Are some people cheating to get a high score?

renboeverywhere · Post by **renboeverywhere** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 5:48 am

This is interesting.

Using a wide-band net I can browse one movie in 10s or less regardless of the delay of CPU and the net,which add it up to about 20s.I never cheat while keeping this speed and keeping my Specificity 100% and Sensitivity 99%.By working 3h a day I've got into the "top 100" list.

So it IS possible for a single person getting into the top 5 by working ,say,8 or 10 hours a day(I doubt it myself,but it's possible).

However, when I'm using a dial-up net, I can only view one movie every 4 or 5 minutes.So as not to waste my time on waiting, I have to do something, and then I'll surely notice the problems such as ranking,cheating,etc.

So it ISN'T "bugging the cheating".

personal opinions.

icebike · Post by **icebike** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 5:21 pm

jorn wrote:I
When stardust got online with real data, I to was online and searching for some stardust, but as we all experienced, the servers where pretty much run down into the ground, by the volume of users looking at gel images.

Yes, but that seems to have been start-up problems, a case of the StarDust project being more popular than imagined. I suspect the servers initially set up, and the bandwidth allocated may not have been up to the task.

Kudos to the team at Berkeley to quickly dump some bigger faster servers into the task.

Also the project got SlashDoted the first day. That never helps.

icebike · Post by **icebike** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 5:28 pm

renboeverywhere wrote:
Using a wide-band net I can browse one movie in 10s or less regardless of the delay of CPU and the net,which add it up to about 20s.I never cheat while keeping this speed and keeping my Specificity 100% and Sensitivity 99%.By working 3h a day I've got into the "top 100" list.

Yeah, 10 seconds is about right.

The complex images take longer, as there is much more to look at, and I will probably wear out my mouse, but its fun.
I generally don't find three hours a day to spend on this.

I would not do this on dialup. Too agrivating.

Also, I have found high resolution monitors NOT A GOOD IDEA. Almost all the missed Calibration Movies I have were done at high resolution (1280x1024 or 1600x1200).

I've set my resolution down to no more than 1024x768 and my color count as high as it will go for this project.

Those are the ways i "cheat".

mwhiz · Post by **mwhiz** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 5:55 pm

i "cheat" by spending up to 6 hours a day doing this. it's my summer vacation man. i've got time to spare! happy dusting everyone.

Orion_0169 · Post by **Orion_0169** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 7:43 pm

Ironically, I think people not knowing well enough what they are doing (because there are so many of them...us? will have a far greater impact than the supposed cheaters.

Nice to hear that multiple logins works, but as someone who had four windows open first couple days, I have not been able to do so since.

"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming."

Post by **bmendez** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 8:01 pm

The "cheating" conversation is not proving to be very fruitful.

While there currently are ways to abuse the system to artificially boost one's score we have no evidence as yet that anyone actually has done this. As it has been pointed out, it would be a pointless exercise and does not affect the search for dust other than to waste resources.

Very soon we will have the known ways to determine when a calibration frame is being viewed hidden.

-Bryan

jlgaines · Post by **jlgaines** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 11:57 pm

You know;

I just did this project souley because I love science! I can't imagine anyone feeling any kind of good out of cheating? If in fact you do find a particle, Hey your not going to be on the 6 O'clock News! The only GRADITUDE you get is that YOU are using your Brain Power and time to help in discovering particules from space. STOP competeing, it gets you no were? Do your job to your best ability, I get so tired of PEOPLE climbing on top of each other to get the top, GUESS WHAT, When you get to the top that's it, so why go there.......... JANSTEIN

alexz · Post by **alexz** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 8:39 pm

I sit back at a distance and briefly skim.

I try not to burn myself out by thinking too hard.
Occasionally I'll check out a complicated pic, but make up my mind after about3 seconds.

Leah · Post by **Leah** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 8:58 am

The people that are cheating are cheating themselves.

The score is not the most important, doing a good job is and the score will follow. After all we are suppose to be finding new particles and maybe if luck will have it, be the first to find that one.

Koliedrus · Post by **Koliedrus** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 3:18 pm

I think it's wonderful that a social variable has been introduced into the research. In fact, some "win" just for the sake of winning.

In their eyes I would be called a "Loser". Ironic.

I'm not here to rack up points. I'm here because my fading eyes still want to see the stars; even specks of their former glory.

I care about my rank only because I have one.

I "rank" my rank as a 2 on a scale of ten. My objective is to assist the researchers to the best of my ability with the talents I have. They've asked for the use of my eyes, concentration and patience. They can erase my rank completely if it means that results will not benefit the intended outcome of the project. I will use my eyes and time to search for particles they've trained me to see given the media at their disposal.

As just some joeblow taxpayer in Podunk, USA, I'm pretty damned proud to be assisting in a project that many wish they were a part of.

You are a part of the project.

Rank means nothing.

Discovery DOES!

Your attention is more important than you skilz.

Alex280 · Post by **Alex280** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 8:59 pm

Disabling right-clicking would make it a little harder for someone to veiw the image URL

Post by **albutterworth** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:30 pm

Please see our update on the "cheating" issue

http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ... .php?t=874

We can confirm that a small number of volunteers have been boosting their scores by spending their time on calibrations and not the real movies.

We can spot this activity in our database and simply disregard their data. Nothing personal, and no ill efects to our science.

The good news is that most people are doing truly excellent work.
Thanks everyone for your effort

-Anna

bobapril · Post by **bobapril** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 1:53 pm

On the up-side of the cheating question - the fact that there are some cheaters on site led to it being posted on the Museum of Hoaxes website (http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/). That's where I found it, and being a rabid supporter of space exploration, I signed up that day. I suspect I'm not the only one.

All publicity is good publicity!

Nikita · Post by **Nikita** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 3:40 pm

bobapril wrote:On the up-side of the cheating question - the fact that there are some cheaters on site led to it being posted on the Museum of Hoaxes website (http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/). That's where I found it, and being a rabid supporter of space exploration, I signed up that day. I suspect I'm not the only one.

It's a shame that they said a lot of the volunteers were cheating. There were so few, it shouldn't even have been mentioned! Any one know a way that it could be fixed? Even before when people knew if the movie was a callibration or not, most still did their job the same.

Post by **albutterworth** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:04 pm

The quotes from the www.museumofhoaxes.com post are taken directly from a news article "Stardust@home battles early glitches" published in Nature just 2 days after we launched. This is a good, honest appraisal of the project at that time. Nothing to do with the recent updates.

-Anna

Stardust@home

Are some people cheating to get a high score?

Re: Stop bugging

Right Clicking

Cheating Brings In New Eyes

Re: Cheating Brings In New Eyes