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It looks like some friends set up a game amongst themselves to score the most amount of points on StackExchange sites in a short period of time. We congratulated them on their fine achievement but it seems we were being gamed and even abused. Perhaps tomorrow they won't be back and I should forget about it. Should I just let the existing checks and balances do their work?

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    Do you have any evidence that they were gaming the system to get the score? If they just had a friendly competition to gain legitimate reputation then that is awesome and we want that sort of thing.
    – Daniel DiPaolo
    May 11, 2011 at 23:11
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    For example, if you read another post, you'll see the poster earned "Nice Answer" for 12 votes in 20 minutes. Now that same answer has 7 votes.
    – Rick Sladkey
    May 11, 2011 at 23:15
  • @Daniel - Or the system detected abusive voting patterns and removed upvotes.
    – Nicole
    May 11, 2011 at 23:18
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    Are their contributions good quality? If so, mission accomplished. Links would be appreciated.
    – Tim Post
    May 11, 2011 at 23:18
  • The comment on this answer seems to indicate that people are gaming the system, although it's claimed its "to see who can help the most people". Related questions: 1, 2, the first one is interesting because in the comments, the user claims he knows ways around the rep cap.
    – user149432
    May 11, 2011 at 23:19
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    @Rick if you are referring to cbroughton - meta.stackexchange.com/questions/90865/… - then he claims to have been doing it in the awesome way, legitimately, in which case saying this is "harmless fun" is vastly downplaying the good that it does
    – Daniel DiPaolo
    May 11, 2011 at 23:19
  • @Daniel: I'm all for healthy competition. Contributing for one day only is better than not contributing at all. To each his own. But to me it seemed to cross a line.
    – Rick Sladkey
    May 11, 2011 at 23:26
  • @Tim: For example, simply by appearing to be overly-enthusiastic, he cooked up a hundred points on meta: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/90865/…
    – Rick Sladkey
    May 11, 2011 at 23:30
  • @Rick - Um, not at all. Those points were all legit (2 q's with 5 votes each, an answer with 2, and a bunch of edits)
    – Nicole
    May 11, 2011 at 23:36
  • @Renesis: I don't mean they were cheating; I mean they weren't 100% sincere.
    – Rick Sladkey
    May 11, 2011 at 23:38
  • @Tim: Don't forget stackoverflow.com/users/747706/cbroughton?tab=reputation . I don't see anything wrong here. stackoverflow.com/users/747706/cbroughton?tab=stats I also see nothing wrong here (see Answers)
    – cbroughton
    May 11, 2011 at 23:45

2 Answers 2

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it seems we were being gamed and even abused.

[citation required] - Please don't make baseless accusations - of course we want to know of any and all abuse. You can either flag it for moderator attention, or if it seems widespread, post a message here. Posting a message with such an accusation without any evidence is very counterproductive.

If they are following the rules then don't worry. It's like complaining that a few friends decided to race each other in an existing race. As long as they don't break the race rules, we don't care whether they are competing against each other specifically inside our larger race.

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Since this question pertains to me, it seems only right that I should answer it.

This is a friendly game of legitimate play, you'll notice if you scour our answers and questions that we have only contributed legitimate answers, most of which are far beyond the normal "response" to a question that you expect to see as an answer to a simple question. We go above and beyond and comment our code, explain our answers, and provide additional research and information for users to follow up on the things we've said to help them learn on their own.

It's the awesome way as you say.

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    Just remember not to vote on friendly accounts (at least, not systematically)
    – Nicole
    May 11, 2011 at 23:37
  • Please come back after your contest is over. We need all the help we can get answering questions.
    – Rick Sladkey
    May 11, 2011 at 23:45
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    @Rick Who said the contest ever ends? There is no set time limit, it's just an added bragging right on top of using a site such as this.
    – cbroughton
    May 11, 2011 at 23:46
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    Race you to Jon Skeet!
    – Daniel DiPaolo
    May 12, 2011 at 0:59
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    "We go above and beyond and comment our code, explain our answers, and provide additional research and information for users to follow up on the things we've said to help them learn on their own." Sirs, truly you are doing it right.
    – Justin Morgan
    May 12, 2011 at 4:57
  • "" Doing it the awesome way since May 11, 2011 ""
    – cbroughton
    Nov 12, 2011 at 17:16

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