Re: /that/ competition, what we want | The Coffeehouse

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

Having read through the threads about it, can we say we want nothing less than the "Winning" team's prize revoked and those ranking lower to be moved up? (i.e. is my conclusion correct?)

And what does Microsoft say in response to this? Hardly "they won fair and square".

BTW, all responses from DarthVista/fdisk/thumbtacks are to be ignored, comprendé?

jsampsonPC
SampsonBlog.com SampsonVideos.com

This seems rather fair. I don't know how possible it is now though, seeing how this stuff seems to be settling with the dust now. Is it too late to go back and make right what was wronged? I don't know. It would truly be an act of justice to see the next (Valid) participant awarded the winnings.

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

did this really need another thread? are you that attention starved?!

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

blowdart wrote:
did this really need another thread? are you that attention starved?!

I thought the othe threads weren't so much about what to do now, rather than "what to do next"

Cornelius Ellsonpeter

I'm wondering why there is so much sudden silence on this, unless they are consulting with legal or something like that. Although it already looks like they went down that particular route. One sure thing to come out of this is more cynicism (if nothing is done), and that's the last thing this company needs...especially from developers just starting out (which is who I thought this contest was for, but I could be wrong).

jamie

good damage control might be not to revoke those who won already - as its done and over - but to indeed give the next 3 legit winners some free prizes - + an apology for how it all went down

Rossj

I actually felt guilty for modifying the original posters message in that thread, another thread where I mentioned this got mostly ignored but my overgrown sense of justice prevailed and I brought it up. Again.

Like I said, felt. Coz let's face it, Microsoft might pay for C9 but it is as much the niners as it is theirs ... and really, the lunatics running the asylum might not be such a bad idea (at least in the CoffeeHouse).

It could all have been solved by asking the original winner if they would object to withdrawing from the project based on the rules, rather than going to a legal team for some legalease. But then that would involve losing face, stepping back from a bad decision and admitting a mistake - and that just isn't Microsoft, at least not the old Microsoft that has re-surfaced. It makes me wonder whether the whole New Microsoft, transparent conversations thing was just an attempt to stop people from saying bad things - or am I just too cynical?

I suspect if anyone brings this up in another thread the whole of the first page might be about the same topic ... ho hum.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

Rossj wrote:
It makes me wonder whether the whole New Microsoft, transparent conversations thing was just an attempt to stop people from saying bad things - or am I just too cynical?

Probably a bit of both, new people coming in to try and change things for the good, but before they can commit the Men in (Black) Suits come in and shake their heads disapprovingly.

Rossj

So, is anyone (who can do so for less than $5 a minute) going to phone Mark? It'd be cool if you could turn it into a FormOfAudioPreviouslyKnownAsPodCast for the benefit of all.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

Rossj wrote:
So, is anyone (who can do so for less than $5 a minute) going to phone Mark? It'd be cool if you could turn it into a FormOfAudioPreviouslyKnownAsPodCast for the benefit of all.

I will, but I can't record it.

Rossj

W3bbo wrote:

Rossj wrote:So, is anyone (who can do so for less than $5 a minute) going to phone Mark? It'd be cool if you could turn it into a FormOfAudioPreviouslyKnownAsPodCast for the benefit of all.

I will, but I can't record it.

The joys of being a rich kid Wink

No Offense.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

Rossj wrote:

W3bbo wrote:
Rossj wrote:So, is anyone (who can do so for less than $5 a minute) going to phone Mark? It'd be cool if you could turn it into a FormOfAudioPreviouslyKnownAsPodCast for the benefit of all.

I will, but I can't record it.

The joys of being a rich kid No Offense.

Nah, VoIP makes calls cheap Smiley

BTW, where is the number? I can't find it

Rossj

W3bbo wrote:

Rossj wrote:
W3bbo wrote:
Rossj wrote:So, is anyone (who can do so for less than $5 a minute) going to phone Mark? It'd be cool if you could turn it into a FormOfAudioPreviouslyKnownAsPodCast for the benefit of all.

I will, but I can't record it.

The joys of being a rich kid No Offense.

Nah, VoIP makes calls cheap

BTW, where is the number? I can't find it

425.722.5417.

Be polite, you know you can do it - sometimes Tongue Out

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

Rossj wrote:

W3bbo wrote:
Rossj wrote:
W3bbo wrote:
Rossj wrote:So, is anyone (who can do so for less than $5 a minute) going to phone Mark? It'd be cool if you could turn it into a FormOfAudioPreviouslyKnownAsPodCast for the benefit of all.

I will, but I can't record it.

The joys of being a rich kid No Offense.

Nah, VoIP makes calls cheap

BTW, where is the number? I can't find it

425.722.5417.

Be polite, you know you can do it - sometimes

Just planning now, I'll call him in a minute.

Can you get on GTalk?

EDIT: That number is for a "Shaun Kelley", not MJ's account. (Perhaps this Kelley's number?)

Minh
WOOH! WOOH!

Rossj wrote:
So, is anyone (who can do so for less than $5 a minute) going to phone Mark? It'd be cool if you could turn it into a FormOfAudioPreviouslyKnownAsPodCast for the benefit of all.

I asked (via thread) him for exactly this... to go on record and be umm... recorded. But he hasn't answered.

JKelley
Is it sad that my badge picture is one of the best ones I have of myself?

Not my phone number. Smiley

I use my phone so little though that I actually had to look over and check to make sure. I don't know Shaun either.

Cybermagellan
Live for nothing, or die for everything

I've been so distant about this since I read what happened that I lost track of all the finer points. If someone wants to make a list I'll call Mark in two hours.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

Cybermagellan wrote:
I've been so distant about this since I read what happened that I lost track of all the finer points. If someone wants to make a list I'll call Mark in two hours.

I've already called him, I'm still typing up my overview.

Rossj

If I had any more hair, I'd be pulling it out about now - can I borrow some of yours dave?

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

So I've just had a 30-minute long-distance phone call (I can't wait to see the phone bill when it comes) with Mark Jewett.

Before making the phone call, I made a brief plan of the things I was going to ask (essential when making any major phone call really), my points (and his responses) went along the lines of this: (i.e. not a literal transcript, I'm paraphrasing what he said, but emboldened bits are verbatim)

Me: Was I the first to call?
Mark: Yep, and I'm glad someone's showing the initative to call, which is surprising considering how vocal everyone on the forums is being. BTW, are you recording this conversation, I can hear beeping
Me: Oh, sorry, I'm listening to Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygene, and no, I'm not recording this conversation.[0]

Me: Dr Herbie and AndyC had great answers to your posted questions
Mark: Yes, we'll be integrating them into future competitions

Me: Why was MS legal involved and such a sterile posting made?
Mark: As much as I hate to say it [...] Microsoft is a commercial entity, these kinds of things are required

Me: Why weren't the rules enforced?
Mark: We feel the rules were enforced, but that, perhaps, the rules might have been written better, that they gave a little too much leeway. For example, we see 20something developers having the advantage over the 65y/o professor. He wasn't a professor in computer science or anything, but engineering...

Me: ...software engineering?
Mark: no, not at all (i.e. mechanical engineering-type stuff)

Me: ...yet theirs was a team effort, the rules explicitly say it was an individual effort
Mark: Well, he did do it by himself, he just leveraged other individual's work
Me: Those "other individuals" were working towards the 'main objective', this isn't the same thing as using a general purpose library, like stdlib for C++
Mark: good point, in future I think we'll only allow third-party work that is freely accessible.

Me: Perhaps for future competitions, a panel of community moderators, in addition to the judges[1]
Mark: Very good idea

Me: Along with less stricter rules, since you say they were misinterpreted in a way, might that be an issue of following them "to the letter and not the spirit", so perhaps a laxxer set of rules would be in order for the next competition, but with the community moderators to judge wether they meet the criteria
Mark: Again, very good idea

Me: The competition was "Made in Express", perhaps you could confirm this by checking the project source files, whether they have the Visual Studio Express metadata inside
Mark: Well, it was actually "Compiles in Express" more than "Made in Express"

Me: ....the C# compiler in Visual C# Express is the same as Professional and Enterprise, you could technically compile Windows with Visual C++ Express
Mark: Uh, good point [2]

Me: Perhaps we should have a Channel9 interview covering your department and the competitions and how they're created, how the judges are found, etc.
Mark: Well I work on the SQL Server team
Me: Oh, well I'm still using 2000
Mark: Heh, well that's an interesting idea to have a video about Microsoft's developer competitions, I'll raise it with Charles when I see him next

Me: But anyway, are there any plans to make any changes to the competition winners at all or is it set-in-stone?
Mark: Well, as much as I dislike to say it's set-in-stone, after all, nothing's really like that
Me: Oh, so it's set-in-hardening-concrete then?
Mark: HA!....Well, sort-of, but we have no plans to change anything

Mark: So do you feel we should do anything?
Me: Well, personally, I feel some kind of apology is in order, I...nay...most of the Niners who've voiced their opinion feel that Microsoft has made a mistake
Mark: Well we've got differing opinions there, I don't feel Microosft has made a mistake, we don't feel anyone cheated. But we have learned lessons for future competitions, the competition we're discussing is one of the best we've ever had... in terms of participation and quality of the projects

Mark: But you raise plenty of good feedback, nice talking to you

--------------

that's all of what I can remember, I asked Mark to post up what he can remember of it when he can.

But his main point was that he felt the "rules weren't written clearly enough" which allowed for teams to get in.

[0] I turned Oxygene off

[1] As an afterthought, I'd like to have added "but certainly with at least veto power and the ability to say flat-out "No, this doesn't meet the rules"

[2] I've forogotten how this point ended

ZippyV
Fired Up

There is one important thing that was missed: the code was already written before the contest started giving an unfair advantage.

I still see the winning project as a team effort.

majewett

This doesn't probably answer all the questions posted today.

Why won't Microsoft admit you made a mistake?
I know this is going to incite some of you who have the very strong opinion that rules were broken, but we simply have a difference of opinion on this. Ernie didn't work as a team, he used as a starting point code that been developed by others that predated the contest. The rules are not clear enough on this issue as to remove a prize from someone who worked as hard as anyone in the contest and who was the clear winner in the judging. Now, you can get all up in arms and disagree with the result of the contest and my statements above, or you can realize that there is simply a difference of opinion. We indeed want to run the best developer contests in the world (fun and fair). There is no doubt that in everything we do we can always look back and see things that can be done better. [see "what have you learned" below]

What are you going to do about it? Are you going to take the award away, or award others?
The primary thing that will be done is to continue to make future contests better. Although I have to admit that my appetite for wanting to run any more contests is a bit low right now, I would like to see us continue to pursue running great contests. Side challenge to the C9 crew - show me a contest with a better format. I'm reading the feedback from C9 - good and reasonable thoughts from folks like AndyC - and I had a phone call with w3bbo who also had some great thoughts. We have no plans to change the awards.

What have you learned and what would you change in the future?
We need more clarity in the rules, especially around code that can be used but was not originally written by the contestant. We also need to look at the best ways to pit contestants of reasonably equal skill against each other. We need to have better representation of developers on the judging panel. We need to find the right balance of people coding their projects and blogging about their experiences so the whole community can benefit from their experience. One suggestion that w3bbo had that I loved was to work with the C9 community to validate projects before they go to the official judges.

What was with the legalese answer?
When Microsoft does not pay attention to the legal ramifications of a situation, we open ourselves to trouble. Trouble that makes a hard conversation on C9 seem like a pretty small issue. Whether you can appreciate this or not, it is simply a reality of what we do. I can understand why people weren't happy with that answer.

Why don't you respond faster?
Look, I don't have the energy you all seem to have. Running contests is not my full time pursuit. When I go home at night, I like to spend time with my family. During the day, I have meetings and a lot of email to answer. I could spend a full time job just responding to all of the questions on these threads.

Why would you ask people to call on the phone? The conversation should be on C9.
Here is my feedback for the C9 community. This is not an easy place to have a conversation, at least the type of conversation I'm used to having. Going back and forth among many posters (some of who are purposely trying to distract and attack) with short choppy messages does not make it easy to resolve things when there are real differences of opinion. Second piece of feedback for the C9 community - if you want to be a community that is listened to and counted on, you have to collectively make this a place for respectful conversations. Calling for me to be fired, accusing me of rigging the contest, etc. is not respectful, and makes me wonder if it's a community I want to participate in.

Best, MJ

Cybermagellan
Live for nothing, or die for everything

majewett wrote:

This doesn't probably answer all the questions posted today.

Why won't Microsoft admit you made a mistake?
I know this is going to incite some of you who have the very strong opinion that rules were broken, but we simply have a difference of opinion on this. Ernie didn't work as a team, he used as a starting point code that been developed by others that predated the contest.

Cool, next year I'm going to write an extention and submit Firefox + My Extention...it's garunteed to win

majewett wrote:

What are you going to do about it? Are you going to take the award away, or award others?
The primary thing that will be done is to continue to make future contests better. Although I have to admit that my appetite for wanting to run any more contests is a bit low right now, I would like to see us continue to pursue running great contests. Side challenge to the C9 crew - show me a contest with a better format.

How about you not ask the C9 team to do better, how about you do better? Or are you in one of those Director positions where you can "challenge" your teams to fix your F-ups?

majewett wrote:

We have no plans to change the awards.

I can almost bet no one will want to participate in another contest from you based on this.

majewett wrote:

Why don't you respond faster?
Look, I don't have the energy you all seem to have. Running contests is not my full time pursuit. When I go home at night, I like to spend time with my family. During the day, I have meetings and a lot of email to answer. I could spend a full time job just responding to all of the questions on these threads.

Suggestion, don't come to C9 with a F'd up situation and not be expected to participate in the conversation. End of story on that one.

majewett wrote:

Why would you ask people to call on the phone? The conversation should be on C9.
Here is my feedback for the C9 community. This is not an easy place to have a conversation, at least the type of conversation I'm used to having. Going back and forth among many posters (some of who are purposely trying to distract and attack) with short choppy messages does not make it easy to resolve things when there are real differences of opinion. Second piece of feedback for the C9 community - if you want to be a community that is listened to and counted on, you have to collectively make this a place for respectful conversations. Calling for me to be fired, accusing me of rigging the contest, etc. is not respectful, and makes me wonder if it's a community I want to participate in.

Then don't. Go back to your office. Take your ball and go home because you changed the rules to meet your argument and then expect us to be OK with it.

Oh and if you can't filter out the trolls and focus on what is needed why are you here?

What do you do at Microsoft again, it's making me wonder about the quality of the people there.

GrandpaPC

W3bbo wrote:
Me: Why weren't the rules enforced?
Mark: We feel the rules were enforced, but that, perhaps, the rules might have been written better, that they gave a little too much leeway. For example, we see 20something developers having the advantage over the 65y/o professor. He wasn't a professor in computer science or anything, but engineering...

Hooray! Thanks for recognizing we are sometimes at a disadvantage.

JKelley
Is it sad that my badge picture is one of the best ones I have of myself?

Okay guys its time to chill out a little. Its not fair to ask for answers and then abuse the person who sticks his neck out to give them to you. You aren't always going to get the answers you want, and now you're just being abusive to someone who took the time to talk both here on C9 and personally on the phone.