The Pointer UW-Stevens Point Student Newspaper
274 teams competed in the World’s Largest Trivia Contest Oct. 23-25 which ran exclusively in the online format, this year dubbed as the “Experiment in Trivia,” after being postponed in April due to COVID-19.
Hosted by WWSP-90FM, one of the leading college radio stations in the country, the World’s Largest Trivia Contest attracted participants from all over the world to the Stevens Point area to participate in this 54 hour contest of wit.
This time, teams gathered together on their own, submitting their answers online instead of calling them into the phone banking team as it had been done in the past.
According to Keegan West, Program Director of 90FM, there were limitations due to the nature of the digital format. The main challenge that arose came from the submitted answers being case-sensitive.
To address these concerns, the complaint line became an essential place where teams could call in and debate with Jim Oliva, the writer of the contest for the last 52 years. It was there where they could argue to get credit for their team’s response.
Chaos is considered one of the defining attributes of this contest, and this year was no different. A group of hackers attempted to steal answers from the website, but fortunately, none of the answers they sought were stored online.
West said, “Our website got hacked into…They basically culminated a bunch of fake accounts, and then they would be able to analyze everyone else’s answers,” which the hackers then would attempt to submit as their own.
Photo Courtesy of Keegan West at LinkedIn.
This was discovered quickly, and although the site crashed and the contest was put on hold for an hour, “Experiment in Trivia” prevailed, fixing the issue and resuming the contest.
Apart from overcoming these challenges, when asked about some areas where “Experiment in Trivia” was successful, West said, “The main positive feedback that we got was not really on how we ran the contest, but just the teams loving having something to do.”
“Experiment in Trivia” sought to offer people their trivia fix within the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the end, “Experiment in Trivia” was just that, an experiment.
Looking forward, 90FM is hoping to run “Raid of Trivia 51”, the normal contest, in April 2021 with all of the usual fixings: 54 hours of straight trivia, phone banks, and all of the regular chaos associated with the World’s Largest Trivia Contest. As with everything during this pandemic, it will be dependent on the state guidelines, but Keegan West and the rest of 90FM remain optimistic.
For more information on WWSP-90FM, go to 90fm.org, and for more information on future trivia, go to 90fmtrivia.org.
Kai Schmitt
Reporter
kschm043@uwsp.edu
