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Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 11:33 am
by jonah
Did anyone else recently get an email from a company by that name that started with "Dear Educator, This message is to announce a scholarship program for the 2009-2010 school year. Quiz Bowl Prep will be awarding up to ten $250 scholarships to graduating seniors" and featured a whole bunch of awful questions?
If so, do you know how they got their list of email addresses? I've never heard of this company, their website is unenlightening (and with private WHOIS information), their questions are terrible, and the email appears to violate the CAN-SPAM act (by being a commercial email that doesn't include an unsubscribe mechanism).
I can post the whole message if people want. Anyway, what's the deal with this?
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 3:46 pm
by Stained Diviner
I got the message too. After looking around on their website, their names are Dan and Gregg, they claim to have a lot of teaching experience, their mailing address is a PO Box in Cairo Ohio, and their phone number is 567-712-0676. I still don't know who they are.
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 4:15 pm
by Dresden_The_BIG_JERK
The website looks legit-ish? Who knows the quality of their work, but it seems genuine atleast.
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 4:23 pm
by jonah
Dresden The Moderator wrote:The website looks legit-ish...it seems genuine atleast.
Oh, yeah, I don't think it's a scam or anything like that. But I do think it's scummy to scrape the IHSSBCA website (which I'm guessing is what they did; in any event, they clearly did something similar) for email addresses and then mass-email them to sell a commercial product, especially when it's against the law to do so the way they did. The fact that their questions suck (see below) doesn't help either.
Dresden The Moderator wrote: Who knows the quality of their work
I do:
They wrote:1. Name the Mexican Revolutionary General who, in 1916, led an attack on
the 13th Calvary Regiment in Columbus, New Mexico.
Pancho Villa
2. What is the term for organic molecules, such as DNA and RNA, found in
the nuclei of cells?
Nucleic Acids
3. What agreement between pro-slavery and anti-slavery states helped pave
the way for Maine to become a state in 1820?
Missouri Compromise
4. Maya Ying Lin, a student from Yale, won a design contest for this
Washington D.C. monument in 1981.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
5. In degrees, give the sum of the interior angles of a hexagon.
720°
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:18 pm
by dxdtdemon
That is one of the correct area codes for a phone number in Cairo, Ohio.
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 6:07 pm
by Stained Diviner
How many area codes does Cairo, Ohio have?
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 8:38 pm
by jrbarry
I got the email at my school address. I never give my school address for quiz bowl purposes. I can only assume the two guys have collected as many quiz bowl contact names as possible and looked up our email addresses on websites. I know some Ohio coaches, but I have never heard of these guys. Their products do not look promising for teaching players information, imo.
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 11:47 pm
by Nine-Tenths Ideas
jonah wrote:$250 scholarships
Well, I can stop saving for college now.
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 12:06 am
by ... and the chaos of Mexican modernity
jonah wrote:Quiz Bowl Prep will be awarding up to ten $250,000,000 scholarships
Fixed, and now I bet anyone would play these questions for that much.
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 1:27 am
by dxdtdemon
Shcool wrote:How many area codes does Cairo, Ohio have?
Northwestern Ohio used to all be in the 419 area code, but instead of splitting it up, they just gave newer people 567 numbers. This is a really small village that just has a bar, a gas station, and a grain elevator, and depends on other towns for services for the most part. I think they are in the Lima school district, but no school in Lima is really that known for quizbowl, however there was one NAQT tournament for local teams only around there last year.
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 8:39 pm
by rjaguar3
Just checked my e-mail and somehow I got a message from Quiz Bowl Prep as well.
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 12:41 pm
by Jesus vs. Dragons
Hmmm. Did anyone think of the possibility of a Fred Morlan led sabotage? Angered after VCU protected their wireless internet and infuriated by the fact that he didn't think to ask someone for a password, he has begun to release everyone's e-mail address to an amateur writing company. But the joke is on you Mr. Morlan! I am onto your ploy, and now that is has been uncovered we will no longer stand by and simply take this lying down!! We shall revolt! lol
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:06 pm
by cvdwightw
TheLessFamousEthan wrote:Hmmm. Did anyone think of the possibility of a Fred Morlan led sabotage? Angered after VCU protected their wireless internet and infuriated by the fact that he didn't think to ask someone for a password, he has begun to release everyone's e-mail address to an amateur writing company. But the joke is on you Mr. Morlan! I am onto your ploy, and now that is has been uncovered we will no longer stand by and simply take this lying down!! We shall revolt! lol
Oh dear...the squirrels have blown a giant hole in the fabric of causality.
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 9:41 pm
by AKKOLADE
I'm not even the chief admin any more!
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 1:32 am
by Auks Ran Ova
TheLessFamousEthan wrote:lol
thank you for adding this I had not realized you were joking
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 2:09 am
by Jesus vs. Dragons
Ukonvasara wrote:TheLessFamousEthan wrote:lol
thank you for adding this I had not realized you were joking
I actually didn't mean to add it, and when I looked at it I realized how idiotic it looked. Thanks for pointing it out...
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am
by jonah
I inquired as to where they got my email address and was informed thusly:
Your email address must be listed somewhere that is related to quiz bowls that we discovered as we were researching. We were only sending out emails to people that we thought may be interested in quiz bowl like activities. Let me know if you'd like to be taken off of our list.
Have a good day!
Greg, Quiz Bowl Prep
Peeved (even though I knew that was precisely what happened), I responded:
I am indeed interested in quizbowl, but only good quizbowl (as defined at
http://www.doc-ent.com/qbwiki/index.php ... d_quizbowl and in particular, featuring pyramidal questions), with which your questions are inconsistent.
Also, you should know that under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (15 USC 7701 et seq) it is illegal for you to send commercial email to people with whom you have no prior business relationship without including your physical address, an unsubscribe feature, and an explicit statement that the message is commercial in nature, as detailed in 7704-a-5-A of the CAN-SPAM Act (available at
http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/15C103.txt).
Please remove me from your mailing list and take under consideration the legal implications of the bulk mail you send out in the future. You may also wish to consider the ethical implications of scraping email addresses from websites; it is hardly a socially acceptable form of solicitation.
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 11:59 pm
by Auks Ran Ova
TheLessFamousEthan wrote:Ukonvasara wrote:TheLessFamousEthan wrote:lol
thank you for adding this I had not realized you were joking
I actually didn't mean to add it, and when I looked at it I realized how idiotic it looked. Thanks for pointing it out...
Don't be sad! Together we can make you an Awesome Poster (tm)!
Re: Quiz Bowl Prep
Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:08 am
by Jesus vs. Dragons
Ukonvasara wrote:TheLessFamousEthan wrote:Ukonvasara wrote:TheLessFamousEthan wrote:lol
thank you for adding this I had not realized you were joking
I actually didn't mean to add it, and when I looked at it I realized how idiotic it looked. Thanks for pointing it out...
Don't be sad! Together we can make you an Awesome Poster (tm)!
So I have hope after all! The day is saved!