Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that some people are solving exactly the same challenge at nearly exactly the same time?

Of course it could be coincidence, maybe I have a low metaclorian count and am missing the solutions in the force, but my razor says that would be rather odd

Maybe there is some way of flagging users who solve more than a certain number of the same challenges within a short period of time ... if two particular users solve 10 of the same challenges, all within 2 hours of each other - I would imagine it was worth taking a closer look.

bb

Flagging those users? do you mean marking them with the "e-7raders 1C0N"?


ARS MAGNA

You're not the only one to have noticed this bb
I'm not sure of what could be done to avoid this... unfortunately The cheater flag could be an idea.

ANAGRAMS

That Razor def is pretty interesting! Although here's my theory

There are so many challenges, some people just simply miss some challenges easy to them. When someone posts something related to that challenge, many people read the post, check out the challenge, and see that "Hey, I can solve that!" Lol, at least that's what has happened to me a few times. I'll see a post on a challenge I haven't even seen before and check it out- what do you know, it's an easy challenge!

Still, cheaters/traders could still be the problem.

Veric

I have a few takes on this issue...

Firstly, I disagree that when there is a senario of more than, say 3 people solving a few challenges at the same time within a time period of, say, 2 hours, they should be classified as traders/cheaters.
This is because they may get together and try to solve a few challenges together, especially the harder ones, where the saying "two heads are better than one" comes into play. Also, there is also a possibility (although very slight) of two people coincidentally doing the same challenge at the same time.

Secondly, I also disagree that solving challenges at approximately the same time is even a problem at all. Jumping to conclusions will only be unfair to the parties involved, assuming they are innocent (innocent until proven guilty). After all, the primary reason one joins sites such as TBS, HackQuest, Net-Force etc should be to teach and learn. Blatant trading would only be to their disadvantage, although I would also agree that they are unfair to other users by using the bandwidth of the site.

My bottomline would be: I feel that this matter shouldn't be a problem to the site, because even if two users solve a challenge at the same time, and they learn, the primary aim of the users to joining is accomplished. Assuming that they are guilty of trading is unnecessary.

Just my two cents

He has a good point. Zerocoldn and I used to be a team, but we stopped coming here to work on challenges once all hte "cheater" business came about. It was just too annoying, so we moved on. Learning with a partner definately helps a lot. There is no harm in getting together in a group.