ChatSpike Trivia FAQ

  • How do i start a round of trivia?

    To start a round of trivia simply give the following command on channel: !trivia start 20
    This will start a round of 20 questions. You may have between 5 and 200 questions in a round.

  • How do i stop the trivia?

    To stop the trivia enter the following command on channel: !trivia stop

  • There was an insane round without my answer, but i know my answer was correct! You owe me a point!

    Insane rounds are not always complete, we have put in what we can think of at the time of writing the questions, and if what you have answered with isnt there, tough... pester someone to add it, nicely, and we will.

  • You spelt color wrong in your conundrums!

    The owner of this channel is British, and the spelling of most questions is English. Therefore american spellings won't work.

  • How does the bot handle differences in the way people type numbers and currency?

    Because people can type their numbers differently depending upon habit and how other trivia bots work, our bot is designed to be pretty clever (compared to other bots) at translating number formats. Our bot will automatically perform the following translations, either in answers for questions, or in any text you type, to attempt to match your answer to the actual answer more often:

    • 'two thousand one hundred and fifty four' becomes '2154'
    • 'twenty-eight' becomes '28'
    • 'five' becomes '5'
    • 'zero' becomes '0'
    • 'one million dollars' becomes '$1000000'
    • '$1,000,000' becomes '$1000000'
    • '1,000' becomes '1000'
    • '1000 dollars' becomes '$1000'
    • '1,000 dollars' also becomes '$1000'
    • '1,000 armadillos' becomes '1000 armadillos' (and any other line which starts with a number in this manner)

    Please note that UK Pounds are not translated in the same way as US Dollars, because to do so would confuse the bot and players when answering a question relating to pounds as in weight (e.g. lbs).

  • Where can i find my score?

    You can find scores and statistics here.

  • How do i create a team?

    You can create a team in the following way: !trivia create myteamname.
    When you create a team you automatically join it. Membership of teams is permenant, the bot will remember your team whenever you rejoin the channel.

  • How do i join a team?

    You can join team in the following way: !trivia join myteamname.
    Memership of trams is permenant, the bot will remember your team whenever you rejoin the channel.

  • How do i skip a question i don't like?

    You cant, its unfair on other players. You have to wait and be patient!

  • How do i get a personal hint by private message?

    You cant do this either. You must wait, and public hints are given every 20 seconds. There are two hints per question.

  • How does scoring work?

    For a normal question, 4 points are awarded if you answer it before the first hint, 2 points are awarded if you answer it between the two hints and 1 point is awarded for answering after the second hint. The same number of points, for a normal question, are also given to any team you are currently a member of. For insane rounds There is a fixed score of one point per answer.

  • What is an insane round?

    An insane round is a different type of question which can have multiple answers. You are given 60 seconds in which to answer with as many possible answers as you can, each answer giving you an extra point. Once the time is up or all answers are found, the bot will continue to the next question.

  • How many questions does this trivia have?

    At the time of writing this page, the trivia bot knows approximately 88,000 questions.

  • What does this trivia bot have that all the others dont?

    This trivia bot features:

    • A Powerful mysql backend
    • As many teams per game as you like (not limited to 2, or 4)
    • Streaks, personal best streaks, high scores, question ownership and more
    • Web based statistics
    • Insane rounds
    • Very clever intelligent translation of answers
    • Large question database that can be rapidly and easily maintained
    • Ability to disable or enable categories
    • Ability to pick number of questions in a round
    • Multiple hints (dynamically generated or customisable)
    • Ability for players to submit queustions to a moderation queue
    • Ability to name teams
    • Trivia program remembers the last person to answer each question and the time it was answered in


  • What program do you use to run this trivia?

    We run a proprietary system powered by Botnix, which is a portable IRC bot. The Botnix bot is running a module which talks to an Apache Webserver running some PHP scripts which communicate with a mysql database.

  • Can i get a copy of this trivia bot?

    You can download a copy of the bot, but you cannot download the trivia module we use. Simpler trivia scripts are available for this bot which do roughly the same things but cannot cope with such a large number of questions, or publish their statistics to the web.

  • What do i do if i find an incorrect or inaccurate trivia question?

    You should speak to a channel operator (one of the users at the top of the list with an @ symbol before their nickname)

  • Can i add my own questions?

    Yes. Go to the statistics page, here, scroll to the bottom and enter the details for the question.