Conservapedia:Team Contest four
From RationalWiki
It's on!!!
http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservapedia:Contest4
First issue: Edits relating to starlets panties rate fewer points!!! Poor Ed :(
"The contest will run: Sunday January 13th @ 12p.m. - Sunday January 20th @ 12p.m. The draft will occur Saturday."
Shoot, we'd better start our betting pool!
Contents |
[edit] Teams
| Team 1 | Team 2 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Captain | BrianCo | Captain | Aschlafly |
| Members | Members | ||
| |||
(The top 7 scorers on either team will qualify towards its point total.)
[edit] Rule observations (a.k.a. How to Game the System)
Introductory note: This section should be understood as a guideline to improve the rules. Nothing more, nothing less.
(Contrary to popular belief, we do not enjoy seeing CP imploding under all the Stupid that happens during a contest. We value our Lulz, and it's hard to maintain WIGO when the Recent Changes are flooded with pathetic copy-pasted garbage. So give a hoot - don't pollute.)
A team contest is fine and dandy, but RW has repeatedly pointed out weaknesses of the contest rules. Having a solid set of rules is important. Launching into a contest with easy-to-abuse rules is dumb.
Please fix your rules. If you're not sure how to do that, feel free to join us on the talk page.
[edit] Copy-pasting
A copied new entry only gives 1 point (it originally gave 2 points, but this was reduced later). Comparison: A non-copied entry gives 3-15 points. With the new 1-point system, it's actually an interesting question whether it's still faster to copy 15 glossary definitions than creating a Quality New Article (at least two full-length paragraphs, three relevant citations, several external links, categorization).
But never fear: Andy realized just how much that would hold him back, so he built in a back door the size of the Channel Tunnel: Now, only a copy-pasted article of little value gets 1 point. On the flipside, as long as an article isn't completely copy-pasted, it can get up to 15 points.
Congratulations, Andy: You just undid tons of improvements.
[edit] Wanted Page abuse
There is a specific rule against artificially creating Wanted Pages. Why? Because it invites abuse.
Later on, the scoring was adjusted further: Minor edits only give 2 points (before: 3 points), copy-pasted entries only 1 point (before: 2 points).
But... is the system really secure? Not really.
Let's take a closer look at the rules and see what we can do. We'll assume that we copy-paste (1 point) 50 articles and make a template containing all 50 links. Currently, an article appears on the Wanted Page list when there are 4 links to it.
Old system (=current scoring methods, minus new "Wanted Page" rule):
- New articles: 50*1=50
- Wanted bonus: (50-4)*3=138
Total: 188 points
Idea of new system:
- New articles: 50*1=50
- Wanted bonus: 0
Total: 50 points
New system (abusing the current ruleset):
- New articles: 50*1=50
- Wanted bonus: 0
- Creating template: 3
- Minor edits to insert template into the articles: 50*2=100
Total: 153 points
Sure, you have to edit all articles again after you create them, but you more than double your points in the process, and it's faster to do because all edits insert the same template into the last line.
At least, the scoring adjustments made the new system better than the old system. But the reward for creating ridiculously huge navigation boxes is still too high: You can triple your score by plastering navigation boxes into all your copy-pasted articles. Be smart: Use categories. Or at least redefine "minor edit" to exclude navigation templates.
One might wonder how Andy's recent rule change (giving copy-pasted entries potentially more than 1 point) will mess with this. Well, of course, claiming more points for copy-pasting will lead to... uh... more points in total. But this will have no effect on the abuse bonus. You will still just get the 2 points per minor edit.
[edit] Blocking and reverting
Blocking or reverting vandals gives 2 points. An early phrasing said that this "or" would be exclusive (so blocking and reverting would only give 2 points, leading to all sorts of weird scenarios), but now it appears as if you get points for both. Good!
Note: Reverting vandalism takes a lot more time for non-sysops due to the CAPTCHA system that kicks in whenever your revert re-introduces a new, external link. Rollback is much faster. So the best tag-team would be two sysops in the same team.
[edit] Adding Breaking News
A sysop who adds to the Breaking News section gets 6 points. Non-sysops will get 4 points if their suggested Breaking News is added, but the adding sysop gets the remaining 2 points! So if you've got bad luck, an opponent sysop adds your news, effectively resulting in only 2 points for your team. Hooray.
After a tweak, the Breaking News points were lowered a bit. The margin still remains the same, though.
[edit] Uploading images
(Update: This rule eventually was tweaked enough to enhance clarity and reduce abuse potential, so there is little to say about it here. Add a "quality" image, get 3 points.)
