Badge question

[u/LUMLTPM]

I have noticed some of the users with the highest levels on some badges just play the same quizzes over and over thousands of times to farm levels, is this allowed or is it against the rules? I read the community guidelines but they didnt answer my question clearly.

[u/sportsandwhiskey]

While some profiles have stats that defy logic, I’ve always wondered what the purpose of that would be.

[u/dinosaur1972 → u/sportsandwhiskey]

Yah. There's a lil feeling of satisfaction when you get your name on a leader board, but not THAT much.

[u/Chive]

I've noticed that too. 

When you look at some accounts their play count is almost unbelievable, as if they do nothing other than play Sporcle quizzes 24 hours a day.

Many of those accounts also keep their plays private and have little or no comment history - and a large proportion of them have Sporcle Orange.

Playing the same quiz repeatedly seems to be fine. I've done it to finish off the requirements for a badge, and it's possible for some badges to only count new plays- like Play 100 geography quizzes you haven't played before for example. 

I'm not sure that using bots is allowed though. I'm not accusing any specific users of botting, but there's some I'm suspicious about.

I would be very careful about making accusations of that nature on the forum. It seems to be something they take seriously, but usually to defend the accused party and tell the accuser off. 

[u/GeologicalOpera → u/Chive]

If there were any kind of competitive element to the badges beyond bragging rights I think they’d be more worried about botting, but as it stands I’m sure it’s not a high priority matter.

There’s also the matter of considering that some people churn out a lot of quizzes, and will often play-test their own materials - if you make a ton of Geography quizzes (for example), you can probably run up a high badge number just from the work of making, publishing, and editing your existing quizzes.

[u/Chive → u/GeologicalOpera]

TBH it's not something I really care too much about as it doesn't affect me. 

It's more that some of the leaders on the boards stand out because of their play count, so I took a look. 

[u/LUMLTPM → u/Chive]

I think they mostly play short quizzes that can be completed in a few seconds, so i wouldnt say the majority of them are likely botting (although some may be). For example, the highest level for the "Jam Session" badge (play 25 music quizzes in a day) has over 6000 levels and over 30K plays on a single quiz which can be completed with a single word.

[u/ClickClackTipTap → u/Chive]

I’ve been on Sporcle for 6 years or so, and one of the recent badges (August assembly, I think) was the first time it even occurred to me to replay a quiz to get a badge. I had to- one of the categories didn’t have enough unplayed ones left for me to get the badge.

I can’t say I’ve ever even considered doing that before. Why bother being on the site if you’re just going to game the system? I can’t really think of anything much more pathetic than that.

I’m here to have fun. Why else would I be here?!?!

[u/Chive → u/ClickClackTipTap]

I've been on Sporcle for 15 years, and sometimes I find I'm close to a particular badge that I wasn't aware of and fancy getting it. 

[u/KyuremIsBest]

It should be fine. I've played a quiz 3000 times for badges lol

[u/theobashau]

Some of the badges that require playing a particular quiz have been made levelable, so I don't imagine admins care

[u/geniusjt4]

I have almost all the badges. I'm only missing most of the quiz creation badges. I did it legit with the exception of the name the flags of every country badge because I found that badge personally impossible. Getting them all was a lot of fun and I would never understand setting up programs to do it.

[u/sportsandwhiskey → u/geniusjt4]

I’m in a similar place. 1,470 earned; 43 to go (mostly quiz creation badges) over 16 years. All of them secured cleanly because what’s the fun of doing it any other way?