Remove cheater ?

[rsylvian]

Hi !

It's really sad to view good startup go down and go down constantly. Have you planned to remove cheaters ? I don't like denounce but I'm very tired about this behavior...

The fact is that http://urls.api.twitter.com/ even count deleted tweets, so if you buy 5000 RT and after delete your tweet, It's okay you still have 5000 points. SO :

• actual Sample Issue #1 (ArchAngel Enterprises) is cheating -> He has 9,158 points with 2 tweets (https://twitter.com/search?q=http%3A%2F%2Farchangelent.org&src=typd&mode=realtime) ... He was not is the top10 since today.
• actual Linking Tweets #2 (Mutual Fun) is spamming -> https://twitter.com/fun282412926
• actual Error: undefined when submitting URL with >96 characters #3 (Mixsupp) is cheating -> https://twitter.com/ViktorBulanek/status/373068934687121408 . 7600 RT with 1 follower. seems legit.
• actual URL should allow https prefix, not just http. #4 (Stealthy) -> seems weird but okay
• actual Respond with appropriate HTTP response codes #5 (Is it cool) is spamming -> https://twitter.com/SpringBreakTwit

...

I hope you can just check a little more to restore fun in this contest :)

[Enllave]

Should be removed immediately and even penalize you for it. Thanks for sharing the information.

[balajis]

We'll take a look. The variety of different ways to cheat is a bit surprising; we learned a lot from this iteration of the leaderboard and will try to robustify it for the next version. We retain discretion in awarding prizes so obvious cheaters won't win.

[balajis]

@alexchia - worth taking a look at these

[rsylvian]

Thank you guys for all the work done in this challenge and thank you for your reactivity.
I hope cheaters will be removed ASAP to allow us to do our job and making buzz around our apps.

[rsylvian]

And cheating continue again and again ...

Actual #1 (ArchAngel Enterprises) just buys 10 000 RT -> https://twitter.com/ladps/status/376399544038068225
Actual #2 (MixSupp) has added 7000 RT to his previous tweet -> https://twitter.com/ViktorBulanek/status/373068934687121408

Really sad about this method :(

[alexchia]

@MyBoon unfortunately we can't do much about this save for forcibly removing the teams because it's really difficult coming up with another fair way of counting tweets at such a short notice. unfortunately this is the case for all tweet counter applications that uses twitter's API to do the counts. we'll probably figure out something more robust for v2, but for now we'll leave this be. Once the leaderboard is frozen, I'll ping the winners to check if they have suitable explanations for their tweets, if not we will disqualify them for this round.

This round will just be for bragging rights - my promise to all of you is that the next round will be carried out in much fairer, transparent fashion so that everyone can be judged on an equal footing.

[rsylvian]

@alexchia I'm agree with you we're running out of time to implement another way to score points. I'm happy to read that you will ping each winners ... I don't even see how cheaters can explain their extreme scores!

And yes, this is the first version of this coursera course ... kind of a Beta test :) I'm pretty sure that next iteration will be much better (Actually, it's already very well! But with some little modification it will be Awesome!)

Thanks again for everything!

[buildpartner]

Appreciate if the cheaters are removed from the Leaderboard. It is sad and a disincentive for other legitimate players in this stage of the course. A core part of the course, apart from results and completing; is the peer recognition, camaraderie and soft-reward of seeing your legitimate work compete against your fellow classmates: This is what encourages the hard work.

Having my fellow students complain about specific cases, seeing the cheaters on the Leaderboard and these going ignored is just sad. A key reason why I am applying myself after the assessment period is over is as per the course overview; is to gain recognition the newly created startup business. As stated in the Startup Engineering Course Logistics:

"Top projects will attract attention from the Valley, including prizes sponsored by startups."

"Founders and engineers from the sponsoring startups will take a close look at the top entries in their category, but ranking/judging will be wholly programmatic as above"

Fake Twitter accounts, duplicate Retweets are not "gaming", they are clear out and out cheating. With the established value of the Leaderboard outcomes and related publicity; and in my opinion clear breach of both Coursera and Stanford codes of conduct - these cheating participants should at least be removed from the Leaderboard. If you say "gaming" occurs in reality, then think of this as in reality where the US Federal Trade Commission finds a case of "Insider Trading" and charges those involved with fraud, de-listing and shutting down the company!

[dogada]

Probably the simplest workaround is to give each participant 10 votes/points and allow to distribute it between any Leaderboard projects except of own project. This method is used by www.uservoice.com when a user can't vote for all ideas because total number of allowed votes is limited for him.

[Errbel]

Agree with you guys, cheating is just depressing for all of us :(

"Startup engineering" staff is awesome, and did very very good job, teaching all of us real stuff to found startup and responding our questions. I would like everybody THANKS them, because they had a lot of work.

Challenge was one of the thing that permit us to face the reality and to implement what we learned. But cheater have tempered the party. So I hope staff will stay professional and do their job to the end.

I made a survey published on Coursera forum. This survey allows participants to expose their feelings about "top 10 social projects": "cheater" or "not cheater" ? It may help staff and all participants to judge by themselves.
Here are the results:

Survey is here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/16hD3mIcpzHVesyPS5dWVlAQrMbcqSH0t1mWqxvwn4L8/viewform


[Errbel]

Hi
Is it possible to update http://startupmooc.org/ with the final decision ?

It will permit "public communication" :)

Thx

[jguisset]

I didn't know about http://startupmooc.org/ and the contest until yesterday... As former @epita/@Epitech alumnus i follow the school projects... @Errbel and @MyBoon went public on twitter with their #1 and winning position in the social ranking.

I just called @MyBoon a liar via email misinterpreting the leaderboard ! Hopefully i send a private message first !

You should definitively remove the cheaters from the board, it's confusing as you are the sole authority on the matter !

[alexchia]

@Errbel @jguisset fixed. thanks for your patience.