Last updated: 25 September 2025
I would think some or all of the below “guidelines” pertain to all types of team efforts, in sports as well, at least I have never seen members of any sports team behave the way I sometimes see quiznight participants behave.
I don’t play any team sports, but I CAN compare it to another hobby of mine: bridge – where it is very bad form to keep mentioning mistakes made once that hand has been played, and perhaps discussed immediately afterwards, and that is the end of that.
So, specifically about trivia, or quiznight attendance (and yes, I am deliberately not mentioning cheating at all, though I know it happens at every event – very uncool but that is an issue for the quizmaster – not me):
- It is a team effort. That is why the groups participating are called TEAMS.
- The members within the team are not in competition with each other. (I thought that was obvious, but apparently not).
- Quiznight in Alte Turnhalle, which is the only one I attend with any kind of regularity nowadays, like many pub quizzes in Berlin, takes place in English and German and is attended by a multinational audience. Therefor, when filling in the answer sheet, grammar and spelling are not important. If you happen to be a native speaker of one of those two langauages – good for you – but it does not put you in a position of authority or superiority to have English or German as your monther tongue.
- It is supposed to be a pleasant and perhaps even fun way to spend an evening. Questions are read, and the answers agreed on, and if there is disagreement, the majority has it.
- It is not a game for people who need everything to be about them and them only.
- Nor is it for people who are only happy if they can feel offended at regular intervals, and who will store in their mind every little what they see as injustice or offense or whatever, for any length of time, let alone for life.
- There is no time to treat anybody as individual VIPs, so pay attention and try to keep up.
- Mistakes of all kinds are made, one way or the other, all the time, during almost every round. For example when an incorrect answer is recorded while one or more team members had the right answer. Each mistake is always – without fail – owned up to (but in a more general way than by profusely apologising directly to the person or persons who had been “wronged”) there and then, as soon as the correct answer is read out. Period. End of.
- By the same token, eternal praise is not lavished on the person or persons who provided the filled-in, correct answer.
- It is, or used to be till now :-), an unwritten rule that once a round is over and done and dusted, that is IT. To keep whining about it afterwards is, quite frankly, pathetic.
- If you are arrogant enough to feel superior to others, as well as thinking that you are the only one who always “takes the highroad” this kind of activity is also not for you.
- You don’t have to be a born team player on a cellular level (I know I am certainly not) but grasping all of the above and behaving accordingly is probably more important than to be a general-knowledge or trivia whizz. If not – take up golf* or solitaire.
*) Apologies – far be it from me to encourage people to take up THE most environmentally detrimental “sport”, but it is the most individualistic and “snowflake”-suited “sport” I can think of right now.