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Today I want to share a few things about the Daily Questions that are emailed to the VPS membership on a daily basis. The VPS Daily Question seems to be one of the more popular things that interest members of the Vatican Philatelic Society on the VPS website. Roughly two-thirds of the VPS membership have registered to have access to the VPS website. (Please tell the other third to register! They are missing out on a really good membership benefit!) Our statistics show about 88% of the website registered members receive the daily email and about 41% of the email recipients answer the Daily Question almost every day. Some members answer the Daily Question every day, some answer several questions every couple of days, and some answer on an occasional basis. Some email recipients never seem to answer the Daily Question and we presume they just read it, or simply ignore it. At the bottom of the question-answer screen the VPS members will see sort of a scoring message such as: “So far, we count that you have answered 188 out of 257 questions correctly”. Surprise!! The scoring calculation is a bit “flakey” and is not an exact calculation. Basically, the computer system tries to count the number of questions answered and track the number of questions answered correctly. Sounds simple, right? Well, it’s simple until one considers all of the conditions under which computer users leave and come back to the same question/answer screen. It’s always interesting to try to figure out exactly the number of ways users can possibly, sometimes with great creativity, respond to the design of a computer screen. I’m convinced that is a concept, probably developed by the computer gods, as a way to keep web developers from sleeping at night! Ok, I’ll also admit that the scoring calculation is a bit “flakey” and it is not an exact calculation. In looking at some of the scores, one can quickly guess that a few members seem to be answering questions multiple times, probably until they get the right answer! Additionally, there have been a few question/answer corrections made and individual member scores have not been adjusted for our mistakes. So, the score results in being no more than a self-trend calculation and there is an admitted lack of exact precision. VPS members should not put too much weight into the score exactness, but it does give some sort of self-trend score value. Sorry, there are no prizes to be awarded based on score calculations and certainly no grand prize to be awarded. I am considering doing a bit of programming to make the score calculation a bit more precise. However, restarting score calculations will require a reset of all scores back to zero and this might upset a few VPS members. I asked someone about this, and they explained, while a few people might get upset about a score reset, most will understand. Anyone having extremely strong feelings about a Daily Question score reset should contact me. I don’t know how soon re-programming the score will take place. It’s on the list! Another facet of the Daily Questions is the continual development of new questions. Yes, we are in the continual development of new questions. Try as we may, we don’t have all of the questions, or even all the answers to the questions. That is why a new link has been added on the Vatican Philatelic Society website Members page. Using the link found on the VPS Member page, you as a VPS Members can submit your own Daily Questions. Surely there is something you know about the subjects on your Vatican stamps that some of you VPS member cohorts might not know. Give it a whirl and submit your first question! We will do the editing! Should you really, really not be able to think of a daily question off the top of your head there are resources to help you. One great place to find information about Vatican stamps is from the VPS library of Vatican Notes publications that are available on the VPS website. On the VPS website Member page, there is a search box page to help you locate relevant articles to almost any aspect of Vatican stamp collecting. Just key a search word into the search box, then press the search button. The system will search the VPS website and display links to Vatican Notes articles found that are related to the search word entered. After reading Vatican Notes articles, coming up with one or more Daily Questions that can be shared with other VPS members should be relatively easy. Research like this can be quickly done and it makes you look like such an expert! I hope this short article provides an insight into the Daily Question scoring and encourages all VPS members to actively participate in new question development. I find enjoyment in looking at album pages of my Vatican stamp collection and thinking about subjects on which to develop a Daily Question. Doing the internet research, developing the question, and seeing my work come out in a daily email is always fun. However, the biggest rewards are the responses I get from other members: sometimes good, sometimes a bit challenging, but that’s ok. So, I’ll close by thanking anyone who has sent me emails. You teach me new things every day! Finally, I hope that every VPS member sends multiple questions to the Daily Question collection and has as much fun with it as I do. |
