Our favorite Troy and blind submissions
by matt - September 11th, 2008
First of all, I’d like to publicly and clearly and unequivocally thank Troy for all of his hard work and creativity. He’s a big part of the success of namethis and we here at HQ appreciate him immensely. He’s gotten a lot of guff in the community and I think a lot of it is unfair. He has never won in anything resembling a suspicious matter. He doesn’t invest his huge bounty of watts unfairly. But most of all, he comes up with lots of great names.
Moving on, some info about the “Troy rule” or blind submissions. In the 12 projects since blind submissions were implemented, Troy’s placed in 11 of them, with multiple placings in 3 and one first place win. In the 12 projects previous to blind submissions, Troy placed in 11 of them, with multiple placings in 10, and 6 first place wins. This is all very unscientific because I haven’t compared his rate of naming in each of those time periods, nor the rest of the communities, etc. I haven’t looked at investment. I simply looked at winners.
It’s a small sample set, so we can’t read too much into it, but I’m not sure there’s been a huge difference. There’s been less multiple placings since blind submissions were implemented, whatever that might mean. Hopefully this piece of evidence is yet another supporting piece of statistics which show that, in fact, the algorithm is doing it’s job and is not being gamed.
I know the easiest reaction is to assume that things are terribly unfair, but oftentimes, that’s just not the case. I’ve tried to be as helpful and transparent as I can in answering questions on competitions and responding to concerns about methodology. Kluster loves and appreciates all the feedback from this wonderful community. We know this is a two way street and the whole premise of crowd sourcing is founded on the fact that we have a totally kick ass crowd — and we do! Keep in mind that we’re all in this together, to produce great results, to have a fun time, to share the money you’ve earned by your brainpower, creativity, influence and dedication. Keep the great feedback coming pertaining to what we can do to improve things. I’m sure our oldest (in terms of Kluster participation) community members will agree that we’ve been really responsive to suggestions in shaping future features.
In the meantime, we’ll continue to see what the effect of blind submissions is and evaluate it as we roll out some new features.
Carry on … unicorns …
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Again Thanks to Troy ^_^ His name suggestions are sometimes the best. plus, Troy takes time to research and provide good names.
the algorithm can only do so much, it also needs the input of the community
When will the unicorns arrive ?
@matt, thank you.
Unicorns? Dear god after dboots proving they are killing the planet I am a little afraid of them.
And yay for Troy, we have talent here and should be applauding and embracing it…. maybe Troy should be putting together a course for less successful Klusterers on how to write good names!
Request #2,576:
Would it be possible to take the top three winners of any contest requiring a .com (or other domain name or trademark) and run a quick check to be sure the winners are actually available to the client? There are so many excellent ideas posted for the Socially Responsible Shopping site that are, sadly, not available. Many of them are names others of us had considered, researched, and NOT posted, because they are something the client cannot use.
If any winning name is unavailable, you could then move down the the next on the list, perhaps?
Just thinkin’ unicorns here in CT.
Thanks, as always.
Request #2,577:
Ditto the anti-corrosive paint. At least one name (one I was very excited about this morning) is already the name of a protective paint coating….
Hi, this post sounds like an “excusatio”. In Latin “excusatio non petita” means: If you talk about a problem we did not ask to resolve, probably that was YOUR problem, not OUR. On the other side, the question is: if I am a bad guy who wants to do money without doing nothing I CAN. You have done blind submissions but We could know exactely what Troy does. You know why. In fact, I continued to invest on Troy, and I won.
Matt, my comment is only to promote a safer namethis
@lorenzo if you think the community didn’t ask us to resolve a perceived problem vis-a-vis blind submissions you don’t read this blog.
I agree that Troy is doing a fabulous job. He gets really creative with some of his names. I like the blind submissions, because it forces people to invest in the names they like and not just in Troy because he has been so successful. It allows those that truely like the name to recieve a larger reward for thier investment. As for the names already being used I agree that this should somehow be investigated more. I take a lot of time to research most of the names I submit to ensure they are available for the clients. Occasianally I will mis spell something and realize it later, and would like to remove the submission. However at this time I am unable to, a nice feature may be to allow me to remove a mistake I have made. Has Kluster given any thought to this?
Date-stamping, please?!!?!?
is troy becoming rich?
@matt Yes, I did not read all comments and posts of this blog. You did not answer to the question. The question is: if I am a bad guy who wants to do money without doing nothing I CAN. You have done blind submissions but We could know exactely what Troy does. In fact, I continued to invest on Troy, and I won.
Ciao
L.
anyway, I wait for the new namethis
@ Matt — I wonder if Lorenzo is talking about the crawl, which clearly links posted names and the people who post them? Or maybe he means we can still go online and see what people are investing in (often their own names)?
@Stacy - I am just describing the following think: If I believe that Troy (or another one) always wins:
1. I check his investiments and I invest in the same way;
2. I check the crawl (slower) and I invest on his names.
I’ve done this and I’ve won. This is not a good think for namethis.com… if everybody does what I’ve done the entire operation fakes.
I just write these notes with the aim of improving the system
maybe change the site name to Troys Names
@Stacy i agree stacy
So why is every 1 one dudes nutz. Maybe kluster’s submissions are being shadowed simply cause of the exp. Why was it necessary to put exp. pnts RIGHT there with the submissions Anyway if a seeker, client wants to know how successful a klusterers name is then they can load up that members profile one at a time if they really have to know the earlier successes of a submitter of a name they like but it does lean the decision making process and is unfair to the low man