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Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 7:53 pm
by KnicksRule
Can GSAC, HFT, and other house wrights be put on the database as well?

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 7:59 pm
by 1992 in spaceflight
KnicksRule wrote:Can GSAC, HFT, and other house wrights be put on the database as well?
Not until their editors clear them to be posted. Putting up this year's questions on the database is asking for trouble.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 8:29 pm
by KnicksRule
Sorry for the confusion, I meant from previous years.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 8:48 pm
by vinteuil
KnicksRule wrote:I meant from previous years.
Notably difficulty-completely-appropriate tournaments HFT 2008 and 2009 are up there...
Sarcasm aside: why these specifically? There is quite a bit up there already.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 11:16 pm
by 1992 in spaceflight
KnicksRule wrote:I meant from previous years.
Ok, cool. Just wanted to make sure that was what you meant, Abhinav.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2013 1:50 am
by sbfromcopley
Is the database for bonus questions going to be expanded? The bonus feature could be super useful if there were more questions in it, I feel like a lot of the times when I search in the bonuses I don't get any results

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 12:37 am
by Corry
The search feature has gotten a lot less effective recently: when I search for something like "James I", it gives me every result in existence with the words "james" and the letter "i" in it, instead of just questions about James I. Was this change intentional?

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 7:26 pm
by RexSueciae
If one uses Quinterest's "study" tool to look up Social Science, it returns the message "Sorry, there are no matching results study." [sic], even though searching typical social science answerlines (e.g. Margaret Mead) brought back plenty of questions, all of which were labelled as Social Science. This only happens when one uses "study" for Social Science--all other categories are fine. Glitch?

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 8:26 am
by The Polebarn Hotel
RexSueciae wrote:If one uses Quinterest's "study" tool to look up Social Science, it returns the message "Sorry, there are no matching results study." [sic], even though searching typical social science answerlines (e.g. Margaret Mead) brought back plenty of questions, all of which were labelled as Social Science. This only happens when one uses "study" for Social Science--all other categories are fine. Glitch?
If you search "mead" on Social Science in the regular database search, it won't work. It's probably just an issue with social science.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2014 6:11 pm
by Chef Curry
The search feature has gotten a lot less effective recently: when I search for something like "James I", it gives me every result in existence with the words "james" and the letter "i" in it, instead of just questions about James I. Was this change intentional?
Great software, I just wanted to say that it has helped me. And I am also coming across sort of the same things with multiple other search queries: when I type in "Mary I" it comes up with questions on the Teutonic Knights and even one on Parkinson's Disease. But otherwise, it is really useful.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2014 11:55 am
by Adventure Temple Trail
Will new packets ever be added to this database?

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2014 2:56 pm
by vinteuil
RyuAqua wrote:Will new packets ever be added to this database?
Rohit, I think I've mentioned that I'm more than happy to help doing such a thing, but you haven't sent me any new stuff to format.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Fri May 30, 2014 7:18 pm
by Robbie Ram
RyuAqua wrote:Will new packets ever be added to this database?
I second Matt's question... I would love to see some additional tournaments / packets added. I hope Rohit (or whoever's in charge of Quinterest these days) will consider getting some help formatting & uploading packets if it's too burdensome to do individually. This is too good of a quizbowl study tool to go stagnant!

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 12:29 pm
by rohitx15
Announcement:

I have some confessions to make. I understand my stark absence from the hsquizbowl scene has caused some speculation as to what is going to happen to Quinterest. In the past few months, my focus on quiz bowl has seemed to have drifted and I do not see it as something that I prioritize in my future. I have just graduated high school and I will be attending UC Berkeley in the Fall, majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), and quiz bowl at Berkeley still seems like an option; however, I do not see it becoming a huge part of my college experience. I understand that Quinterest in a valuable tool to many individuals in the quiz bowl community that is used on a daily basis (over a million hits since launch!). As so, effective immediately, I am actively searching for somebody in the quiz bowl community with some programming experience to take over Quinterest and continue to improve it, add packets/questions, etc. If anybody has any interest in maintaining/improving Quinterest into their own creation, please don't hesitate to email me at [email protected]. I understand that many people don't want to see this project die.

However, if nobody expresses any interest in taking Quinterest off my hands, I will continue to pay the hosting fee and keep the site running in its current state in the future.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2014 6:58 pm
by vinteuil
rohitx15 wrote:Announcement:

I have some confessions to make. I understand my stark absence from the hsquizbowl scene has caused some speculation as to what is going to happen to Quinterest. In the past few months, my focus on quiz bowl has seemed to have drifted and I do not see it as something that I prioritize in my future. I have just graduated high school and I will be attending UC Berkeley in the Fall, majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), and quiz bowl at Berkeley still seems like an option; however, I do not see it becoming a huge part of my college experience. I understand that Quinterest in a valuable tool to many individuals in the quiz bowl community that is used on a daily basis (over a million hits since launch!). As so, effective immediately, I am actively searching for somebody in the quiz bowl community with some programming experience to take over Quinterest and continue to improve it, add packets/questions, etc. If anybody has any interest in maintaining/improving Quinterest into their own creation, please don't hesitate to email me at [email protected]. I understand that many people don't want to see this project die.

However, if nobody expresses any interest in taking Quinterest off my hands, I will continue to pay the hosting fee and keep the sight running in its current state in the future.
I'll do this-I might have to learn some stuff about a few of the things you're using on the website, but that shouldn't be an issue.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2014 11:00 am
by vinteuil
Robbie Ram wrote:
RyuAqua wrote:Will new packets ever be added to this database?
I second Matt's question... I would love to see some additional tournaments / packets added. I hope Rohit (or whoever's in charge of Quinterest these days) will consider getting some help formatting & uploading packets if it's too burdensome to do individually. This is too good of a quizbowl study tool to go stagnant!
OK, so here's what I'm planning on adding, at first (this might take quite a while, but it's the plan!):

PACE NSC 2012-2014 (when that's clear)
all HSAPQ regular season and NASAT sets 2012-2014
ACF Fall 2011, and all ACF sets 2012-2014

Let me know if you'd like to help with formatting/updating!

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2014 11:54 am
by rohitx15
I would like to formally thank Jacob Reed for taking on this project. I firmly believe he can continue to improve and update Quinterest in order to keep it as a valuable study resource for the quiz bowl community. I will continue to pay the hosting fee and will still have access to the site in case of anything going wrong; however, from here on out, Quinterest is mainly under the control and direction of Jacob Reed. Thank you, again.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2014 1:43 pm
by vinteuil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2BNmn8TYdE

Have you ever wanted to use a hastily hacked-together, ugly, slightly tedious webpage to add questions to a quizbowl search engine? Well, now you can! I used the scraps of my old ECHHS Quizbowl "literature quiz" input to put together a front-end for the Quinterest database. If you want there to be more questions on this, PM or email me, and I'll send you the link and the password.

I just put in packet 2 of PACE 2013, and it took me about 7 minutes (partly because copying and pasting from a pdf is a little harder than from word), so this should make it much easier to keep Quinterest updated.

This is tossups-only for now, but I'll add bonuses...sometime.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2014 1:46 pm
by Matt Weiner
vinteuil wrote:I just put in packet 2 of PACE 2013, and it took me about 7 minutes (partly because copying and pasting from a pdf is a little harder than from word)
http://www.pdfonline.com/

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2014 1:48 pm
by vinteuil
Matt Weiner wrote:
vinteuil wrote:I just put in packet 2 of PACE 2013, and it took me about 7 minutes (partly because copying and pasting from a pdf is a little harder than from word)
http://www.pdfonline.com/
Thanks! I'm sure I'll improve my workflow drastically with experience (as tends to happen), and I might figure out some ways to streamline the input procedure.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 12:32 am
by vinteuil
I'm excited to announce that Quinterest now supports finer subcategorization of questions! I've rolled this feature out for the tossups-only search (will be added to bonuses and the soon-to-come combined search), but keep in mind that only one packet (PACE NSC 2013 packet 3) has been subcategorized so far, so there won't be many results until the database is updated, which could take...years. Regardless, all new additions will be subcategorized, so that should ameliorate the problem of updating in the meantime.

Additional tweaks: categories supported now include "Current Events"

[EDIT: Just noting that, even with subcategories, this packet took about 5 minutes. It's quick and easy to contribute!]

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 2:44 am
by rohitx15
I figured it was time Quinterest had a facelift. Well, a new design has been implemented! Meet the new Quinterest.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 8:16 am
by Halved Xenon Stinging
Hey Jacob is there any chance that you could add in all the NHBB questions as well, not just the ones from nationals?

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 12:55 pm
by vinteuil
The plan is, eventually, to have all good quizbowl questions on Quinterest. So, yes, but it might take a while.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 6:09 pm
by John Ketzkorn
Is there any chance you can make the color scheme simpler? The old color scheme was fine, but with this one I think there are too many colors and it makes the text hard to read + it hurts the eyes.

User was reminded to enable a signature --Mgmt.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 6:23 pm
by vinteuil
More small updates: the list of tournaments on the right is now automatically generated, and it changes based on the difficulty level selected! You'll also notice some new additions to the list!

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 12:53 am
by vinteuil
I've now fully updated bonus search, and introduced a new combined bonus/tossup search (the new default). I'm going to go ahead and call all of this "Version 2.0".

That should be it for updates for now, I think. Thanks to Matt Jackson for encouraging the addition of many of these new features, and to Stephen Eltinge for suggesting a very simple, easy-to-implement fix for adding subcategories.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 12:59 am
by vinteuil
TRIPLE POST
Joker wrote:Is there any chance you can make the color scheme simpler? The old color scheme was fine, but with this one I think there are too many colors and it makes the text hard to read + it hurts the eyes.

User was reminded to enable a signature --Mgmt.
Yeah, the new colors bother me a bit too. I'll think about changing them if I do a major aesthetic revamp, but Rohit also might want to explain his choices here? or tweak them further?

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 12:44 pm
by rohitx15
Joker wrote:Is there any chance you can make the color scheme simpler? The old color scheme was fine, but with this one I think there are too many colors and it makes the text hard to read + it hurts the eyes.

User was reminded to enable a signature --Mgmt.
I agree. The main purpose of the site is readability, so I decided to go with a much more modern and flat look and took away a lot of the unnecessary colors. Check it out now.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 3:14 pm
by Corry
rohitx15 wrote:
Joker wrote:Is there any chance you can make the color scheme simpler? The old color scheme was fine, but with this one I think there are too many colors and it makes the text hard to read + it hurts the eyes.

User was reminded to enable a signature --Mgmt.
I agree. The main purpose of the site is readability, so I decided to go with a much more modern and flat look and took away a lot of the unnecessary colors. Check it out now.
For what it's worth, black/dark gray text usually seems to work best. Otherwise, you end up with these problems when using Ctrl+F:

Image

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 3:59 pm
by rohitx15
Corry wrote:
rohitx15 wrote:
Joker wrote:Is there any chance you can make the color scheme simpler? The old color scheme was fine, but with this one I think there are too many colors and it makes the text hard to read + it hurts the eyes.

User was reminded to enable a signature --Mgmt.
I agree. The main purpose of the site is readability, so I decided to go with a much more modern and flat look and took away a lot of the unnecessary colors. Check it out now.
For what it's worth, black/dark gray text usually seems to work best. Otherwise, you end up with these problems when using Ctrl+F:

Image
That's not the design I had uploaded. The design I had originally uploaded is now online. It seems that the design keep reverting whenever Jacob and I upload files (we must be altering different files). However, it is fixed now. Hopefully, it doesn't revert back again.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 4:08 pm
by Halved Xenon Stinging
vinteuil wrote:More small updates: the list of tournaments on the right is now automatically generated, and it changes based on the difficulty level selected! You'll also notice some new additions to the list!
what do you mean by "automatically generated"?

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 4:16 pm
by vinteuil
Shangdevin wrote:
vinteuil wrote:More small updates: the list of tournaments on the right is now automatically generated, and it changes based on the difficulty level selected! You'll also notice some new additions to the list!
what do you mean by "automatically generated"?
Previously, the list of tournaments was hard-coded into the HTML; now the page uses AJAX to retrieve all of the tournaments that have at least 1 question in the database that meets the difficulty criterion and feeds that list into the menu.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 1:22 pm
by Santa Claus
I tend to use interface-friendly mode, since default Quinterest doesn't work well on half a screen, since the menus get compressed. It hasn't been working recently though; it's been giving a 404 error every time I try to search anything.

Image

Also, the color scheme when I search things has stayed with the really bright colors; I'll try clearing my cache but I'm just letting you guys know that it still is inconsistent.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 2:41 pm
by vinteuil
Santa Claus wrote:I tend to use interface-friendly mode, since default Quinterest doesn't work well on half a screen, since the menus get compressed. It hasn't been working recently though; it's been giving a 404 error every time I try to search anything.

Image

Also, the color scheme when I search things has stayed with the really bright colors; I'll try clearing my cache but I'm just letting you guys know that it still is inconsistent.
I'll fix interface mode soon; sorry about that!

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 11:47 pm
by Ciorwrong
I can't get the Study feature to work with bonuses. I input that I want 5 bonuses of any high school difficulty, and I get 5 high school tossups instead.

Thank you for working on this great database!

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 2:06 am
by vinteuil
Pendit76 wrote:I can't get the Study feature to work with bonuses. I input that I want 5 bonuses of any high school difficulty, and I get 5 high school tossups instead.

Thank you for working on this great database!
I'll be adding this along with the interface mode fix sometime later this week.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 5:07 pm
by Corry
vinteuil wrote:
Pendit76 wrote:I can't get the Study feature to work with bonuses. I input that I want 5 bonuses of any high school difficulty, and I get 5 high school tossups instead.

Thank you for working on this great database!
I'll be adding this along with the interface mode fix sometime later this week.
It seems like Interface mode is still broken right now.

On a more positive note, I'd like to thank you for the work you've been doing. I've been using quinterest pretty frequently in the last few days, and it's really refreshing to see new questions finally show up throughout the database.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 7:08 pm
by vinteuil
Whoops, I forgot about all of this! Sorry—this will happen, this week.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:34 pm
by vinteuil
Corry wrote: It seems like Interface mode is still broken right now.
Fixed!

EDIT: So is study mode. Thanks for your patience everyone!

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:53 pm
by vinteuil
An update on updates:

Sets are being added to Quinterest (especially tossups) at a pretty good pace, as I hope people have noticed! You basically have Nicholas Karas to thank for this—he's done an absolutely enormous amount of work, and I at least am extremely grateful for it.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:55 pm
by kmattix
Would it also be possible to add tags or categories for each question in order to help sort through mixed category questions?

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 9:29 pm
by vinteuil
kmattix wrote:Would it also be possible to add tags or categories for each question in order to help sort through mixed category questions?
There currently is no category for "mixed" (we're just putting that kind of thing under Trash)—I'm a bit confused by your question.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 11:36 pm
by Santa Claus
vinteuil wrote:
Corry wrote: It seems like Interface mode is still broken right now.
Fixed!

EDIT: So is study mode. Thanks for your patience everyone!
Thanks a lot for fixing this; the feature really makes the database that much more useful.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 12:35 am
by vinteuil
Julian Fuchs has contributed a major javascript renovation for the main page. Progress on adding questions continues (more slowly due to the school thing), again largely thanks to Nicholas Karas.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2014 5:08 am
by rajk
Is Quinterest open source? I can't find anything about that on the site.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 5:42 pm
by Aaron's Rod
Quinterest has been acting weirdly for me on Chrome for the past few days; search terms are just not returning any results whatsoever and the "Tournament" drop-down isn't showing any tournaments, just "all." It works in interface mode and on other browsers I tried. I updated Chrome and still no dice.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 6:05 pm
by Lefty734
Aaron's Rod wrote:Quinterest has been acting weirdly for me on Chrome for the past few days; search terms are just not returning any results whatsoever and the "Tournament" drop-down isn't showing any tournaments, just "all." It works in interface mode and on other browsers I tried. I updated Chrome and still no dice.
Same for me.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2014 7:02 pm
by vinteuil
I'll take a look at the new JS (interface mode functions rather differently from the main page right now) and see if I can figure it out. I still can't get it to break in Chrome on my computer or a few other computers I've tried at the library etc.

Re: Quinterest: Hassle-free Database Search

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2014 6:06 pm
by Aaron's Rod
For whatever reason, it's working for me now.