Bot Contest

I entered Spikebot last year, and it was good experience, but then I decided I need to enter all the "cannon" dialog (from published transcripts) for Gabibot before I start trying to make them make sense, though I tweak a bit here and there.

Also, to enter I'd have to spellcheck. Oh the humanity! Best for me not to dwell on it.

I only have a few books worth of Esme quotes entered. To enter Esme I'd have to go through many more books and then spellcheck and tweak. That is too much to do by the 20th.

Thanks though!

Who here recomends turning gossip off before the contest?

BJ never uses it anyway, but I quite enjoy other bots' gossip. I dunno - do you think it will fail to impress the judges? I guess that depends how scandalous your gossip is

I was thinking about it.

I turned it off last year. The judges want bots to answer the questions and may start asking "Who is Gigglytits?" if a strange name comes up.

GREAT POINT! I had not thought of some of the names of bots here:O

Sonora may have high development, but I've programmed her more for entertainment value than for answering trivia questions. *shrugs* Whereas a lower development bot who is programmed with good answers to trivia questions will outscore her, hands down. (And, yes, development isn't everything!)

Case in Point (and thanks to Wendell):

Sonora: (to Wendell) Me heap small desert lizard. You...?
Wendell: is that english?
Sonora: What else would it be?
Wendell: jibberish
Sonora: Hang on... I need to go find a rock to sun myself on.

Ack! Ally comes with a blank database. Is this a problem? or will it be judged on how well it learns?

Well, there are only the 10 questions for testing hard knowledge/trivia that I can see. I reckon personality's more important - and there's a medal for 'most popular' of course.

thats all very nice, but with blank databases, ALLY will simply repeat back whatever the judges say. there needs to be some grounds for a conversation. Anyway, I have entered ALLY into the CBC, and included in the entry email that they may need some trained databases. I hope they let me email them some databases, as I recall the entry rules require for the bot to be very simple to install and run.

if you want to zip up a custom distro with a database, I can always put it on her webpage. And you've got an extra five days to tweak it around at least.
Sorry - my last message was in response to Ulrike, but you got a post in between while I was writing it