[POLL] Add tough entry criteria for contests to stop account farmers and cheats?

[Free Market Capitalist]

the forum's mission to be as free as possible.
~
Limiting newbie participation is very harmful for a community. ~ When barriers to participation are too high, then the best people often just won't go to the trouble of joining, and the people who are willing to jump through the hoops are often people who aren't good for the community: people with nothing better to do, scammers, get-rick-quickers, etc.

If only accounts older than 6 months can join, anyone who wants to abuse a contest can create a few accounts and wait 6 months for the next contest. Unless you keep changing the rule: "accounts created after August 2026 can never join a costest" (but that would be ridiculous).

That would be easily solved if another criteria, like being a full member as I was suggesting above, was added.

Apart from that, the forum is as free as possible but that doesn't mean that every account gets to participate in everything. To post on the serious boards you need to have a certain rank (i.e. a certain activity on the forum, combined merit requirements). The same happens with signature campaigns. Why can't a six days old account participate in the serious boards or in signature campaigns but can win a $1,5K prize for making a fucking pizza?

[BitBakerr1]

No matter how tight the rules and regulation are in this forum, some set of people will still find a way to cheat, however, that does not mean the forum management won’t do the best to make sure that cheating is reduced to its minimum.
Cheating cannot disappear from this forum however it can be reduced, and the suggestions you have given is OK, because it will help reduce the cheating rate in contest, but it will not totally eliminate cheating.
As for me I go with: Yes, accounts under 12 months old should be excluded from applying.

[promise444c5]

I think the merit option is okay but not 500, 250 should be enough or let’s  just say snr member along with probably a 120 or 90 days merit criteria. 

This won’t solve it  entirely but it surely will help to prevent some alts as others mentioned already.

As for me I go with: Yes, accounts under 12 months old should be excluded from applying.

Plus activity and merit.. not just creating it an account , filling it up with generic posts just to participate in contest.

[Smartvirus]

It’s always stated that alt accounts aren’t allowed in this contest and when these cheats try to maximize their chances of getting something by flooding these contests with series of arts, it’s indeed an issue.

if we dont we will be overrun with alts AIs etc.

so i voted 6 month restriction. which will simply delay those accounts for 6 months but its a period that can be referred back to. ie join, do basically nothing for 6 months, proceed to enter contests. not a good history.

6 months might be sometime but, it’s no time for account farmers if they can just create accounts and give it time to mature, they still would have their accounts ready in months and then, the criteria for participation is ready.

A 12 month participation would be cool and it’s almost expected that the account would be Sr. member and above by then, which should be of some value to the individual behind the account. Should accounts that are under 6months be given opportunity to participate, it should come under being vouched for, just like we have it in the whitelisting formate for by passing evil fee/proxy ban system.

Those caught are sure to get tagged and when these cheats try account is of any value, they just wouldn’t risk it.

[Majestic-milf]

I believe the idea is not to say certainly there will be zero cheats because I don't think you can totally eliminate that as a factor. The idea is just to make the rules more rigid just to ensure that there's barely room for them to cheat. There's a positive side to making membership a stricter requirement to be part of forum contests.

It generally should be a way of giving back to those who have been around here long enough contributing is cheaters are hijacking it they are definitely depriving those that really deserve these rewards.

I understand the angle  the Op is coming from and I know how painful it can get when cheats deprive those people who are actually worthy of the reward but if a tougher entry criteria is used, what's the assurance that we'd see less of these people who are greedy?
Personally, I'm all for the elimination of cheats in such competitions but once you announce the method at which you want to fish them out, they can get smarter and adjust.

[lovesmayfamilis]

To be honest, the prize pool in this year's competition was so beautiful that I could expect manipulation from users who coveted such an amount, in the form of the fact that pizzas can be ordered from professionals, from those who do an excellent job with them on a daily basis, and then presented as their work. Why the cheaters did not take such a step is not clear to me, based on the fact that it is very easy to negotiate with pizza masters, chefs, and pros for a certain amount.

Therefore, those who want to cheat will cheat anyway, whether they have the rank of a legend or not; it all depends on what guides such people. Whether it's greed or poverty or both, they will naturally be willing to forget about those qualities, like honesty, and will always look for ways that are far from normal people. In our recent contest story, we've seen how pizzas are cooked together for all alternative accounts in the same kitchen, and maybe not even by the real account owners.

[Lida93]

I think the merit option is okay but not 500, 250 should be enough or let’s  just say snr member along with probably a 120 or 90 days merit criteria. 

This won’t solve it  entirely but it surely will help to prevent some alts as others mentioned already.

I agree with your suggestion but at least it should give room for full members to also have the privilege to participate in a forum contest they are part of. I have this feeling that making rules too strict doesn't do much harm to the rules breakers but to those genuine members which the strictness of the rules may deny participation into a  contest like the pizza contest.

What may have happened in this year pizza contest is what has led to this call for stricter rules to join. If we agree that strict rules may not stop cheaters from smuggling themselves into contests then we can also agree that it would rather stop genuine interested members, hence affecting them more than it does to cheaters which the strict rules were targeted at. My suggestion is that if an account is not up to a full member rank, hasn't being active for straight 6 months before the contest they shouldn't participate. Also, a certain number of earned merits for the 120 days can be considered as part of the rules.

[Cryptohygenic]

As a result of the thread created in the reputation board regarding the $500 3rd prize winning dubious account in the Pizza Day competition, I am asking a valid question: In order to stop abuse and to discourage account farmers and cheats, should there be a strict entry criteria for all competitions/contests that offer prizes to winners?

I guess the warning that participants should not enroll the contests with their Alt accounts is just fine while victims should face the charges.
The ideal of restricting specific ranks won't entirely help to wave away that aspect of cheating in the forum competitive events because there could be user's who may also have Alts that are qualified in the requirements.
Although the ideal may sound good with the fact that it will limit participants in the very events. In the other hand, this rules may also affect innocent user's all because their ranks did not qualify the requirements.
I don't also see possibilities of how contest specifically will encourage account farming because, participating in contests like that can not be major cause of account farming but joining signature campaigns which the signature and campaign managers also makes it clear that Alt accounts is against the systems.

[MisFoxie]

I voted for the top, accounts that are less than six months old should not be able to participate. At least 100 activity, 100 earned merit, and at least 10 earn merit within 120 days.
There is a big problem sponsors want as many people to participate as possible but because of such criteria many people will not be able to join even if they want to and there are also many who are not even comfortable joining, overall participants will be less than regular.

[joker_josue]

should there be a strict entry criteria for all competitions/contests that offer prizes to winners?

You're posting this in Meta, so I assume you want this to be a forum-wide rule. Therefore, I voted No. This is the second time today I'm quoting parts of this post:

In the end, I agree with both of them.

There should be stricter criteria for those who create contests with monetary prizes.
On the other hand, this doesn't have to be an official forum rule; it's up to each event organizer to define the rules they deem appropriate. It's then up to the users to accept and participate, or not.

We also have to consider that these types of competitions evolve. The problems of one year are corrected the following year. Therefore, what happened this year is not because the competition was poorly organized, but because the schemes are more elaborate.

We all learned from this, and next year the competition will be much better.

[Ale88]

I read all the comments, and I think there are many different and interesting points of view.

I agree with LoyceV and Theymos when they say that "Limiting newbie participation is very harmful for a community", and I actually love how much the Pizza Day Contest has grown over the last few years, not only in terms of the number of participants but also the quality of the pizzas. All of this, year after year, has also led to an increase in the prize.

Unfortunately, as happens quite often, more money means more problems. We now have users willing to do anything to win the prizes. We just saw what happened with CryptoYar, so I think it's reasonable to set some clear boundaries for contests that offer a monetary prize.

This year's winner is a farmer, a cheater, and a liar, and of course, he's not returning the $1,500 he essentially stole from the community.

This could also have the opposite effect: if cheaters keep winning these contests, then what is the point of participating when you know that, once again, somebody will find a way to steal the prize? There are users who actually put a lot of thought and effort into their creations, while others simply take the easy shortcut. So, okay, we should try to keep the contest open to as many users as possible, but we should also be careful what we wish for.

In my opinion, the best solution is a combination of different requirements:

• Account age: at least 18 months old
• Account merits: at least 250 earned merits
• Account activity: TBD

Otherwise, if it's only about the registration date, you just need to open a bunch of accounts today. If it's only about merits, these people will have no problem either, since we have seen that some of them were even Merit Sources. And if it's only about activity, they can simply write a few spammy posts per week.

That is why I feel that having all of these requirements is the best way to, at least, limit these people. For sure they will still find a way around them (there is no doubt about that) but we should at least make it harder for them.

[stompix]

I am going to say something that will not be liked here but...
Restrictions will only hurt the true newbies, not the multi-account users and the cheaters!

No matter what you try, age, activity, merits, it will only delay them for a year, the next year, they would have grown 20 accounts, they will wait for the time for the contest to "earn" the required merit on their local board in the WO topic or whatever, just in time for the competition, and that will be it!
The moment you realize the grand prize is 3-4 months of work in real life for these guys do you think some barriers like this will stop them?

Yup, something has to be done, but this is just trying to drain the sea with a bucket.

[Sandra_hakeem]

the forum's mission to be as free as possible.
~
Limiting newbie participation is very harmful for a community. ~ When barriers to participation are too high, then the best people often just won't go to the trouble of joining, and the people who are willing to jump through the hoops are often people who aren't good for the community: people with nothing better to do, scammers, get-rick-quickers, etc.

If only accounts older than 6 months can join, anyone who wants to abuse a contest can create a few accounts and wait 6 months for the next contest. Unless you keep changing the rule: "accounts created after August 2026 can never join a costest" (but that would be ridiculous).

That would be easily solved if another criteria, like being a full member as I was suggesting above, was added.

PP, you really think these farms can't produce a full member account under 6 months?

Apart from that, the forum is as free as possible but that doesn't mean that every account gets to participate in everything.

How do you understand Theymos' statement---- "Limiting newbie participation is very harmful for a community"? He's advocating for the exact opposite of what you have suggested and we both know the downsides, but then we have an immediate problem that demands an immediate solution right? I agree with Joker on this one.

There should be stricter criteria for those who create contests with monetary prizes.
On the other hand, this doesn't have to be an official forum rule; it's up to each event organizer to define the rules they deem appropriate. It's then up to the users to accept and participate, or not.

Restrictions will only hurt the true newbies, not the multi-account users and the cheaters!

That part too!

[Ale88]

Restrictions will only hurt the true newbies, not the multi-account users and the cheaters!

With all due respect, if you are a newbie I think you can easily wait 1 year to take part at a contest with a monetary prize. Otherwise, based on your idea, next year we could have a bunch of people who join the forum the day before the contest begins and they would have all the rights to win the prizes despite not having written a single post on the forum. Or maybe they don't even care about bitcoin, they just read somewhere they can make thousands of dollars winning a competition that is open for everyone. I don't think that would be fair, it's actually an incentive for people to exploit the system.

So I agree with whoever says that if a monetary prize is involved, then we should establish some rules and it's only fair to earn your spot.
Do we have a contest made just for fun? Then it's open for everybody, absolutely no problem about that. At the end if you're really into the forum and bitcoin for sure you won't stop writing just because you have to wait a few months to take part in a pizza contest. Right?

[stompix]

Restrictions will only hurt the true newbies, not the multi-account users and the cheaters!

With all due respect, if you are a newbie I think you can easily wait 1 year to take part at a contest with a monetary prize. Otherwise, based on your idea, next year we could have a bunch of people who join the forum the day before the contest begins and they would have all the rights to win the prizes despite not having written a single post on the forum.

Sorry, but is this a pizza contest or an account contest?
I could create 100 accounts and bake 100 pizzas next year, and you know what place I will get? 101-200 because I suck at cooking!

Walk me through the process where a guy with 10 accounts baking pizza will beat one guy with a great pizza!

Let's face reality, and reality is:
- CryptoYar would have participated even with your conditions
- CryptoYar has won the competition fair and square

So, is his pizza worse because he was multicounting?

If we talk about voting, yeah, that's a different thing, I actually think we need to select those and have a limited jury, but for the actual participation,  I can't think of a way in which a guy with 10 accounts makes better pizzas than one with just one, solely based on this and not because of his talent.

[Free Market Capitalist]

Sorry, but is this a pizza contest or an account contest?
I could create 100 accounts and bake 100 pizzas next year, and you know what place I will get? 101-200 because I suck at cooking!

That could be easily solved if instead of length of time since registration, the restrictions was tied to activity and merit, so rank. I talked about it in this post and this other one.

If so, good luck ranking up 100 accounts to full member in a year.

PP, you really think these farms can't produce a full member account under 6 months?

Do I really have to answer such an obvious question? A farm can create 1 million accounts today and participate in the pizza competition tomorrow, but getting some of them to full member status in time for the competition will be much harder.

So your argument is that since some people would cheat the system anyway, we should just make it much easier for them. Not in my world.

While we're at it, let's get rid of the merit system—since there are cheaters who manage to rank up anyway, let's make it easier for everyone and go back to a system where you can rank up just by shitposting one-liners after the required time has passed.

[PrivacyG]

I would say yes to put a stop to this cheating B S but at the same time I know very well that they will simply find a way around the restrictions.  I recently put together some of the alternative accounts that were found by some of our Members here in the past and when added together, you realize they actually have a farm of over 100 alternative accounts total.  Some of them are purchased, some of them are old et cetera.  And this is just one farm.  It never ends and it will not end for a long while.  All they have to do is purchase old accounts if they do not have any only so they can try to cheat again.

There are a LOT of alternative accounts around here with alot more than 6 or 12 months since registration date.  In fact.  This could even favor the old account farms and do more harm than good.  I believe there should be a difficult entry criteria that keeps cheaters away but this is not it.

[Ale88]

Restrictions will only hurt the true newbies, not the multi-account users and the cheaters!

With all due respect, if you are a newbie I think you can easily wait 1 year to take part at a contest with a monetary prize. Otherwise, based on your idea, next year we could have a bunch of people who join the forum the day before the contest begins and they would have all the rights to win the prizes despite not having written a single post on the forum.

Sorry, but is this a pizza contest or an account contest?
I could create 100 accounts and bake 100 pizzas next year, and you know what place I will get? 101-200 because I suck at cooking!

Walk me through the process where a guy with 10 accounts baking pizza will beat one guy with a great pizza!

Do I actually have to explain you why someone who submits 10 pizzas has a higher probability to win compared to someone who submits only one?

Of course I'm talking about decent pizzas. A simple example taken directly from the thread that brought me here:

I dailly bake a pizza and I waste it by thinking that there must be something more unique and attractive I almost spend a week to decide that which pizza i should upload then finally I decide to upload this pizza

So potentially this user could have upload several pizzas under several accounts (and just clarify, I'm saying she did it, it's an example).

Let's face reality, and reality is:
- CryptoYar would have participated even with your conditions
- CryptoYar has won the competition fair and square

So, is his pizza worse because he was multicounting?

So for you participating with multiple accounts, submitting multiple pizzas, and voting for his own pizzas using several alt accounts is "winning fair and square"? Wow, we must have a very different idea of that definition. I'm surprised everybody asked him to return the money despite winning fair and square then.