Talk:Gridwars

Since Mark Wenig keeps deleting my contributions rendering them as "personal opinions" and "untrue statements", I can only respond by uploading sources and citing them.

Will that be enough so that you stop vandalyzing the article?

On another note, your comment:

"There were discussions among the programmers, whether it is in accordance with the rules to use someone else’s code, but it turned out to be the case. Publishing the code after each tournament favors improvements because programmers can build on the winning code."

Two things here.

1) Unfortunately, I really don't rememeber such discussions. Was there at least one discussion, let alone several, or just a few random posts? If what you say is true indeed, I have to ask you for the supporting quotation.

2) It's certainly questionable to credit people who use someone else's work over people who submit their own and to credit lucky winners, because a lucky victory is a sign of inferior code, not the other way around. And it's certainly as questionable to accept such credit as well.

So what is it you disagree with, since you have deleted this part?

Andy Monakov (talk) 15:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Please see WP:VAN for a description of Wikipedia's policy regarding vandalism, it differs greatly from yours. Tinke2bell (talk) 16:49, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

example of quotation

On 09/13/04 02:26 PM, Mark Wening wrote:

"Here is a description of how I time my warriors: I let the warrior fight against itself and wait 50 cycles after the beginning of the battle to ensure that all cells are occupied. Then I time the battle till cycle number 500. For Darkstar it takes 266 seconds on a 2 GHz computer. The rule states: "If a battle programs owns and runs on 1000 processors, it must not take more time to execute the program on all 1000 processors than 0.5 sec on a 1.13 GHz one-processor computer system." So the execution time for Darkstar owning 1000 cells on a 1.13 GHz computer would be: 266sec/450*2GHz/1.13GHz*1000cells/2500cells=0.418sec. This is of course not very accurate but it is clearly below the required 0.5sec."

On 09/14/04 03:04 PM, Paul Klinge wrote

"I timed my warriors by playing the warrior against itself. When 2000 cells were taken, I timed next 50 cycles with my watch and took the averge. My PC has a "2.6 GHz" AMD. So, I scaled the results to 1.13 GHz. It turned out that Nonga was near the time limit. This is easy, but not very accurate method. So, to be sure to get in, I entered 3 modifications of nonga, which sacrificed some strength for speed."

With precise figures provided on 09/16/04 09:03 AM:

"29/50/2.5/1.13*2.6=0.53 Satisfied?" On 02/06/03 06:35 PM CxC Master wrote responding to request for clarification of timing:

"It means on 1000 processors ( your a) - How do you check this? Here is a easy way to initialize the processor grid from the very beginning with 1000 processors for your warrior. This is a modification to the GW framework program.

// The processor IO control distribute // the warriors into the grid

program IOcontrol { int iolinks:Out; // let's get an input and // output vector int init; // INSERTED: a index variable

// local variable dependent // on link definition 1 if(IOFlag[0] != 0) { IOFlag[0] = 0;

// INSERTED: for loop that puts your warrior program // into 1000 processors at the start time for(init = 0; init <1000; init++) Out[init] = 'Number Of Your Warrior'; Out.fanout(warrior); // this commands sends the warrior values to the all } // processors in the battlefield "

Therefore, you should stop deleting my content and trying to render it as opinions or untrue statements. Should you not restore the pieces I contributed by yourself, every single paragraph you have deleted will be supported by quotations like these.

Besides, as someone who participated in the original Gridwars competition, you should have been well aware of this explanation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andy Monakov (talk • contribs) 16:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

All statements of fact should be supported with citations, this is not a forum. If a statement doesn't have a citation, it either needs one and a citation should be requested, or it is an opinion and should be deleted. Tinke2bell (talk) 16:57, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

citations needed for Mark Wenig's statements

Mark Wenig's edits contain many questionable statements which I have marked. E.g. he says "There were discussions among the programmers, whether it is in accordance with the rules to use someone else’s code, but it turned out to be the case" but he has deleted the text that describes that it holds if the time is determined in a different manner than described by EI.

Or "Andy Monakov complained later after his program lost against Chris Mueller's". AFAIR this is not the case. ISTR I didn't complain on time when my code lost; I did it a month or two later later after I timed his code and checked with EI whether my findings are correct.

Or "There were discussions among the programmers, whether it is in accordance with the rules to use someone else’s code, but it turned out to be the case." I really don't remember even a single discussion, so this must be supported with a citation if this is true.

Etc. etc.

Andy Monakov (talk) 19:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don’t think that there are any questionable statements from my side. Some of the facts could need some more explanations, but unfortunately I don’t have the time to write about the details. I am just trying to correct the things you got wrong.

Andy Monakov wrote: [Or "Andy Monakov complained later after his program lost against Chris Mueller's". AFAIR this is not the case. ISTR I didn't complain on time when my code lost; I did it a month or two later later after I timed his code and checked with EI whether my findings are correct.] That’s what I wrote: You complained after your program lost. Before the competition, there were no objections to let the program participate, that was my point.

Andy Monakov wrote: [Or "There were discussions among the programmers, whether it is in accordance with the rules to use someone else’s code, but it turned out to be the case." I really don't remember even a single discussion, so this must be supported with a citation if this is true.] Are you kidding me? I am referring to the discussion you started on the gridwars forum, and you don’t remember it? Now you are starting this discussion all over again using Wikipedia. If there were no discussions, then why are you writing about the fact that Chris Mueller used parts of my code? You described the gridwars rules in this article, so clearly nothing is said in the rules that forbids doing this.

I can understand that you are upset about not winning a prize. Your loss against the 3rd placed program was bad luck but the 1st and 2nd placed programs were clearly better than yours. The organizers confirmed that all programs were permitted to the competition. They confirmed that only Chris Mueller’s code was above the time limit, but they changed the limit to let his programs participate. They have the right to do so. They also have the right to changed the 3-bullets-rule. That seems to have been a mistake, and it didn’t change the outcome of the competition. They also confirmed that it is allowed to use someone else’s code.

I don’t think anyone will give back their prizes because you make it look like something illegal or questionable was going on in the 3rd gridwars competition. I won the computer cluster fair and square, and I don’t want anyone, especially my students, to get a different impression. Don’t worry, the cluster is in good hands, I am using it for my atmospheric research, which I believe is an important contribution to society. The paper describing the genetic algorithm I used to optimize my warriors wasn’t accepted, so there is no need to mention it in this article. Right now I am too busy, but I will provide a reference for this article as soon as I have the time to revise and resubmit my paper.

So, instead of writing about your unfortunate loss, why don’t you write about the interesting aspects of gridwars, e.g. different approaches or applications? After all, in gridwars scientific methods like neural networks, genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, and other approaches can be compared. Unfortunately I am too busy to contribute a lot to this article, but I will stop by from time to time to take a look.

Mark.Wenig (talk) 03:19, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

"I don’t think that there are any questionable statements from my side. Some of the facts could need some more explanations, but unfortunately I don’t have the time to write about the details. I am just trying to correct the things you got wrong."

You shouldn't create the impression that I got anything wrong, and Wikipedia is not a place to spread lies. Please support your statements with citations or remove them. Or I will do it for you.

"Andy Monakov wrote: [Or "Andy Monakov complained later after his program lost against Chris Mueller's". AFAIR this is not the case. ISTR I didn't complain on time when my code lost; I did it a month or two later later after I timed his code and checked with EI whether my findings are correct.] That’s what I wrote: You complained after your program lost. Before the competition, there were no objections to let the program participate, that was my point."

Of course. Neither he, nor you or Paul Klinge published the code when submitting, how could anyone possibly time it in order to complain? And I don't remember EI ever asked people whether they agree with Chris Mueller's submission of "fast-spreading" Borg.

Therefore, phrase your statements accordingly. I protested after I timed Chris Mueller's code and I timed his code along with yours after EI made the decision to honor him for a lucky win managed with not even his work (his work is only spreading part. I hope he did design it himself, not strip from yet another code).

If the rules are so important that a less deserving person is given a public credit and a prize, then they must be applied universally, not selectively.

"Andy Monakov wrote: [Or "There were discussions among the programmers, whether it is in accordance with the rules to use someone else’s code, but it turned out to be the case." I really don't remember even a single discussion, so this must be supported with a citation if this is true.] Are you kidding me? I am referring to the discussion you started on the gridwars forum, and you don’t remember it? Now you are starting this discussion all over again using Wikipedia."

No need to misrepresent. The discussion I have started dealt with the time taken by his code after I timed it and contacted EI to make sure I made no mistake, not his using of your code.

In case you mean some other discussion that I started, then cite it. Or remove the statement.

"If there were no discussions, then why are you writing about the fact that Chris Mueller used parts of my code? You described the gridwars rules in this article, so clearly nothing is said in the rules that forbids doing this."

Indeed. But then what's the point of holding a competition? Was there at least another person who used someone else's work? What about you, by the way? Since you didn't make it even to the fourth place in the original Gridwars competition, I gather Scott Balaban, John Hours and Robert Macrae all wrote better code. Am I wrong?

"I can understand that you are upset about not winning a prize. Your loss against the 3rd placed program was bad luck but the 1st and 2nd placed programs were clearly better than yours."

If I remember correctly, I developed my code in way less than a month. No 1+ year experence with CxC and Gridwars, as was the case with you. And certainly no GA to do the work for me and NASA supercomputers to run it on.

"The organizers confirmed that all programs were permitted to the competition. They confirmed that only Chris Mueller’s code was above the time limit,"

Frankly, I don't remember that they ever provided their own timing results or publicly stated what codes are either above or below the limit -- ever. If you remember something I don't, please cite the source.

"but they changed the limit to let his programs participate."

Did they say they did? Reference, please.

"They have the right to do so. They also have the right to changed the 3-bullets-rule."

What are you talking about? Lack of the rule results in totally different code, beginning with the spreading part when the first cell should fire in 3 different directions and generate 3 new cells.

"That seems to have been a mistake, and it didn’t change the outcome of the competition."

How do you know it didn't? I asked EI in our small mailing list to mail out the codes specifically to find out who would have won, but they didn't even answer. Do you know something the rest of us don't?

"They also confirmed that it is allowed to use someone else’s code."

Did they really? I'd like to see the source then.

"I don’t think anyone will give back their prizes because you make it look like something illegal or questionable was going on in the 3rd gridwars competition."

Oh, don't bother. Let people figure out how "fair" it was on their own.

"I won the computer cluster fair and square, and I don’t want anyone, especially my students, to get a different impression."

I agree 100% with the latter part. I started this article _exactly_ because I want related people like your students to know you better. Not through your opinionated edits of the article, but through facts which your side of story seems to lack.

"Don’t worry, the cluster is in good hands, I am using it for my atmospheric research, which I believe is an important contribution to society."

A contribution to the society is defined by the effect from application of results of research, not by field of research. And not even by the latter: how do we know you work is aimed at, say, reduction of pollution? And not at tracking spy satellites or something like that?

"The paper describing the genetic algorithm I used to optimize my warriors wasn’t accepted, so there is no need to mention it in this article."

I mention your refusal to provide explanation as to how your code was so interestingly optimized that turning most of the split shots into unidirectional shots improved it. A good question, isn't it?

"Right now I am too busy, but I will provide a reference for this article as soon as I have the time to revise and resubmit my paper."

You should understand that yet another GA paper is hardly of any interest to anybody, so I don't think you should even bother.

What's interesting indeed is why the lack of the 3-bullet rule turned out to be such a perfect fit for your code.

"So, instead of writing about your unfortunate loss,"

Don't you really get it, even 4 years later? It's not about "my unfortunate loss" as you put it, it's about double standards which you seem to have no problem with. If the rules are so important that a less deserving person gets credit, then they must be obeyed universally. All of them and for all of participants, including you. Or do you consider yourself an exception?

"why don’t you write about the interesting aspects of gridwars, e.g. different approaches or applications? After all, in gridwars scientific methods like neural networks, genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, and other approaches can be compared."

You already know my attitude to GA, don't you? 'Tween us two it's you who seems to believe in the power of GA, so go ahead.

Andy Monakov (talk) 19:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Andy Monakov wrote:"You shouldn't create the impression that I got anything wrong, and Wikipedia is not a place to spread lies. Please support your statements with citations or remove them. Or I will do it for you."

Wikipedia isn't a place to spread uncited facts either. You are not the final arbiter of this page, and your statements should follow the same rules as everyone else's. Therefore it is not okay to leave your own statements uncited because you believe them to be true, and demand others to cite theirs, because you believe them to be false. You should take a look at Wikipedia policy to see when it would be more appropriate to delete a statement of fact, and when it would be more appropriate to request a citation instead.

Also let's refrain from any personal attacks. And while we're at it, let's refrain from purely opinional statements presented as fact as well. I feel that statements like "You should understand that yet another GA paper is hardly of any interest to anybody, so I don't think you should even bother" are stupid and pointless, but I would be willing to take it up with an admin if you feel otherwise. Tinke2bell (talk) 17:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Citations

Andy Monakov has been moaning at me because I moved a totally unencyclopedic article. He states that the quotations "come from the Gridwars forum (of course) which no longer exists". I disagree with the "of course". His text is below. I leave Andy to explain its significance. I certainly cannot see the slightest justification for putting this stuff in the article namespace and I would reminsd Andy that Wikipedia is not a forum. -- RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 18:22, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

/* ---- Start of "citations" text ---- */

The article serves to provide citations for the Gridwars article.

Time limit during original Gridwars competition

On 02/06/03 CxC Master wrote:

--
Posted by paranoia:
Just checking for clarification...does all 1000 mean: 
a) on 1000 processors or b) a mistake was made, and all *1500* 
processors was meant...it *is* after all, a 30x50 grid. 
Just checking.
--
Dear paranoia, 
It means on 1000 processors ( your a) - How do you check this? 
Here is a easy way to initialize the processor grid from the 
very beginning with 1000 processors for your warrior. 
This is a modification to the GW framework program. 

// The processor IO control distribute 
// the warriors into the grid 

program IOcontrol 
{
int iolinks:Out; // let's get an input and 
                 // output vector
int init; // INSERTED: a index variable

// local variable dependent
// on link definition 1 
if(IOFlag[0] != 0) 
{ 
IOFlag[0] = 0; 

// INSERTED: for loop that puts your warrior program 
// into 1000 processors at the start time 
for(init = 0; init <1000; init++) 
Out[init] = 'Number Of Your Warrior'; 
Out.fanout(warrior); // this commands sends the warrior values to the all
} 
// processors in the battlefield 

Now - This change is NOT allowed in the competition (we won't use anybody else's 
GRIDWARS Framework program). But it is great for test and training purposes. 
When you start GW, disable other warriors and hit the step-by-step button and you 
see exactly one thousand of your processors running your program one cycle. 

[Edited by matt on 02/06/03 06:36 PM]"

As for the importance of the rule, the following was said:

...

Q: What happens if a program has a bug or 'accidentally' takes too long time (more than 0.5s for 1000 procs) or 'accidentally' uses an illegal variable?

A: The program will be disqualified and cannot participate in the qualification event or the championship. The developer will be notified that the program was disqualified and why. ...

Time limit during Gridwars III code development period

responding to a question, gridwars wrote on 03/18/04:

"If you want that you can do that but be aware that the processing time is limited for each battleprogram as definend in the original rules: The length and size of battle programs are not restricted; however, the execution time is. If a battle programs owns and runs on 1000 processors, it must not take more time to execute the program on all 1000 processors than 0.5 sec on a 1.13 GHz one-processor computer system. Every submitted battle program will be rigorously checked.

[Edited by gridwars on 03/18/04 04:43 PM]"

Different standards of fair competition

Andy Monakov wrote on 04/14/04:

"... When working on my warrior, I did use all available warriors (to be precise, the strongest ones I could find). Their only use, however, was sparring partnership to help me refine my code. This is my understanding of fair competition. ..."

EI's statement on the time limit

gridwars wrote on 06/13/04:

"Dear Battle Program developers,

There has been a discussion regarding one rule that was created for the very first Gridwars I. In order to make this more fruitful here is some background why this rule even exists:

During the very first GW the capabilities were limited and communication between warriors was not possible. This led to a discussion whether file I/O statements should be allowed or not. The reason was that some developers wanted to use a file as a repository for information regarding neigbors cells and the field in general. Many of you had ideas and suggestions and it was a great discussion.

Finally we put a timing rule in place for one single reason: to avoid warrior programs that are getting too complex and too slow to show it in front of a life audience. In the final contest the battles were conducted in front of an audience using this 1.13 GHz desktop.

The idea was to keep the time one battle takes until one warrior wins so short that everybody would enjoy to watch the battle. ..."

Timing-related arguments

On 09/13/04 Mark Wening wrote:

"... Here is a description of how I time my warriors: I let the warrior fight against itself and wait 50 cycles after the beginning of the battle to ensure that all cells are occupied. Then I time the battle till cycle number 500. For Darkstar it takes 266 seconds on a 2 GHz computer. The rule states: "If a battle programs owns and runs on 1000 processors, it must not take more time to execute the program on all 1000 processors than 0.5 sec on a 1.13 GHz one-processor computer system." So the execution time for Darkstar owning 1000 cells on a 1.13 GHz computer would be: 266sec/450*2GHz/1.13GHz*1000cells/2500cells=0.418sec. This is of course not very accurate but it is clearly below the required 0.5sec. ..."

On 09/14/04 Paul Klinge wrote

"... I timed my warriors by playing the warrior against itself. When 2000 cells were taken, I timed next 50 cycles with my watch and took the averge. My PC has a "2.6 GHz" AMD. So, I scaled the results to 1.13 GHz. It turned out that Nonga was near the time limit. This is easy, but not very accurate method. So, to be sure to get in, I entered 3 modifications of nonga, which sacrificed some strength for speed. ..."

With precise figures provided on 09/16/04:

"29/50/2.5/1.13*2.6=0.53 Satisfied?"

/* ---- End of "citations" text ---- */

Chris Mueller complained

that he is having a problem with the article. For some reason he didn't post here and my private invitation to use the talk page instead of email to describe his concerns apparently had no effect. To the best of my knowledge, the text I have contributed is entirely correct (even though Mark Wenig rendered it as untrue statements and personal opinions, whereas he still has no citations to support his own).

So if Chris is confident that something of what I say is wrong, he's highly welcome to post his disagrement here and back it with citations; I'll drop him an email to make sure he reads this. Andy Monakov (talk) 10:18, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia policies, namely WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:NPOV. I think these policies are rather straightforward, unless I misunderstand them. If I understand them correctly, however, nearly all of this article is in violation of them. I think we should first determine whether or not pasted quotes on a talk page from a forum which no longer exist are in line with WP:V. If not then they obviously need to be removed. While this is being determined, the article also lacks many citations for statements. For the time being, it might be beneficial to assume your sources are in line with Wikipedia policies and add citations to the many statements which lack them. I requested citations for many of them.

I think other changes to the article are needed as well, but if your sources are against Wikipedia policy then addressing those changes now would be rather unproductive, so I think it would be best to first decide this.

I am not quite sure how this issue should be addressed. Do you have a different interpretation of WP:V and WP:OR than I do? If not then most of the article should be removed.

Note that I am not addressing the accuracy of any of your statements whatsoever, rather I am addressing whether or not the article is first and foremost in accordance with Wikipedia's policies. Tinke2bell (talk) 15:49, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

policies

Of course I read Wikipedia policies and if you read them too I don't understand what's the problem you see with them. By the way, why did you choose to use a nickname instead of your real name, which I hope is "Chris Mueller".

Verifiability: the forum doesn't exist indeed, but if you care so much that everything should be verifiable, that's what you and other participants can do for all future readers by either supporting my citations or providing correct ones (in case mine are wrong).

Original research: I can't imagine what could possibly trigger this one. What original research are you talking about?

Neutral point of view: if in your opinion something is not neutral, feel free to point it out.

On another note, you have tagged the article with neutrality, factual accuracy, lack of sources, unverified claims and weasel words flags without any explanation. And yet you do not refute anything of what is said. What does it mean?

Since the forum as the source of these citations no longer exists, it's you who can verify statements and citations for readers by either acknowledging their correctness or providing correct ones. I suspect that your real goal is not to add sources and make sure the content is correct, but to find a way for this article to be removed. Am I wrong?

Let me remind you that "elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy by simply labeling it "POV". The neutral point of view is a point of view that is neutral, that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject: it neither endorses nor discourages viewpoints" -- I'm quoting this from the article.

Fortunately it's certainly not you alone who will decide whether the article is in accordance with established policies or not. RHaworth (who, I understand, is a long-time respected editor) commented that citations should not be presented in the article space, and with the ability to link to the comment page I was happy to take that correction into account. But that was the one and only problem with the article pointed out. Andy Monakov (talk) 18:54, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

There are multiple people named Chris Mueller.

Verifiability: The issue isn't that the forum doesn't exist. I agree that the quotes are accurate and did exist on the Gridwar's forums. The issue is that you are using them in the first place, to support most of the article, which seems to strongly go against WP:SPS to be more specific.

Original Research: This ties in heavily with not citing everything. This article is the only place to read about Tinkerbell having less than a 1% chance to win, or about Tinkerbell being over twice the time limit, or about Darkstar and Nonga splitting shots. And of course there are other things in the article. You may have sources to support them, but they aren't cited yet, aren't published yet, and to my understanding would thus be original research.

Neutral point of view: There is no mention of the controversy in GWII (even though you mention this received the most media attention), and I'm not sure if there was controversy in GWI or GW Interactive as well. Additionally I requested citations for things that if you could cite (currently I believe they are opinions) I would not consider to contribute to a biased pov.

I also believe you presented some statements as facts which I believe are false. I requested citations for them. If you can cite them then they would no longer contribute to questionable factual accuracy.

As for lack of sources, that should be rather obvious. The Game Concept and Core Rules section does not cite any sources, which is where I placed the template.

In regards to weasel words, I only made this in respect to a few occurrences which I iterated to you previously in my email. I think your use of "finally" and "questionable" fall into this, although I am not entirely sure. I should have clarified this.

I do not refute anything of what is said because I have no sources, which in part reinforces some of the flags I raised. That is why I requested citations for the statements you present as facts which have none.

Andy Monakov wrote:"Since the forum as the source of these citations no longer exists, it's you who can verify statements and citations for readers by either acknowledging their correctness or providing correct ones. I suspect that your real goal is not to add sources and make sure the content is correct, but to find a way for this article to be removed. Am I wrong?"

Obviously I disagree with some of the content as I expressed to you. I think some of it is untrue, and some of it is your opinion. I am not going to verify anything that I think is untrue or your opinion just because you think the opposite. I also don't think my motives have anything to do with the accuracy of the article within Wikipedia policies so I'm not sure why you're accusing me of anything without even presenting any evidence. If you think I am attempting to vandalize the article, then that is probably something you should contact an admin about as well as some evidence.

Andy Monakov wrote:"Let me remind you that 'elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy by simply labeling it "POV". The neutral point of view is a point of view that is neutral, that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject: it neither endorses nor discourages viewpoints' -- I'm quoting this from the article."

The article expresses only negative things about GWIII, and does not express negative things about other GW's. That is not a balanced POV. The issue is not what the article contains, the issue is what the article contains in regards to what it leaves out. POV's are not equally presented, which is why I feel that it violates the NPOV policy. I labeled nothing as having a POV and requested it to be eliminated, so I am confused as to why you mention this. Tinke2bell (talk) 20:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Chris Mueller wrote: "Verifiability: The issue isn't that the forum doesn't exist. I agree that the quotes are accurate and did exist on the Gridwar's forums. The issue is that you are using them in the first place, to support most of the article, which seems to strongly go against WP:SPS to be more specific."

I think it's obvious that the intent is to prevent subjective judgment or POV to be passed as a fact. So if you agree with that, the focus should be not on the form (forum post or an article in peer-reviewed journal) but on the content instead. Just because a forum post might be statistically likely to be factually incorrect or biased, is not a sound reason to discard forum posts as unsatisfactory evidence.

Read what the article says: "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy".

What is a forum, essentially? The ultimate form of peer-reviewed publication where anyone can correct anyone, and which the same article recommends as one of the most reliable sources: "In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers."

Chris Mueller wrote: "Original Research: This ties in heavily with not citing everything. This article is the only place to read about Tinkerbell having less than a 1% chance to win, or about Tinkerbell being over twice the time limit, or about Darkstar and Nonga splitting shots. And of course there are other things in the article. You may have sources to support them, but they aren't cited yet, aren't published yet, and to my understanding would thus be original research."

Again: contents, not form. If you disagree with my experience (when I played Hole vs Tink, the former won 100-0 in my first session and won for the first time by the end of the 2nd hundred), then provide figures which you consider correct. You posted your timing results for some of the codes and told me to shut up, didn't you (should I cite that to prove I'm telling the truth?)? So feel free to post them again and call them right and mine wrong. If you disagree with my findings on Nonga and DarkStar splitting bullets, feel free to explain why and link a reader to the talk page.

See? There are many ways in which you along with other participants can make the content verifiable for a reader not related with GW and meet other important WP guidelines, but of course you can resist to do so and this is exactly what I call into question when I voice my suspicions about your real motives wrt the article and suggest that you should be sincere about it and prove that your goals are what you claim them to be.

Chris Mueller wrote: "Neutral point of view: There is no mention of the controversy in GWII (even though you mention this received the most media attention), and I'm not sure if there was controversy in GWI or GW Interactive as well. Additionally I requested citations for things that if you could cite (currently I believe they are opinions) I would not consider to contribute to a biased pov."

I didn't participate in GWII and earlier events, and I hope you know it. That's why imo they are better left to describe for people who were involved. As for me allegedly being biased, I told you by email that I don't see what's biased in the text I controbuted, so feel free to say HERE what you consider as bias. Unless you really don't think so.

Chris Mueller wrote: "I also believe you presented some statements as facts which I believe are false. I requested citations for them. If you can cite them then they would no longer contribute to questionable factual accuracy. As for lack of sources, that should be rather obvious. The Game Concept and Core Rules section does not cite any sources, which is where I placed the template."

I would be happy to cite the source if you can give me a link to an existing copy of the rules. And again, as a participant you were aware of the rules, so what exactly is your point in asking citations for such things? If what I wrote is factually incorrect, then correct me. Otherwise you are creating an impression that the information can't be trusted, and I REALLY don't understand why you are doing that.

Chris Mueller wrote: "In regards to weasel words, I only made this in respect to a few occurrences which I iterated to you previously in my email. I think your use of "finally" and "questionable" fall into this, although I am not entirely sure. I should have clarified this."

You also said that you published your code once you were asked to do so (should I quote you here?). Well, I remember very well I certainly didn't ask you. I also saved some posts and I don't see Mark, Paul or anyone else asking you to do that. So since you insist that you published your code when you were asked, can you say who it was and supply some evidence? I could also mention that even though you published my code (w/o even asking my permission!), you refrained from publishing yours at the same time. Should we rather include all this into the article to make it more detailed?

As for "questionable" I don't see why you consider that a weasel word. You got a free pass from EI on timing, but when it came to official winners, the rules have suddenly become important again. It's not just questionable, it's called "double standards". I can replace "questionable" with a brief explanation along these lines if you wish.

Chris Mueller wrote: "Obviously I disagree with some of the content as I expressed to you. I think some of it is untrue, and some of it is your opinion"

Then give your reasons, as I gave Mark mine when I flagged his statements and supported mine. You can't say (or pretend) that you didn't read the rules and as a result request citations and create an impression that the content might be wrong. What are you trying to achieve by that?

Chris Mueller wrote: "I'm not sure why you're accusing me of anything without even presenting any evidence".

No accusations. I'm voicing my suspicions about your motives and so far you haven't convinced me that your goal is to contribute to the article rather than find a way for it to be removed.

Chris Muellers wrote: "The article expresses only negative things about GWIII, and does not express negative things about other GW's. That is not a balanced POV. The issue is not what the article contains, the issue is what the article contains in regards to what it leaves out. POV's are not equally presented, which is why I feel that it violates the NPOV policy. I labeled nothing as having a POV and requested it to be eliminated, so I am confused as to why you mention this."

Because YOU mentioned NPOV in the first place. Again, I didn't participate in GWII and earlier events, so I don't think you and I are more familiar with those than people who were involved.

Final note: I suggest you should substantiate many of your flags as I have described above. If something is wrong, then correct it. Just because YOU don't remember e.g. what the rules were is not a good reason to request a citation on something which is described well enough and doesn't have a reference for the sole reason there is no source to link to. Andy Monakov (talk) 15:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Mark Wenig's JMLR paper

I've got the following response to my inquiry regarding Mark Wenig's paper he allegedly submitted to JMLR:

From: Leslie Pack Kaelbling <...>
Subject: Re: JMLR submitted papers
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:48:44 -0400

Hi Andy,

[...]

If an author were to ask me to certify that he had, in fact,
submitted a paper, then I would be willing to do so.

- Leslie

I contacted Mark later with a copy of this email (and a copy sent to Leslie), but received no reply. If he was telling the truth, proving that shouldn't be a problem given JMLR's willingness to certify that. Andy Monakov (talk) 07:57, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Vasiliy Gromov -- a cheat winner?

I would like to add hereby one more interesting piece of the Gridwars puzzle. From my 'Gridwars Chronicles' topic on Generation5 forum (http://www.generation5.org/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1062):

[...]
They [Mark Wenig and Paul Klinge] characterized Vasily Gromov, the 
official winner of Gridwars II and an alumnus of Moscow State University, 
as a cheat winner and a person who found a compiler bug [and exploited it]. 
It was said when Vasily Gromov was not posting to the forum, so he might 
not even be aware of that. 

I leave it up to Mark Wenig and Paul Klinge to take the responsibility as to 
who of them said what, but, more importantly, I'd like to hear some 
explanation as to why they believe he cheated or found a compiler bug -- 
I found answers to several important Gridwars questions, but this is one 
of those that remain unanswered to this day.

Edit: email notifications have been sent to Mark and Paul to make sure they 
are aware of the post.

Comments from Mark and Paul have never appeared. Andy Monakov (talk) 14:34, 27 July 2008 (UTC)