How to win in Vkontakte contests? Another approach



    Hello, Habr!
    To write this post in many respects we were prompted by one article published a couple of weeks ago on Habré. Namely, “ How to win in contests of Vkontakte reposts ”?

    The author believes that the answer is obvious.
    “You have to participate in all contests and in probability theory, the more contests, the greater the chance to win at least something”

    As a result of the experiment, the author managed to win several contests in which the prizes were cheap Chinese souvenirs. Many skeptical people have a question: are competitions held honestly by participants in social networks? Let's think and describe this risk (the possibility of fraud).

    The main type of winner selection is selection using a selector program. There are many of their modifications. The contest publisher announces the day when the winner will be selected and then places a screenshot from the screen on which the selection result is indicated.

    - One screenshot?
    - Yes, one screenshot.

    - Can a dishonest organizer click “Choose a winner” in such a program until the participant he needs is selected?
    - There is an opportunity.

    - Will the register of the number of selections of the winner in such a selector program be published somewhere?
    - Such cases are not known.

    As we can see, there are many holes in the competition algorithm. The probability of winning something worthwhile falls sharply due to the risks of fraud, the likelihood of which increases with increasing motivation. Specialists in this field have described the so-called triangle into which such a situation can lead.



    There are cases when the winners were selected during a live broadcast on YouTube. Similar methods also leave fraudsters with an opportunity to influence the results of the contest by simulating the work of, for example, a random number generator on a fake website. Although it is much more difficult to do.

    Reject - offer


    A reasonable decision is to create certification centers for competitions in the social network. An application in which the organizer must fix the mechanics of the competition at the time before its publication.

    1. The terms of participation
    2. The exact time is the determination of the winner (at this moment, the program itself must choose the winner according to the conditions of participation).
    3. Publication of competition results in the register.

    - Can a dishonest organizer choose the participant he needs as a winner?
    - No, it is possible to make changes to the register of results only for administrators of the certification center of the competition.

    A form of interaction with a certification center can also be implemented through an application on a social network, the ability to choose another winner - on request with an indication of the reason. Registration in such a center will increase the popularity of the competition compared to unregistered with sufficient dissemination of information about the functions of the certification center.

    We work with what we have, but otherwise


    What to do if there is no desire to wait for order in the organization of competitions, but you need to conduct it?



    In search of the best, the mechanics of the competition were rethought.

    - What if you add game mechanics to the contests?
    - No one will understand the new rules of the game! This is the “strength” of the repost contest - everyone knows what to do.

    - Then we add the mechanics of the game "Sea Battle", known to everyone since childhood!
    - Well, on the 10 * 10 grid we’ll place prizes before the publication of the contest. Participants must indicate in the comments to the post the coordinates of one cell, for example, B8. Once in the cage, behind which the prize is hidden, is the winner. Different players can call the same coordinates. You can learn about victory only at the end of the competition.



    - Stop, but how to prove that the prizes were located before the start of the competition and their location did not change?
    - Let's record a video from a computer screen. In the recording, we will visit the Yandex main page, on which there will be news, and the yandex.ru/time page . Then we will go to the social network in which we will conduct a draw. Leave a comment under any post. This comment will also have a timestamp. In the end, we show where on the grid we “hide” the prize. In terms of participation, we will describe at what time the video is recorded and leave a link to the comment. When the contest is over we will publish this video.

    - Everything?
    - If the competition is for a wide audience - yes.

    - But what if you hold a contest on Habrahabr?
    - Then for the recorded video we will find out and publish the hash amount of the video file in advance. CertUtil utility by default included with Windows will help us. To find out the hash of the file’s sum, go to the command line: (Win + R keys and type cmd) and execute the command
    certutil -hashfile c:file SHA512

    where, c: file is the path to the file. By default, the utility considers the hash amount using SHA1, we chose SHA512



    - But how to prove that the winner is not connected with the organizer, who told him where the prize is hidden?
    - For this, the competition cannot be with a limited number of prizes, but it can be limited in time by hour, day or 10 minutes. Decide to the organizer. He knows the probabilities in the game in advance. If the prize is 1, and the cells are 100, there will be about 1 winner per 100 participants (more precisely, see the distribution below). If the organizer tells someone where the prize is, it does not deprive others of the opportunity to win it, but only increases its costs for prizes. Knowing the probability, conversion of views to participants and traffic per unit time, it is possible to calculate the minimum time of the competition based on the budget for prizes. The organizer has the right to extend the time of the competition within reasonable limits, but not to reduce it.



    - Interesting, you can try. And what will be the prize?
    - Everywhere news about attacks of new ransomware viruses. WannaCry, Petya / notPetya, Erebus ... Cryptographers attack. Let's play 100 GB of Cloud4Y BACKUP as a gift for 2 months?

    - Yes. Let's try it. Comments with cell coordinates on the map can be written under this article. One participant can specify the coordinates of only one cell. If more is specified, only the participant’s first attempt is taken into account. The minimum duration of the competition is 1 hour from the date of publication, but no more than 24 hours.



    1. The location of the prize on the grid is recorded in the video at 14:34 Moscow time on July 7, 2017. Video recording will be published here
    2. Link to comment left in the video
    3. Hash amount of SHA512 video file



    Will we play?

    UPDATE:
    The competition will last until the publication of a message from the company about its completion. This complies with the described rules: at least 1 hour and no more than 24. We do not plan to end the competition until there are no winners, unless there are special circumstances.

    Previously, contests with similar mechanics were conducted by the author on a social network without negative ratings (only likes), a large number of comments attracted a significantly larger number of participants. The article rating currently reduces views and does not allow to gain the planned number of participants. Therefore, each participant is allowed to make two shots (attempts).


    UPDATE 2:
    E9 was the winning one, unfortunately, in the 24 hours of the contest no one chose these coordinates. We thank all participants for their interest in our marketing experiment.

    UPDATE 3:
    Thanks ivan386 for a great idea . Winner selected.

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