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Early access rollout

Returning takers get a high-traffic quiz a couple of hours before everyone else.

Decision: ⚪ idea

Context

Raised by Oskar Barcz on Discord on 2026-10-06, together with profile badges. There is no design and no product documentation for it yet.

The idea as proposed:

  • A staged launch - when an election quiz goes live, or any quiz where we expect a very large audience, it does not open to everyone at once.
  • Returning takers first - people who have used the platform before, for example those holding three badges, get in about two hours ahead of the public.
  • The point is the load - the early group takes the first wave, so the peak is spread instead of arriving in one moment.

It depends on profile badges, or on some other way of telling a returning taker from a new one, and so on accounts.

Opportunity

  • A flatter peak - election quizzes are where we expect the heaviest traffic, and part of it moves to a window we choose.
  • A rehearsal with real users - two hours with a smaller, friendlier audience is a chance to catch what testing missed before the public arrives.
  • Loyalty gets something real - early access is a reward that costs us nothing to give.
  • It gives badges a purpose - a collection that unlocks something is worth more than a collection that is only looked at.
  • A launch becomes an event - "opens to everyone at 18:00" is something to announce and wait for.

Risk

  • It gates a quiz behind an account - accounts say an account never gates taking a quiz, and for two hours this one would.
  • The early group is not the public - returning takers are more engaged and may lean differently, so anything shown from early data - statistics, rarity, comparisons - starts skewed.
  • Results leak before launch - screenshots and shared cards from the first two hours reach the public before the quiz does, and partners who planned a coordinated premiere are overtaken.
  • Two hours may not move the load - if the early group is small, the public peak is as high as before and we have added a mechanism for nothing.
  • It has to be enforced somewhere - access control on a quiz is new, and on the day of the highest traffic it is one more thing that can fail.
  • It needs badges and accounts first - neither is designed, so this cannot be built before both are.