tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946730821757640263.post3444218941094584218..comments2023-03-02T00:49:23.385-08:00Comments on Danna Staaf - Author: Science Writing Finalist Will Now Angst About CompetitionDanna Staafhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10187299641549075487noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946730821757640263.post-64773346090937392302011-07-21T17:50:18.000-07:002011-07-21T17:50:18.000-07:00As for me I think competitions should be really te...As for me I think competitions should be really tense because of this!<br>essay writinghttp://custom-paper-writing.com/custom_essay_writingnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946730821757640263.post-66731348683737727172010-04-03T17:12:25.000-07:002010-04-03T17:12:25.000-07:00Science certainly is a complicated subject, and al...Science certainly is a complicated subject, and also at times, a field with lots of ego at stake. That is easy to understand. There have even been bouts of "outsiderness" within the scientific community (molecular biology vs. ecology, or mathematics vs. physics), and examples of dogma rising above scientific acumen are too numerous (even once is too much as in the "Clovis first" mandate). Skepticism has long served science well, but it may be time to get a new paradigm -- a subtle, yet successful shift in mindset and thinking. Could "selfless restraint" fill that duty? It's got all the correct elements minus the excess baggage that all too frequently goes with skepticism. One glance at the "skeptics" forums and websites, and you can see the type of illogics that from time to time discover their way into scientific thinking.<br>Weiss - Devinhttp://george64estrada.typepad.com/blog/http://nrgboost.ning.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946730821757640263.post-9924200612391672362010-01-24T14:20:21.000-08:002010-01-24T14:20:21.000-08:00Yikes! I am sooooo sorry. Unbeknownst to me, this ...Yikes! I am sooooo sorry. Unbeknownst to me, this comment has been languishing in the bowels of Movable Type for the last month. Don't know what happened! Anyway, I finally unearthed & posted it.<br>I certainly understand that logins are a barrier to participation. People of the interwebs don't like registering, but they also don't like being manipulated. They know you're trying to "make people think that we think their opinions matter" but they also know that online contests are won by gaming the system. I stand by my assertion that "if you're going to run future competitions like this one and give the prize to the best networking, that's fine, but you'll have to acknowledge it up-front" because if you don't, people are going to feel cheated and manipulated.<br>As for hiring judges, wasn't the whole point of the competition to find good writing that appeals to the general public? If a biology article is too hardcore to be appreciated by a physicist, then it's probably too hardcore to be appreciated by the general public. You want <i>generalist</i> judges, people who know good writing, not necessarily people with PhDs. Professional writers and editors would probably be a good pool to draw from. But really, so would your next family reunion. I think it matters less exactly who the judges are, and more that they are people with no conflicts of interest who agree to sit down, read, and score every single article.<br>I'm honored to be entertained for this long as a guest on the new hit TV show. ;)<br>Dannanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946730821757640263.post-30442532548326971472009-12-17T07:27:28.000-08:002009-12-17T07:27:28.000-08:00Hi again, Danna. Sorry it's taken a week for m...Hi again, Danna. Sorry it's taken a week for me to get back to you; I keep forgetting to write! :)<br>From what I understand, we wanted more people to join the ScientificBlogging community and participate in the voting process, so we opened voting up to anonymous users.<br>See, people on the Internets don't like having to register for <em>yet another site</em> in order to comment on something they see or to vote on something. It's a <a href="http://www.inanger.com/opinion/login-is-a-barrier/" rel="nofollow">big</a> <a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000881.html" rel="nofollow">barrier</a> to people participating on any site. The general hope is that you can let them use the service, and they'll like what they see or be intrigued by other services available to registered members that <em>then</em> they'll sign up and come more often.<br>I honestly don't know how one should conduct competitions on the Internet anymore; if it's anything more complex than rating pictures of LOLcats (or LOLPlankton, as the case may be... :P), then people are just going to give up unless they're a part of the community (which takes time and networking) and really want to see the best person win. Which is kind of ironic, since competitions like this are held so we can make people think that <em>we</em> think their opinions matter, thereby making them want to sign up and become parts of the community (but without the time investment).<br>Also, how does one hire judges for a multi-disciplinary science site like ours? A physicist like Tommaso might not be able to appreciate the interesting points of a hardcore biology article, for instance. (Which actually raises an interesting point: wouldn't the best article be the one that scientists from <em>all</em> the disciplines get, representing our reader base?)<br>Damn, I'm talking myself in circles again.<br>Anyways, that's all I can think of for this installment of <em>Patrick Should Be Doing Troubleshooting But Decided To Talk To Users Instead</em>, the new hit TV show!<br>Patrick Adair,<br>Developer, ScientificBlogging.com<br>Patrick Adairhttp://scientificblogging.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946730821757640263.post-51028831352879778972009-12-09T10:45:23.000-08:002009-12-09T10:45:23.000-08:00Hey Patrick! Thanks again for the time you've ...Hey Patrick! Thanks again for the time you've taken to respond thoughtfully and thoroughly.<br>Just out of curiosity, why did you decide to change the rules from the original "only registered users can vote" to allow anonymous voting? Sticking with registered users would have saved a lot of vote-sifting trouble.<br>In the end, it's the nature of the online voting beast to turn into a popularity contest. I'm glad to hear you recognize that "99% of the votes we got were just people voting for their friends" although it conflicts with the fact that "in the spirit of what we're trying to do, you can't just go to the page, click the vote button, and leave."<br>If you're going to have more of these competitions, I think there will have to be a very conscious decision whether you want the prize to go to the best writing or the best networking. Because you're absolutely right--it's not possible to get a bunch of folks on the internet to actually sit down and read all of the articles and evaluate which is the best before casting their vote. So if you want the prize to go to the best writing, you need a panel of expert judges who are committed to giving the contest the time and dedication it deserves. Alternatively, if you're going to run future competitions like this one and give the prize to the best networking, that's fine, but you'll have to acknowledge it up-front.<br>And I'm actually quite excited about the flip camera! I feel a little odd being congratulated for winning it, since it was a random drawing--<i>yay me! I got my name pulled out of a hat!</i>--but the sentiment is kind and I appreciate it.<br>Dannanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946730821757640263.post-24240298665675271512009-12-03T15:43:39.000-08:002009-12-03T15:43:39.000-08:00Hi Patrick. I really appreciate you stopping by--I...Hi Patrick. I really appreciate you stopping by--I was hoping to stimulate discussion! I'm glad to hear that you and Hank took vote verification seriously, although I never thought otherwise. I question not the intention, but the implementation.<br>I'm curious what "personally sifting through every vote" entails? Were you looking for unique IP addresses? If you disregard multiple votes from the same IP address, then you only allow one vote per firewall, although many people may be voting from behind the same firewall. I mentioned this problem in a chat with Hank and received no response, so I would be very interested to hear your take on it. Perhaps you've found a way around it. Or perhaps you decided to accept that consequence and say: tough luck. One vote per firewall it is. I would certainly understand the need to make a decision like that; I won't get out the pitchforks and tar! I would just like to <i>know</i>.<br>It may be that you and Hank are not comfortable discussing the details of "sifting votes" because you think that might compromise the security of future contests and votes. Obscurity is a <a rel="nofollow">weak, but not totally ineffective</a>, form of security, so I personally think you'd be better off being transparent about the voting process so you can get criticism and improvement from "the internet's smartest readers".<br>But the most important point I tried to make is #5. Even if you secured the system perfectly against autovoting, that wouldn't change my suspicion that "the vast majority of votes are coming not from the permanent sciblogging readership, but from friend mobs, voters visiting the site to read one article--their friend's--and vote for it." Networking isn't hacking--but it isn't writing, either. Without supporting evidence (which I would love to see, if you have it), it seems naive to pretend that the winners were the best writers, not merely the best networkers.<br>Please rant back at me. I find these topics interesting, and would very much appreciate a continued dialogue.<br>And, I'm very glad to hear you've been enjoying my writing!<br>Dannanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946730821757640263.post-90953741654107253922009-12-01T09:11:29.000-08:002009-12-01T09:11:29.000-08:00Hi Danna, this is Patrick, one of the developers a...Hi Danna, this is Patrick, one of the developers at ScientificBlogging. I noticed your link in one of the comments on the contest-announcement articles, so I thought I'd drop by and say hello.<br>I'm currently working on the contest myself, and I suppose I want to reassure you that <strong>I personally</strong> have been sifting through just about every single vote that was submitted during the competition and making sure that it's valid and not the result of a trolling attempt like Charles pointed out. Hank's taking this verification very seriously, and he wants to make sure that only the best writers win, not those that get their hacker friends to autovote for them.<br>(Note: this is why the contest winners haven't been announced yet, even though it's Dec 1st. Verification is taking a bit longer than we thought to do. Shifty hacker-types and their.. hacker ways. :P)<br>@Mike: if you had more time than I had to implement all this, and more talented developers than I (not to mention if HTTP was a slightly more-sane protocol), then maybe you could develop a more secure system.<br>@Danna, keep up the good work, really. Squid-a-Day is an interesting blog, and I like reading this blog because I so rarely get a look into what our users think about the site in a well-thought-out and elucidated manner. Keep the feedback coming, and we'll be doing our best to make the site better for people like you. :)<br>Anyways, I've probably ranted on for too long, but I thought your analysis of our competition was so good that I felt like ranting here. Sorry if it's unwelcome; delete it if you wish.<br>Tl;dr: Contest winner announcements are coming soon; I think I've got the winners pinned down, I just need verification from Hank and Kim before we actually put anything up.<br>So long, and thanks for all the feedback!<br>Patrick<br>Developer, ScientificBlogging.com<br>Patrick Adairnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946730821757640263.post-16827993298531531532009-11-10T01:24:09.000-08:002009-11-10T01:24:09.000-08:00@Luke--Yeah, it's just disconcerting to have t...@Luke--Yeah, it's just disconcerting to have those people ask me "How badly do you want to win?" with a slightly maniacal glint in their eyes.<br>@Mike--It is a fun thought exercise, isn't it? We can continue brainstorming at TG with the whole family...<br>@Charles--Thanks much! I had the feeling there'd be some really obvious citation to make that point.<br>Dannanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946730821757640263.post-8868150578269431542009-11-07T11:48:11.000-08:002009-11-07T11:48:11.000-08:00Megan and I had some fun speculating about how one...Megan and I had some fun speculating about how one might conceivably be able to implement an online voting system that would actually only allow each person to vote once. It doesn't seem a priori impossible, but so far it seems like much more energy has gone into fancy ways to verify that <i>people are who they say they are</i> online, but hardly any into ways to verify that <i>no one says they are more than one person</i>.<br>Of course, as you point out, "one man, 22 votes" may be perfectly in line with sciblogging's goals, but it's an interesting thing to think about.<br>Mikehttp://www.math.uchicago.edu/~shulmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8946730821757640263.post-78538363362352926072009-11-07T08:49:37.000-08:002009-11-07T08:49:37.000-08:00I'm amused by your concern on point number 3, ...I'm amused by your concern on point number 3, knowing you, your husband, and your circle of friends. If anyone wanted to game the anonymous voting system, you know the people to make it happen. Good luck!<br>Lukenoreply@blogger.com