Cheating on Think Different

[Caboom]

TD 185:
5 2 3 2 1 1 6 5 D 2 6 1 b: 6/6 noon
1 3 7 5 6 7 2 7 3 D 7 3 b: 6/6 lilac
6 6 2 4 5 6 4 2 5 D 4 5 b: 4/6 nestegg
7 7 6 1 3 4 7 1 6 D 5 6 b: 6/6 kayanne
2 5 1 D 4 5 3 3 4 1 1 4 b: 4/6 joy
4 4 5 3 7 2 5 6 2 D 2 2 b: 6/6 aardvark
3 1 4 S 2 3 1 4 1 D 3 7 b: 6/6 alyssa
S=Sheep

Results for td185: 7 players, 12 questions, 0 repeat answers. In addition, Q10 was a picture question, resulting in 5/7 drops. And this is how they finished in the standings: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10
That made me curious about the winner of that TD. So here are his answers when compared to the others:
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 D 8 8 b: 6/6 esrever
11 answers, all different from the 7 suspects, and a drop on the same picture question. Coincidence? You be the judge.
(Disclaimer: I'm aware he wasn't identified as a suspect, has been a member for a couple of months longer, has 360 posts and has hosted a TD. But I'll include his numbers in the next TD's. If he's innocent, I'm sure the numbers will reflect that.)

TD 186:
06 03 02 06 05 10 07 02 02 05 07 b: 02 noon
03 07 10 09 02 07 10 05 05 10 01 b: 10 lilac
11 08 08 08 08 01 01 07 04 02 04 b: 01 cat hat
06 03 11 03 02 08 08 05 04 08 02 b: 05 bristle
04 05 03 03 09 11 11 04 10 11 11 b: 09 esrever
07 11 04 04 03 09 04 11 09 01 09 b: 03 nestegg
02 02 09 05 11 08 08 06 08 08 05 b: 11 kayanne
05 09 02 05 03 02 05 02 05 06 05 b: 01 dpp
10 06 11 10 04 04 05 03 07 06 02 b: 08 d4z
01 09 05 02 06 05 09 09 11 04 08 b: 06 christy
09 01 01 07 01 06 06 10 03 09 10 b: 07 joy
08 04 06 11 10 03 02 01 06 03 06 b: 04 aardvark
10 07 01 04 10 07 06 08 03 09 09 b: 08 gem
05 10 07 01 07 02 03 08 01 07 03 b: 05 alyssa

Results for td186: This TD had 11 answers available on each question. With 14 suspects entering the TD, there would be some repeat answers. It turns out Bristle, DPP and gem gave a repeat answer on every question with one other suspect. So as far as this TD is concerned, they're innocent. That leaves us with 11 other suspects.
11 questions. 11 players. 11 answers available on each question. 0 repeat answers. Also a bonus question, where you had to choose a number between 1 and 11. We got 11 different answers.
So that pretty much seals the deal. And I believe I found our actual patient zero, esrever.

In case those numbers aren't illustrative enough, here's another way to present it: I'll start with Noon's answer and mark it 01. Then I'll take lilac's answer; if it's the same as noon's, I'll also mark it 01. Otherwise I'll mark it 02. Then I'll take cat hat's answer, and again, if it's the same as noon's or lilac's, I'll mark it 01 or 02, otherwise it'll be 03. And so on.
01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 noon
02 02 02 02 02 02 02 02 02 02 02 02 lilac
03 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 03 cat hat
04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 esrever
05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 05 nestegg
06 06 06 06 06 06 06 06 06 06 06 06 kayanne
07 07 07 07 07 07 07 07 07 07 07 07 d4z
08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 christy
09 09 09 09 09 09 09 09 09 09 09 09 joy
10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 aardvark
11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 alyssa

And in case anybody still believes esrever is innocent, here's the probability of him choosing the one answer the other suspects left unchosen, 12 times in a row: 1/3138428376721

[Caboom]

Two players, Noon and Bristle, got the number exactly right. They were ones I had suspected, but aren't on Caboom's watch list.

They are, they just hadn't entered the first TD I started my research from.

[lieph82]

Austin Powers used to avoid everybody else's answers when he played TDs. Someone check that guy's IP.

[nightreign]

I looked at 20 of 10, the last TD esrever hosted. While I'm sure someone else is more tech-savvy than I am and has more time on their hands to actually run the numbers, there was one suspicious account that had 15 sheep answers and finished last. This account entered 24th out of 70. The others finished 45th, 38th, 27th, 25th, 22nd, 20th, 19th, 15th, 11th, 9th, 8th, and 2nd.
Three of the accounts were the first three to enter. The rest were spread throughout the top half.

[geolawyerman]

Here's esrever's introduce yourself post. Seem familiar?

Hi, I'm John. I've been lurking here for a few months but this is my first post. I have no desire to be on J!, but I love watching it and reading this board. This is a fun board! I enjoy participating in the polls. My wheelhouse J! categories are Computers, Geography, Photography, Gardening, Weather, and U.S. History.

[jjwaymee]

I think I m going to go ahead and score the rest without revealing the results and then decide if I want to kick anybody out. I just hate banning someone from my game based on suspicions.

I understand your reservations. I too initally wanted to withhold judgement until an "official" verdict is rendered by the board mods. However, 1) I don't know when or if we will ever get a definitive answer from them and 2) the evidence is piling up thank to the good detective work here from goforthetie, AP, Caboom and others.

So given that when I am the host you are all playing in my sandbox, here is my announcement -- The following usernames will not be allowed to play TD 208 in a couple of weeks OR in Guesstimania: Survivor whenever I do it again:

esrever
Noon
Cat Hat
Binky
Bristle
Lilac
nestegg
kayanne
dpp
d4z
Joy
aardvark
Christy
Alyssa

and...

gem

who is my personal favorite fake account because of this post in response to Paucle's recent TD where there was an early bird bonus

I will not be entering this TD, but: I think it was unfair to offer the early bird bonuses and then post the questions at 12:52 AM Eastern Time, when many people in the Eastern Time Zone (and maybe Central as well) were asleep. I expect the majority of the early bird bonuses to be earned by people who are in time zones west of the Central Time Zone.

I like how "she" is really sensitive to TD's being fair for everybody.



This list is not set in stone one way or the other. I will add to it if further empirical evidence warrants it. I may consider removing someone from it if they PM me and can explain why they should be allowed to play.

[Caboom]

On we go, td189 (187 was skipped by them/him/her, answers for 188 can't be seen as the images vanya posted aren't accessible):
1 1 1 1 w 1 1 D 1 S 1 1 b: 3/4 lilac
2 2 2 2 w 2 2 D 2 2 2 2 b: 3/4 cat hat
3 3 3 3 w 3 3 D 3 w 3 3 b: 3/4 esrever
4 4 4 4 4 4 4 D 4 S 4 4 b: 2/4 dpp
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 D 5 5 5 b: 4/4 d4z
6 6 6 6 6 6 6 D 6 6 6 6 b: 4/4 joy
7 7 7 7 w 7 7 D 7 7 7 7 b: 3/4 aardvark

Results for td189: 7 suspects, 12 questions, 0 repeat answers. All four who gave wrongs answers on q5 made a similar mistake (gave a nominated show, instead of one that won). Only one other poster got atleast three correct on the bonus questions.

td190:
1 1 D 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 noon
2 2 2 2 2 S 2 D 2 w 2 2 cat hat
3 2 D 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 d4z
4 4 D 4 4 4 4 S 4 4 4 4 christy
5 5 5 D 5 5 S 5 5 5 5 5 joy
6 6 6 6 6 D 6 S 6 6 6 6 gem
7 7 2 S 7 7 7 D 7 7 7 7 alyssa
Results for td190: 7 suspects, 12 questions, 2 repeat answers. What is important on td189 and td190, is that DPP and gem, for whom the evidence was inconclusive on td186, seem to be pretty good at avoiding the other suspects as well.

[Vanya]

Results for td 181: 5 people, 12 questions, 0 repeated answers among the accounts. Odds: astronomical.

I'm curious how you calculate these odds (not doubting you, just curious).

Has anyone PMed the accounts in question, given them a chance to respond?

[Austin Powers]

Great work, everyone! Let's move to the public shaming portion of the proceedings.

There are some amusing moments if you look back. Alyssa, AKA Patient One, praises esrever, AKA Patient Zero, for starting TD 185 with four straight singletons, noting that the odds of doing that must be incredible.

She returns in TD 186 as part of a three way conversation "John" is having with himself about the definition of market capitalization. Two of the personae didn't know the meaning of it, but thankfully Noon was around to tell everyone the definition. Naturally, after it was explained to her, this precocious 14 year old gave the answer with the highest market cap at that time. I'll further note that this "conversation" happened around 4-6am Eastern. So if I had to guess, "John" works a night job with a lot of downtime, is unemployed, or (most likely) is a college student.

[Austin Powers]

Austin Powers used to avoid everybody else's answers when he played TDs. Someone check that guy's IP.

Yep. And Sherlock only solves those cases because he's really behind all of them!

[Woof]

Austin Powers used to avoid everybody else's answers when he played TDs. Someone check that guy's IP.

Yep. And Sherlock only solves those cases because he's really behind all of them!

Hey, that would make a great plot for a show. Let's call it "Reichenbach's Fall" and pitch it, AP!

[nightreign]

Alyssa praised esrever for winning three TDs in a row at one point.

I'm just at a loss for why an adult would pretend to be a 14-year-old girl on a website that's 90% adults.

[Austin Powers]

Austin Powers used to avoid everybody else's answers when he played TDs. Someone check that guy's IP.

Yep. And Sherlock only solves those cases because he's really behind all of them!

Hey, that would make a great plot for a show. Let's call it "Reichenbach's Fall" and pitch it, AP!

Only if the following season's episodes are disappointing and overly convoluted!

[Mathew5000]

At the very least get rid of the five who answered nobel laureate years (the only ones who knew the years) and got five cities of Peru (surprise surprise, same persons, and again the only ones who knew more than three) in td203, plus anyone using the same IP (alyssa). I think it's beyond reasonable doubt at this point.

The standard ought not to be "beyond a reasonable doubt". We aren't incarcerating anyone here. The issue here is whether to exclude any given account from a game. If on the balance of probabilities an account cheated on a game, then certainly that account should be excluded from the game and the results rescored.

But the standard should be even less than that. If I were hosting one of these, I would want to be fairly confident of each player's honesty, rather than just of the view that "the chance this player is cheating is a bit less than the chance the player is honest". By analogy, if someone asks to join your poker game and you figure there's about a 10% chance he is a cheater, then you should say no even though he's probably innocent. If there's no money at stake then maybe you don't set the bar as low as 10%, but I'd say you should still exclude someone who has a 25% chance of being a cheater.

[econgator]

And before anyone else says anything ... completely different IP.

[econgator]

Has anyone PMed the accounts in question, given them a chance to respond?

If they want to respond, they can respond. No invitation required.

[dhkendall]

Moral of the story, don't mess with smart people, they will find you out!

(And this place is full of smart people. All I know is I couldn't do the detective work that was done here. Really, they chose to cheat in a place with tons of Jeopardy champions and a collective IQ of a googol? (5,729 if you don't count AP.))

[lieph82]

And before anyone else says anything ... completely different IP.

For esrever? Not sure it matters.

[Mathew5000]

Has anyone PMed the accounts in question, given them a chance to respond?

If they want to respond, they can respond. No invitation required.

In principle one of the mods should PM each of the accused accounts with a link to this thread saying "in case you aren't aware, you're being accused of cheating here". Of course it's likely that "they" are already aware, but we should forestall one of them coming back after a final ruling, and saying "I never even knew this discussion was taking place."

[econgator]

And before anyone else says anything ... completely different IP.

For esrever? Not sure it matters.

No, not esrever.