

Have you pressed the button? - signaler
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/techtank/posts/2015/04/27-reddit-button?utm_content=bufferf8fb8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

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Rainymood
>There is something truly compelling about the button. People will engage in
activities that create the illusion of control freely and willingly. This
aspect of human nature could be a prank or used to take advantage of regular
people. Alternatively public officials could harness this force to serve the
greater good.

I pressed the button because I was too lazy to read about it first and I was
curious what would happen. I was disappointed.

~~~
therobot24
same here, entered subreddit, clicked button, read sidebar

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keslag
I haven't pressed the button, primarily because I don't care about it, or the
result. I was given gold for some benign comment, and haven't even looked up
what that means.

Though, as I was writing this, I realize I don't care about achievements in
games. I'm there for the experience, where several of my friends insist on
100% completion. I wonder if there is a correlation, as the two could be seen
as a waste to those who value experience and real world accomplishment over
badges and accomplishment achieved through drudgery.

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kremlin
is it cheating to just put some javascript into the console to check the
button timer and automatically click it when you want it to click?

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kremlin
I just read somewhere that they have something that detects cheaters. how does
that work?

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kremlin
apparently the naive solution for a script is to press the button when the
desired second hits, but because the timer doesn't reset immediately, the
button is pressed many times automatically. The server can tell that the
button was pressed more times than a human would do it, so can mark that
person as a cheater.

~~~
danappelxx
You could easily avoid that by stopping the script as soon as the button is
pressed a single time.

~~~
kremlin
indeed. The problem, I think, is that most people implement the naive solution
before they realize that it's the naive solution. As each person gets only one
click of the button, a lot of people don't get the chance to implement that
easy fix -- they get it wrong once, and don't get to ever get it right later.

