[TheQuickBrownFox]

There is no way to prevent cheating, really.

What if we could think of a contest where cheating wouldn't matter so much. frantique's idea, for example. Let's think of something else if we could.

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What if we could think of a contest where cheating wouldn't matter so much.

There will always be cheating, I'm sure people will do multiple registrations which could theoretically be quite easy if you had wireless networking and just hoped from house to house on your bay or used a public computer such as the ones located at public libraries (you'd have different IP and it would be impossible for the admin team to trace, sadly). I'd also be careful with pictures due to photoshoping, while it is usually evident, there are some people that can do a really good job, especially when there is a $4,500 prize at stake.

While I think the custom computer photographs would be a great idea, I feel that there are few on here that would have a custom computer or that would want to take a photo of themselves and post it on this site, putting many at a large disadvantage. I personally think that the most foolproof method would be to set a date where users would have had to have registered on the site as it's very unlikely that someone would have registered multiple accounts before this contest. I also think that either the jellybean (great idea frantique) or the random number between 1 and a million (like we did for the Ferrari contest) would be the two most ideal methods for doing this prize. Is it creative? Not really, but it's by far the fairest method of doing this contest.

Good luck to everyone and what a great way to publicize this site and product
James

Edited by james_8970, 30 April 2008 - 11:04 AM.

[james_8970]

What if we could think of a contest where cheating wouldn't matter so much.

There will always be cheating, I'm sure people will do multiple registrations which could theoretically be quite easy if you had wireless networking and just hoped from house to house on your bay or used a public computer such as the ones located at public libraries (you'd have different IP and it would be impossible for the admin team to trace, sadly). I'd also be careful with pictures due to photoshoping, while it is usually evident, there are some people that can do a really good job, especially when there is a $4,500 prize at stake.

While I think the custom computer photographs would be a great idea, I feel that there are few on here that would have a custom computer or that would want to take a photo of themselves and post it on this site, putting many at a large disadvantage. I personally think that the most foolproof method would be to set a date where users would have had to have registered on the site as it's very unlikely that someone would have registered multiple accounts before this contest. I also think that either the jellybean (great idea frantique) or the random number between 1 and a million (like we did for the Ferrari contest) would be the two most ideal methods for doing this prize. Is it creative? Not really, but it's by far the fairest method of doing this contest.

Good luck to everyone and what a great way to publicize this site and product
James

Edited by james_8970, 30 April 2008 - 11:04 AM.

[dsenette]

i think you guys are getting confused about admin's "where do you geek" (i'm still calling it that) idea....the winner wouldn't be picked based on the picture they took....the winner would be picked at random out of the group of people who followed the rules (which ever rules are used) and posted their picture....even if it's a photoshopped picture it would still be nifty.....we could just put a rule that anyone with the same picture (we can always tell) doesn't win....etc... so if i photoshopped a picture of the GeeksToGo logo tattooed on the dahli llama's butt....i could still win...if i got picked at random (i would assume admin would pull a number out of a hat that corresponds to a post number in the contest thread)...even though it's an obviously fake picture.....even outright allowing photoshopped pictures would make the contest more fun because we'd surely get some really interesting entries....following the family friendly rules of course

[Troy]

there is a $4,500 prize at steak.

Now you're making me hungry, James...

I agree with all your points, though, while there are plenty of good ideas flowing, these ones do seem the fairest of them all. That is, if admin doesn't happen to be open to bribery...

*troy sends admin a PM with all sorts of enticements...

And dsenette, we'd need to be careful not to be using pictures that breach copyright for the photoshopping...

Troy

[dsenette]

And dsenette, we'd need to be careful not to be using pictures that breach copyright for the photoshopping...

i'm not a lawyer...but i would imagine that if we put in the rules that you can't use copywritten material "we" would be fine?

i dunno....counting jelly beans or picking random numbers has nothing to do with GeeksToGo....i personally would like to see our contests actually pertain to us and what we do in some way

[Troy]

What about a jelly bean jar with a Geeks to Go sticker on the front?

Or admin could spin one of those game-show wheels with the little clicker thingo at the top, and it has a big Geeks to Go sticker in the middle?

I've always been meaning to ask somewhere on here if we're ever going to be able to purchase Geeks to Go products, like a hat or t-shirt, bumper stickers etc... A backpack maybe, with a padded notebook section in it? I'd buy!

I'd like a cap with my username on it, please.

Troy

[Tal]

James has some good points. However, I don't have a custom PC and I'm sure many people don't. Even if the winner is picked out at random... I don't see the point, I guess many people would fake their pictures. Even if it's not related to G2G... The jellybeans idea looks like the best one. G2G is a very large forum and has lots of areas of interest, including a discussion section and malware removal (just two examples for things that wouldn't match with a computer-hardware related contest). It's just as unfair as saying that the competition will be done on a web design theme, for example.

People are always going to cheat, there is no way to prevent that.

Edited by Tal, 30 April 2008 - 09:26 AM.

[james_8970]

i think you guys are getting confused about admin's "where do you geek" (i'm still calling it that) idea....the winner wouldn't be picked based on the picture they took....the winner would be picked at random out of the group of people who followed the rules (which ever rules are used) and posted their picture....even if it's a photoshopped picture it would still be nifty.....we could just put a rule that anyone with the same picture

Now I do understand where you guys are coming from, the only problem I foresee is users on dial up having atrocious load times. Even if there is a limited size in which we could post, if every post contained a image it will take a lot of time to go through all the pages (there will probably be ~50). If you guys don't think dial up would be a issue, why not just get people to post their greatest achievements (whether or not it has to be geeky is up to you guys)? This would open up a huge variety of possibilities for everyone to brag about what they had accomplished and would really lead to an interesting thread.

Now you're making me hungry, James...

Woops. To bad you quoted me, otherwise I'd have covered it up completely.

People are always going to cheat, there is no way to prevent that.

Yes people are always going to cheat, but if you don't take some measures to prevent it, it'll become a huge issue rather then a few isolated cases. That's all I'm trying to say.
James

Edited by james_8970, 30 April 2008 - 11:14 AM.

[admin]

In case you missed it, the contest details are now posted here: http://www.geekstogo...ic-t196838.html

One thing I wanted to do, was encourage people to post pictures off-site. However, I would have liked them to be in one group. For example, Flickr has groups, but I didn't find it very intuitive. It has to be simple enough for anyone to use. Any ideas?