
FreeRice: Hack a site to feed the world - ivankirigin
http://giantrobotlasers.com/post/161352785/bmdesign-freerice-is-a-website-where-users-play
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chaosmachine
"Donated rice comes from the advertisements from sponsors, therefore abuse of
scripts will likely lead to catastrophe, as advertisers prefer that actual
people view their advertisments. Knowing the existence of the bots, FreeRice
updated their FAQ explaining the potential damage of botting"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeRice>

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pavel_lishin
Yeah, people thought that solving world problems were that easy? Really?

"It's easy, I'll just write a perl script solving world hunger!"

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nudded
In the next version of Emacs we'll just do M-x solve-hunger and be done with
it!

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mwexler
You guys did look at the faq before voting this up, right?

<http://www.freerice.com/faq.html>

"Couldn't I just write a computer program to play all day and give a lot of
rice that way?

There are two problems with this. First, it overloads our servers so that real
people can't play and learn. Second, without real people playing and the
resulting company sponsorship, no money would be generated and we could not
give any rice at all."

~~~
christopherolah
You're forgetting that there are other reasons for looking at this besides
supporting this idea or thinking it could work....

For instance, I upvoted it because it is still thought provoking. People
trying to game a website to donate rice? They're obviously well intentioned.
How does one deal with such users? What could their efforts be redirected
towards?

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paulgb
Bots might work in the short run, but in the long run it just reduces the
amount that advertisers are willing to pay. Dumb idea.

FreeRice is awesome though. If I'm killing time with a game online, it might
as well be one that improves my French vocabulary or geography. Not to mention
that it supports a good cause, even if my individual "donation" is small.

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teeja
It's my only hope of _ever_ learning the countries in Africa.

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ohlol
Why does it take a game to feed people? Can't they just give it to them?

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metachris
Ridiculous how the 'rich world' is playing with lives, food and life...

