Spike1007, folkslinger and other APPW competitors

[Boulevardiere]

Hi all, just chiming in to note that not all players who might appear to be "cheating" or gaming the system are doing so intentionally. After reading some of these posts, I see that the way I play could get me called out for spoiling the game. In no way is that my intention. I play for fun, to pass time or shut my brain off for sleep. The competitions aren't even on my radar; I just enjoy looking for long words, unusual words, and words I didn't even know were words. Sometimes I let the time run out when I have 30 points and a longest word of 7 letters--because I'm close to forming an 18-letter chemical name but didn't quite figure it out in time.

I'm not winning any trophies that I know of, but if they're important to other players, I'd rather avoid any issues. On that note, is there a way to withdraw from the competitions, for people who don't want to compete and/or don't want to muddy the waters for others? The only way I know of is to go back to playing without an account (which I did for years), but it would bum me out not to get questionable words like "mindscrew" on the record. Thanks for any suggestions.

[bwt1213]

Naboka, the Microsoft software bounces your words off some bodacious servers (and I hate to use the term AI for the software, but I'm given to understand that that's pretty much what it is). And yes, it does sometimes come up with clunkers and it wants you to pronounce things very clearly. But if you're not quite so clear, it can get the right word from the context a lot of the time, even uncommon words. The thing about this game is that there is no "context".

[Naboka]

Hi all, just chiming in to note that not all players who might appear to be "cheating" or gaming the system are doing so intentionally. After reading some of these posts, I see that the way I play could get me called out for spoiling the game. In no way is that my intention. I play for fun, to pass time or shut my brain off for sleep. The competitions aren't even on my radar; I just enjoy looking for long words, unusual words, and words I didn't even know were words. Sometimes I let the time run out when I have 30 points and a longest word of 7 letters--because I'm close to forming an 18-letter chemical name but didn't quite figure it out in time.

I'm not winning any trophies that I know of, but if they're important to other players, I'd rather avoid any issues. On that note, is there a way to withdraw from the competitions, for people who don't want to compete and/or don't want to muddy the waters for others? The only way I know of is to go back to playing without an account (which I did for years), but it would bum me out not to get questionable words like "mindscrew" on the record. Thanks for any suggestions.

Seriously doubt that anyone here would deem what you're doing as cheating. There are scores of posts scattered throughout the forum threads that discuss various ways many of us cheat to attain certain goals. Such as the best average score. No one running high averages is playing every game. And most players are dumping large numbers of games if it becomes apparent that their average would be harmed.

Even though I'm a paying member, I tried playing off grid for a few days. The ads and other nonsense just made that untenable. I'd just as soon not take anyone's records, but that's just the nature of the beast.

Nor do I want all the really fascinating words becoming public knowledge. Long word players like lalatan will discover some truly rare word by piecing together word elements. Then that word works its way into the mainstream. A rare and admirable achievement becomes commonplace. It's like playing any game that you've read the cheats: you gain knowledge you didn't have and can procede without earning it. Which, again, is the nature of the beast.

When I first started playing, looking over my wife's shoulder, I noticed that a couple of players always had perfect scores-- clearing every word on every board they played. Think the first I noticed was named unbeatable. I told her he/she was obviously cheating because it was nearly a hundred percent unlikely. Others have come and gone. You still see boards by asdf that were a 100% when first played, but not so now that the dictionary has been expanded. (Every time I tell her something I've accomplished here, she throws "you're cheating" in my face.

Those board discussions predicted that consistently scoring 100% was a glaring red flag for cheating, and that a more clever cheater would run a program that played less than perfect games while still being close to unbeatable. I'm about second-grade computer literate so that's beyond my understanding, but players like bwt1213 said they could write a program that would do exactly that and be undetectable.

The subject of "cheating" is fascinating if you study Game Theory. Wordtwist is a grain of sand on the beach of games. Finding a girl and getting married is a game. You have social interaction with efforts and rewards/punishment. Buying a pair of socks has an element of games theory to it. How does the manufacturer get you to purchase the socks? What are the efforts, communications, costs and rewards?

Wordtwist has rewards. Some are personal and some are social. If you play for trophies, you're competing for social rewards. "look at how incredible I am compared to the rest of you." Being better than others is a multi billion dollar industry. The 49 ers beat the Eagles and an entire fan base can feel superior--while not having had to set foot on the field.

Is that bad? It just seems to be human nature. Competition for resources runs across all life forms. We're completely enamored of heros and success.

And all that adulation certainly has a parallel worth to monetary rewards.

There's nothing wrong with excelling and winning. Competition lends itself to innovation and improvement.

However, some want that adulation but lack the ability to attain it without various deceptions. It's like Bernie Madhoff selling his scam.

Since most people are willing to appreciate others just because that's how we're wired, you have to wonder about the low self esteem/sociopathy of individuals who feel compelled to scam their way into rewards (admiration by others) they don't deserve.

And the discussion basically centers around what social agreements define "deserved rewards." (And those rewards run the gamut.)

We tend to want a fair playing field. But...

I watched a video of a leopard climbing a tree and stealing the kill of another leopard. The animal kingdom just doesn't seem to factor "fairness" into any of its mathematics.

"Fairness" is one of the bugbears of having a conscience. Individuals who don't have a conscience are never burdened with what's fair.

That you wonder at all puts you on the positive side of the equation.

sorry for the longwinded post. As the wife continuously reminds me: I talk too much and overexplain everything.

(little does she know how much explaining I have to leave unexplained.)

[Boulevardiere]

Nor do I want all the really fascinating words becoming public knowledge. Long word players like lalatan will discover some truly rare word by piecing together word elements. Then that word works its way into the mainstream. A rare and admirable achievement becomes commonplace. It's like playing any game that you've read the cheats: you gain knowledge you didn't have and can procede without earning it. Which, again, is the nature of the beast.

Interesting, another way I may unknowingly be diluting the competitive aspect of the game. I do this often, when multiple prefixes or roots catch my eye, since my background is in science. When I see the hydroxymethyl-thises and the otorhinolarygo-thats, they seem natural to me. Then again, when I look at the lists of shorter words that others have found, I might know half of them. Everyone comes to the game with their own history of reading, learning, pattern recognition, etc. Like you said, football is no different, except that everyone playing football in the NFL is competing on purpose. I'm playing backyard Wordtwist on the same field as the Niners and the Eagles, trying not to get in their way.

Anyway, thank you for responding from a place of balance and curiosity! That alone is a rare thing these days and may be the closest we humans come to being "fair."

[crazykate]

There are different definitions of cheating. One method of cheating would be using a bot to automatically complete a board for you, overriding all previous records or making it impossible for your scores to be beaten by a mere human (the player "unbeatable" was an example of this). Others intentionally exploit loopholes to see their name on top of the leaderboard, and the category "average points per word" was particularly vulnerable to this method. There have been players who searched the boards for a 40+ point word, and then intentionally blanked 50 more games to get into the leaderboards. They probably have a second account for "normal" gameplay, I'd imagine, because playing one word per month seems a little boring to me.
Now, there's nothing wrong in having more than one account to pursue different goals, and there's nothing wrong in "blanking" games if you were genuinely looking for long words and ran out of time, but there's really no reason for these blanked games to count, because all it did was create this loophole. I'm glad this has been addressed, it will make things much more interesting!

[Spike1007]

It's great having empty boards not count. Now, if only the admin can fix the issue I have with entering low-scoring words and then wandering off before I remember to cancel the game.

In the past, I'd also let an empty board run out just to see the best/longest word(s) played if I couldn't find it. I was afraid that would go away with the change, but it's still there.

[weirdwordy]

I don't remember ever commenting before today but I just noticed a post about cheating and thought I would add my thoughts.
I believe I joined Wordtwist about 5 or 6 years ago and just started playing because I always liked Boggle and so decided to give Wordtwist a try.
It didn't take long for me to realize that I didn't recognize about 95% of the uncommon words posted. I even tried to look some of them up and couldn't find them anywhere so I wondered how many of the words were real.
So rather than drive myself crazy trying to figure out if the many words I didn't recognize were actually words I just decided to stick to common words and see if I could get 50 or more common words with each try. I've found that I'm not even very good at doing that. So I just use Wordtwist to relax and see how many common words I can find. I won't earn any awards but I just enjoy the challenge.

[crazykate]

I don't remember ever commenting before today but I just noticed a post about cheating and thought I would add my thoughts.
I believe I joined Wordtwist about 5 or 6 years ago and just started playing because I always liked Boggle and so decided to give Wordtwist a try.
It didn't take long for me to realize that I didn't recognize about 95% of the uncommon words posted. I even tried to look some of them up and couldn't find them anywhere so I wondered how many of the words were real.
So rather than drive myself crazy trying to figure out if the many words I didn't recognize were actually words I just decided to stick to common words and see if I could get 50 or more common words with each try. I've found that I'm not even very good at doing that. So I just use Wordtwist to relax and see how many common words I can find. I won't earn any awards but I just enjoy the challenge.

Welcome to the forums, weirdwordy!
What you describe reminds me of my own misgivings when I started playing Wordtwist. I think that while the technicalities of searching for words are the same as in Boggle, the rules are very different, which makes for a different playing experience and can be quite jarring for experienced Boggle players.
When I played Boggle with my family, everyone tried to get the standard combos out of the way if they occurred, because if you didn't, that would mean giving away free points for someone else. Only the word length mattered, not rarity. And of course the boards were truly random and sometimes half the board would be a solid block of consonants, with hardly any opportunity to play a 9+ letter word on a 4x4 grid.
Here, playing a standard common combo (like eat/ate/tea) counts half as much as a combo of rare words, and some players have adapted their style accordingly.
As for whether these words are real words... You can click on them after you've played the game and it will take you to a dictionary entry 9 times out of 10. There are some pretty obscure words out there, but you learn to recognise some of them as words in time. My personal favourite is "oont", which is a word for a particularly handsome camel.
I hope you continue to enjoy the game, and feel free to participate in the forums more often!