Rankings

Every play who has entered a name (in the Account section of the Settings & More menu) automatically competes in various rankings.

Each Quizcover ranking relates to a combination of three parameters:

* a topic (including "Overall", aka "King of the Topics"),
* a geographic region (from "worldwide" down to a city area), and
* a period (from "all-time" down to a single calendar day).

With Quizcover's initial set of seven ranking-related topics (Overall + six separately-playable topics), a player gets to participate in up to 7(topics) x 5 (types of regions) x 5 (types of periods) = 175 rankings. All in all, Quizcover manages huge numbers of potential rankings from the beginning: tens, if not hundreds, of thousands.

## Topic

After tapping on "Rankings" on the Home Screen, the first choice you make is the topic:

Only separately-playable topics are ranked. Over time, more and more topics will become separately-playable.

## Geographic Regions

All players (with a name) automatically participate in worldwide rankings. Every other geographic setting can be changed or deleted by players.

Most players will presumably participate in continental and country rankings as their iPhone will typically tell the app in which country they are based.

Quizcover supports seven "continents", which are not strictly geographic but in some cases more of a cultural definition. In alphabetical order: Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, Latin America and Caribbean, North America, Oceania. Quizcover furthermore has most countries on its list, but some countries with small population sizes don't appear on its list.

Additionally, state and city area rankings are available, too, but only for a few countries, with (obviously) a particular focus on the United States, where many of the city areas defined by U.S. Census are also available. That type of geographic information cannot be obtained by the app, so it depends on whether you enter it in the Account & Data Settings.

Geographic locations in Quizcover are strictly hiearchical: a city must have a state, a state must have a country, and a country must have a continent.

## Periods

The ranking periods are "all-time", "year", "month", "week" (Monday-Sunday), and "day".

All-time rankings are sorted by level first, points second; for limited-period rankings (from a year down to a day) it's points first, level second.

Not all region-period combinations are available, and especially not for each and every topic.

The periods always start and end at [TO DO: CLARIFY INTERNALLY] UTC (Universal Time Coordinated), which corresponds to [TO DO] Eastern Standard Time and [TO DO] Eastern Daylight Time. This is independent of whether a ranking relates to a geographic reason with a different time zone. This way, players around the globe have a particular time to focus on with respect to all rankings they compete in.

If you score technically before a ranking is closed, but due to an unreliable or interrupted connection your device can't report your points in time to the server, then they may no longer be considered for the closed period.

## Overview of Your Ranking Positions

In addition to the overview matrix that appears on the Post-Solution Screen, you can also look up your ranking positions with respect to a topic by tapping on the Rankings item on the Home Screen and selecting a topic.

The overview you get there is paginated (unlike the single matrix on the Post-Solution Screen), with the default page showing all limited-period rankings for the topic and another page (which you can reach by tapping on the "All-Time" tab above the matrix) lists all of your all-time rankings for the topic:

(limited
periods)

By tapping on a square, you can access the related ranking.

## Ranking Display

Of each ranking, you see either the top section or (if you are on the ranking but not in the top region) the part relevant to you, with your own name being highlighted in an orange-brownish color:

## Viewing Other Rankings, Including Closed Ones

At the topic of each ranking, you find two blue buttons (or one blue button and a static text) enabling you to choose a different location and/or a different period. A period has to be of the same type (e.g. a year or a day) as the one of the ranking you last opened; the geographic part you can change arbitrarily:

The selection is hierarchical, so if you wish to select a Canadian city area, you firstly have to select Canada ad a province or territory. And you can only select Canada after selecting North America.