Klaxon
An online quizbowl buzzing system.
Klaxon is primarily a buzzer system for playing online quizbowl.
It's designed to be as fair as possible for people playing in different locations with different internet speeds and latencies. When you buzz, your device notes the precise moment of the press and sends that reading along with the buzz itself. The server continuously estimates player latency and other factors. It uses a short delay after the first buzz is received to calculate which player actually buzzed first. There are also safeguards built in to protect against manipulating this feature.
Klaxon has a few other features to improve the online reading and buzzing experience. For moderators, it has built-in integration with MODAQ so moderators can read questions, keep score, and see buzzes all on one screen. The scoresheet from MODAQ is visible to players so they can always see the score. Klaxon also supports having multiple staff join a game, allowing one person to serve as the reader and a separate person to serve as the scorekeeper.
Other features help alert moderators when the game may be in a bad state. For instance, there are browser notifications that players can send when the buzzer needs to be reset. If a player disconnects, this is prominently displayed to everyone.
Klaxon also has some basic tournament management features, making it easier than other systems to send links to join games and coordinate between moderators and tournament directors. All users can create an account and log in to persist their preferences across tournaments.
Created by Michael Bentley.
Feedback or a bug to report? Send it here.