ALL OF MY INFORMATION HAS BEEN ERASED.

Archived here are older posts which are no longer relevant or were redundant.

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minkiemink
Posts: 74
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2006 7:55 pm
Location: Topanga, California

Post by minkiemink »

So far, at least three of the eight of the "removed", have asserted our lack of intent, object or desire to cheat in any way. I have appealed the decision. I have not spoken to any of the other five.

At this stage, I would like to see eight more volunteers, randomly selected and held up as "cheaters", just to see how they might react, knowing that they did not "cheat". Probably, much like myself.

I believe that the administrators made an error in the way they couched their findings. Broadly labeling volunteers that did not fit a paradigm as "cheaters", prior to individual review. It has created a juvenile and inflammatory atmosphere as is evidenced by some of your responses. It has altered some parts of the forum. It has certainly taken some of the focus off of looking for dust as is evidenced by those of you taking out time solely to write vitriolic comments on this topic.

At the least, it is interesting to see the hubris in those who do not have a statistically different way of looking at these movies. At the end, I hope that all of you who are so certain as to point a finger without knowing anything beyond the first suggestions, have the opportunity of experiencing the shock and disheartenment that those of us who have been removed and did not "cheat" in any way have experienced.

Do not be so certain of your "position", your "righteousness", or our "guilt". You may have apologies to make. Previous to this incident, I have always believed the best of people. I suppose you are showing me how base humans can be?

Had the shoe been on the other foot, I would have liked to have thought that I would not be needlessly unkind, even with full assurance. Many of you should be ashamed to make assumptions with only marginal, second-hand knowledge. Especially one of the moderators, (who I will not name...), whos postings to the forums have been inflammatory. No matter what your personal opinion, you as a "moderator", should be circumspect, and remain neutral.

Now...back to dusting.


Minkie
“The true harvest of my life is intangible - a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched”
-Henry David Thoreau
TimStrange
DustMod
Posts: 94
Joined: Thu May 18, 2006 7:12 am
Location: Third stone from the Sun

Post by TimStrange »

It is my understanding that they identified "cheaters" by the fact that they spent very little time analyzing a real movie but more time analyzing cal movies. Now, you have stated that you did spent little time on the real movies and you offered an explanation why. Did you spend more time on the cal movies or the same amount of time?
Sharqua
DustMod
Posts: 245
Joined: Thu May 18, 2006 1:02 am
Location: Bradenton, FL

Post by Sharqua »

Just a polite reminder... if this breaks down to a flame session, this thread runs a risk of being locked. Please keep it civil. Not referring to the original poster, btw.

Minkie, I'm curious as to whether or not you are one of the ones who was noting the lower-quality calibration movies (the ones with the ripple effect and had tracks) and thinking they were the only possible ones that could carry true tracks... thus zipping through everything except the rippled movies?

Tnx,

-Shar
BarrieT
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Aug 17, 2006 10:09 pm

Post by BarrieT »

I can understand that people who were genuinely misguided would be upset at being accused of cheating.

I am not so sympathetic with those people who thought that the posterisation effect was a reliable indicator of a a track. It had already been commented on in the fora, so they didn't do much reading around. To assume that it was a physical effect caused by impact suggests a lack of experience of the real world. Most significantly, if they thought they had found some simple, reliable means of finding tracks, why wouldn't they draw it to everyone's attention? Did they make any effort to do so?
cgore82
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 7:20 am
Location: Columbia, SC, USA

Post by cgore82 »

Sharqua wrote:Please keep it civil.
I'm sorry if I got a little carried away in previous posts, I suppose I was a bit put off when I came to the forum to find answers to real questions/problems about the movies only to find it was full of people discussing scores and cheating; and sure enough, I jumped right on the bandwagon. Sorry again, this is my last post, I've got dust to find. :oops:
Wolter
DustMod
Posts: 457
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 2:23 am
Location: Enkhuizen, the Netherlands

Post by Wolter »

As of now minkiemink's status has been rectified by the S@H team. Please see this thread in the updates forum: http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ... =6834#6834

Happy hunting all.
Just dusting... Image
minkiemink
Posts: 74
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2006 7:55 pm
Location: Topanga, California

Post by minkiemink »

Thank you Wolter....

-Minkie
“The true harvest of my life is intangible - a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched”
-Henry David Thoreau
minkiemink
Posts: 74
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2006 7:55 pm
Location: Topanga, California

Post by minkiemink »

....And thank you to the team......

-Mink
“The true harvest of my life is intangible - a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched”
-Henry David Thoreau
JOC
Posts: 40
Joined: Mon Jul 31, 2006 8:59 pm

Post by JOC »

Every reasonable person held open the possibility of appealing your case, minkiemink, and the best of luck to you now that it was reversed.

But you'll forgive others too, I presume, if they took meaning from your agreement with Gael's 'discovery' when you said:
"I too was removed from the top 55 Gael, after much hard work and a lot of viewings. I saw the same patterns of concentric shades of grey as you did and proceeded the exact same way."


Best of luck with finding the stardust tracks then.
Twinkle, twinkle, little dust!
How I wonder which to trust!
From stars above the world you fell!
Buried like treasure in aerogel.
minkiemink
Posts: 74
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2006 7:55 pm
Location: Topanga, California

Post by minkiemink »

Thank you for the note JOC....

I did initially proceed that way at the beginning of my searches....... until I realized that those were only Calibration Movies. Before I figured that out, I was pretty excited to find one of those tracks. What got me confused, was that at the start of my searching, there was an apparent bug in the program.

Several of what I now know to be Calibration Movies, did not register as such. They also didn't register as Errors. I didn't check in My Events for a while to see, because I was too busy figuing out how to dust. I assumed
at that time, that those were real tracks, and that this was indeed a possible pattern for tracks, both real and Calibration.

Checking through My Events later, I noticed that these particular movies had not registered as events either. I then attempted to contact the team to ask what was going on.

In trying to contact the team to get these and other questions answered, I went to log into the forum. I had never looked at the forum before. This is when I found that there was a problem with my account. For some reason, the system did not allow me to log onto the forum with my user name.

I kept on dusting, but was only able to reach the team, by taking the initial test again, and registering under another name. The team member that I wrote to cleared everything up for me, told me about the "missing" movies probably being Calibration Movies and fixed my account.

I was then able to get onto the forum and was able to check out a lot of areas and posts that were very helpful. I was able to confirm soon after, that movies with this "pattern" that I had seen, were most likely all Calibration Movies. At that point, my method of searching changed, as I could also see other examples of real tracks that others had put up for review.

I found the official "examples" given were limited, so until I had gotten into the forum and saw those other examples, and even for a while after, I had looked carefully at each track that I found, spending extra time, in order to see how real tracks might present. Most if not all of those movies I was examining so closely, were Calibration Movies, but it did take me some time dusting to be sure of what was a Calibration Movie and what was not. Ergo...my spending more time on Calibration Movies.

When I got the hang of looking, saw other examples and the questions about the "missing tracks" had been cleared up. I began to rush through the CM's that I could easily identify, finding them an annoyance, just like everyone else. The review of my data must have shown that. Plus I had the e-mails back and forth to team members and to the forum, that confirmed my information, questions, glitches and time lines.

Until my status was cleared up one way or another, I saw no point in explaining my whole case to the forum, as so many assumed a lot, and didn't really care anyway. In any case, no one but the team had access to the actual data. For those who wrote something unkind, it was only about the drama. I didn't care to add to it.

I am glad I wrote to the team in my first confusion over being erroneously labled. I am happy that they have examined all of the data, exonerating me and rckline. I am also glad that we stuck it out. If the others believed, that there was a mistake made in their case, (as I know at least one does), I wish they would have written as well.

Thanks to those of you who wrote in support, and thanks again to the team.

Cheers,

Minkie
“The true harvest of my life is intangible - a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched”
-Henry David Thoreau
JOC
Posts: 40
Joined: Mon Jul 31, 2006 8:59 pm

Post by JOC »

Fair enough, minkiemink.

However, two points which might be useful perhaps(to you or to others in the future):
I believe it's possible to read the forum contents without logging in. And, people following Gael's method for any length of time... well, even just as a standard of performance, you can see how that might be viewed as disappointing enough(to put it charitably), in some people's eyes.

Regards.
Twinkle, twinkle, little dust!
How I wonder which to trust!
From stars above the world you fell!
Buried like treasure in aerogel.
DustBuster
DustMod
Posts: 694
Joined: Wed May 17, 2006 8:12 pm
Location: Horsetown, USA

Post by DustBuster »

Hi all.

This event has been a learning experience for everyone, and the forum has proved vital in it's resolution- but I feel it is time to take what we have learned and move forward toward our common goal.
Official comment has been made. Let's consider the matter closed.
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