What happened to quizbowldb.com?!

[Longstride]

I haven't used Quizbowldb.com in a while, so when I hopped back on to it, I was noticeably unimpressed. First, the layout change gives the site a decidedly older and less-sophisticated feel from it's previous layout. The reader function, as I started to use it, seemed to have many bugs to it - and I think this is uniquely new since I had never noticed them before. As it starts scrolling through questions, it will randomly pop the answer and skip four lines and keep scrolling through, it will randomly skip a question two lines in and will often glitch. The search algorothim seems to be atrocious, which is strange because I recall it being fairly accurate previously (though perhaps I am misremembering.) A search for questions on Jose Seramago turns up San Jose, Joseph II of Austria, among other tangents.

My question is - what happened to take a really well-coded site into a collection of bugs? Was it just always flawed and I didn't notice it, or has anyone else noticed revisions have negatively affected the site's functionality?

[Sniper, No Sniping!]

I've felt for a while that QBDB has been not as great as a resource as it used to be for those very reasons you mentioned. I too have encountered several issues you pointed out (namely how messed up the search function is), along with how I can't change what pace the reader will operate at. I personally preferred back when it was the Torrey Pines database (I'll take antiquated quiz bowl resources, for $200, Alex), and wish it didn't change, but so it goes. I think Sharad should be commended for his hard work on this project as it really has been useful for when it is fully functional.

Even though it's mainly college-centric, I recommend Jerry Vinokurov's Database if you're trying to search topics. The packets may be a bit older (which is fine by me), and some may be considerably harder than others (there aren't any high school packets, however there are editions of ACF Fall), but it's a good thing to check out nonetheless.

[sharadmv]

Hi guys,

I've been a bit swamped this semester with schoolwork and I haven't had time to update the site. I will make sure it will stay running in its current version though and make sure it stays online.

If anyone would like to take over and try updating the site and fixing bugs, that would be amazing and just message me and I can get you started.