Point Cheaters

THIS IS TO MUCH! 

THESE POINT SCORES?!?!?!??!?

fix it please

1st

Ron-Antibes

1,371 days

9,446,612

2nd

nóng fū

52 days

5,683,204

3rd

marytesic

0 days

3,973,315

4th

Joe-C4

853 days

3,738,394

5th

Phil-L

540 days

2,996,593

6th

Sū shān

0 days

2,966,269

7th

DanielM112

145 days

2,687,200

8th

LindaS65

400 days

2,609,592

9th

edjbeth

1,216 days

2,604,488

10th

Todd-T9

0 days

2,441,373

11th

JorgeG

0 days

2,334,320

12th

DouglasB8

7 days

2,288,203

13th

Mikew****

1 day

2,270,092

14th

PerryP

0 days

2,004,406

15th

Roberta-W3

0 days

1,950,384

Is it a little silly?  Sure, maybe.  But at the same time, who are they harming?  Someone using a bot to artificially increase a score that means nothing does not in any way effect my ability to go through my course in my time in my way.

At the same time I do still like having the score to compare against myself, as a way of staying consistent. In no way do I feel the need to compete against other people, regardless of whether they are real or fictional.

I have been working on Rocket Chinese for nearly eight years and have never “cheated” to obtain any points.  In fact, I pay very little attention to the total point accumulations and rankings. For Rocket Languages to allow one of their customers to use the public forum to slander other customers is outrageous and an immediate corrective response is required.

nong fu, I don't think he was calling out any specific individual as cheating so much as giving examples of a perceived issue.  Is your all time score high?  Yes, but as you said you've been actively using the service for almost 8 years, of course it probably should be high.

To me at least, other people's scores aren't important.  I study in my own time in my own way (which is part of why I like an online course as opposed to a physical classroom).  At the same time there are others that appreciate being able to gauge progress against other individuals, and that competitive nature can serve as a motivating factor.

There are people who might see a leaderboard and “Point Press” to get to the top, artificially increasing their score by spam clicking answers.  They might use a bot to do that considerably faster.  I am not saying anyone here does that, I'm just saying that in a competitive environment there are some individuals who will do whatever they can to get ahead.  

In the opening post, lifetime scores were highlighted, and I think that is a very poor point of comparison.  If you take a look at the leaderboards for the past 24 hours, there are some individuals that have over 10,000 points in a 24 hour period.  Is it possible?  Yes.  Is it suspicious?  Maybe.  I think that is what this topic was about.  If there is a leaderboard (and a competitive environment), some degree of oversight might be necessary to keep everyone on a fair competitive field.

This all having been said, nóng fū, I admire your dedication.

Ciao a tutti

In my humble opinion points should only be important to yourself, if at all!!

The points system, even if you disregard any potential cheating, is so arbitary, it only gives you an indication of what you are doing.

For example if you spend 30 minutes on the lesson conversation practice you will get considerably more points than if you spend all day understanding, practising and memorizing a new grammatical structure.

It is there to motivate but acts only as an indicator of the amount of work you are doing.

Anyway that's another 100 points on my score for posting this!!!!

We should all just enjoy learning this beautiful new language in our own way and at our own pace.

Regards

Gary

For what it's worth to Rocket and others on this thread, I agree with GaryM41, especially his last sentence.  Learning languages is a joy, especially Italian.  

All the best

Chris

Oh sorry Nong Fu…. I just had looked and clariifed with someone.

Hi Bongiorno, 

I am with you on this. But I also wonder, if some members just have been going for a very long time? But I get you, because I also am a bit competitive and like to check where I am at on the board. It seems to unachievable to ever get to the first place with having to beat such numbers. 

I know to many this might seem silly, but different strokes for different folks and if score checking is what gets us to do that extra task, hey, then that's not a bad thing, right? :) 

Thank you to nong fu for actually answering and putting this right. I was also starting to suspect some cheating and it makes me personally feel better to hear that this isn't the case! So chapeau to you for sticking to to the program for such a long time and good luck with your further studying! 

Desiree

I find that points accumulate the most quickly when practicing the conversations. I've had to do quite a bit of this in the last few days, after coming back to French from a long hiatus. I'm nearly finished Level 1 (I'm currently clawing my way through Module 7, slowly but surely) but I've had to review all the earlier material, so I've just been hitting the phrases and conversations over and over. The one I've practiced the most is the very first one, where they're greeting each other. My reason is because when I try to talk to my French teacher, my mind keeps going blank on saying hello, and then again on saying goodbye. Phrases like salut, comment ça va, ça va bien merci, au revoir, à bientôt, à tout a l'heure, etc just don't come to mind as easily as I'd like. So I spent half an hour today just practicing the first conversation, alternating between Claire's part and Paul's part, over and over and over, trying to make it a little more automatic. The points have stacked up pretty quickly as a result. 

Having said that, I did manage to get to about 12,000 points in a 24-hour period, but I had to be at it all day. Sure, I could “point press” if I wanted to, but that wouldn't get me anywhere with language learning. If that was all I wanted to do all day, I'd find a better video game than the leaderboard! :)

All the best. 

Actually, I believe these score points are normal. Some users have been using Rocket for a long time. Even if you see that their streak is not high, it is only because they may have lost count because of a few days, not because that they got too many points in just a series of days.  Sure! Some of them just DO wanna point press! But it's none of our business. We shouldn't care about points anyway! If they really are “point pressing” bad, it's their own fault and they know the points are false plus they don't learn anything from getting points. So, I especially want to emphasize that we DON'T SAY BAD THINGS about the points leaderboard, because we are not sure whether these people are doing bad things or good things, AND, if they are “point pressing”, it's their own fault! Not our fault, so don't be angry or emotional. :) 

Best whishes!

P.S @ Gabrielle-D, I agree strongly with your opinion, thank you for your support. :)

Hi All

I have given up looking at the point and have hidden them, as just found myself getting irritated. Jason did say they were working on the point system though. In the beginning it used to drive me up the wall. 

I believe some people do cheat, others just work at it really hard. 

During the winter I have more time for my language studies, as we have rain and more rain on Vancouver Island. So I have decided to chill about it all and only do what I feel like doing.  

So at this stage one is just going to have to let it go

Sebongela

I completely agree with Sebongela. Languages should be fun, otherwise, why do it? (Unless one has to, for job reasons.).   I see from the points table that Jason was true to his word in that points tally with well-known users' patterns of achievement.  

I also agree with the previous comment that points cheaters only cheat themselves, as there is a optimum amount of learning that can be done per day, and those that game the system aren't learning in any meaning of the word.

Chris

Morning ChrisM108

Hope you are enjoying your new garden this summer. 

Not aware that the points system has been updated. Still looks the same to me.  Can you clarify , please.

Ciao

Sebongela 

Very much enjoying the garden, Sebongela. It's very time-consuming, but in a rewarding way.  The temperature at the moment is 41.1C, which is very unusual for the south of England, and poses challenges. Fortunately, much of our garden is Mediterranean/drought-tolerant plants.  How's yours?

What I was referring to was the leaderboard.  The top achievers are those who from experience, achieve points consistent that the time spent in their previous posts would be achievable.  

Ciao

Chris

Hi ChrisM108

All well here. Last year we had the summer you are currently experiencing in England. This year it has been chilly and we have not had any summer yet. I guess that is what we are going to all have in the future. On the upside have not had to do much irrigation.  Glad that you are enjoying your garden. I have a large garden and I agree a lot of work. Philip doesn't do gardening at all. Says it makes hm itch. Amuses me. 

Have stepped back in Rocket Italian and concentrating more on listening and some grammar. Listen to the Coffe Break podcasts while weeding, makes it more interesting. My German is still at the level where I use Rocket a lot for vocabulary, but still resort to other resources for grammar. 

Sebongela

Do you prefer Italian or German, Sebongela, or both equally?  Do you experience any benefits in learning both at the same time?  I still really like Italian compared to the other languages I have studied.

Ciao

Chris

Hi ChrisM108

Good to hear from you. I love the romance of the Italian language. Just flows beautifully, but find it more difficult than the German. Even with my Portuguese I struggle more with sentence structure and grammar. German easier I think due to speaking Afrikaans. Many of the words are very similar. To that end sometimes that doesn't help, as I want to put in Afrikaans words. At times I think a word is German then I think no it's Afrikaans and they turn out to be the same. My Italian has taken a back seat, as at this stage we may fly into Frankfurt in September. A trip to Denmark Norway and maybe The Netherlands. Can't decide between the UK or the continent. Want to visit both. Am fascinated by English history and the countryside is just lovely. Difficult choice.

Keep well. We are currently having summer at last. 34 degrees, have been hiding inside. In Singapore we never checked the weather, it was always the same and here it is a national pastime and always in a conversation

A presto, Sharon