What defines a "hose?"

[at your pleasure]

Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what a "hose" is. I think I have figured out what a "pyramidal" question is.

It's a question that screws over someone with knowledge. A recent example is this question from the Ilinois state series(EDIT:Actually masonics):

One of the 50 U.S. states was purchased in an agreement that was not popularly supported at the time.In fact, the agreement was widely referred to as Seward’s Folly. *What is the capital city of this “controversial” state?

In this case, someone could reasonably expect that the question is asking for Alaska before the asterix, but they would be negged because the question changes from seeming to look for Alaska(since the first pronoun is state) to looking for Alaska's capital. Hence, someone that knows enough about Alaska to recognize Seward's folly would probably lose the question to the team that's slow enough not to buzz off Seward's folly or does not know enough about U.S. History to know about Seward's folly.

[NickD]

One of the 50 U.S. states was purchased in an agreement that was not popularly supported at the time.In fact, the agreement was widely referred to as Seward’s Folly. *What is the capital city of this “controversial” state?

So, this question could still ask for the capital city and would not be a hose if Seward's Folly were the last thing mentioned?

[at your pleasure]

One of the 50 U.S. states was purchased in an agreement that was not popularly supported at the time.In fact, the agreement was widely referred to as Seward’s Folly. *What is the capital city of this “controversial” state?

So, this question could still ask for the capital city and would not be a hose if Seward's Folly were the last thing mentioned?

It'd be better just to make it a question on Alaska(and rewrite it with at least a half-dozen buzzable clues and no fluff so it's actually a good question) with the giveaway "name this state with capital at Anchorage". But I guess you could make Seward's folly the last thing mentioned and it would not be a hose if the question clearly states what it's looking for.

[Irreligion in Bangladesh]

One of the 50 U.S. states was purchased in an agreement that was not popularly supported at the time.In fact, the agreement was widely referred to as Seward’s Folly. *What is the capital city of this “controversial” state?

So, this question could still ask for the capital city and would not be a hose if Seward's Folly were the last thing mentioned?

Doug beat me to it, but:

It's a hose because the wording leads you to think the answer's a state at the start. One proper version might be:

What city is the capital of the state controversially purchased in an act known as Seward's Folly?

That gets rid of the hose quality. As Doug said, a better question would probably just ask for the state - what does Juneau actually have to do with Seward's Folly (apart from the obvious) anyway? A much better question, of course, would include more than just one clue - and now we get into pyramidality.

[dxdtdemon]

One of the 50 U.S. states was purchased in an agreement that was not popularly supported at the time.In fact, the agreement was widely referred to as Seward’s Folly. *What is the capital city of this “controversial” state?

So, this question could still ask for the capital city and would not be a hose if Seward's Folly were the last thing mentioned?

It'd be better just to make it a question on Alaska(and rewrite it with at least a half-dozen buzzable clues and no fluff so it's actually a good question) with the giveaway "name this state with capital at Anchorage". But I guess you could make Seward's folly the last thing mentioned and it would not be a hose if the question clearly states what it's looking for.

Well, that would also be a hose unless Alaska has recently moved its capital.

[Ben Dillon]

The question is a hose from the get-go because it says "one of the 50 U.S. states", which constitutes a clear pronoun antecedent that implies the answer will be a state. So reordering the clues so that Seward's Folly is last does little to help. Any team that was in need of power points to win the game wouldn't be waiting for the end too, so they would be hosed even worse.

[Geringer]

I'm editing a set produced by first-time question writers right now, so I have to explain this a lot. Basically, questions use the word "this" to denote what they're looking for. If I say "This artist painted The Difficult Crossing" in the first line, then there is only one correct answer, Rene Magritte. However, if the question ended with the line, "Name this painting, a Magritte work in which a man has an apple in front of his face." That second instance of "this" refers to something entirely different, The Son of Man. Basically, one of the major forms "hoses" take is referring to two related answers as "this."

There's also other kinds of hoses in which wrong facts at the beginning lead people into buzzing in with wrong answers. If I wrote a question in which I attributed the work The Treachery of Images to the artist Salvador Dali, and in the first clue I say "This artist painted The Treachery of Images," if someone buzzes in with Rene Magritte, they'd be getting "hosed" as the term goes, because their knowledge led them to buzz in with something that the question didn't call for.

[Dan-Don]

However, if the question ended with the line, "Name this painting, a Magritte work in which a man has an apple in front of his face." That second instance of "this" refers to something entirely different, The Son of Man. Basically, one of the major forms "hoses" take is referring to two related answers as "this."

Actually, the bigger problem is that the Son of Man isn't the only Magritte work in which a man has an apple in front of his face.

[Geringer]

However, if the question ended with the line, "Name this painting, a Magritte work in which a man has an apple in front of his face." That second instance of "this" refers to something entirely different, The Son of Man. Basically, one of the major forms "hoses" take is referring to two related answers as "this."

Actually, the bigger problem is that the Son of Man isn't the only Magritte work in which a man has an apple in front of his face.

Haha, yeah. Just trying to simplify a point, you know.