Bot Contest
Here I'll be posting information on various Bot contests that challenge and test a Bot's AI and realism. Feel free to post comments and updates on contests, as well as announcements for new contests.
Posts 1,581 - 1,592 of 4,091
Posts 1,581 - 1,592 of 4,091
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Good investigative work, prof. My voting swings a bit wide, but since I didn't vote any 10s or 1s, I suppose I'm ok. 
By the way, I wouldn't be adverse to allowing people to change their vote. I'm curious why that was changed from last year.
By the way, I wouldn't be adverse to allowing people to change their vote. I'm curious why that was changed from last year.
Maybe it was to prevent people form hacking in and changing somebody else's vote? I'm not sure. It's a completely different system this year.
Certainly I voted some 10s for my favorite bots, and I think that's natural, but I think it's low to cut down your competition. *shrugs* In a way it IS a popularity contest, and it's meant to draw traffic to the site.. but war-voting doesnt benefit the leaders. Think about this:
If we have the five top bots, and each owner votes 10 for himself and 1 for the rest. The average score of each bot ends up being 2.8! Now if an average bot who isnt taking part in the war-voting gets even a total score of 3, that bot wins. So who benefits by this?
Certainly I voted some 10s for my favorite bots, and I think that's natural, but I think it's low to cut down your competition. *shrugs* In a way it IS a popularity contest, and it's meant to draw traffic to the site.. but war-voting doesnt benefit the leaders. Think about this:
If we have the five top bots, and each owner votes 10 for himself and 1 for the rest. The average score of each bot ends up being 2.8! Now if an average bot who isnt taking part in the war-voting gets even a total score of 3, that bot wins. So who benefits by this?
If I voted what I thought was right, and then saw my bot was losing and others were winning, I might be tempted to change my votes and start war voting. I think that's why we can no longer change votes.
Ah. Well.. I would like to see the war voters' votes removed from the contest. Anyone care to second that we mention it to the council members?
I would also like to echo The Professor comments. I have access as well to the information he is talking about. I would like to clarify my take on one thing that he said.
"...and some evidence of attempts to cheat (that failed because the voting system is pretty good).
What he is referring to here is that if you attempt to vote for the same bot more than once it logs that attempt in a file. In my opinion I can honestly say I saw nothing there. What is happening is a person loses
his place while voting and forgets who he has voted for. Not hard to do with 88 bots. I did this more than once and was corrected by the program saying I had already voted for that bot. It was not an attempt to place
additional votes. I bet some of you may have had a similar experience.
The War voting has indeed taken place but that is to be expected. I have been back and to on this issue of what to do but I will support what the majority thinks. I will say this however and The Professor will attest to this. Talk-Bot took more negative hits than any other bot in the contest. I expected as much as people are always trying to unseat the reigning winner. In addition in trying to run a contest you can't please everybody and people have taken that out on my bot. He is far from perfect but he is definitely better than a score of 1. So basically what I am saying is if we remove those votes my bot stands to gain the most.
Chris Cowart
"...and some evidence of attempts to cheat (that failed because the voting system is pretty good).
What he is referring to here is that if you attempt to vote for the same bot more than once it logs that attempt in a file. In my opinion I can honestly say I saw nothing there. What is happening is a person loses
his place while voting and forgets who he has voted for. Not hard to do with 88 bots. I did this more than once and was corrected by the program saying I had already voted for that bot. It was not an attempt to place
additional votes. I bet some of you may have had a similar experience.
The War voting has indeed taken place but that is to be expected. I have been back and to on this issue of what to do but I will support what the majority thinks. I will say this however and The Professor will attest to this. Talk-Bot took more negative hits than any other bot in the contest. I expected as much as people are always trying to unseat the reigning winner. In addition in trying to run a contest you can't please everybody and people have taken that out on my bot. He is far from perfect but he is definitely better than a score of 1. So basically what I am saying is if we remove those votes my bot stands to gain the most.
Chris Cowart
And who decides if they are? If apparently some people think a 10 appropriate, then the other school of thought might think a one just as appropriate...
...and all bots ran the same "risk"... and what is funny, or good for that matter?
what to do with 2, 3, 8, 9? think it gives an even worse distortion... all bots will have encountered this in almost equal measures
what to do with 2, 3, 8, 9? think it gives an even worse distortion... all bots will have encountered this in almost equal measures
I think what we are looking at is ONLY the obvious. We are talking about a person who gave his own bot a 10 while giving everybody else a 1. It would be hard to argue against removing those scores.
Chris
Chris
Chris, for clarification, in your example you would not remove the scores for someone who voted a 10 for themselves and a 1 for the top bot? What determines war votes? How many bots does the member need to vote a 1 for to be a war voter? What if they do not vote a 10 for their bot but vote 1s for 10 of the top bots?
I understand what you are doing and I think it is incredibly bad sportsmanship to go through the bots and try to derail the voting with 1s but I also think if the contest is to be altered the criteria for alteration needs to be very very clear.
I understand what you are doing and I think it is incredibly bad sportsmanship to go through the bots and try to derail the voting with 1s but I also think if the contest is to be altered the criteria for alteration needs to be very very clear.
I'm not sure just yet. The first thing we will have to do is get a majority in the committee before we take any action. Asssuming we do we will layout exactly how we are going to do this. No bot will be penalized. The bot will keep the 10 he gave himself. Many people have given their bot a 10 but we would remove all the 1's he gave. Some bots may benefit more than others but all bots effected will benefit. Details of how to do that will be hammered out in the committee.
Chris
Chris
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