rule 4.2). "Individually"
means that the award was not shared with another person,
as is common in some categories.

7. Give a relationship term in English that applies to "blood"
relatives and is a single unhyphenated noun that *does
not* start with G. "Relationship term" means a word that
specifies what relation one of them is to the other, as in
"Chris is Pat's _____". Only the formal terms typically
used in writing such as legal documents will be accepted.

8. Name a city whose usual short name in its primary local
language contains a letter that does not occur at all in its
most usual short name in English. The local language must
use a form of the same alphabet that English does, i.e. a
Latin-derived alphabet. For purposes of this question any
marks that an English-speaker would consider to be accents or
other diacritical marks are to be ignored (so O, Ö, and Ó are
all the same letter).

For example, if the Russians adopted the Latin alphabet,
Moscow would become a correct answer since the letter V
occurs in "Moskva" but not in "Moscow".

9. Name a major city existing today, whose name is also
part of the real name of a famous person, past or present.
A "major" city means any city that is a national capital or
has a population of at least 2,000,000, or is the main city
of a metropolitan area with population at least 5,000,000.

"Part of" means that the usual short name of the *city* occurs
*in full*, as a complete word or sequence of words, in the
name of the *person*. For example, if there was a famous
person named Mark Kansas City, then Kansas City would be a
correct answer if its population was sufficient; but a person
named Jane Kansas or Jane Kansas Cityite would not suffice.

Fame is to be measured by Google counts. Your answer must
include a set of three Google search terms: [1] the person's
year of birth (or an alleged year of birth, if there is
conflicting information), [2] a word somehow indicating
why or how the person is famous, and [3] the person's name
(as a phrase, including at least one given name and the
surname). The first page of Google results for this search
must indicate that there are "about" at least 1,000 hits.
For example, if there was a major city named "Harrison" or
"Ford", you might give:

1942 actor "Harrison Ford"

Different answers referring to the same city will be taken
as equivalent.
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* 1. The Game

As usual, for each of the questions above, your objective is to give
an answer that (1) is correct, and (2) will be duplicated by as FEW
other people as possible. Feel free to use any reference material
you like to RESEARCH your answers; but when you have found enough
possible answers for your liking, you are expected to choose on your
own which one to submit, WITHOUT mechanical or computer assistance:
this is meant to be a game of wits.


* 2. Scoring

The scores on the different questions are MULTIPLIED to produce a
final score for each entrant. Low score wins; a perfect score is 1.

If your answer on a category is correct, then your score is the number
of people who gave that answer, or an answer I consider equivalent.

A wrong answer, or a skipped question, gets a high score as a penalty.
This is the median of:
- the number of entrants
- the square root of that number, rounded up to an integer
- double the highest score that anyone would have on this
question if all answers were deemed correct

* 2.1 Scoring Example

Say I ask for a color on the current Canadian flag. There are
26 entrants -- 20 say "red", 4 say "blue", and 1 each say "gules",
"white", and "white square". After looking up gules I decide it's
the same color as red and should be treated as a duplicate answer;
then the 21 people who said either "red" or "gules" get 21 points
each. The person who said "white" gets a perfect score of 1 point.

"White square" is not a color and blue is not a color on the flag;
the 5 people who gave either of these answers each get the same
penalty score, which is the median of:
- number of entrants = 27
- sqrt(27) = 5.196+, rounded up = 6
- double the highest score = 21 x 2 = 42
or in this case, 27.

* 2.2 More Specific Variants

On some questions it's possible that one entrant will give an answer
that's a more specific variant of an answer given by someone else.
In that case the more specific variant will usually be scored as if
the two answers are different, but the other, less specific variant
will be scored as if they are the same.

In the above example, if I had decided (wrongly) to score gules as a
more specific variant of red, then "red" would still score 21, but
"gules" would now score 1.

However, this rule will NOT apply if the question asks for an answer
"in general terms"; a more specific answer will then at best be treated
the same as the more general one, and may be considered wrong.


* 3. Entries

Entries must be emailed to the address given above. Please do not
quote the questions back to me, and do send only plain text in ASCII
or ISO 8859-1: no HTML, attachments, Micros--t character sets, etc.,
and no Unicode, please. (Entrants who fail to comply will be publicly
chastised in the results posting.)

Your message should preferably consist of just your 10 answers,
numbered from 0 to 9, along with any explanations required. Your
name should be in it somewhere -- a From: line or signature is fine.
(If I don't see both a first and a last name, or an explicit request
for a particular form of your name to be used, then your email address
will be posted in the results).

You can expect an acknowledgement when I read your entry. If this
bounces, it won't be sent again.

* 3.1 Where Leeway is Allowed

In general there is no penalty for errors of spelling, capitalization,
English usage, or other such matters of form, nor for accidentally
sending email in an unfinished state, so long as it's clear enough
what you intended. Sometimes a specific question may imply stricter
rules, though. And if you give an answer that properly refers to a
different thing related to the one you intended, I will normally take
it as written.

Once you intentionally submit an answer, no changes will be allowed,
unless I decide there was a problem with the question. Similarly,
alternate answers within an entry will not be accepted. Only the
first answer that you intentionally submit counts.

* 3.2 Clarifications

Questions are not intended to be hard to understand, but I may fail
in this intent. (For one thing, in many cases clarity could only be
provided by an example which would suggest one or another specific
answer, and I mustn't do that.)

In order to be fair to all entrants, I must insist that requests for
clarification must be emailed to me, NOT POSTED in any newsgroup.
But if you do ask for clarification, I'll probably say that the
question is clear enough as posted. If I do decide to clarify or
change a question, all entrants will be informed.

* 3.3 Supporting Information

It is your option whether or not to provide supporting information
to justify your answers. If you don't, I'll email you to ask for
it if I need to. If you supply it in the form of a URL, if at all
possible it should be a "deep link" to the specific relevant page.
There is no need to supply URLs for obvious, well-known reference
web sites, and there is no point in supplying URLs for pages that
don't actually support your answer.

If you provide any explanatory remarks along with your answers, you
are responsible for making it sufficiently clear that they are not
part of the answers. The particular format doesn't matter as long
as you're clear. In the scoring example above, "white square" was
wrong; "white (in the central square)" would have been taken as a
correct answer with an explanation.


* 4. Interpretation of questions

These are general rules that apply unless a question specifically
states otherwise.

* 4.1 Geography
* 4.1.1 Countries

"Country" means an independent country. Whether or not a place is
considered an independent country is determined by how it is listed
in reference sources.

For purposes of these contests, the Earth is considered to be divid-
ed into disjoint areas each of which is either (1) a country, (2) a
dependency, or (3) without national government. Their boundaries
are interpreted on a de facto basis. Any place with representatives
in a country's legislature is considered a part of that country rather
than a dependency of it.

The European Union is considered as an association of countries, not
a country itself.

Claims that are not enforced, or not generally recognized, don't count.
Places currently fighting a war of secession don't count. Embassies
don't count as special; they may have extraterritorial rights, but
they're still part of the host country (and city).

Countries existing at different historical times are normally
considered the same country if they have the same capital city.

* 4.1.2 States or provinces

Many countries or dependencies are divided into subsidiary political
entities, typically with their own subsidiary governments. At the
first level of division, these entities are most commonly called
states or provinces, but various other names are used; sometimes
varying even within the same country (e.g. to indicate unequal
political status).

Any reference to "states or provinces" in a question refers to
these entities at the first level of division, no matter what they
are called.

* 4.1.3 Distances

Distances between places on the Earth are measured along a great
circle path, and distance involving cities are based on the city
center (downtown).

* 4.2 Entertainment

A "movie" does not include any form of TV broadcast or video release;
it must have been shown in cinemas. "Oscar" and "Academy Award" are
AMPAS trademarks and refer to the awards given by that organization.
"Fiction" includes dramatizations of true stories.

* 4.3 Words and Numbers
* 4.3.1 Different Answers

Some questions specifically ask for a *word*, rather than the thing
that it names; this means that different words with the same meaning
will in general be treated as distinct answers. However, if two or
more inflectional variants, spelling variants, or other closely
related forms are correct answers, they will be treated as equivalent.

Similarly, if the question specifically asks for a name, different
things referred to by the same name will be treated as the same.

* 4.3.2 Permitted Words

The word that you give must be listed (or implied by a listing,
as with inflected forms) in a suitable dictionary. Generally
this means a printed dictionary published recently enough
to show reasonably current usage, or its online equivalent.
Other reasonably authoritative sources may be accepted on a
case-by-case basis. Words listed as obsolete or archaic usage
don't count, and sources that would list those words without
distinguishing them are not acceptable as dictionaries.

* 4.3.3 Permitted Numbers

Where the distinction is important, "number" refers to a specific
mathematical value, whereas "numeral" means a way of writing it.
Thus "4", "IV", and "four" are three different numerals representing
the same number. "Digit" means one of the characters "0", "1", "2",
etc. (These definitions represent one of several conflicting common
usages.)

* 4.3.4 "Contained in"

If a question asks for a word or numeral "contained" or "included"
in a phrase, title, or the like, this does not include substrings or
alternate meanings of words, unless explictly specified. For example,
if "Canada in 1967" is the title of a book, it contains the numeral
1967 and the preposition "in"; but it does not contain the word "an",
the adjective "in", or the numeral 96.

* 4.4 Tense and Time

When a question is worded in the present tense, the correctness of
your answer is determined by the facts at the moment you submit it.
(In a case where, in my judgement, people might reasonably be unaware
of the facts having changed, an out-of-date answer may be accepted as
correct.) Questions worded in the present perfect tense include the
present unless something states or implies otherwise. (For example,
Canada is a country that "has existed", as well as one that "exists".)
Different verbs in a sentence bear their usual tense relationship to
each other.

You are not allowed to change the facts yourself in order to make an
answer correct. For example, if a question asks for material on the
WWW, what you cite must already have existed before the contest was
first posted.


* 5. Judging

As moderator, I will be the sole judge of what answers are correct,
and whether two answers with similar meaning (like red and gules)
are considered the same, different, or more/less specific variants.

I will do my best to be fair on all such issues, but sometimes it is
necessary to be arbitrary. Those who disagree with my rulings are
welcome to complain (or to start a competing contest, or whatever).

I may rescore the contest if I agree that I made a serious error and
it affects the high finishers.


* 6. Results

Results will normally be posted within a few days of the contest
closing. They may be delayed if I'm unexpectedly busy or for
technical reasons. If I feel I need help evaluating one or more
answers, I may make a consultative posting in the newsgroups before
scoring the contest.

In the results posting, all entrants will be listed in order of score,
but high (bad) scores may be omitted. The top few entrants' full
answer slates will be posted. A table of answers and their scores
will be given for each question.


* 7. Fun

This contest is for fun. Please do have fun, and good luck to all.
--
Mark Brader | "The only thing required for the triumph of darkness
Toronto | is for good men not to call Hydro."
msb@xxxxxxx | --Michael Wares

My text in this article is in the public domain.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Rare Entries MSB56: contest begins
    ... the number of entrants ... More Specific Variants ... "Country" means an independent country. ... what you cite must already have existed before the contest was ...
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