Cheater detected !

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exxodus
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Cheater detected !

Post by exxodus »

There is a new 3 step "hit". But it seems that this one is a fake cauz it seem that "kabouterke" get this note TWICE ! Once in Amsterdam, then in Leuven !

kabouterke 2002-04-17 13:52:26 Amsterdam 1106BX
ully 2002-04-16 15:40:32 Brussel 1930
kabouterke 2002-04-10 13:16:03 Leuven 3000
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Cheater detected !

Post by EuroBillTracker »

exxodus wrote: There is a new 3 step "hit". But it seems that this one is a fake cauz it seem that "kabouterke" get this note TWICE ! Once in Amsterdam, then in Leuven !

kabouterke 2002-04-17 13:52:26 Amsterdam 1106BX
ully 2002-04-16 15:40:32 Brussel 1930
kabouterke 2002-04-10 13:16:03 Leuven 3000
It is not considered a cheat.

Right now the policy is that as long as a bill has traveled it will be accepted into the database.

There have been a couple threads about this in the forum. We're going to stick to this policy until the end of May and then re-evalute.
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Soory

Post by exxodus »

I can't imagine that the same person get a note in Leuven the 10/04, then less than 7 days later (But ONLY ONE DAY after this note can be saw in Bruxelles) get same note in Amsterdam !

Did you already contact these 2 guys ?
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Soory

Post by EuroBillTracker »

exxodus wrote: I can't imagine that the same person get a note in Leuven the 10/04, then less than 7 days later (But ONLY ONE DAY after this note can be saw in Bruxelles) get same note in Amsterdam !
Did you already contact these 2 guys ?
No. And I agree that they probably know each other and exchanged bills.

Like I said before, it's a difficult balance between policing the site (and spending hours cleaning the database) and letting the users do whatever they want.

It will take a while to figure out the correctly balanced policy but, in any event, we need to give the current one a try :)
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Post by smh »

Well, like i said before, i don't agree on this.
I thought it wasn't possible for one user to enter the same note twice? I really think you should make that a policy. Chances are so extremely small that it would be much easier for you to add a hit manually (after they send you a mail) then to remove all these fake hits. With two simple rules we can make it a bit harder for users to "cheat"

1) Not entering bills Anonymous
2) Not able to enter the same bill twice

Now the only way to cheat is creating a second account or exchanging the bills with someone else.

I think you can't do much to users who create a second account.
And Like you said before, if users exchange a bill then the bill travelled so it's not that bad to have them in the database.

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Post by EuroBillTracker »

smh wrote: Well, like i said before, i don't agree on this.
I thought it wasn't possible for one user to enter the same note twice? I really think you should make that a policy. Chances are so extremely small that it would be much easier for you to add a hit manually (after they send you a mail) then to remove all these fake hits. With two simple rules we can make it a bit harder for users to "cheat"
Well, I think this is not the same case as what you're talking about. A single user cannot enter the same bill twice in a row. That's always been the case I think.
What happened here is that user 1 gave it to user 2 who gave it again to user 1.

However, I like your point of entering a bill manually rather than cleaning the DB (although, I do have something that does it all automatically now...)
1) Not entering bills Anonymous
I think it's important for people to see what's going on...
2) Not able to enter the same bill twice
And Like you said before, if users exchange a bill then the bill travelled so it's not that bad to have them in the database.
glad you agree :)

At some point I will delegate to some users the power to remove bills from the list so I don't have to do it all myself but we're not there yet :) AND we need a clear policy by the time we do that...
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Post by smh »

Quote:

1) Not entering bills Anonymous
I think it's important for people to see what's going on...
They are perfectely able to see how things work at the site. I still think that it shouldn't be possible to enter bills anonymously.

BTW, i knew a user can't enter a bill twice in a row (happens to me sometimes by accident) but chances are so extremely rare that a user gets the same bill twice that this policy probably only affects cheaters, and thus should be implemented (if technically possible of course)
de-jo

'local' hits are not allways cheaters!

Post by de-jo »

:cry: Not completely correct. As bills remain in the neighbourhood, there is a greater chance of getting one back than having a bill coming from a far distance. :P

:? As I told the webmaster, I had this 2 times allready; a 'local' hit as you can call this.

:o The bills I enter are coming from an automatic shop where you only can enter the bills and this machine gives only coins in exchange. :!:

:P After having entered the bills in Eurobilltracker.com, they go to the bank or are used to buy things locally in shops in the neigbourhood.

:!: So I received 2 times a bill back. One was allready more than 1 month 'on the road again'.

:wink: Webmaster decided that a bill should travel. :evil: They are NOT listed as hits actually! I can follow his statement, but why not taking away all those bills that have no postcode changed. :roll: There are several such 'local' hits in the database actually.

:idea: :wink: Or, other suggestion, starting a second hitlist, with only the local hits and cleaning out the real hitlist with the real 'moving + traveling' bills.

What do you think? :?:
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'local' hits are not allways cheaters!

Post by exxodus »

de-jo wrote: Webmaster decided that a bill should travel. They are NOT listed as hits actually! I can follow his statement, but why not taking away all those bills that have no postcode changed.
1. The statement of such a web site if tracing notes in europe. I think that keeping a local hit isn't usefull. :idea: OR shall we enter the address (Street name / Shop name / Bank location / ... ) where we got back the note.

2. If a use get a bill twice .. it should be possible ONLY in case of a LOCAL HIT .. I'm keeping thinking that get a bill twice in only 1 Days with a 300 km distance is not possible ... (Leuven / Amsterdam)


Last, i don't understand those "cheaters" .. they can't win anything within this site .. so ?

.:::Exxodus::.
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'local' hits are not allways cheaters!

Post by EuroBillTracker »

de-jo wrote: listed as hits actually! I can follow his statement, but why not taking away all those bills that have no postcode changed. :roll: There are several such 'local' hits in the database actually.
I have been doing that. Some of you might notice that the hit counter goes down some days. I also added a check to prevent people from entering a bill if they enter the same country & zip but some people are just entering part of the zip code to circumvent that..

I actually did it just 2 days ago and will do it again this weekend.
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Post by emmem »

When reading all this I discovered that there are different kinds (or types) of hits. I made the following list. Feel free to post if you know other types or know better names/definitions for the ones I gave.

Fake hits :cry: :
Hits based on one or more fake entries (an entry of a bill the user never got. This can be done by error or intentionally). Also fake are hits entered by the same user using different accounts. Creating a new account can be done in case you forgot your password (and don’t want to bother the webmaster) or when you want to use an other email account. In the newly created account the data of previous bill entries you kept somewhere will then be entered.

Real hits:
Hits that are not fake.

Hits between users who ‘know’ each other (lets name it an artificial hit):
This 2 users can be located in 2 different countries. Some of my colleagues in Brussels travel a lot to Paris. If they know somebody in Paris who is also an EBT and the exchange bills they got in Belgium you will have an international hit. But still a hit between EBT who know each other.
A good indicator for finding out if 2 users know each other is to check if they have hits on separated dates.

Local hits:
Hits within in the same zip code.

National hits:
Hits in the same country

International hits:
Hits that are made in 2 different countries.

Clean hits (or pure hits) :P :
Real non local (maybe even only international) hits between users who don’t know each other.

Interesting hits 8):
Hits that users find interesting. To find out if a bill is interesting or not, a voting system can be used.

IMHO I think we should use 2 or 3 hit-lists as de-jo suggested. The first list with clean hits. A second one with all the real hits. And maybe a third with interesting hits (obtained by the voting system).

I do not think it is a good thing preventing users from entering bills if they are entered in the same zip-country combination. If I got such a bill I still want to know where it travels to. When I can’t enter the bill I won’t be able to do that.

But such a bill should not be considered as a clean hit. Still, in the 'my notes'-section it can appear as a hit, with a remark that it’s not a clean hit.

Well I used many words here. Hope nobody fell asleep while reading them :(
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Post by exxodus »

emmem wrote: Hits between users who ‘know’ each other (lets name it an artificial hit):
This 2 users can be located in 2 different countries. Some of my colleagues in Brussels travel a lot to Paris. If they know somebody in Paris who is also an EBT and the exchange bills they got in Belgium you will have an international hit. But still a hit between EBT who know each other.
A good indicator for finding out if 2 users know each other is to check if they have hits on separated dates.
:idea: To simply detect these, why not asking where did we got the note ? We can also use an "listbox" : "In a shop", "in a bar", "out of the bank", "from a friend", "Other..." (In this case you're invited to write down in a text area where did you really get the note )

With this information, we can accept LOCAL HITS, but ALSO FRIENDLY-HITS.

What did you think about this ?

.:: Exxodus ::.
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Post by Jacob »

I don't think that you can find a fail safe policy on this.
If someone wants to cheat then that is something you can't prevent.

No one stops me to call a friend in Austria give him the number af one of my bills that he will fill in a week later. A hit that has traveled and didn't left my wallet.
Mayby the best thing to do is let them go, these people are not serious and will stop with this project within a year or so.
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Post by EuroBillTracker »

Wow lots of good ideas from emme and exodus. Exodus, I like your pull down menu idea. However, won't that be a bore for heavy users which enter hundreds of bills every month ?
emmem wrote: Fake hits :cry: :
These get cleaned out in time (within a week usually) but they're a pain.
I need to delegate on this.
emmem wrote: Hits between users who ‘know’ each other (lets name it an artificial hit):
A good indicator for finding out if 2 users know each other is to check if they have hits on separated dates.
This is what has caused most debate here. This is however the most intersting thread about it and I think we'll get somewhere with this discussion
Local hits:
Hits within in the same zip code.
This is currently forbidden. However, I hadn't thought of your point at the end of your message which is
if I have a bill, I want to know where it went even if a friend entered it
. Perhaps I could add a message about how a bill has traveled when it's entered in all cases
And if it hasn't traveled, I don't add it to the DB right now.

Interesting hits 8):
Hits that users find interesting. To find out if a bill is interesting or not, a voting system can be used.
:)
IMHO I think we should use 2 or 3 hit-lists as de-jo suggested. The first list with clean hits. A second one with all the real hits. And maybe a third with interesting hits (obtained by the voting system).
This has the huge disadvateges of:
- being confusing to the average joe
- making me do a lot of work
but I have come to the same conclusion.
We need one list but with two orderings :
- ordered by date of the latest hit
- ordered by interest based on votes by special users

I'm working on streamlining translations right now because I feel like this is holding me back on adding stuff to the site. I know I said I would work on the voting system but...
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Post by emmem »

EuroBillTracker wrote: Exodus, I like your pull down menu idea. However, won't that be a bore for heavy users which enter hundreds of bills every month ?
Some time ago I had also an idea of adding listboxes to the bill entry form. But at that time the idea didn’t seem good to me because of getting the form to complex. So I discarded it.

But now I have thought of a solution. We could add tabs on top of the form. A tab labeled basic and a tab marked advanced. The basic tab would contain the current form and the advanced with the listboxes added.

I must say I have some additional ideas about entering bills, and I think I’m going to start another thread about that.
EuroBillTracker wrote: This is currently forbidden. However, I hadn't thought of your point at the end of your message which is
if I have a bill, I want to know where it went even if a friend entered it
. Perhaps I could add a message about how a bill has traveled when it's entered in all cases
And if it hasn't traveled, I don't add it to the DB right now.
I’m certainly in favor of allowing every bill entry, but excluding some of them of the hit list.

About more than one hit list
EuroBillTracker wrote: - being confusing to the average joe
I sometimes forget about that. :(
EuroBillTracker wrote: - making me do a lot of work
Sorry about that. I would like to help but my knowledge of PHP and MySQL is very limited. Maybe this will change once I get Linux working on one of my PC’s. :?
EuroBillTracker wrote: but I have come to the same conclusion.
We need one list but with two orderings :
- ordered by date of the latest hit
- ordered by interest based on votes by special users
This is a good idea. Now the only thing to sort out is how the vote will be organized.

I’ve an idea about this, but maybe there are better ones than what I’m going to work out here.

I think we should give every user a limited amount of votes he can cast on one or more hits. The number of votes a users gets can initially be one vote for every month the user has at least entered lets say 10 notes. Thus a user who joined in February and entered 15 notes in February, 100 in March and only 9 in April will get 2 votes to cast.

I chose e period of one month because if you go on vacation for 2 or 3 week, not being able to enter bill, you won’t lose votes in this way. The minimum of 10 notes is meant to prevent users from creating additional accounts to get more votes. It should not be to high either because this could encourage some users to enter fake numbers.

Extra votes can be obtained when helping with the site or forum (translating, moderating the forum, sending in banners.. .)

When casting a vote you could mark a hit as being not interesting or as being interesting. As long as you have votes left you can do this for every bill. I think users should also be able to remove their votes and use them on other hits. At the end of the day or week all votes are counted and will be used for the next day or week.
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