No Binding Contract

As I understand it, one of the issues here recently was about the right of someone to participate in a contest to submit some code, which had been set up on the wiki. Maybe any such offer or competition could not be unconditional. The initiator could withdraw it if they wished, at any time. So offers or competition on wiki would not constitute a binding contract, but rest on the goodwill of the parties.

The point I am making is that it was a cause of dispute here when someone insisted that they had an unconditional right to enter a certain competition. Wiki is not a place where binding contracts are exchanged, as happens in England when a house is sold. I thought it worthwhile pointing out that anyone who started a competition should not be held to be in that position, and should be able to say no. -- JohnFletcher

You mean they can state Yes, but mean No? That was what happened. No TermsOfUse will prevent people making false statements.

Every page on the wiki is a record of what some participants (signed and unsigned) meant at some time(s) prior to the final edit date. The wiki is not a source of current truth but a record of past truth. And it is certainly not a source of eternal truth. Just as technical matters under discussion on a wiki page may become obsolete after a couple years, saying and meaning "yes" at one time on a wiki page does not imply "yes" for all time.

And fer "Bob"'s sake, the contests that started the whole dispute were meant to be fun, a larf, something to while away a rainy Sunday afternoon. They weren't meant to be serious, and it's only Anon that quite wrongfully took them seriously, made a big issue of it all, and first annoyed and then drove a valued participant off this Wiki.

What contests? ColinWright's BinarySearch challenge was involved at one stage, but Colin cited prior reasons for "unsigning" and never maintained that challenge was "just for fun"; quite the reverse - he explained the history and asked for a very careful, honest approach.

I'm referring to the BinarySearch challenge and Colin's collection of math and physics puzzles, the page for which I've forgotten. By the way, did you ever solve the (can't remember the name) Moon problem? The challenges were obviously meant to be fun, as there are no cash prizes or trips to the Bahamas, no leagues or league rankings, no televised announcement of the results, and the "winner" will not automatically be conferred any special rights, be made a Wiki steward, or be given a brand new Dell laptop. Making the rules clear and precise, as with any game, is intended to make the game more fun, not less so. Rules stated up front ensure that the focus is on the amusement rather than on formulating or debating rules.

Colin's physics questions were introduced later on (so they didn't start the dispute), and the moon questions (now in InterestingQuestionsForInquiringMinds) were never fully answered. Colin implied he knew a complete answer, but it's unclear whether he spotted all the contributory factors, as he stated on his site that he didn't know the full answers to all the questions he gave.

Your claim was that they weren't "just for fun." If they weren't, what were they for? Instead of quibbling, why not simply concede that you're angry and upset that you couldn't answer the moon questions, and responded by hounding Colin until he (understandably) left? And if that isn't what you did, you'll have a hard time convincing me or anyone else, because that's exactly how it looked.

I made no claim about what they were for. You wrote "meant to be fun" and I've never disagreed with that. ColinWright describes them as "interesting", so perhaps there's some educational intent as well. The moon questions use the word "exact", so it's reasonable to expect a fairly precise answer, which needs certain astronomical facts, etc., the relevance of which is possibly fun to spot. There was no connection with Colin's partial departure as far as I know.

You specifically disagreed with that. You wrote, "Colin ... never maintained that challenge was 'just for fun'; quite the reverse." While it's reasonable to expect a fairly precise answer, it's not reasonable to persistently badger Colin about it, in an unfriendly and uncooperative manner, until he quite understandably gets pissed off and decides to take his ball and bat and go home. Nor is it reasonable to start an EditWar when he decides to edit pages and paragraphs he authored, in an effort to withdraw from Wiki.

You're mistaken; what you quoted referred to the BinarySearch challenge (where Colin specifically insisted on formal submission of code by email, but then ignored the email), not the physics questions.