Bot Contest

and one score deviating from that system would mean it's not war voting... in other words, lay off... everybody ran that chance
Am more annoyed by ppl voting that obviously never spoke to your bot...

These contests are nothing but an irritation to me. I think I'll be avoiding all of them from here on out.

Sup People,im HipJazzPoet...Lets Talk Hip Hop,Lets Talk Jazz,Lets Talk Poetry!

You know I can see a person moaning and groaning about a rule that adversely effects them or perhaps a fellow botmaster. But I really have no clue why you would complain about an attempt by the Committee to correct as best a possible the obviously unfair practice of war voting. This attempt benefits all the bots involved and penalizes no one. So I suppose you simply like to complain no matter what takes place. None of us is getting paid and none of us is perfect. But unlike last years Loebner you at least have people listening and responding to what you have to say. But some of your arguments are beyond me. I'm here to try to help if I can and anybody is always free to e-mail me but I've had enough of this.

Chris Cowart

P.S. There are some good bots coming out of the PF but a lot of you I think have some unrealistic expectations about your bots. Bots like Talk-Bot, Alice, Elbot, Jabberwock, Jabberwacky, etc. have been around a lot longer than anyone here. You can't build a good bot over night. I've got over 7 years into Talk-Bot and he is still dumb as a brick.

*sigh*

I just sent out a broadcast email on the subject to the contestants. Now I can just sit back and wait for the hatemail to come rolling in.

Helping run a contest like this is NOT an easy thing to do.

Heh... It's also hard when you break down and outright say you demand "TOTAL RESPECT" like Loebner, last year, huh Chris?

Chris, the time and effort you have made in this cannot possibly receive proper thanks. It is fun to be exposed to all the bots and see how they do… and yours is, again, one of the few contests for this form of expression. I can imagine that you have thought it is a thankless job on more than one occasion which is very unfortunate! I have the utmost appreciation for your effort and I think your bot is great! I also know my bot is quite young and needs soooo much work. She scored exactly what I thought she would in the questions. If I win anything in this it will probably be more because I am being voted for, not her. Which is actually a bit unfortunate too, anyway…

I didn’t know or even think there were unscrupulous people casting “war votes” and initially I was irritated at the notion but seriously “who cares” the contest is what it is, good bad or otherwise. You had to have known it was a possibility when you made up the category…this portion has no scientific basis for gosh sakes… so saying

“Emm_oh_you_es_e I don't see your point. Nobody can make rules in advance to cover all contingencies.”

I’d say if given any consideration, this type of voting, at least in this category, would have crossed your mind. It is not a huge stretch of the imagination and it is not like it is a vague and outlandish “contingency” to be thought of. If I run a popularity contest and am shocked that there are some unscrupulous people I would hardly call myself not thinking of every contingency…more not planning for the somewhat obvious.

Before this u said that talk bot will probably benefit the most if scores are thrown out….now you seem all for it… so why the defense to change scores all of a sudden? You even just said “Some may benefit more than others but all will benefit.”

Talk bot is a better bot than mine in pretty much all cats but I guess I don’t get 1) why you would just not say, “we will take votes” and decide what to do instead of saying that it would benefit your bot and then defending why you want it to be done or 2)simply saying, “hey, I made the game and figured this would probably happen so we will just go with it the way it was set up…there are so many other categories and good bots will prove themselves.” Makes no sense.

Prof, I get what u are saying to but you applied a general rule in a non general way. I don’t think anyone who runs any sort of election should say basically “sure we can eliminate votes under a vague non- “anything goes voting” esp. not in the middle. That *is* in essence changing rules.

I know I am playing devils advocate pretty hard but really, changing now will only cause more grief. Personally I have nothing to gain either way and the only thing I would have hoped was that after acknowledging talk bot stands to gain the most you Chris would have taken a more natural stance.

Last post on the subj anyway, just a contest, I like it better when I impress/fool a guest which is a rare and wonderful treat

Uh Oh.. you guys have stepped in it now.. I guess that agreement on here with 2 bot builders and variations of one bot is much different than with the entire committee or the other bot builders. And although I took heat for speaking the truth, the other bot builders are saying exactly the same thing..even the other committee members who were totally blindsided by the ruling as sent in emails. They totally agree with what I've been saying!

Benji, you are a great guy and do a lot for the bot community, but your characterization of my comments was off base... I think the voting was being manipulated and needed to be looked into.. I never suggested that you cancel out some specific definition of "war voting".. I think publishing the votes would be beneficial because you would see who is benefitting from the manipulation. You said that the top bots were doing the manipulation, and guess who is sitting at the top? The guy running the competition. Imagine that.

Of course, if a person were smart, they'd just signup for a new hotmail account and vote low for all of the bots they want to damage, and not vote for their bot at all. Then signup for another account and vote high for their bot. Why do you think Talkbot has so many votes? It's because he had to counter all of the votes that bring him down.

While that would be expected, you wouldn't want the guy that manipulates the contest the most to also be the guy controlling it.

Speaking of which, how do we know that the other judges didn't send in their results but those results just didn't get included because they didn't produced the desired result? "Conspiracy" theory, maybe.. but easily possible, especially considering that Chris says "the committee" made the decision, but the other committee members weren't even consulted.

And Chris, to address a few of your comments.. first, I know you didn't really ignore me because you can't. Second, "the committee" didn't discuss anything, it was just you and Benji.. and you admitted that your chosen solution would benefit you the most.. imagine that! If you'd just publish the voting, I think we'd see what's really going on and how many of your "cousins" mysteriously control who ends up where on the list.

As to those who knock me for being relatively anonymous... if I entered a bot in the competition, and I'm not saying whether I did or not, I bet Chris' cousins would do a number on me if they knew who I was. I'm up for discussion, but I'm not going to become a target as a result.

Every member of the committee agreed but one. It was a 5/6 concensus. Kevin Copple, who wrote out against my email was the one who didnt agree, and surprise surprise, the one who voted 1s for all the other bots. YOUR bots.

I really cant believe people would cry foul when we try to stop cheap shots from taking effect. If we didnt do this, it's like giving a free pass to nobodyhere and others to do just what he said- set up hotmail accounts and undercut the competition again and again. Why on earth would we allow that?

As someone said before, I'd much rather be beaten legitimately than by some ass with a chip on his shoulder. Considering how few votes my bot has compared to some of the others, war votes would affect her a lot more than all those people who have 20 friends and relatives voting for them. (I can't even get most of the people I mud with to bother voting because they're afraid the contest site will send them spam email )

As long as the voting is online, it will be possible to cheat in some way. But if this new ruling makes foul play more difficult, all the better.