Paid Tournament Through Meta, Signups Open

[jmo1121109]

Meta AI Research is holding a paid speedboat tournament to evaluate their latest no-press Diplomacy bot. The tournament will run for about a month and will involve up to several games each day staggered throughout the day.

Participants can play as many or as few games as they like, but should play at least seven games to achieve a competitive score. Games will be scored using SOS. Starting at the end of 1908, there will be a 20% chance each year that the game will end. If the game reaches the end of 1913, that probability will increase to 40% per year. Games will have 5 minute turns. They are particularly interested in experienced gunboat/speedboat players but invite everyone that is interested to reach out.

Participants will be paid roughly $15/hour (varies depending on country) through a company called Appen that they are working with to run the tournament. You can find more information on the tournaments page here: https://webdiplomacy.net/tournaments.php?tab=Ongoing.

Please fill out this form to sign up by registering with Appen: https://forms.office.com/r/RqjbXFh44k.

[TheFlyingBoat]

Is Appen still unable to contract with California residents due to Appen's inability to comply with California labor laws?

[MajorMitchell]

If it's single homo sapiens versus half a dozen speedbat spec'd BlighterDalekBots and I could get my self requested ban on joining games lifted just to play in this exciting experiment then I would be a diligent player. No payment required, donate it to a homeless charity, get Maniac an extra verandah for his packing crate Wurli?
Check my track record against the Vin Ordinaire BlighterDalekBots

[Fluminator]

Once we let facebook infiltrate the webdip community and corrupt it, will there be any safe sites left away from the evil tendrils of Zuckerberg?

[bo_sox48]

I hear vDiplomacy is a flourishing community these days

[Chaqa]

There's no additional information on the Tournaments page.

[Chaqa]

There's no additional information on the Tournaments page.

"Edit": the link took me to the Finished tab, not the Ongoing. lol

@jmo: you have a period in the link that's making it go to the wrong place

[Trigfea63]

Once we let facebook infiltrate the webdip community ...

Facebook has already "infiltrated" this site and it's awesome. Playing 1v1 against an advanced AI like Fairbot, backed by major corporate resources, where else would you or I be able to do that?

I trust the site owners to keep the site ad-free, but if you're worried about that, consider a donation.

[kestasjk]

Once we let facebook infiltrate the webdip community ...

Facebook has already "infiltrated" this site and it's awesome. Playing 1v1 against an advanced AI like Fairbot, backed by major corporate resources, where else would you or I be able to do that?

I trust the site owners to keep the site ad-free, but if you're worried about that, consider a donation.

Yep we're working with a subsidiary of Facebook that was set up to compete with Google's DeepMind. For me the idea of being so opposed to a company that you're opposed to the good things they (or their affiliates) do is crazy; it's like being against Microsoft so you're against Gates giving money to help cure malaria

Definitely not an infiltration; this is a willing partnership, just like our one with the University of Montreal / MILA that benefits everyone

Edit: Btw I actually use Facebook every day, and generally appreciate not getting ads about things I would never want and getting free services to connect with family, but my point is if *you* hate Facebook that’s totally fine, and doesn’t contradict what we’re doing.
And also no I can’t see any situation even years into the future assuming worst case scenarios that we’re going to need ads, and that’s a great thing.

[MerryBBuck]

Once we let facebook infiltrate the webdip community ...

I trust the site owners to keep the site ad-free, but if you're worried about that, consider a donation.

... worst case scenarios that we’re going to need ads...

I would like to run an ad on Webdip. I want to sell bots that connect to your Webdip account and play Gunboat for you. Only $14/hour!

[MajorMitchell]

That's excellent news Nearly Omniescent Kestas, Google may have Deep Mind yet dare I suggest that here at Webdiplomacy we have superior resources in the "minds" department. Which is why Zuckerberg wants to work with Webdiplomacy. I am confident that some savvy young whippersnappers at Meta/Farcebook have told Zuckerberg that Webdiplomacy have even Deeper Minds amongst the members at Webdiplomacy.
For example, beloved DipComrade Brainbomb is very Deep Minded in the Artistic Caper. My Deep level Daffyness was undoubtedly another desirable asset and of course we have Maniac's bottomless pit of Manic Thoughts. Google's Deep Mind is looking rather shallow when compared to the intellectual resources here.

[Maniac]

Where do i sign up? Maniac v AI Bots could be sold as pay-per-view surely?

[MajorMitchell]

I would definitely spectate for free on Maniac v six Speedybat BlighterDalekBots.
There's thousands if extremely Deep Minded members at Webdiplomacy.
Octavious is a Deep Minded Oracle, Orathaic may have said he threw a pebble in ten years ago & it's still bouncing it's way to the bottom. May have said that a few times at a particular party when he was, tired and emotional is the polite euphamism.
Whatever extravagant remarks Orathaic may, or may not have made regarding pebbles in Oracles is irelevant which is why I make note of it & it's uselessness.
The fact remains that in the Mind Department & Octavious, in the Sunny Antipodes, we would say it's a very long way from the top fence on Octavious's Top Paddock to the bottom fence & don't fall in the well.
What about ATC?. If the Ladies anectdotes about the length and magnificence of his straw give a guide to the depth of his mind then he is extraordinarily Deep in the Mind caper.
Or Dargorygel, with a mind so flooded with information to unfanthomable abyss depths? Nanotechnology Diving devices get lost trying to map the unknown number of caverns of thoughts in there.

[MajorMitchell]

I do hope I have not embarressed ATC, caused any blushes. I had duscounted the gossip about "an accident with a circular saw& no straw" & considered the Lady tennis playing community's oft expressed admiration to be collective superior source of intelligence on the questionable straw. I have no desire for an interview, I will leave that to bold young tennis playing ladies.

[tuzongyu]

Tournament Scoring System

After the tournament games are completed, we will post a ranking of players who participated in the tournament according to the scoring system described here.

We use sum-of-squares (SOS) to calculate the score of each player in each game. To form an overall tournament ranking, we then calculate a modified average: sum of scores divided by three plus the number of games played. Adding three to the denominator helps ensure that a participant who only plays a few games and gets very lucky in them won’t rank higher than a participant that plays many games and shows consistently good performance across them.

For example, if you play 7 games and get game scores of 50,50,40,30,20,10,0 your tournament score is 200/(7+3) = 20 while your average game score is 28.6.

If you get 20 in the next game:
- Your average game score would drop from 28.6 to 27.5.
- But, under this scoring system, your new tournament score is 220/(8+3) = 20... the same. It won’t hurt your ranking to play a game a little below average.

If instead you got 28.6 in the next game:
- Your average game score would stay the same.
- But, under this scoring system, your new tournament score is 228.6/(8+3) = 20.8… it increased. Playing your average always increases your tournament score.

This encourages playing more games as you don’t need to do even as well as your average game in order to increase your score: you are more likely to increase your ranking by playing more games than to decrease it, with diminishing returns. In particular, your score increases very quickly with your first few games, so don’t stop after 2 or 3 games!

[captainmeme]

What is the rule for midgame/lategame replacements, scoringwise?

[Claesar]

I made $650 this week working from home!

[et]

Hi. I filled form about a week ago.
Can I read message from appen at email, webdiplomacy or discord?

[Claesar]

Hi. I filled form about a week ago.
Can I read message from appen at email, webdiplomacy or discord?

They send emails exclusively.

[tuzongyu]

What is the rule for midgame/lategame replacements, scoringwise?

Start-of-game (before the first move) replacements: the game score will be assigned to the replacement player (naturally, they played the entire game!).

Mid/lategame replacements: the score will be assigned to the original player. This prevents any incentive to leave games that aren't going well early - it will still count towards your score, and you have no reason to believe a sub will do better than you would have.