Hi Stu,
I hope you don't mind me listing something I think is restrictive in some pools. have seen quite a few pools that feature a letter of alphabet question. The problem with those IMO is it restricts your players from entering pools early unless they know they will be around to change their pick when the teams are announced. On a few occasions I've answered a number of questions and come to ' what will be the initial of the first/last player booked or first goalscorer' in a soccer game that takes place hours later and just left that pool alone if I know there is a chance I won't be around in the hour or so before the game to check the teams. it just gives away such a big advantage to players that are able to select near kick off when they know the line ups.
I wondered if you might get more entries in some pools if those questions were not included.
Cheers
Of course I don't mind you giving your feedback! All ideas and feedback are very welcome, especially from someone like yourself with a ton of experience in the industry. Thanks for taking the time to make some helpful comments.
As regards the issue you raised, we've been discussing it since you raised the point. One counter-argument would be that this applies to almost all questions, not just the letter of surname questions. It is
always going to be advantageous to enter a pool (or edit your answers) just before the pool closes. And there is not much we can do about this.
Of course there are certain question types that last minute editing is especially beneficial for, and the particular question type you mention is one of them - editing your answer after the teams have been confirmed allows you to fine-tune your selection process.
We need to strike a balance with this though. Whilst we don't want to put people off entering pools if they know they are not going to be able to edit answers before kick-off, we do still want to offer a wide variety of question types. And part of the fun of this particular question type is that it can lead to a unique sweat experience - for example you find yourself cheering for anyone with a surname starting with A, B, C, D or E to get booked. This is the sort of thing that makes our site fun/different... because users can find themselves sweating unusual things whilst watching sport.
We will continue to discuss this issue though, and I will let you know what our further thoughts are.
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