Rock, Paper, Scissors: The Results of the Beta Tester Contest
UPDATE: I clarified below that it is the winners of the 4 rounds that won, not just people who chose the winning weapon.
Danny Dover and Timmy Christensen (Our User Interface Expert) prepare for the game
Monday morning SEOmoz sent an e-mail to all PRO members asking them if they would be willing to beta test our awesomely big and useful tool. I only had enough resources to run the test with 300 people so I tried to come up with a solution to narrow down the list that was both fun and fair. If the e-mail recipients were interested, they were asked to fill out a form with their name, SEOmoz account e-mail, website and their choice of either rock, paper or scissors (RPS). We had about 1000 people fill out the form (Thank You!) and I ran the data through a nifty simulator I hacked together.
The entries were interestingly unequal:
To run the simulator, I put all the entries in a spreadsheet and sorted them by weapon of choice. I then removed anyone who either did not include a weapon or chose a non-applicable item (Atomic Bomb, Shark with Laser, Dynamite, Sushi, Rand, etc..) Next, I randomized the list, cut it in half and faced everyone against another player.
I then abused the formula line by adding the rules of game.
=IF(AND(C2="Paper",G2="Paper"), "Tie",
IF(AND(C2="Rock",G2="Rock"), "Tie",
IF(AND(C2="Scissors",G2="Scissors"), "Tie",
IF(AND(C2="Paper",G2="Rock"), "Left",
IF(AND(C2="Scissors",G2="Paper"), "Left",
IF(AND(C2="Rock",G2="Scissors"), "Left",
IF(AND(C2="Rock",G2="Paper"), "Right",
IF(AND(C2="Paper",G2="Scissors"), "Right",
IF(AND(C2="Scissors",G2="Rock"), "Right", "WTF?"
)))))))))
(Left and Right indicate which side of the spreadsheet the winner was on.)
Afterward, I removed the losers, rerandomized the list, cut it in half and lined up every player with an opponent. It took 4 rounds.
Although there was a clear majority weapon victory, it is the winners of the four rounds that will become beta testers, most of which chose paper.
The winners will be alerted via e-mail in the coming days. Thanks to everyone who played!
P.S. Sometimes, I do actual work here at the moz. I have a 'real' post coming out later this week. ;-)
www.seomoz.org
published @ September 30, 2008