Board 8 > SC2k11 Oracle Challenge Discussion Topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

Lopen sabotaging our team with bad upset picks

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"Hold on a minute! That testimony stinks!"
"Witness! You can't just say 'Hello' and expect us to get anywhere! I want you to testify!"

hey Carvey, take care of you-know-what already!

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thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny
I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris

Very good day for me yesterday, very bad for me today. I should be the bearer of the title "Consistently Inconsistent".

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I think I broke the LOL

From: Xcarvenger | #1660
Hopefully creativename has changed the crontab back to run the scripts only every 24 hours, otherwise we are gonna see some funky results in the middle of the day!

Ah :) Edited.

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Thanks, creative! Looks like it's just adding/removing the ",12" huh >_>

In the other news, according to user th3l3fty apparently there is a certain user who is currently using (at least) a couple of his alts to participate as (at least) three separate entries in the oracle challenge. I don't know why he's doing that and what he's trying to accomplish (because I can see nothing advantageous for the "cheater"), but what I do know is this person could potentially steal leaderboard spots from everyone else and they are lowering the chance of others to get a top five pick every match, so clearly something must be done to rectify this.

But before I do anything, I want to ask: what's everyone opinion about this? Should I bestow the banhammer upon the alts? Or just leave them be because they are of no consequence? Don't worry, I'm pretty sure the rankings and top 5 records on the site will be retroactively fixed once the offending users are removed if it comes to that.

And if anyone knows who I am talking about, feel free to break the news for us, just to show this person that we're all watching and want a fair competition :)

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If it were me in charge I would remove the alts from the competitions and register them as alts for that user. Then providing it isn't a huge hassle to retrospectively do this, force him/her to take the latest entry from those alts.

For example, If they made a change on one of the alt accounts after the last change on their main, it should override the main accounts pick just like it would for anyone else making a change.

The only advantage I could see from posting on an unknown alt is posting a change on the alt and then if it works out better going 'Oh, that account is my alt btw, I forgot to say'. And if it doesn't work out better, just saying nothing.


Tbh, they're lucky you're not considering DQ'ing their main imo. It blatantly goes against the spirit of the contest. Whether they are in contention or not, it gives them more chances at winning and also like you said, it takes away Top 5's from other people. Plus skews the all-times stats and the such.

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Crucifying my Oracle average one match at a time

From: ShatteredElysium | #356
For example, If they made a change on one of the alt accounts after the last change on their main, it should override the main accounts pick just like it would for anyone else making a change.

The only advantage I could see from posting on an unknown alt is posting a change on the alt and then if it works out better going 'Oh, that account is my alt btw, I forgot to say'. And if it doesn't work out better, just saying nothing.

Yeah, I actually realized this was possible early in the contest. Not that I was considering using it, but that's the most obvious way you could use an alt to cheat.

The easiest way to avoid that would be, if you post a prediction with an alt and do not announce that it is yours before the start of the match, it's invalid.

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Connecticut Huskies

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what would happen anyway. Unless it was common knowledge that the alt belonged to that person.

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Crucifying my Oracle average one match at a time

I say ban lefty

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I wish I could wear skirts and dresses :( -GMUN

From: Xcarvenger | #1755
Thanks, creative! Looks like it's just adding/removing the ",12" huh >_>

Yup :)

From: The Mana Sword | #1759
I say ban lefty

Yes it's obvious th3l3fty, cbaron0 and Yesmar are the offending alts, everyone knows it. Scorch the earth - banz them all! >_>

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From: creativename | #360
Yes it's obvious th3l3fty, cbaron0 and Yesmar are the offending alts, everyone knows it. Scorch the earth - banz them all! >_>

I'll give you 17% for that answer~

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thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny
I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris

It's ok, we don't have to ban Lefty. Just someone sabotage his internet like 10 minutes before match start time! He needs the handicap!

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Crucifying my Oracle average one match at a time

have fun trying that

I have a backup connection I can use if my main one fails!

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thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny
I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris

someone just sabotage his local power company

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Connecticut Huskies

that would require somebody actually knowing where I live~

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thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny
I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

Well, since Carvey said it was fine to post the names...

The main account is cbaron0, the person currently in 2nd place. One of his alts is irrelevant to anything other than top 5 predictions - FootBallLion.

The reason the alt thing is an issue (and, admittedly, the primary reason I caught it) is the other alt - current leaderboard resident ricedream, which also happens to be teamed up with the main (and leading the team challenge, too).

I can post all my evidence of cbaron0 = ricedream if anyone wants to be convinced of that. (And no, it does not actually involve Google Cache!)

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thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny
I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris

So basically he has (allegedly) got 2 entries and they're teammates.

It's not cheating, per se, but it also feels really weird. I think there's a general, unspoken idea that everyone competing is a unique user.

And go ahead, I'd be interested to know how you came to that conclusion.

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Connecticut Huskies

Yeah, get rid of them. Only reason I say it is when I scan the lists, I occasionally get Ricedream and Ringworm mixed up and think I did much better than I actually did. Think its the similar length name and starting/ending with the same letters. Apart from that, doesn't affect me much, but really if you are limiting it to one account per person, and it is proven they are breaking this - get rid of them to be fair.

Before anyone says anything about me being another account of this person - no. Just similar name to one as mentioned above.

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~ Ringworm ~

easy - take the worst prediction from the 3 accounts in each match and see where cbaron ends up.

The unfair thing I see with not banning his main is that if ricedream was on the top, that one would be considered the one to stay around and the other two would be banned.

So take the worst prediction of all three.

-looking at their predictions, I noticed that, with three exceptions, all the predictions were within 1%

-until recently, most of their changes were made around the same time

-I caught ricedream posting a prediction right after cbaron0 had logged out

-in the signups topic, cbaron0's post was simply to sign up with ricedream
--ricedream posted to confirm the team about a minute later - which was ricedream's first ever post

-the account "ricedream" was created on October 15th, a week after the Oracle signups topic was posted

-ricedream's karma is currently at 22, which accounts for the one day it was logged into to sign up for the team and 21 days of contest predictions - in other words, the account only exists to post Oracle predictions

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thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny
I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris

Has anyone contacted cbaron0?

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Connecticut Huskies

he can come in here to defend himself if he wants, but if he knows what's best for him, he'll come clean and admit it!

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thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny
I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris

He hasn't posted in the topic in a while, so he might not notice right away.

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Connecticut Huskies

From: th3l3fty | #371
-looking at their predictions, I noticed that, with three exceptions, all the predictions were within 1%

-until recently, most of their changes were made around the same time

-I caught ricedream posting a prediction right after cbaron0 had logged out

-in the signups topic, cbaron0's post was simply to sign up with ricedream
--ricedream posted to confirm the team about a minute later - which was ricedream's first ever post

-the account "ricedream" was created on October 15th, a week after the Oracle signups topic was posted

-ricedream's karma is currently at 22, which accounts for the one day it was logged into to sign up for the team and 21 days of contest predictions - in other words, the account only exists to post Oracle predictions

dayum. lefty the ultimate alt hunter.

(btw, ricedream is also doing spread betting, where this would be a lot more powerful of a tool. as evidenced by the fact that it has 5x the money of cbaron)

oh right, I did notice the spread betting thing

forgot about it since I'm not involved in it at all, but I guess the word should be passed to kaon

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thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny
I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris

My first thought was "get rid of the f***er"

then I thought about it some more, thinking maybe it was too harsh and unreasonable

then I thought "get rid of the f***er"

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~ Rivalry Rumble Oracle Challenge ~ Rank - 29th
Today's Prediction: X/Zero - 75.02%

Speaking of the spread betting, noticed that ricedream just posted there 10-15 mins ago. Might want to point them to this topic via PM or something?

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~ Ringworm ~

Yeah someone should sent him a PM and tell him to GET OVER HERE as Scorpion would say :)

IMO leave the main alone, and either get delete the alts or merge them and take the latest prediction made by each. I prefer the latter, since that is normally what we do in the case of declared alts. All we have here is an undeclared alt. Thus, whatever his latest date prediction is should count. I'm not sure how easy that would be technically speaking though - might take a lot of effort to do that.

The team should be disqualified though. One user shouldn't be able to make up a team.

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If Carvey thinks lefty's evidence is persuasive (it sounds like it is but I think he should point out the specific posts so Carvey can see them) then I'd support banning all three accounts. Alts are allowed but cheating isn't, and if you go through half the contest without mentioning your alts that's obviously an attempt to cheat. But the decision is up to Carvey.

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I made a living on time trial blowing myself off to cross the finish line at ludicrous speed. -transience

Well, I think the evidence is decisive enough, and if no one else (including the accused) comes here and offers compelling case to the contrary in the next 23 hours or so, this is what I'm gonna do before the next automated update:

- Deleting users "ricedream" and "FootBallLion" from the site.
- Adding users "ricedream" and "FootBallLion" as cbaron0's alternate accounts. This means predictions made by any of them will be registered as cbaron0's predictions, which means only the latest prediction made by either of the three will be scored for each match.
- Deleting the one-man team "Forbidden Bodhisattva of Strength".
- Updating the first sentence of Rule #6 to read:
"If you post with an alt, you must clearly state the name of your main account on the post, or immediately after. Otherwise, your prediction may not count."

The update tomorrow should resolve everything changed as a result of my actions.

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That's hilarious.

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I strongly dislike the idea of combining the old predictions of three accounts - they were clearly intended to be kept separate, and it has the potential to actually raise cbaron's score - which would be the exact opposite of punishing him

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thelefty for analysis crew 2008 imo -tranny
I have a third degree burn in flame-o-nomics -Sir Chris

We're not the same person. I'll let him know that this is happening and he'll respond later.

Couple brief comments:
We actually know each other irl (and obviously the reason I signed up).
Picking 2 widely apart picks is strictly dominated by picking near their average for the team challenge.

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<(^_^<)

th3l3fty posted...
I strongly dislike the idea of combining the old predictions of three accounts - they were clearly intended to be kept separate, and it has the potential to actually raise cbaron's score - which would be the exact opposite of punishing him

Your agenda is transparent, trying to get rid of your closest challenger! For shame. You Machiavellian bastard.

Heh :) Just kidding. Yeah, I totally understand where you are coming from. I think Carvey's doing the sensible thing, taking the latest prediction and deleting the team.

But alternatively, he could take the lowest scoring prediction for each match across each account, and that would be fair as well. Though I suspect that might be more work for Carvey, since adding the alts should make the re-scoring automatic I guess, whereas taking the lowest score would probably take manual labor.

Think there would also be the middle-ground option of splitting the difference - average out the score between taking the worst score, and the latest score. But again, would require work for Carvey.

I myself normally tend to leniency in these things, but can totally understand punishing him by taking the lowest score, or the lowest/latest average. It would seem fair - though a shame since his main is #2. But that's his own fault.

Don't agree with Kaxon's suggestion to ban all the accounts though, that IMO is unduly harsh. Taking the lowest score seems like a "beware!" warning enough, since that makes the cheating backfire quite thoroughly as is.

Anyway, perhaps let's wait and see if he comes here and tries to apologize or not. If he's classy and comes clean perhaps we could be lenient. Has someone PMed him yet?

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ricedream posted...
We're not the same person. I'll let him know that this is happening and he'll respond later.

Couple brief comments:
We actually know each other irl (and obviously the reason I signed up).
Picking 2 widely apart picks is strictly dominated by picking near their average for the team challenge.

Then how do you explain the accusations of predictions around the same time and logging in/out right after the other? That seems hard to explain.

I have a brother who has never entered the oracle, but when he used to make brackets back in the day they were extremely similar to mine. So us having very similar oracle preds would make sense, he'd be inclined to copy me. But logging in and out and predicting around the same time seems decidedly unlikely.

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Interesting, no one PM'ed me about this. Fortunately I saw it in time. I'm new here, so I guess it's time for me to say hi...?

Late by 15 matches, definitely too much to catch up in total points, but nah. This seems fun. And getting 2nd in the Pac-Man/Blinky match makes it definitely fun.

Well until someone claims I'm an alt... I am not. So here are the accusations:

-looking at their predictions, I noticed that, with three exceptions, all the predictions were within 1%
So I have completed 20 matches. I did a comparison of my picks to cbaron0's. Our picks are within 1% for 1st round Zidane/Kuja, Frog/Magus, Snakes and Squall/Siefer (1.03% difference but sure I'll count it). So a total of 4.

Then I did a comparison with th3l3fty's picks. I'm within 1% on 1st round Link/Ganon, Ammy/Orochi, Mega Man/Dr. Wily, Squall/Siefer, Sora/Riku and 2nd round Mario/Bowser, and X/Zero. That's 7, while Phoenix Wright/Edgeworth match with a 1.09% difference cuts it pretty close.

So yeah... I guess I don't have to explain more...

-until recently, most of their changes were made around the same time
The round 1 matches post are deleted, and I don't remember much about posting time. But for each match, I do want to see what other people have picked (since this is my first Oracle), so I post my predictions match by match. I pay closer attention to leaders' picks (well I guess I won't get a chance to look at yours :P), and sometimes I change my predictions after I see the leaders' picks. Maybe cbaron0 is doing the same thing and that could cause the changes around the same time....? I don't know.

And round 2 just started and you said until recently, so I guess I would just disregard round 2.

And all your other accusations are against ricedream and cbaron0.

So th3l3fty, I think this is just a misunderstanding. Just PM me or post here if you are still suspicious.

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th3l3fty posted...
I strongly dislike the idea of combining the old predictions of three accounts - they were clearly intended to be kept separate, and it has the potential to actually raise cbaron's score - which would be the exact opposite of punishing him

It also has the potential to lower it. And I'd say it has the greater potential to lower it than raise it. You're merging a lower ranked account with a higher account so surely the odds are in favor of their being more changes for the worse, than for the better? Plus, it's far more likely that you will make the riskier picks on the account that is further behind imo.

And taking away a potential team overall victory is pretty damn punishing if you ask me.


I agree that the evidence stacks up despite the denial. There's always the chance that they are two seperate users.

But what are the chances that two new users join the Oracle with both of them happening to be pretty damn handy predictors. Plus they decide to team-up. Plus they both post at times close to each other with 1 account logging out before the other one posts. It's highly, highly suspect to me.


The easiest way of clearing this up is if they provide Carvy with some proof they are seperate entities. Even if it's kept to PM's.

I'm fine with whatever Carvy decides.

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Crucifying my Oracle average one match at a time

Xcarvenger | Posted 11/22/2011 12:54:54 AM | message detail | quote
- Deleting users "ricedream" and "FootBallLion" from the site.

FootBallLion shouldn't be deleted from the site, because that account did not make any predictions for the first 15 matches and would have no chance to win the Oracle Challenge.

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-LusterSoldier- posted...
Xcarvenger | Posted 11/22/2011 12:54:54 AM | message detail | quote
- Deleting users "ricedream" and "FootBallLion" from the site.

FootBallLion shouldn't be deleted from the site, because that account did not make any predictions for the first 15 matches and would have no chance to win the Oracle Challenge.

Respectfully disagree. An accounts overall prospects of winning the competition should have zero bearing on whether it should be deleted or not. The only deciding factor should be whether or not it is an alt account.

It messes with the all-time stats if it is not a bonafide competitor. Any Top 5 it obtains would take away a Top 5 from another user. The accounts overall average would be included towards everybody elses points above average. And I also believe the overall/current ranking points award points based on how many people participated so it would mess with that too.

Plus, then where do you draw the line? What would stop someone from entering an alt account a few matches in to try get Top 5's. And why stop there? They could enter 5, 10, 20+ alts to try get Top 5's as long as they waited a few matches before doing so.

If it is an alt it should be deleted. If it isn't an alt it should stay. That should be the only deciding factor and nothing else.

EDIT: Unless you mean that you don't think it is an alt account and/or should be given the benefit of the doubt. If so, ignore the above >_>

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Crucifying my Oracle average one match at a time

Oh and if the accounts are merged/removed.

To alleviate Lefty's concerns we could always say that the latest predictions method will only be used if it results in a lower score (not individually per match, I mean after all changes). And if it actually improves the score, then just delete the accounts instead of merging (i.e. effectively leaving the score as it is now).

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Crucifying my Oracle average one match at a time

ricedream posted...
We actually know each other irl (and obviously the reason I signed up).

How well do you know each other and how? Same school, brothers, do you share each other's computers, etc?

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If I had to make a decision I'd side with l3fty.

Alright, I guess I'm try to explain this clearly. Ricedream is a roommate of mine. Basically, he saw me fill out a bracket and decided to sign up as well since he's a bigger gamer than I am. That's pretty much it.

Again, I'll explain why we have similar picks. As said, we realized that teams win by having similar picks. Let's do the math here. Assume Teammate 1 picks Link with 70% and Teammate 2 picks Link with 50%. No matter what, this team will always do worse than the team that picks Link with 60.5% and Link with 59.5%. If you don't believe me, just try doing the math. If Link gets anywhere below 50% or above 70%, the two teams have the same result. But if Link gets between 50% and 70%, the second team will outperform the first. As you can see, the first team will get at most 80 points no matter the outcome. We noticed this since the first match and decided to always average our picks ahead of time. Since there wasn't any rule against strategic team picking, we thought it was a smart, but admittedly cheap, idea.

Also, the log on time is probably the easiest to explain... we are roommates and we are on the same team. So of course, we share the same computer occasionally, especially when we are making picks.

It's pretty much impossible to prove we're not alts but I'll say that while I do want to do well, I'm not THAT serious about winning. I really don't have the time/effort to be creating alts for the sole purpose of getting top 5s (?), creating teams by myself and posting the exact same thing twice every day just for the sake of winning a team challenge and snooping around/checking past history/checking log-in times of other contestants for whatever reason.

But anyways, go ahead and remove/merge ricedream and the teams and whatever else you want, since it's hard to prove our case unless you really want a huge webcam party to show that yes, we are actually two people.

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Okay, now explain FootBallLion, who has basically unconfirmed himself as part of your trio, but we know he uses the same computer.

The"wtf" response from him ruined your case.

to be fair

you people all still believe amyvitality and raytan aren't the same person

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Boomshine
~Justin_Crossing

From: WaIker | #395
to be fair

you people all still believe amyvitality and raytan aren't the same person

people believe this still?

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It doesn't seem that implausible to me, what he's saying.

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you people all still believe amyvitality and raytan aren't the same person

Nope. I was like the first one to disbelieve this.

cbaron0 posted...
It's hard to prove our case unless you really want a huge webcam party to show that yes, we are actually two people.

I vote for the huge webcam party.

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Personally.

From: nintendogirl1 | #399
cbaron0 posted...
It's hard to prove our case unless you really want a huge webcam party to show that yes, we are actually two people.

I vote for the huge webcam party.

tinychat.com/b8

imo

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