• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Happy Holidroid Contest 12/6: Secret Phrase!

Fun, but I do hope the contest tomorrow is something skill-based. Somebody suggested haiku earlier -- I'd be good at that. :D

Props to the mods, etc, etc, for giving us free stuff. Tis the season!
 
Verizon Takes Top Spot, AT&T Ranks Last in Consumer Reports Carrier Satisfaction Survey
by Kevin Krause on December 6th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
the elephant man ran out of peanuts
"In the process, the elephant man ran out of peanuts."
 
sitnstew said:
Might I suggest a few more RANDOM contests. I mean, I get that this was simply something being overlooked but it was one of the few I actually had a chance to win until I was disqualified. It'd be nice to see some of us faithful readers rewarded who don't have the luxury of hitting refresh 24 hours a day and don't know how to design bots to win contests for us. I literally pretty much wasted these last few hours when I should have been studying (I know, poor choice) only to be disqualified for the one contest that I was actually aware of before someone won it (except the video review). I appreciate the contests but I'm getting the feeling that I might as well ignore all contest posts on Phandroid because there is no chance in hell of winning.
Click to expand...

I'm beggining to feel the same way :mad:
 
I think it would have been good to have anybody who posted the link within the 5-10 mins after the original post went up entered into a random drawing. That way you still had to be paying attention. (I had to step away from my PC as I'm at work.)

KCSpence
 
Zarin1480 said:
Yes, they do. They have a simple script that monitors the RSS feed for a new post, and then submit a cmment here with the relavant details. It's a script you can write in about 30 seconds if you know a few things. Fortunately, the mods have ways to filter out the bots. Somehow, I doubt my post will end up on top after the bots go... LOL
Click to expand...

Is it easy to detect bots? I hope this is the case cuz it looks like andpol's post was generated via script...
 
Next time you do a contest similar to this, make the winning phrase the actual link to the thread people are supposed to post in. This will remove a big portion of potential cheaters.

That said, changing the rules after the game started kinda sucks. As a person who is labelled a new user, I didn't realize the change in what I was supposed to post until after I had posted. Granted, I didn't stand a chance of winning being more than 100 posts after the winner, but just a bit to consider.

Thanks for the contest though and the awesome site. Phandroid has become my favorite place for Android related news over AndroidCentral and BGR, even before this contest started.
 
20 lines of python code to snipe this one, did the winner do it with less code and a different language? that's what I want to know :D
 
ogwilson said:
The rules are in the original contest post. After we realized what people were doing we felt it was necessary to change the rules because we care about providing a fair chance for everyone more than anything else. If people are going to use bots or post a link to every new article until they win, we don't think that is fair. I understand that changing the rules after the fact reflects badly upon us and we apologize. We also admit that this particular contest was organized a bit poorly and we will brainstorm for the next one to make sure the competition is fair for everyone and to make sure the rules to make the competition fair are in place well before we post.

Again, I apologize.
Click to expand...

How about contests like the app review one or the photo caption? I think its pretty dumb that Phandroid keeps giving away the biggest prize to easy contests (post X first) while the ones that require actual thought and skill are getting the lesser prizes.

Speaking of which, how will Phandroid go about picking the winner for this contest?
 
Verizon Takes Top Spot, AT&T Ranks Last in Consumer Reports Carrier Satisfaction Survey
by Kevin Krause on December 6th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom