Cheating on Think Different

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Volante
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Re: Cheating on Think Different

Post by Volante »

Never underestimate the desire for people to affect meaningless contests...

Report: MLB Has Scrubbed About 60 Million Improper All-Star Votes
The best thing that Neil Armstrong ever did, was to let us all imagine we were him.
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brick
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Re: Cheating on Think Different

Post by brick »

And he'd have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
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Re: Cheating on Think Different

Post by Caboom »

schoe wrote:
patkav wrote:This thread (and the confession thread) was quite a read. Do we have any idea at all why he did this?
Wow, what a read indeed.

Does anyone know/has anyone worked out how much of an edge, mathematically, playing all the duplicate accounts would have gotten him (if any)? Even if the duplicates don't duplicate each other's answers, they could end up all sheeping on different questions and end up with middle-of-the-pack scores anyway. He could of course google answers and pick what he thinks is the most obscure one that people are unlikely to know, but he could google answers anyway even without the duplicates. And if he was using the duplicates to drive up the scores of the sheep, wouldn't it be better to have them concentrate on the likely sheep to run up the score more, rather than scattering the fake answers about? (Or was the point of the fake accounts just so he could have the fake accounts make adulating posts praising the real one?)
I suppose the biggest edge he got was from googling the answers, and the size of that advantage would depend on the toughness level of each TD. There was also the advantage that whichever answer each of his accounts chose, all of the other answers had an extra vote in them (one of his other accounts), making it harder for the other players.

I guess the most revealing TD was 185, where, out of 40 players, he placed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 10th. So he obviously had a huge advantage in that one. It was also the reason I became suspicious of Esrever, his original account. He wasn't named a suspect at that point, but he had beat the 7 other accounts that were already revealed to be cheating, six of them placing from 2nd to 7th. So either he was cheating too, or he was a far superior player. Unfortunately it turned out to be the obvious answer.
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trainman
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Re: Cheating on Think Different

Post by trainman »

Volante wrote:Never underestimate the desire for people to affect meaningless contests...

Report: MLB Has Scrubbed About 60 Million Improper All-Star Votes
As various baseball announcers have tut-tutted in the past couple of days, the fact that the All-Star Game determines home-field advantage in the World Series means that it's not completely meaningless.
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Volante
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Re: Cheating on Think Different

Post by Volante »

trainman wrote:
Volante wrote:Never underestimate the desire for people to affect meaningless contests...

Report: MLB Has Scrubbed About 60 Million Improper All-Star Votes
As various baseball announcers have tut-tutted in the past couple of days, the fact that the All-Star Game determines home-field advantage in the World Series means that it's not completely meaningless.
Twice since the home field advantage rule was put in place has the WS gone to 7 games. 2011, NL wins the ASG and NL wins the WS. 2014, AL wins the ASG, NL wins the WS.

9 AL home field advantages, 3 NL. 7 NL WS victories, 5 AL. All 3 of the NL ASG wins were NL wins in the WS.

Meaningful. :roll:
The best thing that Neil Armstrong ever did, was to let us all imagine we were him.
Latest movies (1-10): Everything Everywhere All at Once (10), Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken (6), Black Sunday /1960/ (6), Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (7)
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opusthepenguin
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Re: Cheating on Think Different

Post by opusthepenguin »

schoe wrote:Ah, so while they don't guarantee that his real account will hit singletons, the fake accounts do guarantee that no one else can ever hit a singleton, so that if his real account does hit singletons, he will be the only one to do so? (And his fake accounts can admire how many singletons he hits?) I guess that makes sense, aside from the fact that it's batshit crazy. :lol:
I can see how it would be a lot of fun working out the best way to distribute answers among the fake accounts. And I can see how it would turn to drudgery after a while. (Heck, it sounds like a fun idea for a TD. Enter up to 10 times. Google as much as you like. Try to screw other people over while preserving your own singletons.) If you eliminate a moral compass, concern for others, and the desire not to be seen as a douche, the whole enterprise makes a lot of sense and is quite understandable. Except for the half-clueless confession. That was weird.
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patkav
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Re: Cheating on Think Different

Post by patkav »

The work-to-reward ratio just seems crazily out of balance, though. Whiskey tango foxtrot?
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OrangeSAM
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Re: Cheating on Think Different

Post by OrangeSAM »

patkav wrote:The work-to-reward ratio just seems crazily out of balance, though. Whiskey tango foxtrot?
Not only were the fake boardies entered in TDs, they also popped up in the weekly FJ! polls at various intervals. I don't recall if they also commented on game threads. So, yes, it was mucho trabajo por poco dinero.
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CrunchyTaco
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Re: Cheating on Think Different

Post by CrunchyTaco »

OrangeSAM wrote:
patkav wrote:The work-to-reward ratio just seems crazily out of balance, though. Whiskey tango foxtrot?
Not only were the fake boardies entered in TDs, they also popped up in the weekly FJ! polls at various intervals. I don't recall if they also commented on game threads. So, yes, it was mucho trabajo por poco dinero.
I think the handle that pretended to be a 14 year old girl, Alyssa, posted on some game threads.
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Re: Cheating on Think Different

Post by jeffwolfe »

Volante wrote:
trainman wrote:As various baseball announcers have tut-tutted in the past couple of days, the fact that the All-Star Game determines home-field advantage in the World Series means that it's not completely meaningless.
Twice since the home field advantage rule was put in place has the WS gone to 7 games. 2011, NL wins the ASG and NL wins the WS. 2014, AL wins the ASG, NL wins the WS.

9 AL home field advantages, 3 NL. 7 NL WS victories, 5 AL. All 3 of the NL ASG wins were NL wins in the WS.

Meaningful. :roll:
Just looking at the World Series end results doesn't really tell you much since there aren't really that many series to evaluate and some of them feature one team that is heavily favored over the other. As I looked at them, though, I noticed one interesting thing: in the All-Star advantage era, the team that won the first game also won the series 11 out of 12 times. Of course, the first game is hosted by the team with home field advantage. Interesting, but it probably doesn't prove anything, either.

Looking at full seasons might be a better measure of home field advantage. In the 2013 and 2014 MLB seasons, a team finished with a better home record than road record 46 times. They had a better road record 10 times, and the same record home and away 4 times. I stopped at 2 seasons because it's not really close. It shows a distinct home field advantage.

So giving home field advantage in the World Series to the league that won the All-Star game is not going to decide every World Series, but it's "not completely meaningless."
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dnbguy
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Re: Cheating on Think Different

Post by dnbguy »

Caboom wrote:
schoe wrote:
patkav wrote:This thread (and the confession thread) was quite a read. Do we have any idea at all why he did this?
Wow, what a read indeed.

Does anyone know/has anyone worked out how much of an edge, mathematically, playing all the duplicate accounts would have gotten him (if any)? Even if the duplicates don't duplicate each other's answers, they could end up all sheeping on different questions and end up with middle-of-the-pack scores anyway. He could of course google answers and pick what he thinks is the most obscure one that people are unlikely to know, but he could google answers anyway even without the duplicates. And if he was using the duplicates to drive up the scores of the sheep, wouldn't it be better to have them concentrate on the likely sheep to run up the score more, rather than scattering the fake answers about? (Or was the point of the fake accounts just so he could have the fake accounts make adulating posts praising the real one?)
I suppose the biggest edge he got was from googling the answers, and the size of that advantage would depend on the toughness level of each TD. There was also the advantage that whichever answer each of his accounts chose, all of the other answers had an extra vote in them (one of his other accounts), making it harder for the other players.

I guess the most revealing TD was 185, where, out of 40 players, he placed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 10th. So he obviously had a huge advantage in that one. It was also the reason I became suspicious of Esrever, his original account. He wasn't named a suspect at that point, but he had beat the 7 other accounts that were already revealed to be cheating, six of them placing from 2nd to 7th. So either he was cheating too, or he was a far superior player. Unfortunately it turned out to be the obvious answer.
TD 185 was my TD - I remember I found it interesting how those players will able to find a bunch of singletons, but didn't think too much of it. TD 204 was also mine, and it was the TD going on at the time of the reveal. Esrever and 14 (!) of his sock puppets entered. They finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 22nd, 27th, and 29th. There was also the great comedy of watching the fake accounts justify all their answers and compliment each other.
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