Time to clean up some hits?

Donald · Post by **Donald** » Tue Mar 26, 2002 8:11 pm

"BUT... since the point is still to see how the bills traveled doesn't it make sense to allow them to all be in the database if they have been "moved" ? Let's discuss this point"

Yes, allow pairs with multiple hits in the database, but don't display them in the hit list

Flip the Coin · Post by **Flip the Coin** » Wed Mar 27, 2002 11:10 am

Anonymous wrote: My only suggestion: If there are multiple hits by a certain pair of users, you only mention their first hit in the list. My expectation is that hits are extremely rare events and that it is very unlikely that 2 certain persons produce more than 1 hit in their whole lifes. Except for the situation you live in a small village and a big fraction of the population are Eurobill Trackers.

Some of my friends joined Eurobilltracker.
I enter all my bills. What if I buy for instance a second hand vhs-player from one of them. I pay with entered notes and then he enters the notes... voila, multiple hits without cheating!

There is always a change you pay someone who also uses Eurobilltracker, so multiple hits are always possible..

Flip the Coin

EuroBillTracker · Post by **EuroBillTracker** » Wed Mar 27, 2002 11:25 am

Flip the Coin wrote: Some of my friends joined Eurobilltracker.
I enter all my bills. What if I buy for instance a second hand vhs-player from one of them. I pay with entered notes and then he enters the notes... voila, multiple hits without cheating!
There is always a change you pay someone who also uses Eurobilltracker, so multiple hits are always possible..

Yes, this is apparently what happened : some guy participates in EBT. He exchanged money with a taxi driver and they both entered the bills.

smh · Post by **smh** » Wed Mar 27, 2002 12:33 pm

He payed with so many banknotes? must have been an expensive trip.
Both entered the bills within a couple of hours, in the same place.

Sorry, but i just don't believe this story

Donald · Post by **Donald** » Wed Mar 27, 2002 6:05 pm

"Some of my friends joined Eurobilltracker.
I enter all my bills. What if I buy for instance a second hand vhs-player from one of them. I pay with entered notes and then he enters the notes... voila, multiple hits without cheating!

There is always a change you pay someone who also uses Eurobilltracker, so multiple hits are always possible..

Flip the Coin"

Maybe this happens and it has to be recorded for the database. My point: Economy between eurobilltrackers is less interesting. I consider this as an experiment with the trackers being the observers. Experiments give the best results when the observer doesn't interfere with the experiment. I want to know what happens to bills when they are moved by people who are not aware of the tracking process. Most europeans are non-trackers and I want to see how bills are moved by average people. So keep the multiple hitters in the records, but display them only once in the hitlist.

Economy between eurobilltrackers is a side effect, which has to be eliminated. There is no point to displaying how much monetary intercourse a certain pair of trackers has. It just reveals the trivial information that money is exchanged between neighbors.

EuroBillTracker · Post by **EuroBillTracker** » Wed Mar 27, 2002 9:39 pm

donald, you can quote someone's message in your reply by clicking in the upper right on "quote"

Donald wrote: Maybe this happens and it has to be recorded for the database. My point: Economy between eurobilltrackers is less interesting. I consider this as an experiment with the trackers being the observers. Experiments give the best results when the observer doesn't interfere with the experiment. I want to know what happens to bills when they are moved by people who are not aware of the tracking process. Most europeans are non-trackers and I want to see how bills are moved by average people. So keep the multiple hitters in the records, but display them only once in the hitlist.

Economy between eurobilltrackers is a side effect, which has to be eliminated. There is no point to displaying how much monetary intercourse a certain pair of trackers has. It just reveals the trivial information that money is exchanged between neighbors.

This is an interesting point, I agree.
However, we need to have an absolute law/policy for me to be able to enforce or else I will be forever challenged by users as to why I erased the bills.

Can you articulate a first reponse for a question in the FAQ for example, the question being : why were some of my notes not accepted even though the were hits ?

Let's have everyone comment on this first suggestion

DosscheDaniel · Post by **DosscheDaniel** » Wed Mar 27, 2002 11:52 pm

My humble opinion:
- As this site is meant to track the moving of the bills, so allow to track money exchange between "trackers". Even if they are aware they both are trackers. It could happen both are trackers, but unaware of this fact. I do not have a tag on my clothes when shopping to advertise that i am an active tracker on eurobilltracker. ( it may sound a good idea to do it although).
- If there are hits between trackers, i imagine "they" find it fun, and even more amusing when tey look back later on to it. As long as they donot misuse it, i favor allowing it.
- i agree it isnot so interesting for others. SO i support the idea of splitting up the tracking of "hits" and the reporting of it. I assume a large "audience" is interested in seeing the hits throughout Europe as well as by country, as well as across country ( at least i am). In that case it is indeed less interesting to see these multiple hits between the 2 same pairs of trackers for a series of notes. If it is easy to be programmed, i would propose to report it as one instance with multiple notes. If it is difficult , don't spend the effort to report it as one instance, and handle it as any other hit.
- Summary: i vote for allowing to report by trackers such transactions, I accept any other idea on reporting of hits.

Flip the Coin · Post by **Flip the Coin** » Thu Mar 28, 2002 9:54 am

DosscheDaniel wrote: My humble opinion:
<snip>
As long as they donot misuse it, i favor allowing it.

I agree.
Multiple hits between two users schouldn't occur too much. When there is doubt, Philippe can always ask them the 'why and how' and act upon their answers.

Flip the Coin

EuroBillTracker · Post by **EuroBillTracker** » Thu Mar 28, 2002 10:30 am

Flip the Coin wrote: When there is doubt, Philippe can always ask them the 'why and how' and act upon their answers.

Yes, but to me, this is the crux of the problem : then what ?
I have done that for the 65 or so hits. The story I got is that one guy paid for a taxi and they both entered the bills. I have checked, they have entered other bills (the same day) that didn't get exchanged.

The problem is : it takes time for me to do so and one day, there will be too much of this for me to handle it. Secondly, is having a good story enough ?

I think I like the previous comment : having lots of double entries doesn't mean having to display them the way they are now. I could add a complete list of hits soon (tomorrow I think) and then implement the voting scheme I mentionned so multiple hits such as these don't get listed at the top of the list.

francky · Post by **francky** » Thu Mar 28, 2002 2:03 pm

EuroBillTracker wrote: I could add a complete list of hits soon (tomorrow I think)

Donald · Post by **Donald** » Fri Mar 29, 2002 10:24 am

It seems that each multiple hitting pair is different. Some are honest, some probably are fakers. You cannot investigate in every case. My proposal: Mark each pair of exchangers for "multiple hit occurrance" (MHO). If a note has travelled from person A to B, who have not produced a hit before, the MHO would be 0 (zero). If this pair had produced, say 10, hits before, the MHO would be 10. The users may decide how they judge on theses data. If multiple hits become frequent, it may be useful to have 2 lists - one with and one without multiple hitters.

emmem · Post by **emmem** » Fri Mar 29, 2002 11:38 am

I think that if two users exchange all there bills they should be considered as one person. If two users have only one hit it can be considered as a genuine hit. If users exchange bill now and then, it means they live close together (in a monetary way

) and should be considered somewhere between 1 and 2 different persons.

So I came up with the following (very basic) formula for giving a score to a single hit :

Lets name our two persons EBTA and EBTB.

The amount of bills traveling from EBTA to EBTB is XA
The amount of bills traveling from EBTB to EBTA is XB
The number of bills entered by EBTA is MA
The number of bills entered by EBTB is MB

Then the formula for the score of a single hit is :

1 + ((MA+MB-2)-2(XA+XB-1)) / (MA+MB+1)

I have to warn this formula doesn’t work when 2 EBT’s entered only one and the same bill (will lead to division by zero). But for all other cases it gives a score going from 1 to 2. 1 if all bills are exchanged. 2 if only one bill is exchanged. Somewhere in between if some bills are exchanged.

Olivier · Post by **Olivier** » Fri Mar 29, 2002 2:26 pm

Donald wrote: Economy between eurobilltrackers is a side effect, which has to be eliminated. There is no point to displaying how much monetary intercourse a certain pair of trackers has. It just reveals the trivial information that money is exchanged between neighbors.

I agree with you. On the other hand, just let's consider that people are enthusiasts... when we'll get hits of 3, 4, 5 ... the exchanges of bills won't be so important.
The rule I have suggested in another part of the forum is simple: one can register each bill only once. This is to prevent people from exchanging the same bill again and again.

Olivier

Finn · Post by **Finn** » Wed Apr 03, 2002 11:32 am

Olivier wrote: The rule I have suggested in another part of the forum is simple: one can register each bill only once. This is to prevent people from exchanging the same bill again and again.

I'm not sure if this is the best solution. This scenario is of course very unlikely, but in theory possible. A person enters a note, puts it back to circulation and after a month gets it back, possibly from other city. What is this person supposed to do? Olivier's idea has a point, but maybe it could be improved.

How about possibility to edit a note, at least add a comment? I'm too lazy to comment every note I enter, but should I get a hit, any hit, not "own hit", I would go through receipts and try to figure out where I got it from, ATM, shop etc. This way those hits which came from two same person could have been commented by users. Of course dishonest people could abuse the system but honest ones, which I hope most here are, would benefit from it. An example, I'm buying a used car, price say 2000e, and seller insists to get cash in large notes. I get the cash, enter all notes (it probably would be the first time I get to touch 500e note

), and surprise, surprise, seller is also a member of EBT. I didn't know him before or that he does EBT, we didn't do it to get hits, should these hits be excluded? Not in my opinion, I'd rather prefer system which would not show multiple hits from same users on top-list, maybe there would be a link or something to show all hits between these two users, but by default only one would be on top10.

Another thing about the site, on stats page for Finland, http://www.eurobilltracker.eu/index.php ... ry=Finland Top notes shows top for all countries, earlier it was for Finland only. Top printing facilities is still for notes entered in Finland.

Flip the Coin · Post by **Flip the Coin** » Wed Apr 03, 2002 12:38 pm

Finn wrote: An example, I'm buying a used car, price say 2000e, and seller insists to get cash in large notes. I get the cash, enter all notes (it probably would be the first time I get to touch 500e note ), and surprise, surprise, seller is also a member of EBT.

If he is REALLY an ETB enthusiast, he would have asked for cash payment in small notes...

Flip the Coin