6WC 6 Week Challenge - Nov 2017

Ongoing language-learning challenges, and team challenge logs (but not individual logs)
Xmmm
Blue Belt
Posts: 821
Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2015 1:19 am
Languages: ru it tr
x 2221

Re: 6WC 6 Week Challenge - Nov 2017

Postby Xmmm » Tue Nov 07, 2017 2:54 pm

smallwhite wrote:
Xmmm wrote:
smallwhite wrote:
Xmmm wrote:I've contacted the contact person listed on the challenge page.

The person is now @GermanPolyglot


Perhaps someone should update the contact information on the challenge page ...


The Challenge page is maintained by @GermanPolyglot as well. All I can do is, once I realised that you used the wrong contact info, I gave you the latest info rightaway, and I added it in the OP of this thread rightaway. In case you think I'm hiding information, you know, again ;)


Edited: My initial response was an attempt at humor, but that may not be clear so let me try something else. Thanks for the help, smallwhite! When I said "someone should update", I didn't mean you as you'd already made it clear you were no longer involved.
Last edited by Xmmm on Tue Nov 07, 2017 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
0 x

Ещё раз сунешь голову туда — окажешься внутри. Поняла, Фемида? -- аигел

Xmmm
Blue Belt
Posts: 821
Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2015 1:19 am
Languages: ru it tr
x 2221

Re: 6WC 6 Week Challenge - Nov 2017

Postby Xmmm » Tue Nov 07, 2017 2:56 pm

Radioclare wrote:
Xmmm wrote:Hmmm ... I have sent three tweets this morning and the bot has not responded. It seems like it is responding to other people. I've contacted the contact person listed on the challenge page.


Have you tried varying the way you phrase your tweets? I have had issues with the bot failing to respond to me in the past few challenges but I've found it starts working again for me if I try to make sure my tweets aren't too repetitive.


Thanks, Radioclare. Your trick worked.

I changed:

@6WCBot I studied 1 hour of #it using #reading today

to

@6WCBot I studied 1 hour of #it using #reading today, dummy

And wonder of wonders, it updated. So the bot just gets bored and felt I wasn't trying hard enough to "conversate" with it ...
3 x

Ещё раз сунешь голову туда — окажешься внутри. Поняла, Фемида? -- аигел

User avatar
Teango
Blue Belt
Posts: 766
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2015 4:55 am
Location: Honolulu, Hawaiʻi
Languages: en (n)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 9&p=235545
x 2943
Contact:

Re: 6WC 6 Week Challenge - Nov 2017

Postby Teango » Tue Nov 07, 2017 6:23 pm

The issue here may be that the 6WC bot (or Twitter itself) declines identical posts that are repeated within the same 24 hours. Given that people don't usually tweet multiple identical messages on the same day, the app probably (although incorrectly, in this case) assumes they're all mistakes? To work around this, I usually add a slight variation to the end of any tweets repeated within a 24 hour time frame (e.g., add an extra period/full stop to the end of an update). This always seems to do the trick.

It's great to see so many people taking part in the challenge this November, by the way! :)
0 x

Xmmm
Blue Belt
Posts: 821
Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2015 1:19 am
Languages: ru it tr
x 2221

Re: 6WC 6 Week Challenge - Nov 2017

Postby Xmmm » Tue Nov 07, 2017 6:58 pm

Teango wrote:The issue here may be that the 6WC bot (or Twitter itself) declines identical posts that are repeated within the same 24 hours. Given that people don't usually tweet multiple identical messages on the same day, the app probably (although incorrectly, in this case) assumes they're all mistakes? To work around this, I usually add a slight variation to the end of any tweets repeated within a 24 hour time frame (e.g., add an extra period/full stop to the end of an update). This always seems to do the trick.

It's great to see so many people taking part in the challenge this November, by the way! :)


When I tried to send actual duplicate tweets, I would get an error message from twitter "you already sent this".

Last night I tried sending test tweets that I knew I had never sent before like "I studied 3 minutes of x", but they were still ignored.

Adding random fluff to the end seemed to fix things to a large degree, but the mechanism still seems unreliable. Some of my tweets were still ignored. When I changed from using minutes to using hours I was able to get enough tweets accepted to catch up from yesterday.

I think the moral I learned is "just because there are tags and cool charts, don't assume you can slice and dice your study time to the nth degree and sent 15 tweets a day. The bot will hate you and stop answering. It seems like the approach of sending one tweet a day "I studied 6 hours" is safest.
0 x

Ещё раз сунешь голову туда — окажешься внутри. Поняла, Фемида? -- аигел

User avatar
Teango
Blue Belt
Posts: 766
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2015 4:55 am
Location: Honolulu, Hawaiʻi
Languages: en (n)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 9&p=235545
x 2943
Contact:

Re: 6WC 6 Week Challenge - Nov 2017

Postby Teango » Tue Nov 07, 2017 9:16 pm

@Xmmm
I agree, something very strange is afoot here. And how annoying for you...you have my sympathies! I had similar issues with the bot many years ago, but the problem went away after I changed the time format, and thankfully the issue hasn't raised its head again in the past 5 years (and fingers crossed it will stay that way). I also wonder if it has something to do with the the way the bot processes your #id and #it tags? It's probably a silly idea, but you could always try a combination of i. shortening your tweets to convey strictly key information (i.e., time and tags), ii. use the full name of the language you're updating instead of its ISO code, and iii. post everything in minutes using another recommended format. Here's a simple example of what I have in mind:

Code: Select all

@6WCBot 56 min #Italian #listening

I don't know if it'll make any difference in the long run, but it could be worth a try? Good luck, Xmmm, I hope you find a solution soon!
1 x

User avatar
Serpent
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3657
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:54 am
Location: Moskova
Languages: heritage
Russian (native); Belarusian, Polish

fluent or close: Finnish (certified C1), English; Portuguese, Spanish, German, Italian
learning: Croatian+, Ukrainian; Romanian, Galician; Danish, Swedish; Estonian
exploring: Latin, Karelian, Catalan, Dutch, Czech, Latvian
x 5179
Contact:

Re: 6WC 6 Week Challenge - Nov 2017

Postby Serpent » Wed Nov 08, 2017 4:20 am

Xmmm wrote:3. If it was working, we would now seem time allocated to me for November 7 (GMT I suppose). Other people have time allocated for the 7th. But not me
The bot is on German time, not GMT. CET in winter and CEST in summer.

And well, twitter was originally made for human communication, not for bots...
I've not tweeted at the bot for some time (a few days), and right now I don't see the previous responses in my mentions. I guess twitter concludes that I don't want to see those tweets.
I've noticed that in your mentions/notifications you can now use the "quality filter", perhaps Sprachprofi needs to switch it off for the bot?

Basically in the past it was enough to make the bot follow you, now that's not enough (but for public profiles this may not be necessary anymore)
2 x
LyricsTraining now has Finnish and Polish :)
Corrections welcome

User avatar
Serpent
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3657
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:54 am
Location: Moskova
Languages: heritage
Russian (native); Belarusian, Polish

fluent or close: Finnish (certified C1), English; Portuguese, Spanish, German, Italian
learning: Croatian+, Ukrainian; Romanian, Galician; Danish, Swedish; Estonian
exploring: Latin, Karelian, Catalan, Dutch, Czech, Latvian
x 5179
Contact:

Re: 6WC 6 Week Challenge - Nov 2017

Postby Serpent » Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:13 am

Sprachprofi says she thinks she fixed it (I gave her the link to my post above). I guess it's time to test whether the bot can process identical tweets now (those that are accepted by twitter of course).
1 x
LyricsTraining now has Finnish and Polish :)
Corrections welcome

peter
Yellow Belt
Posts: 64
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 3:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Studying:
Bengali (mostly harmless)
German (beginner)
Latin (beginner)
x 93

Re: 6WC 6 Week Challenge - Nov 2017

Postby peter » Sat Nov 11, 2017 4:43 pm

I have not had a problem with the bot recognising my tweets, perhaps because I have been writing several additional details each time.

But something changed for me, either with the bot or twitter, as today I can read the bot's reply to my latest tweet. That stopped on the 5th, even though my tweets in between show a reply received I cannot see that reply.

Edit: correction. Today's tweet from the bot no longer shows!
0 x
"strange accents do not mar fair speech" - Beregond, Return of the King.

User avatar
Serpent
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3657
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:54 am
Location: Moskova
Languages: heritage
Russian (native); Belarusian, Polish

fluent or close: Finnish (certified C1), English; Portuguese, Spanish, German, Italian
learning: Croatian+, Ukrainian; Romanian, Galician; Danish, Swedish; Estonian
exploring: Latin, Karelian, Catalan, Dutch, Czech, Latvian
x 5179
Contact:

Re: 6WC 6 Week Challenge - Nov 2017

Postby Serpent » Sat Nov 11, 2017 8:12 pm

Are you using the quality filter? can you link to your tweet?
Have you checked on the bot's page whether the tweet is visible? also, did your score change?
0 x
LyricsTraining now has Finnish and Polish :)
Corrections welcome

peter
Yellow Belt
Posts: 64
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 3:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Studying:
Bengali (mostly harmless)
German (beginner)
Latin (beginner)
x 93

Re: 6WC 6 Week Challenge - Nov 2017

Postby peter » Sat Nov 11, 2017 9:04 pm

Serpent wrote:Are you using the quality filter? can you link to your tweet?
Have you checked on the bot's page whether the tweet is visible? also, did your score change?


Thanks for the suggestions. I think this is probably a problem with Twitter my end - I only mentioned it as you said the bot had changed and I started seeing the replies again.

Everything is working fine as far as the score goes, and I am getting replies. I took your suggestion and looked at the bot's page, and the messages from the bot to me are there. But it's odd I cannot see them.

Not to worry!
0 x
"strange accents do not mar fair speech" - Beregond, Return of the King.


Return to “Language Challenges”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests