Prizes and manipulation

[Tomofg]

I dont know if a lot of you are in the same way of thinking as but if you look at some of the prizes on offer in the challenges, if people are that desperate to win I’m sure there are ways to manipulate the system, not that there are any on here that would

[Tenshuu]

Oh yes, this has been noticed. There are a few recent threads discussing absurd times/rankings. Some of these are malicious, some are accidental key mistakes, some are also malfunctioning PM monitors.

There is a system for reporting suspicious log entries, but when you start looking at regular challenges such as the Mud Madness - They're offering out T-Shirts as their prize. I'm not gonna be super bummed if some quack just types 10k into his logbook every day of the month and wins a T-Shirt, the challenge is moreso for myself, a free shirt is just gravy.

Any unobserved record could be questioned, but at least we can keep the major outliers under control.


Realistically, seems like there's a way to "game" every system in our reality.

Since my goals are only mine, I haven't had a situation arise yet where I feel disillusioned of my accomplishments by the idea there are others out there just logging random records - I still feel pretty proud of my progress as I move up.

[Tomofg]

Very diplomatic of you and well done and all the best on your goals Tenshuu

[mitchel674]

Life is too short to let these types of issues bug you. Most of these challenges do not have a significant prize. If someone wants to cheat so they can print a certificate they have big issues. The bling awarded for March Madness are random prize drawings. The 1 million meter, 5 million meter, etc... prizes take a lot of cheating to garner some t-shirts or a tote bag. I simply cannot fathom what kind of loser would cheat to obtain those prizes.

[Dangerscouse]

Life is too short to let these types of issues bug you. Most of these challenges do not have a significant prize. If someone wants to cheat so they can print a certificate they have big issues. The bling awarded for March Madness are random prize drawings. The 1 million meter, 5 million meter, etc... prizes take a lot of cheating to garner some t-shirts or a tote bag. I simply cannot fathom what kind of loser would cheat to obtain those prizes.

Hahahahaha. Totally agree. Any type of cheating is a very hollow victory anyway

[Carl Watts]

I have been asking Concept 2 to start even one Challenge a year for verified results only.

Pretty much quit entering the challenges years ago without it. Nothing like Erging your guts out and being beaten by cheats.

I guess I have a different mind set to others here, either that or your just not rowing hard enough to be bothered.

Clearly those that are not cheating here are having trouble seeing the way the cheaters mind works, they don't care about a hollow victory, its win at any cost and they get a buzz out of it being seen at the top of the results.

What you really have is a handful of people stuffing it up for the thousands of others.The verification system already exits in 3 or 4 different sources since 2003, its time Concept 2 started using it.

[DavidA]

For a long time I have found some of the distances erged per day to be quite suspect to me. That doesn't, however, make them untrue. Some people can do some amazing things.
I have seen that some entries are actually for many people, e.g. a school entering as one 'person' with many, many rowers.
I do find it frustrating when it comes to some of challenges/prizes, but it is not worth getting too worked up about, as what matters most is meeting your personal challenges, your health, etc., or maybe, for some, actual, in-person competitions.
It may be easier for me to say, as am not about to win anything anyways, but I do think that the vast majority of people in the logbook are honest, and you can't worry to much about the few who might not be.

David

[hobbit]

I'm in the "couldn't care less camp" on this. If folk want to cheat a system that is practically an open goal for a piece of paper or a T-shirt, then so be it. I'm not going to waste my energy on them. Keeping or improving my spot (around 1600) in the annual meters list does motivate me, but a cheater more or less doesn't bother me.

[jackarabit]

A cheater more bothers me more than does a cheater less but not much more. I had one season with 4MM+ meters munched. Barely missed the top hundred in the low wattage flagpole sitter list. Below 1MM this year. That bothers me some but not enuf to do more.

[Tenshuu]

For a long time I have found some of the distances erged per day to be quite suspect to me. That doesn't, however, make them untrue. Some people can do some amazing things.
I have seen that some entries are actually for many people, e.g. a school entering as one 'person' with many, many rowers.
I do find it frustrating when it comes to some of challenges/prizes, but it is not worth getting too worked up about, as what matters most is meeting your personal challenges, your health, etc., or maybe, for some, actual, in-person competitions.
It may be easier for me to say, as am not about to win anything anyways, but I do think that the vast majority of people in the logbook are honest, and you can't worry to much about the few who might not be.

David

I totally forgot that some people will setup 1 logbook under their name, and just let every rower in their organization use the same log.

I originally did this with my girlfriend meters, but a painstakingly moved them all out to a USB drive recently. Fortunately I labeled the oldest ones in my log notes, and the newest ones had very obvious pace differences... Still took a bit going 1 at a time....

[hjs]

For a long time I have found some of the distances erged per day to be quite suspect to me. That doesn't, however, make them untrue. Some people can do some amazing things.
I have seen that some entries are actually for many people, e.g. a school entering as one 'person' with many, many rowers.
I do find it frustrating when it comes to some of challenges/prizes, but it is not worth getting too worked up about, as what matters most is meeting your personal challenges, your health, etc., or maybe, for some, actual, in-person competitions.
It may be easier for me to say, as am not about to win anything anyways, but I do think that the vast majority of people in the logbook are honest, and you can't worry to much about the few who might not be.

David

David thats the spirit!

[Anth_F]

I'm in the "couldn't care less camp" on this. If folk want to cheat a system that is practically an open goal for a piece of paper or a T-shirt, then so be it. I'm not going to waste my energy on them.

+1

I never even bothered to register to receive my first C2 million meter reward ffs

[Dangerscouse]

I'm in the "couldn't care less camp" on this. If folk want to cheat a system that is practically an open goal for a piece of paper or a T-shirt, then so be it. I'm not going to waste my energy on them.

+1

I never even bothered to register to receive my first C2 million meter reward ffs

Same here. I didn't even know there was one until recently. The only one that I'm bothered about is my 100k pin...that was hard earned

[mitchel674]

I'm in the "couldn't care less camp" on this. If folk want to cheat a system that is practically an open goal for a piece of paper or a T-shirt, then so be it. I'm not going to waste my energy on them.

+1

I never even bothered to register to receive my first C2 million meter reward ffs

I wear that shirt with pride! That was the first I had heard of these milestone challenges.

[jackarabit]

I still wear that tee with the sprocket—holes, grass stains and all. My blue 10MM sweatshirt is in better condition. I want my 15MM enameled pin but not much time in the seat recently. Could take a while I don’t have.