Results to Common Entries Contest MOJO3
These are the results for the Common Entries Contest MOJO3.
There were 44 entrants. The winner was John Faben, with a score of
27.9 billion (billion=10^9), which is 0.8% of the "Hypothetical
Maximum." Second was Richard Bean, with 19.0 billion, and third was
Mark Brader, with 15.3 billion. The top scores were pretty clustered
this time, and any of the entrants in places #2 to #11 could have won
by changing only a single entry. Here are the slates of top six
winners:
1st: John Faben 2nd: Richard Bean 3rd: Mark Brader
0. nuclear coal hydro
1. red an adjective written
2. a friend of a friend killer in backseat alligators in sewers
3. 3 blank
4. Hasta la vista Bonjour C'est la vie
5. water water beer
6. Monwhea Jeng Monwhea Jeng George W. Bush
7. bestiality felching bondage
8. C C C
9. equal equal equal
4th: Michael Cock 5th: Dave Gates 6th: Paul Guertin
0. AMOPE lightning hydroelectricity
1. an adjective good big
2. an urban legend Microwaving the dog P&GIOBS
3. blank 0 blank
4. Je t'aime Veni vidi vici Como esta usted?
5. bread water water
6. Bill Gates Monwhea Jeng Monwhea Jeng
7. S&M homosexuality bondage
8. C C C
9. equal equal sequoia
Here, AMOPE=a method of producing electricity, and
P&GIOBS=Proctor & Gamble is owned by Satanists.
Incidentally, the first three entries that I received ended up
getting 1st, 3rd, and 5th places, respectively.
I had thought that this contest was a little easier than previous ones.
I made more of the questions "Family Feud"-type questions -- I can't
define exactly what I meant by this, but I thought that there were
quite a few questions, like #0, #5, #6, and #7, where it wasn't too
hard to come up with an answer in the top five, even if it wasn't
clear which answer would be #1. I felt that this was neccessary to
prevent the dominance of what Andrew Krywaniuk has termed "echoic"
answers (answers which simply repeat back part of the question).
This seemed to work, with "echoic" answers only doing well on
#1 and #2. I felt that this made the questions somewhat less interesting,
but it was probably neccessary to prevent dominance of echoic answers.
However, while I had thought that the questions were somewhat easier than last
time, the percentage of 1s (unrepeated answers) is essentially unchanged,
from MOJO2, as is the "Hypothetical Maximum" (after rescaling for the
reduced number of contestants).
A few issues in this contest were a little trickier to judge than
I expected. I'm going to be travelling for the next 3-5 weeks, and it's
not clear how much e-mail access I'll have. So even if someone finds
a truly egregious error in the scoring, or has a really good complaint,
it's likely I won't have time to rescore before I go. Sorry! Of course,
even if I end up having e-mail access, I won't have time to run a
MOJO4 until i get back.
Of the 440-8=432 answers, 116-8=108 (25.0%) were unrepeated (getting scores
of 1). 8 questions were left blank, thus receiving scores of 1 (see the
discussion under question 3). Only two of the contestants (Michael Cock
and Stacy Brown) were able to avoid getting a 1 on any question. Six
other contestants were able to get by with only a single 1.
And here is the complete list of scores:
Name #0 #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 Score Fraction of max
"Hypothetical Maximum" 11 11 8 8 5 14 14 9 34 12 2.78673e+10
1.John Faben 11 6 1 5 4 14 14 2 34 12 2.11116e+08 0.00757576
2.Richard Bean 3 11 3 8 3 14 14 1 34 12 1.90004e+08 0.00681818
3.Mark Brader 10 3 8 1 5 4 13 6 34 12 1.52755e+08 0.00548153
4.Michael Cock 2 11 5 8 3 5 3 9 34 12 1.45411e+08 0.005218
5.Dave Gates 3 5 3 1 5 14 14 4 34 12 7.19712e+07 0.00258264
6.Paul Guertin 10 5 1 8 1 14 14 6 34 3 4.79808e+07 0.00172176
7.Jim McAdams 6 1 1 4 5 14 14 4 34 12 3.83846e+07 0.00137741
8.John McLeod 6 5 1 8 3 5 14 6 10 12 3.6288e+07 0.00130217
9.Andrew Hartley 11 11 3 1 5 4 13 9 34 1 2.88803e+07 0.00103635
10.Angus Walker 6 11 3 8 3 1 14 1 34 12 2.71434e+07 0.000974026
11.Michael Crowder 1 11 1 8 5 14 13 3 34 3 2.45045e+07 0.000879329
12.Stacy Brown 2 3 5 8 2 2 13 4 34 12 2.03674e+07 0.000730871
13.Boolbar 6 11 2 5 3 14 1 9 34 1 8.48232e+06 0.000304383
14.Heidi 11 1 1 6 4 5 13 6 34 2 7.00128e+06 0.000251237
15.David Hill 6 11 5 6 1 4 14 4 10 1 4.4352e+06 0.000159155
16.Gerrit de Blaauw 11 5 3 6 1 5 13 1 34 2 4.3758e+06 0.000157023
17.Andrew Krywaniuk 6 1 5 6 2 1 14 9 34 2 3.08448e+06 0.000110685
18.Jonathan G Dushoff 11 5 8 1 1 14 14 1 34 1 2.93216e+06 0.000105219
19.softsoda 10 11 8 6 1 14 1 1 34 1 2.51328e+06 9.01876e-05
20.James Dean 10 6 1 4 2 1 13 9 34 1 1.90944e+06 6.85191e-05
21.Nick and Paul 10 1 5 5 4 4 13 1 34 1 1.768e+06 6.34436e-05
22.Matthew Grieco 1 5 1 4 5 3 13 4 34 3 1.5912e+06 5.70993e-05
23.Michael Sanderson 10 3 1 6 1 2 13 9 34 1 1.43208e+06 5.13894e-05
==.Josh Utterback 3 6 5 1 1 4 13 9 34 1 1.43208e+06 5.13894e-05
25.Jacob Sone 10 1 5 1 5 14 4 3 34 1 1.428e+06 5.12429e-05
26.Chris Kirkwood-Watts 3 6 8 1 5 2 1 2 34 12 1.17504e+06 4.21656e-05
27.Jamppa 11 11 1 5 3 4 1 1 10 12 871200 3.12625e-05
28.Andy Jakcsy 1 1 1 2 2 4 14 9 34 12 822528 2.95159e-05
29.Calver Byron 11 3 8 1 3 1 13 2 34 1 700128 2.51237e-05
30.Dr. Clay Blankenship 11 3 2 5 5 3 1 4 10 3 594000 2.13153e-05
31.Nick Wedd 10 6 3 2 1 5 14 1 10 2 504000 1.80857e-05
32.Stephen Perry 1 1 2 8 1 14 14 1 34 3 319872 1.14784e-05
33.Matthw T. Russotto 1 11 5 1 1 14 4 1 34 2 209440 7.51563e-06
34.Paul Bolchover 1 6 2 1 4 2 14 4 34 1 182784 6.5591e-06
35.Steven W. Homer 10 1 8 4 1 1 13 1 34 1 141440 5.07549e-06
36.Archie Robertson 10 5 5 1 1 2 4 6 10 1 120000 4.30613e-06
37.Ted Schuerzinger 11 5 1 2 5 1 2 9 10 1 99000 3.55256e-06
38.Lejonel Norling 11 3 8 1 3 1 3 4 10 1 95040 3.41045e-06
39.Leo Breebaart 2 5 1 1 3 14 2 3 34 1 85680 3.07458e-06
40.Cameron Crofts 1 1 8 1 1 2 4 6 34 1 13056 4.68507e-07
41.Kevin Stone 3 5 2 1 1 14 3 1 10 1 12600 4.52144e-07
42.James Morse 2 11 5 1 1 1 1 1 34 2 7480 2.68415e-07
43.Charles Gregory 3 1 2 2 1 3 1 2 34 3 7344 2.63535e-07
44.Ben Birge 11 1 1 1 1 4 1 1 10 1 440 1.57891e-08
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And here are the detailed results and rulings for each question
>0. Name or describe a method of producing electricity.
> (I will generally be lenient in viewing differently worded answers
> or methods in the same general class as the same.)
11 nuclear (=nuclear power=nuclear fission=nuclear power stations)
10 hydroelectric (=hydro=hydroelectric turbine=dam)
6 dynamo (=generator=electromagnetic induction
=moving a conducting substance through a magnetic field)
3 coal (=burning coal)
3 lightning (=key on kite in lightning storm)
2 a method of producing electricity
2 batteries
1 combustion
1 drive an alternator with a car engine
1 power station
1 windmills
1 solar
1 Tesla coil
1 (left blank)
The comment about leniency was intended to make sure that answers
in the same basic class, like "hydroelectric" and "dam", or
"nuclear power" and "nuclear fission" were treated as the same. Otherwise
the scoring would end up depending hopelessly on differences in phrasing.
These answers are technically distinct, since one can get hydroelectric
energy from a water wheel, or nuclear energy, at least in theory, could
be from nuclear fusion. Similarly, "key on kite in lightning storm" was
considered the same as "lightning"
I had no problem ruling a dynamo the same as a generator. I had
more difficulty deciding whether "dynamo" was the same as "electromagnetic
induction." Despite some technical differences, the word "hydroelectric"
immediately brings pictures of dams to mind, and dams are usually
associated with hydroelectric power. However, while all dynamos use
electromagnetic induction, there are other systems where electromagnetic
induction occurs, and the phrase "electomagnetic induction" does
not generally immediately call to mind dynamos (at least for me).
But in the context of the question, they are very closely related,
and are analagous to the cases in the previous paragraph. That
is, "dam is to hydroelectric as dynamo is to electromagnetic induction."
So, to make a long story short, I ruled the two the same.
>1. Write an adjective.
11 an adjective
6 red
5 big
5 good
3 common
3 written
1 adjective
1 an
1 blue
1 fast
1 happy
1 hot
1 nice
1 right
1 the
1 urban
1 very
I like the answers of "common" and "urban," which are clever answers,
and which I felt "deserved" to do better than they did (whatever that
means).
I hadn't thought that this question was difficult enough to warrant
"an adjective" being the best answer. Of course, it's often difficult to
tell what will questions will be difficult (or more precisely, what
questions the other entrants will perceive as difficult (or more
precisely,. . . oh never, mind) ). I suppose that this question was
too similar to "Name a type of object" in MOJO2, and that entrants
remembered that "object" did well for that question.
I ruled "an adjective" to be different than "adjective." The basic
idea here is that I wasn't asking for a concept, but simply a
word -- that is, a very specific letter sequence. So "adjective"
and "an adjective" are different. Obviously there are limits to
this -- I wouldn't care about capitalization or punctuation. But
"an adjective" and "adjective" are different.
>2. Pick an urban legend.
8 alligators in the sewers (=albino. . . = N.Y. sewers. . .)
5 kidney thief (=stolen kidneys=kidney stolen at party=
kidney stolen by stranger at bar)
5 urban legend (=an urban legend)
3 killer in the back seat
3 microwaving the dog (=poodle dried in microwave oven)
2 Elvis is alive (=Elvis)
2 if you flash your headlights at another car on the road at night with
theirs off, they will follow you and kill you as part of a gang initiation
2 Neiman Marcus cookie recipe (=cookie recipe)
1 a friend of a friend
1 aren't you glad you didn't turn on the lights?
1 beehive haircut which contains real bees
1 Bloody Mary
1 choking chihuahua
1 collecting pull-top tabs to help somone pay for their kidney dialysis
1 Craig Shergold (postcards)
1 hot water freezes faster than cold water
1 if you do that you'll go blind
1 Mikey from the life cereal ads died from pop rocks and coke
1 Needles in soda machine
1 Proctor & Gamble is owned by Satanists
1 "Urban Legend" (the movie)
1 (left blank)
I interpreted answers as the same as long as they were clearly variations
on the same basic urban legend. For example, I didn't care if the alligators
in the sewers were albino or not, or if they were in New York or not, or
if they had gotten there by being flushed down toilets after the World
Fair. I probably should have mentioned this generally leniency in the
phrasing of the question, but hopefully this was pretty obvious to most
people -- the chance of two people describing an urban legend with
the exact same words is pretty small. In fact, I didn't bother listing
all the variations in phrasing above.
There was substantially more diversity in the answers to this than
I expected. I had expected more clustering around the top few answers.
I suppose that most people have their favorite urban legends, or urban
legends which they are personally familiar with (i.e. they know or are
the "friend of a friend"), and it's hard to not put undue weight on their
personal urban legends.
I also can't help mentioning that I spent quite a bit of time (unsucessfully)
trying to convince the alt.folklore.urban group that the FAQ should list
hot water freezing faster than cold as a true urban legend.
Here, because of the general leniency in grading this question, I
ruled "urban legend" to be the same as "urban legend." (in contrast
to "adjective" and "an adjective" in #2). I wasn't as sure about this
decision. I considered ruling them different. The argument would
basically go like this: Answers which are nominally correct can be
interpreted as the same despite different wording, because they can
be understood as answering the question in essentially the same way.
"Fake" answers, because they do not answer the question at all,
cannot be interpreted in this fashion, so generally can only be seen
as identical if they are literally identical. However, I eventually
decided that this would be inconsistent with the general leniency
with which I scored this question. However, the one entrant who
wrote ' "Urban Legend" (the movie) ' was clearly giving a different
answer.
>3.
8 blank
6 nothing
5 3
4 yes
2 A
2 none
1 ?
1 0
1 ""
1 blue
1 Hi!
1 intentionally empty
1 no
1 question 3
1 Question 3 is NOT a mistake
1 There is no question 3
1 This question intentionally left blank
1 three
5 (left blank)
The first line, labelled "blank", refers to entrants whose entry
looked like "3. blank", while the bottom line, labelled "(left blank)"
refers to entrants whose entry looked like "3." That is, these
entrants actually left their answer blank. They scored 1.
I apologize to everyone who fell into the following trap. The rules say
> . . . If you skip a question, or leave it blank, you will score 1 for
> that question.
They then later say
> NO ANSWERS WILL BE JUDGED INCORRECT.
I don't consider these two rules to contradict one another, since I
don't judge blank answers as incorrect, but as a lack of
an answer. And even if they did conflict, it seems clear that the more
specific statement overrides the general one. However, I did expect
people to have a problem with this, since leaving the answer blank is
an obviously good strategy (if it was allowed here), and the second
capitalized rule is much more prominent. I had intended to include
a comment on top reminding people of the "blank" rule. But I
forgot. Penalizing people for missing fine print in the rules, and other
random errors is clearly appropriate for a Rare Entries Contest, but it
doesn't seem right in a Common Entries Contest -- so I invited everyone
to fix their answers if they wished. As you can see, quite a few people
didn't want to bother changing their entry.
One entrant specifically declined to change his entry, on the grounds
that his entry was correct. He argued that, interpreting "blank" as
"blank space" or the character generated by the "spacebar," there
were no "blanks" in his answer, and thus it didn't violate the rule
stated above. I disagree, since the phrase "leave it blank" in the
rules clearly indicates a different meaning of blank -- that is, it
refers to not making any markings or entries in the space where the
answer would appear. After all, with the definition of "blank"
as the character generated by "spacebar", it would be impossible
to LEAVE it blank, since action is neccessary to generate the spacebar
character. This entrant could have been correct if the rules had referred to
answers which "consisted of blanks," or were "full of blanks,"
but not for the rules as stated. Clearly, I meant one of these sorts
of definitions:
1. (of paper or other writing surface) having no marks; not writen or
printed on
2. lacking some usual or completing feature
3. a place where something is lacking; an empty space
The entrant also commented that any definition of "blank" in the dictionary
which refers to markings or printing (as in #1) was an irrelevant sense
of "blank", since all entries consisted of 0 and 1 bits -- this is true,
but they're 0 and 1 bits clearly intended to simulate markings, and so
in that sense the computer screen is a writing surface. At any rate,
definitions #2 and #3 apply here as well.
At any rate, the entrants who wrote "3." all scored 1 on this question.
I should point out that if I had decided at the last minute to accept "3.",
Mark Brader would have won first place.
Because this "question" called for a very literal sort of answer,
the answers "3" and "three" were ruled to be different.
>4. Write a complete sentence in a language other than English.
> (You may write it phoenetically if you wish, but you should then tell me
> the intended language and English translation. Punctuation will not
> be considered important in determining if two entries are the same.)
5 C'est la vie
5 Veni vidi vici
4 Hasta la vista
3 Bonjour (=Bonjour!)
3 Ich bin ein Berliner
3 Je t'aime
2 Voulez-vous couchez avec moi, ce soir?
2 Write a complete sentence in a language other than English
1 a complete sentence in a language other than English
1 Bonour, ca va?
1 E pluribus unum
1 Cogito ergo sum
1 Como esta usted?
1 Ich liebe dich
1 Je ne sais qua
1 Je suis
1 Mi casa es su casa
1 Nein sprechen die deutsch
1 No hablo ingles
1 Parlez vous francais?
1 Spreckense Deautch?
1 Una cerveza por favor
1 Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?
1 Yo no habla ingles
1 (left blank)
Despite the fact that this seems like a very hard question, there was
more diversity than I expected. I had thought that most people would pick
a standard French phrase that people learn for basic travel skills.
I had not thought of picking phrases famous from movies, songs, and
history, although in retrospect this strategy seems obvious. I would have
picked "Parlez vous francais?" which, as you can see, was not such a great
answer.
Because I didn't anticipate people picking lines from movies, songs and
history, I didn't think to include a comment that answers which quoted
different lengths of text from the same basic sentence would be the same.
I would have included this comment if I had anticipated these types of
answers, but since I didn't, I had to rule answers like "Voulez-vous couchez
avec moi, ce soir?" and "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?" as different.
>5. Name a type of food or drink.
14 water
5 bread
4 beer
4 coke (=coca-cola)
3 hamburger
2 apple
2 coffee
2 pizza
1 a type of food or drink
1 chocolate
1 fast food
1 food
1 meat
1 milk
1 pasta
1 soup
No special comments here. Everything seems pretty reasonable.
>6. Name a person.
14 Monwhea Jeng (=Momo Jeng)
13 George W. Bush
4 me
3 Bill Gates
2 Jesus
1 a person
1 Bill Clinton
1 Bob
1 Elvis Presley
1 George Washington
1 Julius Caesar
1 Liz Taylor
1 the pope
I won! I won!
Yes, it really was that close. And anyone who makes a joke about "recounts"
will be barred from MOJO4. :)
>7. Name an rare or "deviant" sexual fetish or practice.
9 S&M (=sadomasochism=whips and chains)
6 bondage
4 homosexuality
4 necrophilia
3 paedophilia (=pedophilia)
2 bestiality
2 foot fetish
1 anal intercourse
1 an rare or "deviant" sexual fetish or practice
1 Barbies
1 crossdressing
1 dripping melted wax on skin
1 exhibitionism
1 felching
1 fingercuffs
1 golden showers
1 incest
1 scatology
1 sodomy
1 spanking
1 toe sucking
I hope no one had problems with a slightly obscene question.
S&M (sadism and masochism) includes bondage (B&D), but is not identical,
since it also includes elements not found in B&D (namely, pain). The answer
of "whips and chains" was ruled the same as S&M, since it almost
certainly refers to the same basic class of activities, and I believe
that the whips are generally not found in B&D.
"Sodomy" is a very general term, which can be used to refer to
homosexual behavior, bestiality, or even oral or anal intercourse
between heterosexuals, and so is distinct from all other answers.
While "foot fetish" and "toe sucking" have substantial overlap, they
are not the same thing.
I was surprised at the number of 1s for this question. Frankly, I think
some of you got a little too excited about your own personal fetishes. :)
>8. Consider the following game. You and nine other readers from rec.puzzles
> and rec.games.trivia are placed in separate rooms, and given two buttons,
> "C" (for cooperate) and "D" (for defect), and given ten minutes to decide
> which button to press. If everyone presses "C," you will all get
> $1000. If at least one person presses "D," then everyone who
> presses "D" will get $100, while those who press "C" will get
> nothing. Which button you pressed will not be revealed to the other
> players at the end of the contest. Which button do you press?
> (This question was just asked in MOJO2. In that contest, the
> result was 31 C's and 23 D's.)
34 C
10 D
I thought that this question was interesting because it was one of the
few questions that could be repeated without being trivial. Of course,
generally I would expect that if I repeated a question, everyone would pick
the top answer(s) from last time. But here, while "C" was the most
common answer in MOJO2, the results showed that "D" was the correct
answer to pick IRL (in real life). Assuming everyone was honest last
time, the choice is between "D", which assures me $100, or "C",
which gives me a (31/(31+23))^9=0.677% chance of winning $1000. So
the expected value of "C" is around $6.77. And in fact, a more detailed
analysis shows that if anyone lied in MOJO2, they should have lied in the
direction or picking "C" ITC (in the contest), when they would do "D" IRL. (By
saying that they "lie," I of course intend no moral disapproval.)
And risk adverseness and diminishing marginal utility of dollars
further push down the value of "C." So if this happens to you IRL,
you should definitely press "D"!
I was amused that I got several e-mails commenting that they were
shocked and baffled that anyone picked "D" in MOJO2. After all, the
results of MOJO2 show that the "D"-pressers were correct, at least
for a real-life answer.
I'm curious how many of the people in MOJO2 gave their honest answer,
to this question, and how many people lied. I thought that this question
was interesting in MOJO2 and MOJO3, because the idea of "resonant
defection" IRL competed with the idea of "resonant cooperation" ITC.
In fact, I can make a reasonable argument that everyone should have
picked C in MOJO2, even if most of them would have picked D IRL!
The argument is somewhat long, and probably not of interest to those in
rec.games.trivia, so I will include the argument and an explantion of what
I mean by "resonant cooperation/defection" as a follow-up to this post only
in rec.puzzles.
>9. Write a word which has more vowels than consonants, and which is
> greater than or equal to four letters in length.
12 equal
3 Hawaii
3 sequoia
2 area
2 facetious
2 word
1 Alabama
1 about
1 amour
1 beautiful
1 curious
1 eagle
1 easy
1 erie
1 eye
1 goaly
1 idea
1 idiot
1 jealous
1 miaow
1 mouse
1 obvious
1 ohio
1 paedophilia
1 queue
1 vowels
The answer I had in mind was "equal," because, as you no doubt now all
see, it's the only word in the sentence which satisfies the conditions
of the sentence. I was worried that this was too obvious, especially
after I got the first three entries, and they all picked "equal."
But it turned out OK.
I was surprised the the number of genuine answers here. I had thought that
this was a good question for an "echoic" or "question-defiant" answer.
I had expected the second place to go to either "the" or "a", on the grounds
that correct answers would be highly fragmented, and "the" and "a" are good
answers for "Write a word." As you can see, this didn't happen, and only
four entrants gave incorrect answers ("word", "word", "vowels" and "eye").
Anyway, like I said before, I'm going to be gone for the next 3-5 weeks,
and so whether or not I end up having e-mail access, MOJO4 won't be for
a while. Thanks to everyone who entered MOJO3!
Momo