As part of our column InquiZDition, we chatted with a Ukrainian quizzer, setter and host of the Knowledge. Facts. Ladder quiz.
There are countless quizzes, leagues, competitions and whatnots in the vast Internet space, but hardly any competition can compare to KFL. By the end of this text, you will find out everything you need to take a step forward in your quizzing career. Man of the hour is Vadym Bondar, Ukrainian quizzer and setter, host of the Knowledge. Facts. Ladder. quiz league.
Thank you very much for agreeing to this interview.
Q: While you are a big name in the world's quizzing community, part of our audience are mostly local and regional quizzers, so can you tell them a bit about yourself?
A: Hello everyone, my name is Vadym Bondar and I’m a 30-years-old question setter from Kharkiv, Ukraine. “NBA fan, Civilization VI nerd, bad quizzer and hater” is my epitaph. For several years I've made a living by writing bad questions without even putting my best foot forward.
Q: You run the Knowledge. Facts. Ladder league – can you tell us a bit more about the competition? How does it work?
A: The core gameplay for this league is pretty similar to LearnedLeague or the non-working 2020quiz: every weekday the one receives 15 questions to play in Google form, but we don’t play 1 vs 1, so it’s more like FFA competition within divisions in which players are placed in. Winners of the weeks + players with the best rating after four weeks qualify to play Champion’s Game, a mini-game of 100 questions to decide who will be promoted to the higher division or relegated to the lower one. This is what Tier 1 subscription gives you: 300 question of dailies per month + 100 questions of CGs games.
We have two more tiers of subs, depending on them the one can play specialists quizzes (History, Sports, Literature, Films, Geography, Visual Arts, Science, Pop Music), pairs cup, team league, annual online Summer Festival. Basically, KFL is almost non-stop quizzing machine (around 10,000 questions per year), if you wanna play something, there's a quiz for you every week of the year, unless it's the off-season from mid-December to mid-January, or unless the Russians have broken the infrastructure in my city, and I have a hard time getting online.
Q: You started KFL during the pandemic, offering free quizzes to everyone, and you are part of the reason why online quizzing community bloomed over the last few years, retaining most of the players even after things got back to „relative“ normal. What drove you to it? To volunteer your time for it?
A: My part in these phenomena is small but I think every quizrunner should say “thank you” to Covid-19 for the opportunity to make something new and interesting in quizzing world.
My story is pretty simple. With all covid-related restrictions, common written quizzes didn’t work, and I still wanted “to eat” something since it was already my full-time job, so I decided to start an online league with free donations on Patreon to promote myself as questions setter to a wider audience – you know well that people are quite hungry to a free content, so it was probably a right decision to do. I invited everyone I could, and we started the league with about 50-60 players. The league was free until January 2021 and then a subscription system was introduced.
I didn't want to run a full-pay league from the beginning, but over time I realized that covid is a long-term problem, and that pushed me to take a different approach to everything in the league.
Q: Within KFL you have a somewhat stable base of quizzers who participate every month, with a lot of truly great quizzers, and a few emerging stars battling it out in Championship Games. Did your perspective on quizzes i.e. quizzers in general change since you started doing it, and if it did – how?
A: I have a little more than 150 players at the moment. I’m fine with that but it’s definitely not the big community comparing to my ‘business rivals’ if we can call them like that. And this quantity of players directly relates to the fact I’m not trying to adapt everything to a new audience, KFL is more about accepting a philosophy of pain in the quizzes – you become stronger and get muscles after a productive training. And KFL is more about giving people knowledge they didn’t hear about before and prepare them in some way to other competition they participate in. It doesn’t mean I’m just asking random obscure shit, no. Surely, someone thinks like that and hates my questions because of that. But it probably means I’m OK with asking something very hard which I consider interesting for some reason. And that was the philosophy from the beginning.
Believe me, I understand quite well that with more adaptiveness I could get more players in the league. But I don't want to try to please absolutely everyone. Not only that, but I also don’t advertise the league on purpose, I really like it when people come to play because someone recommended it to them, or they heard about it from someone by chance.
And yes, it's a bad business model, but what we have is what we have 😊
Q: There is a number of Croatian players playing the KFL, some of whom are part of the Zadar scene. What is your take on Croatian scene in general? Not necessarily a detailed account, but perhaps some input, some opinion formed over the last few years.
A: In general, I think Croatian players need to make one more step to become real power in the modern quizzing ecosystem if we talk about team competitions. Or they just need another group of setters at the big tournament which would suit them better. You have a lot of strong individuals; your domestic quizzing scene becomes stronger and stronger every year. Tons of local competitions make difference plus I see you do a great job of getting young blood. Unfortunately, if we try to analyze different European quizzing superpowers, we will see that the average age of players increases. In my opinion, only Belgium among the traditional superpowers has the right domestic ecosystem for young players. At least, I see many good players under-30 or a little bit above-30 there. At the same time, I have a feeling that Croatian average age at least remains the same, every year we can watch a new rising star from your country which is beautiful. To clarify, I’m talking about a written format of quizzing here.
Q: We have gone international with our sets, last season with Zadar Open, and this season with QuiZDiary. As you have played some of our QuiZDiary sets, can you spare a thought on it? Also, I believe you have participated in some Croatian quizzes. Can you offer any opinion about them in general?
A: I value the quality of questions from Croatian authors, and I like QuiZDiary. I think Croatian authors do a great job of writing international quizzes and that’s a great achievement. And I can recommend these quizzes beyond a shadow of a doubt. Because, on average, the quality of questions from Croatian authors will be higher than we see in other world quizzes.
Q: Do you have anything to add?
A: Huge thanks for having me here and giving me a chance to tell a bit about KFL. In 2023, the KFL will host the Open Tournament, a free 300-question tournament for absolutely everyone. Join us. Announcements will appear soon.
