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01-29-2018 at 12:34 PM
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Atari Jaguar scores all on the same date?

So, while cleaning up the scores on here is a big topic, how about this:

Why are almost all of the Atari Jaguar scores from the same date? Other than a few, they're all marked "referee", and with a date of 2004-6-11. Did they come from another source, and if so, was that other source trustworthy at all?

Seems fishy to me.
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  1. Barra's Avatar
    They were most likely imported from another source or entered all at the same time by the same referee, as the result of a contest or similar.

    I would guess the latter as I’m not aware of any other source that TG would import Jaguar scores from.

    Hard to say for sure. Might be some more information deep inside the archives
  2. Barthax's Avatar
    Barra has it - there was a "new" scoreboard in 2004 and scores were imported from the various sources (the scoreboard was splintered across multiple web sites - run by the different referees). The date will be the date of the import.
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  3. GibGirl's Avatar
    Holy crap, I found the source. @Barthax , before I saw your post, I had a lead, and decided to try and follow it out of curiosity.

    I was able to find the original scoreboards on the internet archive...

    https://web.archive.org/web/19980114...web/highs.html

    And even at the top... "Featured in the soon to be available Twin Galaxies High Score book!"

    It looks like all they did to track the scores was submitting them on a web form. That doesn't look very trustworthy to me. Anyone else agree?
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  4. Barthax's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by GibGirl
    It looks like all they did to track the scores was submitting them on a web form. That doesn't look very trustworthy to me. Anyone else agree?
    It was perfectly normal for the web of the day. Investment in a web site was expensive - writing some HTML was easy but writing the back end was still in its infancy. CGI scripts were the norm written in Perl for Unix servers, IIRC. MS IIS servers could only muster a choice of Javascript or VBScript - but more often backend programming was done by rolling your own DLL into the mix because those two languages were still poor (this is Windows NT days). Windows servers were still full of holes, so if you wanted to host on one of them, you'd need massive investment in other products to protect it. Scripting languages that would be used in this day & age were either only just being released or just didn't exist. PHP v3 was released in 1998, Python was still on v1 - both were more hobbyist languages at the time. Most languages that might be used on a modern Windows back end just weren't around. Java and Macromedia Flash were the languages de jour but they only really ran in the client (and are now the two biggest security flaws on the Internet).

    Ah, memories. :D
    Updated 01-30-2018 at 03:43 AM by Barthax
  5. GibGirl's Avatar
    I'm not throwing judgement on the web scoreboard. I was in college around then too, for CS, so I remember the state of the web then. The difficulty in setting up anything significantly interactive.

    I'm just saying that given what looks like a complete lack of any sort of verification of scores on that page, they should be removed from TG. I'm assuming that by 2004, TG was not just taking people's word for their scores.
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  6. sdwyer138's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by GibGirl
    Holy crap, I found the source. @Barthax, before I saw your post, I had a lead, and decided to try and follow it out of curiosity.

    I was able to find the original scoreboards on the internet archive...

    https://web.archive.org/web/19980114...web/highs.html

    And even at the top... "Featured in the soon to be available Twin Galaxies High Score book!"

    It looks like all they did to track the scores was submitting them on a web form. That doesn't look very trustworthy to me. Anyone else agree?
    If that is the case, shouldn't the verification method listed be 'affiliate' rather than 'referee'?
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  7. Barthax's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by GibGirl
    I'm just saying that given what looks like a complete lack of any sort of verification of scores on that page, they should be removed from TG. I'm assuming that by 2004, TG was not just taking people's word for their scores.
    I wasn't in that era, so I don't know what scores were verified (if at all) and how (it they were) but some definitely were verified. It is a problem of the legacy scores.
  8. GibGirl's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by sdwyer138
    If that is the case, shouldn't the verification method listed be 'affiliate' rather than 'referee'?
    I'd argue the verification method looks like it should be listed as "none"...

    Anyone know how to tag a user that has a space in their username? (apparently it does work if you just type it out! Whoa!) I think I'd like to make sure that @Dave Hawksett is aware of this info...
  9. TWIN GALAXIES's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by GibGirl
    I'd argue the verification method looks like it should be listed as "none"...

    Anyone know how to tag a user that has a space in their username? (apparently it does work if you just type it out! Whoa!) I think I'd like to make sure that @Dave Hawksett is aware of this info...
    This is correct. You just simply type it out with the spaces but add the "@" before the username.

    For Example: @Jace Hall @Dave Hawksett
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  10. Dave Hawksett's Avatar
    Thanks @GibGirl I am already following this.
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