As the Great Hall and Common Rooms have been stirred up by it in recent days, I don’t believe many of you are surprised to see that I am here to speak openly about cheating on Pottermore.
First, I want to make clear that whether or not cheating is going on is NOT IN DEBATE here. Cheating is happening.More than likely it is occuring in all houses, but some users are more blatant about it than others. The most blatant example sits atop the leader board as I draft this: SnitchSpirit168.
SS (as he will be referred to for the remainder of this post) has been utilizing a computer program (also known as a “Bot”) of his own design to duel for him. It runs 24 hours a day dueling while he goes about other tasks (such as sleeping). He is not shy about this, discussing it openly in the common room:
and also on his twitter account:
The twitter is a genuine account. When SS first found me on Twitter I demanded he verify his identity, and he did so by sending me a dueling request:
I provide these so that we can save all ourselves the “is SS cheating?” debate on here that I’ve seen everywhere else and go forward all knowing that SS is running a bot without any shadow of a doubt. Fair enough?
Now let me be clear: I do not believe he is the only cheater on Pottermore. Nor do I believe he is the only cheater running a Bot on Pottermore. However his is proven and open whereas others are suspect but not proven. Now that all of that is out of the way, let me proceed.
I have attempted to pen this many times in the past and succumbed to anger and had to desist. Finally I feel I must speak on it. As a voice in the Pottermore Community I have kept quiet about it here on the blog for too long.
I am against cheating on Pottermore in any and all forms.
That’s right folks, I am a Slytherin and I am against cheating for the earning of points. In fact, the majority of Slytherin agrees with me. I’m sure you have all had that bad egg in your Common Room suggesting someone make an account in another house to lose on purpose. As I’m sure the reaction in your common room is similar to in ours: multiple people reply saying we don’t need to or want to cheat, and encourage (rather forcefully) that the person desist with the idea and return to earning points the honest way.
Though I am sure a portion of those people go through with their illicit plans, it is not with the endorsement of the entire house. Just as I’m sure the accounts that are often found in Slytherin intentionally losing to other houses were not doing so with the endorsement of THEIR entire house.
There are cheaters in all houses but on the whole most users in all houses are not cheating.
I beg you all not to judge an entire house based on the few bad eggs, like SS, who are determined to find ways to cheat the system. Hufflepuff is being hurt more than helped by the actions of their leader board cheater. They don’t need house hate to be added to this. It does not help anyone and does not remedy the situation.
I am here to encourage you to make the right choice between cheating and not cheating. And to share with you how I handle things when I come across cheaters and trolls.
We all want our house to win the House Cup. I’m sure this urge to win was not dampened by the bonus they gave Slytherin after the last cup, but do remember that this is a game and that the more important goal for Pottermore is to create a fun environment for Potter fans to play and interact in.
Cheating, spying, and trolling only serves to ruin the fun for others, including those in your own house.
For those of you who have friended me on Pottermore you probably know that I love to duel. I duel for at least an hour a day, and some days more. In the run up to the cup it was much much more. Also, in the run up to the cup cheaters were attempting anything they could to put their house ahead of the others. Including making accounts in other houses to lose on purpose. Whenever I hit, in open duels, an account that was obviously doing so I refused to continue dueling that user. I can normally tell that person because they lose with a zero potency the first duel, and then immediately rematch me anyway. This rematch is normally ANOTHER zero potency spell at which point I start to hit decline if I see that user come up in my dueling queue. I know it can be tempting to carry on dueling someone who is quite obviously not trying, it is easy to see house points with little effort and want to succumb to the temptation. But I encourage you, if you know that a person is doing so to cease participation on your end. Then feel proud you had the self-control to do so.
Trolling and Spying are a whole different aspect of “cheating” that is difficult to deal with on Pottermore. We’ve all seen them in our Common Rooms and in the Great Hall. These users seem to get enjoyment out of annoying and pestering the people posting there. I have adopted a “don’t feed the trolls” mindset when it comes to these situations. In other words, I do not directly reply or respond to them. Instead I simply go down through their comments and hit report placing the reason of “trolling” or “spamming” in the reason box. Then I proceed to carry on normal conversation around the offensive posts. These people are looking for reactions to their outlandish statements, and by not giving them a reaction we take the enjoyment out of it for them. Instead of attempting to “shout them down” which will only lead to getting reported yourself, try to ignore them and report them instead. You would be surprised how fast a user posting inappropriate posts will end up banned or suspended.
The important thing to remember about trolls and spies posting in the Great Hall is that the house they are posting from is probably not their true house.
I want to emphasize that this is a community of millions of people, and that people are capable of creating accounts in other houses. It is easy if one wanted to smear the name of a house to create an account in that house and go trolling in the Great Hall. Chances are they are just trying to stir trouble. So do your best to not feed trolls.
Which brings us to the piece of this puzzle that has brought me to finally creating this lovely essay against cheating: BOTS!
I don’t think any of us would defend the actions of SS or any other user who has created a Bot program to duel for them. I know that nothing is more frustrating for me then when I look at my dueling results and realize that most of my responses are from a Bot. Starts to feel futile after a while, but please try not to let it ruin your experience. And again do not let it tarnish your opinion of the house from which the cheater hails. Hufflepuff is not full of cheaters just because SnitchSpirit is in their house. Just like Slytherin isn’t full of cheaters just because of the books stating we will use “any means to achieve our end”.
At the moment there is no true recourse for dealing with a Bot. You could switch which house you are dueling, if you are so inclined, but remember that there are probably Bots active in all houses and you might not even realize you are facing one. If you suspect that a user is a Bot pretty much the only thing you can do is report that user to Pottermore with the reasons you believe they are a Bot. Not all Bots are going to be as obvious as SS, as I doubt all programmers are capable of programming as successful of a program. The first thing to start looking at if you suspect a Bot is whether or not the user goes off line. There are some excellent duelers who can pull down thousands of points in a couple hours the honest way, and we wouldn’t want to start turning in honest users. Enlist help if you need it. You can even send me a message about it here on the blog, or on twitter ( @ElmBlade43) and I can check their online status at times you might not be available to.
If you have established a solid belief that a user is cheating using a Bot, the next step is to report them and to include in your message why you believe them to be cheating.
To send in a message to Pottermore follow the following steps:
- Proceed to the Pottermore help page by clicking here.
- Click on the “Other” heading to expand this section. You will have to scroll down to see the headings in this section.
- Click on the “What’s Next?” heading to expand this section.
- Click on the “Need more help?” with the downward pointing arrow. This will reveal an e-mail form to send a message to Pottermore.
After this, the actions of that cheater are beyond your control. We must leave it in the hands of Pottermore to make adjustments to security to prevent the Bots from continuing to operate on the Dueling platform. Right now a simple adjustment in how CAPTCHA works would probably hinder them to a certain point (if CAPTCHA could not be gotten around by logging off), but with things in their current programming state the Bots have nothing really stopping them from operating on site. I don’t expect this to remain this way for long, now that so many people have been reporting cheating to Pottermore.
The most important thing is to try to ignore them and have fun. Try to understand that people in the Great Hall might not know that SS and others are cheating, and try not to route your anger towards the wrong people. Remember that not everyone in one house is cheating and that no entire house deserves to be punished for the acts of a few.
We are in this together. We are family. We are Potterheads. And we can not, and should not, forget this even in the face of cheating and adversity. So please, stand with me. Stand up to cheating. Make it clear in your Common Rooms and in the Great Hall that you do not use or condone underhanded means on Pottermore. Encourage others to support each other and not hate each other. Post on your blogs. On your twitters. On your facebooks.
We are all in this together.
I can not tell you how many people I have met in all houses since I joined Pottermore that I consider to be good friends of mine. I have worked WITH members of all houses against cheating. I support all houses alike. Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Slytherin.
We are all in this together.
And you can be a part of the team, or you can be the next SnitchSpirit. It is your choice. Stand together or let the site turn into Robots fighting Robots.
Imagine this with the words “♫♪ Everybody was ro-bot dueling”. Thought we’d end on a light note. 
Saw this on Facebook’s Pottermore Slytherin page:
Slytherins attention Hey, I have an account I got Gryffindor, called CenizaDream13266, send me fa challenges me to lose. mine is Slytherin sombraplata15116 agreguenme
Another cheater!
Thank you so much for posting this! I was wondering about some of the cheating I was suspecting, so I went on Google to find out how people are cheating and how to recognize it. I found this page and I am ashamed to know that SS is from my house. I’ll do my part in reporting and avoiding cheaters, I hope everyone else will do the same.
I am defnitely against bots, and it’s horrible about snitchspirit- i looked at his profile, and he has almost 700,000 points after six months. I can’t believe I never noticed the comments.
Do you think that telling people how to do things in the chapters is cheating? I’ve done it nonhouse selectively, and I’ve never had any problem with it- if people want to know, they have a right to know in order to get the full experience.
Is PipistrelloBronzo20 cheating? S/he has only been offline twice today. Just wondering.
I think maybe- almost 500,000 house points after 5 months.
So… this is slightly on topic.
The Gryffindors just won the Cup by 43-thousand-something points. Look at what people are posting in the Snake Common Room:
http://i1323.photobucket.com/albums/u591/phoenixofpanem/snakesoreloss.png
Elm, can I help? I know some coding!
The best Online Gaming hacking blog! Watch On http://www.hack-cheat.net/ Its A new Site.
I tend to use the Fire-making Spell or the “Mucus Ad Nauseum” spell, but that was only because I honestly didn’t know that there were more powerful spells out there. Though I will admit that I began to suspect something when everyone else had over 130 points and I barely had 100 (yes, I was that bad at dueling).
I think this picture goes quite well with the Kung Fu Fighting joke: http://assets.pottermore.com/site/html5/images/b2c11m2/rearground.jpg
and you commented on this because…
Really? Very funny, whoever posted. In both the link and the name.
I wonder – I think we might possibly need to add RiverSpell156 to the list of cheaters.
We are tracking RiverSpell andunfortunately agree that they are cheating.
I don’t think it’s very effective if they are- they’re like three hundred thousand points behind the other people that have been suggested here. You should definitely look at PipistrelloBronzo20, though- the amounts of house points that they’re’s getting is close to SS’.
Elm you asked of odd occurences of dueling – I just saw this in our Hufflepuff common room…
“Hm. Phoenix Purple too oh too in Ravenclaw seems to be cheating. Scored won-for-ate in a duel. Anyone else want to report? – Hedgehog”
Thought i’d let you know – love your blog – i have it on a tab at all times… puffle nut
ps – i hate cheating
I myself have already reported PhoenixPurple202 a couple times because they are using a program to alter the maximum score on duels so they can cast spells above a 145. If you see anyone else who has experienced tell them to report it from the Help section of Pottermore.
Just lost to PurplePhoenix202 – 143 to 221. Reported it to Pottermore. I don’t know the person, but he was a beta. I bumped into him in FaceBook last year, most likely one of the many Pottermore pages I visited. All I know is that I had added a nickname to my Facebook/Pottermore friends, so he shows up as Angelo FB in my Pottermore page.
Hmmm, I wonder is JKR knows about the cheaters, and if so, what she would say about it.
Hello again Elm!
I got so mad at myself because before the first cup closed I did duel some that were throwing the duels on purpose and they would challenge me and I dueled them. I have amended my ways! But think I took it too much to the other side… :/
Instead of declining the duels of those I know are throwing duels (I beat them on open duels and they challenge me yet they have no points or very few points). I am accepting the duels and loosing on purpose (earn a 0 on this duels). I have tied a few times and lost about 5 duels like this already. I have found some duelers using the fire-making curse -earning a low point total that is easily beat by the full body bind. I’m thinking that by declining they will still challenge others and their end result is what they want but if they see that they are actually earning points for the other house, they might reconsider their stand.
I know, I shouldn’t stoop to their levels, but I’m really angry that they are actually involving ME in their cheating…
Sorry, had to rant as I found today 7 open challenges in my wall and four of them were cheaters…
Not everyone with zero (or few) points are cheaters! We’re just newbies.
It took me forever to figure out that I wasn’t just incredibly bad at dueling, I was using the
wrong spells. Now that I’ve discovered this blog, I’ve learned all sorts of things to help me
on my way.
Though I joined the Pottermore site ages ago, I never got around to actually playing until
quite recently, so was disappointed to learn that people are so blatantly cheating.
The site seems to have gone the extra mile to provide a safe environment for children to
play, but how can they compete against people with hundreds of thousands of house
points?
And yes, when I lose a duel, (which I mostly do), I immediately re-challenge. Not
because I’m deliberately trying to lose, but because there’s always hope! One day
I’ll start winning!
Pingback: Pottermore Begins Acting Against Cheaters « Blog of a Pottermore Beta
Well said Elm ! As you can see today on PM, SnitchSpirit and some other Puffs had their house points been docked in half !
I still don’t see what other puffs were deducted. Another known cheater on the board was not deducted at all.
Hi Elm, I’m a Hufflepuff who has commented before. Yes it is true the most blatant cheater was docked 1/2 of his total point score and this is a goof thing, but I want to reiterate he was not the only cheater. Look at some of the other leaders scores. Isn’t it just a bit odd that there is another leader, not from Hufflepuff, that also had an extremely high point total for such a short period of time, much higher than anyone else? Very close in fact to the cheater who was just docked. Just saying… I’m glad PM took action against the one but fairness will not be achieved until ALL the cheaters are dealt with.
As I said in my entry on Snitch’s point deduction we are tracking multiple other cheaters including the one you reference in your comment. I also say multiple times in this article that there are likely cheaters in all houses. Maybe you didn’t mean it to sound so, but your comment came out sounding like I was claiming SnitchSpirit was the only one. Which he is not.
Sorry if you took offense, I certainly didn’t intend that
I support the censure of any and all cheaters. I’m just concerned that Snitch Spirit will be the only one who’s points are docked (since he was so blatantly vocal about what he was doing) and others who are more discreet will not. The Hufflepuff House should not be the only house to be punished.
Low scores aren’t necessarily an indication of cheating. I have a friend in Hufflepuff who is 91 years old. On a good day she can duel 137 or 139, and she’s delighted with her occasional win. But there are times when despite her best effort she does 27 or even 0 several times in a row. She doesn’t get discouraged; she’ll come back the next day and try again. The beauty of Pottermore is that simple, ordinary, innocent people like this can be there and can have fun with it.
What we mean is low potency scores on duels but extremely high point total combined. If someone has 50,000 points they probably will be throwing 144s like crazy, unless they are cheating.
I think PM staff have deleted half the points of SS account, ’cause now he is 6th among Hufflepuffes.
In his profile he’s still around 120k points, but in the Great Hall he has “only” 60k p.
If the bots are logging out to get around Captcha, it seems an easy fix would be to limit the amount of logins per hour, and if the limit’s exceeded lock the user out for a few hours or the rest of the day. A limit of five would be generous, I think, to the average user who might legitimately need to log off every now and then. And considering that in an hour’s worth of dueling there are definitely going to be more than five Captchas encountered (many, many more – ugh), that would kick the bots off pretty quick.
A couple of things I hope people keep in mind when they’re tracking activity is that some people stay logged in whether they’re actually on the site or not, and not everyone is located in the country on their profile. I say this because at the moment I’m on the leaderboard, and I was accused of cheating yesterday in our common room. Well, sort of. (“I’m not accusing you of cheating, but I think you are” – yeah, that makes it SO much better, thanks.) Lots of times I forget to log off, and right now I’m not in my home country. So I can see someone tracking my activity and thinking ‘Logged in for 20 hours and dueling at 3 am – cheaterrrr!!’ when actually it’s ridiculous-early-o’clock where I am and out of those 20 hours I might have been actively on site for three or four.
Also, as far as people creating multiple accounts so they can purposely lose duels – what I don’t get is why do they feel the need to direct challenge? They could throw 0 point spells all day long in open duels against their house, but instead they pick someone and keep challenging them. It’s like they’re looking for an accomplice to their cheating or something. I’m just about at the point of not answering challenges at all, because I don’t like having to check people’s profiles to try to determine if they’re cheating, and answering challenges is much less time-effective than continuously sending out open duels.
On a happier subject – I just want to thank you for this blog. I really appreciate the time and effort you spend on it. Without it, I would have no galleons left because they’d all be spent purchasing regenerating ingredients. Not to mention I’d probably *still* be stuck trying to get past alohamora, LOL.
Online activity is a tricky thing to deal with. I agree because sometimes I log in on my phone and might show online and not be ONLINE. That’s why when tracking suspected bots we use a combination of online time with active point increases. We can SEE when someone is online but not earning points by comparing these and it’s actually a good sign AGAINST it being a bot. Normal duelers take breaks. So you will see points increasing for a bit, and then stop. Then they will increase a while and stop.
With a Bot we are talking about extended time online AND increasing points at the same time. As well as specific bot like behavior such as logging out and immediately back in so the bot can reroute around CAPTCHA.
Thank you for your comment. I am glad you have found good help here, helping you guys makes it worth all the effort.
SS is no longer on top of the Puffs! Was he finally banned or did he close his account?
Scroll down. They deducted half of his points. He’s still there though.
I wonder how you make that remarkable points?
Do you mean my points?
I agree with you, it is a very sad thing that is happening. Pottermore is for those of us who like the game and love Harry Potter; if someone doesn’t find one of the games interesting, simply do not participate. I myself avoid duels because a. I suck, b. the computer lags, and c. there’s threat of people cheating.
I, too, am a proud Slytherin, and while I considered making a second account to cheat during the house cup, I inevitably came to the conclusion that this is wrong, and should not be done. We should aim to be as fair as possible, especially to each other. Potential employers might praise someone for making a “boring” task efficient, but who the hell is going to hire SS via Pottermore? Honestly…
I’d love to help out as much as possible, please let me know what can be done.
This whole thing is beyond shameful. Pottermore needs to ban people like that for spoiling the fun.
What’s your opinion on ThornPatronus19? He/she has almost as many points as Snitch Spirit.
Thorn is one possible bot we are tracking. When we started tracking it stayed online for 20 hour straight. Then it was offline nearly a say and I now see they are back online. If you would like to help track data for this user let me know.
Nearly a day. As opposed to nearly a say.
I do have a lot of free time, tell me how I can help.
Go ahead and e-mail me at ElmBlade43@gmail.com and I will send you details.
Elm, I never loved you more!! This post is amazing >_<
I was totally disgusted by those cheaters. But what I hate more is actually trolling.
I'm probably sure that you know about the famous troll Orion Black.
Last time I saw him he was making fun of children with cancer and posting sexually offensive comments.
I really wish that he'd stop. Really.
Another hope that I have is that some day Pottermore will determine house ranks based on point average. I'm not saying this because we'd be first if it was done so, but because we simply can't have any hope that we'll be in first someday. It's all to frustrating.
I heard that in the old days they DID calculate house averages, but then people didn't understand how it was done (why?? Don't they learn math???) and then Pottermore gave up on the averages and moved on to total points. Is that true? Do we have to go this way because some people don't understand? We can just explain how it's done to them…
Anyways, thank you Elm, your blog is always fantastic.
This entire House Cup thing just bugs me in general. Being a Ravenclaw, the smallest house, is quite discouraging. (Though I wouldn’t trade it for a thing!) Why even bother when there are houses with 100,000 more members than yours and on top of that, people are cheating. If you were to take the total number of house points right now and divide them by the number of members in that House, Ravenclaw would be in first, followed by Slytherin, Gryffindor, and Hufflepuff respectively. All together, these different aspects of Pottermore just upset me even more. I wish they could just come up with something to make it all fair for everyone!
I really agree!!
As a Ravenclaw, I agree! I wish they did a “points per student” total…or something like that. Oh well.
Some reasons to argue against averaging points: some users abandon their accounts when they are disappointed in the house they are sorted into (I’m a Hufflepuff so this is especially important to me), and the previously noted existence of purposely losing in duels with an account in another house in order to cheat. I dont see how averaging points will prevent any cheating besides bots.
I see that there could be some disadvantages for Hufflepuff! I didn’t really think about that before. Thank you for telling me, I see why the averaging won’t work. Well… in the current situation there are some disadvantages for Ravenclaw… so I guess that one house has to give way. That’s sad…. :’(
I see that there could be some disadvantages for Hufflepuff! I didn’t really think about that before. Thank you for telling me, I see why the averaging won’t work. Well… in the current situation there are some disadvantages for Ravenclaw… so I guess that one house has to give way. That’s sad…. :’(
I would agree, but we really don’t know how PM calculates the point totals. For all we know, they could be doing averages or factoring in the amount of students. They don’t really tell how they do things. Also, as a Slytherin, my advice to you is to keep playing. Slytherin used to be the house with the least amount of people, but we still won. This has been mentioned before, but a lot of my Potterhead friends got sorted into Slytherin, but as many people don’t want to be in that house, they create more accounts in an attempt to get sorted into Gryffindor or Ravenclaw which are obviously the most popular houses. As a result, we have a huge number of inactive accounts and spammers. I think that PM could at least limit the accounts per email (I know someone who has two accounts under the same email) or not include inactive users in the number of students so they could use averages while not suspending the account. I think that would be a great solution to make it fair for everyone.
I too want to thank you for a very well written and thought provoking blog on cheating. I am a Gryf but I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments about cheating. I have only been on pottermore for a few weeks and I very excited and happy to play the game but is was not a good feeling when the spirit of competitive degenerated into all out war because of the cheating.
I hope the pottermore wizard can come up with some anti-cheating magic to stop the insanity.
I was wondering if you had any thought on the spammers that have been attempting to spoil the game by clogging the already overtaxed comment lines. Seems to me these are cheaters too.
Thanks again for posting your blog. I have become a fan.
YewDraconis2341
Spammers fall under the same category as troll and I just go quiet and report them. I have sent suggestions to Pottermore about an improved method being needed for handling trolls. For example perhaps if a person is reported lets say 10 times within any given hour they are suspended until the messages can be assessed. Preventing a troll from clogging the board for hours. It’s just one thought I have there are others. I encourage people to send in suggestions via the same help form shown above. They do eventually take action on these suggestions.
I completely abhore the thought of cheating on PM.. It completely destroys the site and the morals of the book.
The one thing that is seemingly causing a lot of controversy in Ravenclaw, though, is whether it counts as cheating to challenge newly sorted people to duels, or to fish for them at end of chapter comments by saying you’re bad at duelling? I think it treads a fine line.. Some say it’s cheating, some say it’s their own fault for not being savvy. I wondered what your opinion was?
Love this post by the way, sums up a lot of people’s feelings.
I think there is no doubt that posting pretending to be bad at duels is at the very least tacky. It’s not outright cheating but it’s certainly a bit underhanded.
I do however think its fine for people to challenge whoever they want from wherever they see them on site. The person on the other end has the chance to see who has challenged them and decide if they want to answer or not. It’s actually a fun way for new duelers to meet other people on site and duel some people who aren’t going to be throwing high potency spells.
Not everyone who has a second account is necessarily cheating. My cousin gave me her account but when I go on it, all I do is duel for her. I help her house a little, but I still leave my loyalties in Slytherin and such. I don’t spy for them.
I really felt sad for Hufflepuff, because So many people didn’t want that house and made a new account. But now I hate that they are the third, I’m really cheering for Ravenclaw (I knew I would have been a Ravenclaw or Gryffindor). Honestly I tought that you are cheating too, because I saw that he was chatting to you in twitter and I tought that he was teaching you how to cheat, but now I see that you are a very good person
.
And look what she said 12h ago:
@MissCrucio I should make an account for each house and cheat up to the same score with each one! Then no more calling Puffs cheaters!
What?!?! We have to stop it really!
I was the first person that Snitch Spirit found on twitter. He is still a person despite being a cheater. It’s sort of one of those keep your enemy close sort of situations.
In regards to the tweet you quoted, he seems to feel genuinely guilty about the treatment his house has received as a result of his actions. And a part of his weird perspective is that he could use his bot to relevel the playing field. Whether he goes through with that I don’t know. All I know is that his SS account is no longer using the bit to earn points.
You know, for now.
This is one of my fav post, in this site, Elm
I reported SS for cheating and that’s the reply:
“Dear xxx,
Thank you for your valuable feedback. We are delighted that you and others in our community are so engaged with the experience that you report behaviour on the site that is not as it should be.
We want you to know that gaining house points unfairly is taken very seriously. Although we can’t go in to detail on individual cases, please rest assured that warnings, suspensions and house point deductions are all actions we can and will enforce when necessary.
We hope you continue to enjoy Pottermore; please do not hesitate to contact us again if you have any further concerns around this matter.
Yours sincerely,
Kim”
So, according to them, they can’t obtain individual data. It seems a little strange, to me.
I’m not sure, but I think they mean they cannot inform you about individual cases, as that probably is against those people’s privacy
Maybe you’re right
Hmmm… I got that too. Maybe they should redesign their site?
Oh right.. I see…
Well that sucks.
I received that too..
does it means that they can ban trolls and they can’t ban bots?
Why pottermore haven’t ban the SS yet??
They’re too busy with COS, I think.
I’m surprised someone would be stupid enough to openly admit, on the official Pottermore site, that they are cheating. It’s obvious the common rooms have moderators that see all the comments, obviously after they see someone say that they are cheating they’ll have someone look into it. I’m glad to say that I’ve never seen anyone talking about cheating in my own house (R), but still, it’s disappointing that people are so obsessed with winning the House Cup that they would take the fun out of Pottermore and have a bot carry on their account for them.
How true. That’s the same with my house (S) but ive actually had one person say they were thinking about it… that just sucks that someone would stoop that low in my house and destroy our pride.
I really appreciate the fact that you took the time to write this. It is great that you put this issue out there because honestly I did not know cheating was going on. I feel that if you are a true fan of the site then you wouldn’t cheat. For those who are doing other wise, should get off! There are people who earn their points honestly and who want to have fun in the process. You earn points by doing the work. Cheers to you for doing the right thing! We need more people to speak out on issues like these.
-BronzeSnitch16674
P.S. Slytherin rules!
Thanks so much for writing this and opening my eyes– I never knew there was so much cheating going on on Pottermore! I sure hope that we can end it together
Hey Elm,
Great Blog Post.
I agree that we all need to stand up against cheating. After all, “We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided”-Dumbledore, GoF (I think)
Anyway, if more users report obvious cheating, the better the chance it will be stopped or more precautions will be taken. I’ll help watch for anything suspicious in the Ravenclaw common room. Thanks Again.
Hi Elm,
As usual, you hit the nail squarely on the head. Just wanted to let you know that I was dueling and got a message that I needed to wait because I had exceeded the dueling limit. This seems to be a new “control” that Pottermore has installed. Maybe in response to the bots?
Filch
Thank you for speaking up, Elm.
I really hope your post helps to force Pottermore to do something about this. Every time I visit the Great Hall and see SS is still there and earning points, I am so disappointed in how they handle open cheaters like him.
I agree so much!!
I was so disgusted to learn about this, as I had no idea people were running bots on the site. Yes, the idea of cheating on Pottermore is so absurd to me that this didn’t even occur to me.
Completely blows my mind.
This ruins the whole point of the site, it’s insulting to every single user of the site and JKR herself. SS’s complete lack of conscience is also shocking- he/she clearly sees absolutely nothing wrong with what they are doing. What’s the point in artificially racking up thousands of points and programming cheats for absolutely everything? Why even play? If it’s so bothersome to them to go through “dull, repetitive tasks” as they say, why waste time cheating on it?
What I’m even more shocked about is how Pottermore has not reacted yet. Any other site would have removed the offending individuals by now, and I expected the same from Pottermore, a site that assigns predetermined nicknames for safety reasons and bothers honest users with anti-bot captchas every 5 seconds.
Yes, this would take huge chunks out of Hufflepuff house’s points. But I’m sure they would find that preferable to knowing they are in third place through dishonest means. If it was my house, that’s what I would want (and I do, if there are any cheaters in my house (Slytherin), which I am sure there are- as in any other)
The same should be done for anyone else suspected of running bots- even if that may or may not include some or many of the top scorers from all houses.
Most of all, this makes me really sad
As a member of Hufflepuff, I have to say that I would prefer to lose our third place ranking, rather than to earn it through cheating. I’d rather us coming in last through honest work than to come in first through cheating. As if Hufflepuff didn’t have a bad stigma to begin with.
Also, kind of ironic this guy is in Hufflepuff (i.e. those Hufflepuffs are true and unafraid of toil)
Is anyone else cheating that you know of? And that you are sure about it?
I swear I answered this comment and then I see the answer did not appear! Darn. But there are at least two other Bots we are tracking but we do not have enough for me to feel comfortable calling them out publicly just yet. I had no problem calling out SnitchSpirit because he is open and honest about it. If you would like my bot theories feel free to send me a message in email (elmblade43@gmail.com).
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What about sincerely wanting to help another house with points? I’m in Slytherin and am helping out Ravenclaw. I’m using less powerful spells at full potency (Incendio especially). How about the users who just fell sorry for other houses?
I think there is a difference between choosing to duel with different spells then throwing zeroes intentionally from a second account. I am a big Ravenclaw proponent because I believe they should have been in second for the last cup because of their standing during Beta. I duel only Claws. Because that way either Slytherin gets the points or Ravenclaw does. These are personal choices you and I have made and aren’t the same as cheating. In my opinion.
Some of my house mates tell me I’m a traitor to Slytherin when I do that. (Um, they’re in LAST place right now? It’s not as if I’m blowing up cauldrons or trash talking Slytherin. And @ElmBlade43, I sent a friend request. I also reported SS and got a very nice letter back. It appears that the replies are automated and they’re too busy with making the rest of COS to punish cheaters.
Wait… last place?!?!!! O.o
People in our common room can be… let’s say stubborn and hot headed and call it that. As a Slytherin we must pick our enemies and our alliances carefully. I certainly don’t think you’re a traitor.
The saddest thing is that there is not only “the-budger-that-must-not-be-named” cheating (and he/she is doing it aloud, why?). But you can find cheaters everywhere.
Yesterday for example I was trying some random duels with the Gryffindors and I beat one player three time in a row (always at randoms). His or her spells were 0. I reported him or her to PM (as you suggested me) after telling in the GH what happened. Why was I so sure about hi or her cheating? Well, this person had only Slytherins friend and tried to befriended me. It might be not so much, but it really smelled of cheating.
The same thing happened just three minutes ago. A gryffindor with only slytherins friends after losing with a 0, challenged me again (once I answered, maybe it was just a newbie) and again.
As I already said, it really gets on my NERVES finding cheaters!
I just wanted to share..
(sorry for the bad english everyone)
btw, great entry, elm!
Elm, I agree with you when you say that not everyone is cheating. BUT look at SS. He has won 125,761 so far ( by the time you see this comment he will probably win another 10,000 ). And it bothers me that a lot of Hufflepuff’ points were won by a cheater. ( I don’t have anything with the other Hufflepuffs, don’t worry )
Yes his chunk of points has a lot of impact on the house standings. All the more reason to put pressure on Pottermore to do something about it.
Excuse me, can I know how you get the first pic where he openly confessed that he’s cheating? It’s in the Hufflepuff common room while you’re a Slytherin. Do you have a spy account or someone sent that pic to you? Thank you.
P.S.: I don’t mean any offense.
A Hufflepuff took that screen cap in their common room and posted it in a Facebook group I am a member of. So no, no spying in Hufflepuff. LOL.
Elm, I know I complimented your beautifully written article, but now a new problem has arisen. SS is now teaching others how to cheat. When I logged on to my PM account, I got the following link: http://www.pottermore.com/en-us/wizards-duel/view-duel/79097295-9bc8-4a25-b910-0f498562b645
He’s now infiltrating everybody’s account!! I don’t want him anywhere near me…help!!!
He isn’t infiltrating. Deeeeeep breath. If you receive dueling requests from him just hit decline. You will still hit him in open duels with Hufflepuff though. I can’t see the above link you posted on my phone.
How can Pottermore have not noticed that one of their users is getting THAT many point in a duel???
Oh, now I realize that is a link to the little duel he sent me as a thank you present for this article.
This duel was sent to me because he wanted to experiment to see if he could do it. Rest assured he is not going around smacking people with 9 million potency full body bind as it sounded to me like he could only do it on a one duel at a time basis. His bot is actually more efficient. Part of the purpose of this blog entry was to encite action from Pottermore. The more of us turn him in, the more of us who are aware of the actions of Bots, the more likely they are to actually do something to prevent this from continuing.
Is it possible to send that link to the Pottermore team?
Already sent. Was weird sending them their own link.
It will probably be even weirder for them having to click on their own link though.
Someone on the other end of that is like “why do I care about you results for this duel… HOLY CRAP”. -chuckles- Maybe the look on thier face was similar to the look on mine when I received it.
That was fun LOL
WHAT!?!?! *sudden urge to avoid duels*
Thank you for your beautifully written blog. When I came to realize how insidious and pervasive the cheating on Pottermore was I was heartbroken and disgusted. In the past two weeks I have drastically stepped away from the site because of it. As a Hufflepuff myself it is especially hard to deal with the fact that the most blatant cheater pretends to represent my house. While Snitch Spirit’s behavior is despicable I find the other “hidden” cheaters even worse. These are people that are cheating just as badly but being quiet about it so that they can remain looking awesome and respectable in the eyes of everyone else. Their behavior is even more sinister as far as I’m concerned. We have to remember there are children on this site and they look up to and admire the “top scorers” on the leader boards. They have no idea how many of them are liars and cheats. I don’t know what if anything can be done about all this but I feel better just knowing that there are others like yourself that feel the same way I do. Thank you for giving us a place to express our feelings about this terrible situation.
I am hoping that open dialogue will not only help people to cope with the cheating, but also to spread knowledge of how to report people and issues involving cheating to Pottermore. Many of these quieter users who are cheating do, eventually, say something either in their Common Room or the Great Hall. For some reason the intense urge to brag to someone overcomes them. I think that if everyone knows exactly how to contact Pottermore, and we all continue to report report report the site will have no choice but to make the improvements necessary to prevent these Bots from running on site.
That’s the theory at least. Thank you for your support, and spread the word. We stand together against Cheating on Pottermore.
There is a lot of dialog going on in Facebook also. People seem to feel it’s OK to fess up to their cheating with their Facebook “friends”. The whole situation makes me sick. While everyone is focused on SS I know their are cheaters in EVERY house. I would go so far as to say that I believe a large percentage of the top scorers on the leader boards of every house are cheating in one way or another. I used to spend hours every day dueling (and I was pretty good at it) but no way could I earn the sheer number of points that these people do in the time frame they have earned them. Keep in mind it has only been 13 days since are points were wiped clean and we all started with zero. Tell me how so many people have earned 50,000 plus points in less than two weeks without cheating. Sorry to keep on ranting about this I’m just so mad about it all and the fact that this aspect of Pottermore has been permanently ruined for me. Thank you Elm for providing me a forum to express my feelings. From a Hufflepuff to a Slytherin I stand united with you!
Great blog and post, Elm!
I’ve noticed how fast SnitchSpirit168 was able to get so many points in such a short amount of time, and I always found it suspicious because I never ran into them much while duelling in beta. Then when Pottermore reset everyone’s points, and SS was suddenly 1st in Hufflepuff with 100,000 points whereas everyone else had about 40,000, I knew they for sure they had to be cheating. I was hesitant about reporting them at first, because I didn’t have any proof, and didn’t want to report someone if they were innocent, but thanks to you, and many others who have noticed the same thing, I now know for sure that they’re cheating.
This really annoys me because as someone who gets their points the legit way, it is very unfair and totally takes away from the magic of Pottermore. It’s very sad that someone would resort to this, because there are a lot of very nice people on Pottermore that get their points the honest way, and now it’s really hard to trust who is cheating and who isn’t. I hope Pottermore does something about this soon, but until then I will gladly help you and others as we try to stop the cheaters and spread the word!
And by the way, I see you around a lot on PM, so always feel free to challenge me to a duel anytime. ;D
Another good reason why I posted this blog entry was that for people talking in the Great Hall about it I thought I could clarify confusion. A lot of tension was being caused by the “is he cheating is he not” debate that was happening. Thought I would settle that once and for all.
I have also felt the frustration of seeing cheaters rising while I could not keep up. My aching dueling feelings and frustration allowed me to slack off in my attempt to get on the Slytherin leader board. Someday I will be back up there (was up there two days after point reset) but I will do it in my own time and the honest way.
I too have seen you around Pottermore. Not that I’m logged onto Pottermore like every waking hour. NEVER! LOL.
Thank you for your support and spread the word. We stand together againts cheating on Pottermore.
Yeah, I had trouble keeping up in the days leading up to the cup, and now I just don’t want be on the leader board anymore. Mostly because of my frustration, and the fact that it does take up a lot of my time, so I’d rather not compete with people, especially if they’re using bots. I just want to enjoy Pottermore for what it is, and earn points for my house the honest way.
Haha, of course not! That would just be too much. I tend to duel a bit, then slack off for a couple hours, and then get back to it eventually. Which is another thing that made me suspicious about people that would seemingly duel for hours straight.
And no problem, thank you for taking the time to write this very well-written article.
Typo alert! Cheating is happening.More
there should be a space
Whoops. The bold itallic underline of the previous line seems to have eaten the space. I shall fix it.
I am glad someone finally spoke up about cheating.
Im also glad I finally know how to report someone, I had no idea how to do it until now.
I’ve always wondered why they would bury that form so deep in the help section. I always just theorized they didn’t want too many people contacting them. Well too late, I will tell the world if I have to.
Wow– I never knew that there was so much cheating on Pottermore, and reading this I can’t believe that people would actually do such a thing. Thank you so much for writing this post and opening my eyes!
Spread the word, we stand together against cheating on Pottermore.
Awesome blog, Elm. I am in Hufflepuff, and while it was depressing to always be in last place, at least it was honestly (most of it any way) won. I have diligently participated in Project Sprout, with the goal of earning at least a hundred house points a day. I do it by dueling by hand, and while I am not very good, there are always those worse than me, as well as finally getting better at making potions. SS is just embarrassing. Some of my favorite betas in the common room are deserting Pottermore entirely, due to the rabid demand to earn more points. One of the trolls reported me for counseling a little perspective – the day the House Cup was awarded, everyone in the common room seemed to collectively lose their minds. My contention that we needed to take a deep breath and remember it would be almost a year before the next cup was awarded. If we kept it up, we’d all burn out on Pottermore long before then. Apparently SS is one of those determined to run up the points.
You have been absolutely awesome in providing tips and suggestions, all designed to help people enjoy the experience. I deplore the folks trying to spoil it for the rest of us. If the mod-goblins squash everything we say in the common room and Great Hall, imagine what they might do if they put in more stringent moderation on dueling to combat the bots?
FlameWatch204
Snitch’s need to run the points up so high actually hurts his house as a whole. I think one of the reason that Gryffindor and Slytherin stay in first and second is because our top leader IS LOWER. Sounds strange, but I think when users see a leader board they might actually have a chance of getting on they are more likely to duel and brew and raise their score. Whereas a new Hufflepuff is going to log in, see their house leader is at over 100K and think they have no hope of making the leader board and therefore not try.
I am saddened to think that Beta’s are leaving because they feel too much point pressure. I hope that people can read this and remember that this is supposed to be fun and not all about winning. I don’t care if we win the house cup next year. In fact I am pulling for a Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff win because I like that we are straying from canon in this regard.
Part of my main goal in informing and inspiring the users of Pottermore to stand together against cheating is in hopes that Pottermore will finally take action against this. They can not continue to let this carry on with so many of us reporting the activity constantly. They need to enact a policy to provide themselves opportunity for investigation. The fact that despite what must be getting towards thousands of people reporting SS he is still active and earning points. Why not suspend his account until they can deduce what to do with the situation? The more of us who complain the more I hope they will DO SOMETHING about it.
Thank you, as always, for your support. You are one of my most loyal readers.
I just searched online and found another article with proof of Pottermore cheating going back to last year at: http://seekerrose.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/pottermore-cheats-ruining-the-fun-of-all-4-houses/
It shows captures of conversations where some Slytherins are bragging about sabotaging other houses by cheating. It also shows a Slytherin objecting to this and suggesting everyone just concentrate on earning points for their own house. Good advice for each and every one of us.
We all want our houses to do well, but the competition should be fun and fair.
Ah, my good friend Seeker Rose wrote that during Beta when cheating had a totally different set of methods than it does now.
It’s sad that a Hufflepuff would sink so low. I wondered why they had so many points over the other leaders. Now it makes sense. I’m sad that the obvious cheating is coming from my own house.
Don’t feel bad. I am actually sure that there are cheaters in all the houses attempting the same thing. Hufflepuff is a fabulous house and I hope that people take to heart what I have said. We can not judge a whole house on the actions of a few. Stand proud as a Hufflepuff. And don’t lose heart. We will beat this together.
Well said Elm! I do miss the days of pure competition, and SnitchSpirit168 (I do speak his full name, lest we start calling him “the badger-that-must-not-be-named). The problem is that certain people do have that sort of “glory-seeking” need… and unfortunately, like everywhere else on the internets, it shows on pottermore. I’m just glad that you’ve done this, and that I think it’s plausible to say that once again, pottermore users are taking a stand against blatant cheating, in the name of fair play and more importantly, fun! That being said, well done, bravo, and hopefully we can put this to rest, like the speed-brewers of old!
I really hope we get Pottermore’s attention and they do something about it so we can put it behind us just like the Time-Turning cheats of old. Starting to feel like Pottermore is in a state of perpetual Beta.
Thank you for your support. We stand together against cheating.
I had to leave a comment about this–
First, kudos to you, ElmBlade, for taking the time to think through your response, which clearly shows in the excellent post you have put together.
Second, I will observe that the folks who are hardcore cheats are telling us lots of stuff about their basic character, and none of it is very nice. Using *personal boredom*, *lack of available time* and/or *improving the site by showcasing site vulnerability* as justification for extensive Pottermore cheating is lame-in-the-extreme, and is nothing more than the cheater taking the moral heat off of him/her/self by rationalizing his/her bad behavior. I have *zero* respect for people who do this.
Third, running Bots on Pottermore is a form of stealing bandwidth. The fact that the site is still basically non-accessable to to dial-up and lower-speed DSL users now starts to make more sense– lack of site server-power plus rampant Bot-use by the lazy and/or self-entitled means that lots of people are being effectively locked out of the site. If, at this point, cheaters think that I am leveling an accusation of a complete lack of empathy, any respect for others and having zilch in the moral fiber department at them, they are right– I am!!!
Fourth– at the end of the day, House points are unimportant. I admit it would have been nice to earn more than 27 total points for Ravenclaw, but seeing as I can neither brew potions or duel from my home internet connection, I was pretty much out of luck. I have, however, met some wonderful Potter-fans via the various blogs that folks are running, and that *is* important at the end of the day.
Fifth, and I will say this bluntly, to cheat routinely while on Pottermore is showing gross disrespect to JKR and her gift to her fans. It means that the site cannot be run in the way in which it was envisioned, and that fans who are in every way deserving of being on the site cannot access it. It also means that the folks who are running Pottermore have to spend a lot of time keeping the site from turning into the Bot-land and cheating-playground of the selfish few, and if site admins are spending a lot of time doing that, it is time that then cannot be spent future betterment of the site and what it might offer to *all* its users. Additionally, instead of the site being easy to access and use, there are now yet more hoops for everybody to jump through– like Captcha– which would not be necessary at all if it were not for those personally insecure types who feel entitled to use any means necessary just to rack up high point-scores.
The bottom line is this– widespead cheating on Pottermore is not in danger of ruining the Pottermore experience for everyone– it already *has* ruined it. The sooner that Bot-running point-addicts are ID’d and kicked off the site, the better.
I have been meaning to stop by your blog to see if you had attempted to go through Chamber of Secret’s chapters 1-4 yet. They are no longer using Flash but HTML 5. Of course I had browser difficulty getting it to work so I don’t suppose it would give you a better time than the first book. Probably a worse time now that I’m thinking about it.
It is quite a shame that the Pottermore staff must deal with things like this instead of with things that would help improve the site as a whole. I had not, until now, thought about the bandwidth aspect of it. Because in keeping a Bot logged on 24 hours a day constantly refreshing pages and logging off and on to beat CAPTCHA that has to be using a great deal more resources than a normal person using the site would use. This is an interesting angle that I’m wondering if they have considered.
Thank you for your wonderfully well thought out comment, I do hope others scroll down here and read it.
I haven’t tried CoS yet– I’m still stuck near the end of SS. I’m going to try logging in from home within the next week or two (haven’t had much time to do that, lately– my father has been ill and is not doing so well) to see if I can get loose. If not, I’ll probably try using a public internet computer at work on my lunch-hour. I’m keeping up with stuff via your blog, and I hope that things will get better over time for us “lower power” types. My main interest on Pottermore is the background info that JKR has never published, which is still tough to unlock from my home computer. When I have a bit more time, I will try various things on the site from home, and then post the results on my blog. Thanks again for your efforts on behalf of all Pottermore users!
Love the article, good for you! I’m curious though, how do you know if you are duelling a bot?
There’s a magnitude of difference between dueling a normal person on the leader board and a bot. A bot throws spells between 139 and 143 normally. It earns more points because it never stops and runs 24 hours a day. But the only way to tell is by data collection. Looking at if and when they are ever logged on and tracking their point rise to see if it is in a normal range or not. If there is ever someone you suspect is a bot enlist help here or among other PM friends to try to follow the users progress.
My original reply was missing a sentence. I was supposed to say that the difference between the bot and the real person is chances are a real person with over 30K in points is going to be chucking near perfect and perfect spells at you, whereas a Bot will not be.
I can get 1000 points in two hours. I duel and normally get above 143 (when I get 142 I feel ashamed) and sometimes I even get 145 thrice in a row.
For me, the real proof of a bot is when they never ever respond to your direct duels.
Can’t judge by that though. Because I rarely answer direct duels because of how I duel. I duel with multiple tabs and refresh the open duel instead of returning to the dueling screen. After about an hour dueling I will realize I have many duel challenges and though I try to answer them all, if they get buried too far down they never get answered. The true test of if it is a bot is looking at their patterns of online/offline activity and dueling scores. normally if you are in the top board you throw very strong scores (144/145) but a bot throws much lower (141-143) they just have the advantage of never tiring and putting out far more duels than a real person can do in a day.
I’m not going to lie. I’ve cheated. I’ve done the trolling, the spying (which is quite useless), lost duels on purpose & blown up cauldrons (another useless cheat). I was, and I don’t know if you remember this character, HollyJinx17008. It was probably the most offensive, annoying, down right horrible persona I’ve ever donned… but I’m not gonna lie it was fun offending people, the reactions I got were exhilarating.Then that account was banned. Spying is useless because I mean what the hell are you spying on really, other peoples comments? It’s not like people are discussing strategy because you can’t come up with strategy on Pottermore because there are only a few ways of earning points. Now losing duels on purpose is hard to really gauge how much damage you’re actually causing to that particular house because after all your only one person but I guess if you do it long enough you’ll cause damage. Blowing cauldrons is useless because again how much damage are you actually causing? You can only blow one up at a time. I have two accounts now. I only use the second account to send myself potions ingredients & that’s about it really. Why am I saying all this? To show people that in reality cheating doesn’t work although I’ll admit the trolling was fun… for me anyways.
Blowing up cauldrons only loses points you’ve earned yourself anyway. So if you don’t have five points you can’t really lose five points. Making it LITERALLY the most pointless thing to attempt. Now should you have points on an an account in another house you could blow cauldrons to get rid of the points, but you had earned those points to begin with so you are really only breaking even.
I truly hope your trolling days are over.
My trolling days are over but I’ll admit that sometimes I just want to cuss a few people out sometimes.
It was fun offending people? You found it exhilarating getting a rise out others, probably many of whom were young children? Really, seriously, this is what you find enjoying? Wow, how sad are you.
Well at least she/he is trying to change their behaviour, that’s much more than some people out there.
It wasn’t just offending people that I got a kick out of, but the chaos I created in the Great Hall for a few days. It’s amazing what a few CAPITAL WORDS will do.
All the more reason why I stand by my “don’t feed the trolls” bet you would have had way less fun if you were all capsing and no one was noticing.
Obviously.
Good for you ElmBlade!! I love your blog, and am very proud of you for speaking out. MidnightGlow17784.
Thank you for your support, and spread the word. We stand together against cheating on Pottermore.
Thanks Elm! Since before I even got in PM in late September I heard about cheating – back then it was speeding up potions, now we have the dueling bots. There will always be those that feel the need to cheat or outsmart…obviously they need attention or have the desire to see if they can find a way or create something without having to do the effort .
There is no honor in cheating your way onto the leader-board or “helping” your house. It benefits no one and causes confusion, hate, greed, disappointment, etc. It makes more work for everyone trying to keep up with them or keep track of them. It makes more work for the web designers to find ways to prevent the cheating, and then that ruins it for others because those safeguards make it harder to legitimately brew and/or duel. I have younger family and friends in and they give up when CAPTCHA comes up because it’s too difficult for them to understand and complete. What really sucks is that CAPTCHA is supposed to prevent that but it doesn’t so what is the point of CAPTCHA when bots can get around it and some humans can’t complete it?
Even if SS gets suspended or banned they will be back…the banned/suspended can always create another account. I’m sure even once PM manages to put up more protection against cheaters there will be those that will find another way, or something else to manipulate.
We at least have a good team of Aurors to keep a look out and maintain constant vigilance against cheaters.
hey, perhaps it’s a good idea to make a list of ways to prevent cheating, and all send it to pottermore!
here are my ideas
- make sure the capatcha can’t be avoided, perhaps they can make it appear based on the amount of duels per hour? instead of per session (at least, I think it is now per logged in session, seeing it can be avoided by logging of and on again, which ends one session and starts the next)
-create a watchlist, which enables users to report suspected cheaters, so they will be watched by PM staff to see whether or not they are cheating
-ban people who repeatedly post spam/trolls
-delete inactive accounts, this will prevent users from wasting server space and also makes sure that people don’t create accounts on other houses and leave the point count at 0 (or a very low level) to take down the houses point count
-ban users who repeatedly lose duels and/or points
-if a user is banned for cheating, spamming or trolling of any sort, also block their e-mail address and the IP address from pottermore, this might not prevent the user from coming back, but it will make it harder, since they will need to use proxy’s or something and create new e-mails
any ideas or amendments to my ideas are welcome, please reply on this comment, so we can keep all ideas together!
That’s pretty good except the IP address banning because remember a computer might have multiple users.
thanks, and yeah I thought about that, but if it’s a proxy or public IP, then it has many users, but I think having one proxy or public IP won’t do too much damage to other players, since they will be able to find another proxy, or public IP or they can just play using their home IP
and for home IP’s with multiple users, I don’t think the chance is big that a spammer has anyone who he/she lives with, but perhaps the IP block could only be for creating new accounts, that way existing accounts will be able to play on the IP, but the spammer/cheater won’t be able to make a new account using the IP
Honestly, when it comes to cheating of the magnitude of SS’s, any other users on that computer can go without as well.
Why is that fair? Imagine if SS had a little brother or sister that misses out and it isn’t their fault at all.
He doesn’t.
I would remove completely reCaptcha… but put a limit to the duels by the hour. Maybe 1 duel every minute or something. I mean, they already have the screen that you could see (http://i.imgur.com/O6kDM.png).
If they got to do that, only great duelists (or lucky ones) will get to score 300 points every hour.
I think they just need to place CAPTCHA so it is required right when you log in in addition to randomly. Since the bots get around CAPTCHA by logging out and back in. The dueling limit only lasts about a minute by the way and then you can go back to dueling. Not very effective.
I think you should have to do the captcha to log out and log in. That way when the bot tries to log out to avoid it, it is faced with a new one that it can’t avoid. I am in Hufflepuff and I was really excited when we moved from fourth place to third place. When I found out about the cheaters, especially SS, I was disgusted. I am glad that they docked some of his points, and I know that some people think they should have docked all of his points. Personally, I don’t think that would have done much good, as he would just start earning more. In my opinion, all of his points as well as his account should have been deleted. Any one who has been proven to be a cheater to that extent should be banned from pottermore. I am one of the biggest harry potter fans I know, ive read each of the books nine times and I own all the movies and books plus the extra books (tales of beedle the bard, fantastic beasts and where to find them, quidditch through the ages). MY friends and I are even going to try and put together a quidditch team:). I think to cheat on pottermore is an insult to JKR and the world of Harry Potter. HE MUST BE STOPPED!
Please excuse my ranting.
those are really nice ideas.and many.
True, my best friend who is dyslexic can’t read CAPTCHA.
Aw I hadn’t even thought about how hard CAPTCHA would be for someone who is dyslexic.
I suppose they could get a friend to help them. That would really suck. Maybe they should make an exception for dyslexic people and use something else just for those people. (though as to what, I have no suggestions.) I guess most people just dont really take that into consideration.
Someone with dyslexia can click on the accessibility button and numbers will be read mixed in with gibberish. You type the numbers. I have mild dyslexia and if I hit refresh a few times, I can find something I can read.
I like the idea that we busy body Pottermore users are Aurors on the lookout for the Dark Wizards out to ruin the site for others. Do I get a badge? LOL.
SS actually believes that CAPTCHA was put in place solely because of him. During Beta he says he sent in an e-mail to Pottermore staff informing them that dueling was overly simplistic and that he was SURE he could program something to duel for him all of the time. Their response to this was placing CAPTCHA on the duels. Unfortunately as we all know it didn’t work and actually serves to annoy US (who are dueling legitimately) more than it does anything to hinder the Bots. The sad thing is that a small CAPTCHA adjustment would make it so a Bot would need a person to put in CAPTCHA occasionally to keep it going, but they have not, so far, made the required adjustment.
As always thank you very much for your support, Ashpodel. We go way back like rocking chairs.
Elm, when you mentioned Aurors, I got another idea, what if pottermore assigns some people of who they know they’re trustworthy (I think you would be a good example) as Aurors, who will get extra privileges in the area of being able to report suspicious users, etc. like moderators!
I have often wished for real moderators. Even if they only ever had five mods online at a time watching the four Common Rooms and the Hall it would do wonders for preventing trolls.
yeah, but you also have all the chapters and extra content etc. where people can comment on as well, they will continue trolling there, but I think if there just were some normal users with moderator privileges, it would help the site more, because they can moderate the website, while the staff works on new chapters and fixing bugs and glitches
and also user based moderators should be from different countries, so that there can be people online all the time, while pottermore headquarters is probably positioned in one location, which makes it very likely moderating by them could only be possible during certain hours
I also didn’t take into account different language boards. Point is a computerized language screen to post a comment is not enough.
that is indeed also a very good point you’ve got there, 6 languages (5 if you put us and uk English together) × 4common rooms and 1 Great Hall = 30 (or 25) moderators, who would have to be 24/7, or 60 (or 50) who have to be on 12/7 or 120 (or 100) to be on 6/7, and that would only be the main boards then
Real moderators… That’s the dream, isn’t it?
I agree about needing real moderators. I just can’t see how SS managed to admit to cheating without his comment going under moderation. I find that half the harmless comments i try to post are put under moderation for no good reason. also, I had one of my comments reported to the moderators when all I said was ‘yay hufflepuff!’. Luckily, the moderators decided that is was indeed harmless, but i just don’t get why someone would report something like that when they could be reporting things that actually were bad (aka SS….).
Excellent post ! It’s sad to see people feel the need to cheat when Pottermore is meant to be fun. I’d also like to thank you for remembering everybody that NOT all huffepuffs are cheaters. As a true Hufflepuff who has spent a lot of her free time to gain her points, it is very hurtful to read comments where people are saying nasty things against us because SS is in our house.
I believe there are Bots in all houses, his is just the most successful. All the more reason for us to continue putting pressure on Pottermore to fix the problem. Because now I see many Hufflepuffs who can not even enjoy the fact they are in third instead of last because they are waiting for SS’s points to vanish whenever Pottermore gets to banning him. Hufflepuff does not deserve this flack.
This is just plain disgusting. As a slytherin i would never use such cheap tactics just to earn points. every point i have earned was through actual skill in a duel or by making potions. It is very dissapointing that people feel the need to cheat something that is simply for fun and for harry potter fans to continue enjoying what we have enjoyed so much over the past few years.
It is funny, as many times as I see people claim Slytherins are more likely to cheat because we will “use any means to achieve our end” I have found many many of us Slytherins are far too proud to resort to these levels to earn points. We earn them proudly and honestly. And then brag about them. LOL.
I agree. As a hufflepuff, I feel that people who cheat in my house do so because they want to prove that hufflepuffs aren’t ”a load of duffers” (Sorcerers stone), and as much as I wholeheartedly agree, they are going about it in the worst possible way. On the other hand, Slytherins who say that they would never do something like that want to prove that they aren’t all evil purebloods willing to do anything to get their way. My guess is that a lot of people in hufflepuff want to prove that we are a perfectly capable house earning lots of points, unfortunately cheating to do so. I think this is wrong and that a hufflepuff who cheats is not a true hufflepuff at all. I have a soft spot for slytherins, because i feel that they probably get similar responses to hufflepuffs in relation to what house they are in. Just because the song says Slytherins are cunning and ambitious. That really just means that that they are clever and ambitious. There is nothing wrong with being ambitious. Whereas hufflepuffs are perfectly able to be intelligent or brave, they just happen to be incredibly loyal and hard working. the same goes for slytherin. I think those two houses don’t have the best reputations all because of untrue generalisations. That is sad.
Well spoken. I don’t know why people would like to win or getting acknowledged through cheating, there can be no satisfaction in that – on an internet game or in real life. Some cheating people seem to think they are really smart-a** when they retort to comments like “what do you care, it’s only a game” or something. Well, if it’s “only” a game, why even cheat to gain victory if it’s not even feels important in that sense… gosh. Cheaters… I’m never gonna get it.
well, I’ve never cheated on pottermore (well, unless you count having 2 accounts, 1 personal, and 1 to share with others, since I want to keep it separate, or getting to chapters which aren’t actually open yet, and also can’t see the moment, just black screens, which was mainly out of accident and curiosity),
but I have cheated on other things, and it’s not necessarily winning, but more feeling you get when you can beat the system, or in some cases, finding a way around something which you couldn’t get done by the normal ways!
and by the way, both of those accounts are in the same house, so arguing that it could be used for housepoint fraud is not relevant
I understand what you mean about getting through to information you couldn’t get in a normal way, I’m all for that everyone should be able to access the same information… though, beating the system for the sake that it’s either easier or something than the way it’s meant to be done (when it’s not impossible that is) gives me a certain feeling of discomfort – even if it’s not me doing it, knowing that others does it is enough.
It’s very nice that you’re honest about cheating and the reasons you have to do it.
well, it’s mainly in the past that I cheated on things, I don’t do it a lot more, and I feel that talking about it is better than keeping it to myself, since it makes me also more able to go on with my life
and I stumbled upon the glitch of getting to chapter 5 (and further) on accident, when I was curious what would happen if I would simply change the link
the link is build up in this way: http://www.pottermore.com/en/book#/chapter#/moment# where the # should be replaced by the numbers of the books, chapters and moments, the beginning of a chapter is http://www.pottermore.com/en/book#/chapter#, and the ending of it is: http://www.pottermore.com/en/book#/chapter#/end,
so I tried going to http://www.pottermore.com/en/book2/chapter5, which didn’t work, but when I went to http://www.pottermore.com/en/book2/chapter5/moment1, I could access it (though I would get a black loading screen, and couldn’t see anything) then I could move back to the beginning of the chapter, or moment 2, and when I reached the end of chapter 5, I could simply use the same trick to get to all the other chapters of CoS, anyone could do it, and I don’t really see it as cheating, because it’s just taking advantage of a glitch, I mean, glitches usually cause problems, so if you find a glitch which is in your advantage, I say use it, to make up for the times glitches caused you problems
the only new info (which isn’t in the books already) are the titles of the moments, and it’s fun to add an unopened chapter to your favourites
on my private account, I went all the way to the end, where I found some others (at that point only slytherins, later also other houses arrived) and we had a nice little conversation!
This may or may not be why people reported seeing my user icon hanging out on chapter 7 for a couple days.
I just hate the “it’s boring the way it is” excuse for cheating at dueling. I would be glad to send them an engraved invitation to just stop dueling altogether should they be so bored by it.
Well said Elm!! Puff here and proud of our house,and shame to those that chose to cheat!
Shame indeed. We stand together. Not just against cheating, but against the descrimination a house faces when a cheater is found among them. We will beat this yet.
Thanks for posting this, Elm. Hopefully PM does something to prevent dueling bots from succeeding in the near future (and bans obvious offenders in the process).
The trolling is perhaps a more difficult problem to tackle. Trolls should not be fed, of course, but what has most diminished my enjoyment of PM is that I have very often had completely innocuous comments in the common room reported (though they were all approved hours later), and I know that many others have as well. Does anyone know whether PM suspends users who repeatedly report comments baselessly?
This is a good and valid question that unfortunately I do not know the answer to. It would be nice to think that when moderation receives a reported comment that should not have been reported that they make note of the user making the report to begin with.
Most of the time though, the person doing the reporting is a troll. Many of which are probably long banned by the time the comment in question is approved hours later. But I would love to know myself if they even care about “habitual reporters”.
I don’t understand why would anyone cheat on pottermore, I mean, I’m so proud of my points (just a few hundreds) that the bot thing just sound booooring, yeah you can fool the system, so what? I’m having so much fun!
That’s the spirit! I enjoy playing it as it is as well. Which is why I stand together with all others willing to play fair, and enjoy Pottermore.
Huh. So SnitchSpirit was cheating. Ironic how he’s a Hufflepuff.
I thought it was weird. He would have needed to win two hundred duels every day to get that many points in duels…
It would be just as easy to make a bot for potion-making. Unfortunately I don’t think there’s any captcha in that.
To be honest, if one would rather a computer play the game for them they could probably program it to do everything. Collect ingredients. Brew potions. I know SS has already programmed one to chuck gnomes for him. But what is the fun in any of that?
really? a bot for de-gnoming? you can’t even earn points with that, right?!
Hahaha. No points. Here’s a screen shot –> http://twitter.com/SnitchSpirit168/status/223656641663479809/photo/1
o.O wow, there is really something wrong with him/her
Hi Elm… I’m strongly against cheating too.
The comment you just made about SS creating a bot for gnome-throwing, though, gives me some insight into what his motivation might be. The gnome game gets you 1 point 1 time and has no leaderboard, so there’s no real glory in it on Pottermore. But in the programming/hacking community, there could be some glory in creating those bots. I’m guessing that he’s trying to create buzz in order to market his skillz – either for economic gain down the road or perhaps just for the lulz. BTW, I actually dueled SS today in an open duel. It was a tie… and I hadn’t warmed up yet so it was just a 142. Not very formidable, I must say. I was quite disappointed. It was nothing like having SpiritIce (also Hufflepuff) cast nothing but 145s against me! LOL.
As for the people who are trying to hand you points… I have a policy of responding to all challenges. I also duel statistically (i.e., by a specific number of 143+ duels per session), so I don’t really open a lot of my results to see what other people are casting. But if I DO see someone challenge me and give me Fire-Making spell or some other low-potency spell or do a Body Bind at 0 points, I respond to the challenge the first time as if it’s an honest challenge by a newbie and cast Body Bind. But then after that, I will just throw back the low-potency spell the user is using (or Fire-Making if it’s a 0 points person). That always puts an end to challenges right there.
BTW, for the person who made the comment about 200 wins… 200 wins is not that difficult for an experienced dueler who averages 143+ potency. Many people who duel at that level can win 200 duels (i.e., 1000 points) – honestly – in 2-3 hours.
I must have missed the comment about 200 wins, but I can throw out 200 duels fairly quickly. As to whether I win them all depends on how warmed up I am. On my best day I earned 3500 which is 700 won duels (and who knows how many LOST duels that day, towards the end I was sleep deprived and was probably just bleeding points to Ravenclaw, the house I duel most).
I do not however answer all dueling challenges, mainly because of how I duel which is a constant stream of open duels going out and hardly ever checking the main dueling screen or results. Because I do it this way I can earn points faster but sometimes Duel Challenges get buried under results and can’t be dug out. I do my best though to get them out of there since I know I get duel challenges from readers here as well as from people re-matching me.
I too get a bit of his technical curiosity and it would have been fine had it stayed at doing it for curiosities sake. But after curiosity led to a successful program and he set up the successful program to run 24 hours a day racking up points my understanding of the situation starts to fall out from under me. He can chuck as many gnomes as he wants though.
Elm, not everyone who get’s a 0 (or near 0) on duelling is a cheater, a little while ago, I was duelling (just before the housecup) and at somemoment, there was a glitch which resulted in me losing with a score of 0 (or nearly 0) while duelling, I couldn’t click properly, or even couldn’t do anything, since it just ended before I could even choose a spell
I am aware that the occasional 0 happens. I have thrown them myself. But if a user throws a 0 then rematches with another 0 chances are they are throwing duels on purpose.
ok, just wanted to make sure, you knew that, I hate it when people think I’m cheating when I’m not
by the way, great post!
I think I will post the link to it on the official pottermore facebook page and on my own pottermore facebook page!
I have often wondered what someone on the other end of one of my accidental zeroes things. Especially if they also look at my point total in conjunction with it. And yes, spread the word! Lets get everyone to stand together against this. If there was ever a time for house unity it is now.
Well said, Elm. Thank you for speaking up.
<3
Thank you, Elm. Well done. I too don’t engage the trolls I just report them and have been impressed at how quickly their posts have been removed. I stand with you and thank you for speaking up.
Thank you for your support!
Excellent post, Elm! Some people think they are entitled to cheat, just because they can. Remember what Dumbledore, that wise character from the books that brought all of us together, said: “We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy”. It may sound silly to apply this to a game, but honestly? It’s even more pathetic to go to all that trouble to cheat on a game that won’t give you any rewards. The best part about my Pottermore experience wasn’t earning points or being on the leaderboard: it was meeting so many wonderful people from all 4 houses. I wonder what the cheaters have earned…. Screencaps?
Perhaps they were hoping for infamy, SS certainly is gaining that if it was what he was after.
Well said, Elm. Pottermore was meant to allow people to relive the Harry Potter experience as a student in Hogwarts, not to create some program that would do it all for you. Cheating spoils the fun in earning house points.
Thank you, and spread the word. We stand together.
Well said, Elm. I’m really proud of you for having bravely spoken out
Some of these people are so shameless that they feel proud of their actions. I’m glad you have named and shamed SnitchSpirit168. Yes, it is just a game at the end of the day, but cheating only spoils the experience of those people who are genuinely passionate about the whole experience of being involved in Pottermore. By cheating, these people are only making a mockery of themselves. If they really find dueling to be so boring, the ‘Delete Account’ button is always there. Also, imagine the nerve of some of these cheaters when they actually try to justify their actions.
But I have a question – It was only when SnitchSpirit openly and honestly talked about his cheating (on Twitter and on Pottermore itself) that we came to know that he did indeed cheat. But there may be some other people who cheat as well, but without making any kind of noise at all (they will never openly admit to cheating). How do we detect such people, and actually prove that they indeed cheat?
BEFORE SnitchSpirit was open and honest about it, many of us knew he was cheating. His point trajectory was way off. He was rising at an unnatural rate and was never off line. We started by tracking his online/offline status and total points, creating a graph of point gain that showed him offline very rarely, and only for a few seconds at the time. Now we know the few seconds here or there where he was offline was because his program was logging him off to get around CAPTCHA.
It is not an easy judgement to make, that is why I encourage enlisting help in tracking information on the user before jumping to conclusions. I myself can pull 3500 points in a day which could look suspicious, when really I just had way too much free time that day. SS on the other hand was pulling 12,000 and up a day which would require more hours online than a normal person was awake in a day. Which raised a myriad of red flags once we started putting data together.
Thanks for your reply. I’m relatively new to PM, I had no clue that he had raised suspicions even before his open admission (sure, anyone can accumulate lots of points if they have the time, but how many people actually pay close attention to what is going on, right??). In fact, it was only through your tweets that I came to know about his open admission. Hope this article will deter others from cheating if they’re still doing it.
Just so you know many of us in the Hufflepuff common room thought Snitch Spirit was a team of people working together around the clock dueling and brewing to gain those points. While technically this would also be a form of cheating it is nothing compared to what we now know for a fact he (and others) are doing.
Teams using the same account is a hazy area of cheating. It is cheating in the sense that the account has double the points it should however the points were earned by people legitimately dueling others and not using a bot.
Cheating at Pottermore? How sad.
It is quite sad and I hope that together we can force Pottermore to do something about it.