The Red Barron Flies No More

[Otto Puzzell]

Dear AutoPuzzles members,

Recently, it was discovered that a "new" AutoPuzzles member, with the user name of "Red Barron", was accessing this website via the same IP address as longtime member João. Suspicions were raised within the admin community about why this would be happening. We contacted João and asked him if he was playing as both a Rookie and at the higher ranking his previous participation had allowed. And, if that was the case, he was told, he would have to either opt to forfiet either the points awarded to "Red Barron", or those awarded to João. 

He chose the former.

The "Red Barron" account has been disabled, but will not be removed from the system.

This whole embarrassing episode should be a an important lesson to anyone participating in our puzzles. For a highly skilled non-rookie to launch a second account, to one again participate as a Rookie, is wrong. It denies actual rookies the opportunity to earn points as our more senior members did, and that is very unfair. There are a great number of puzzles available to Pro-level players, so there is no need to cheat Rookies of their section of the puzzles. 

Should any other member be playing a similar dual-membership charade, you can chose to come clean now, and we will adjust you points as has been done with João. If you don't, and we find out, may the admins have mercy on you.

You have been warned.

Sincerely,

The AutoPuzzles admin staff.

[Allan L]

Whilst I wouldn't want to be thought to approve of the subterfuge, as I and others have said on another thread if you've been here a while and have answered at a reasonable rate you are banished to the "professional" status. As I've said before, just because you can answer upwards of 200 puzzles, doesn't make you any more knowlegable about (or interested in) the minutiae of Japanese concept cars or Korean versions of Egyptian licence-built Estonian military personnel-carriers.

It must be quite tempting to rejoin in ones wife's name (so to speak).

We can't "unsolve" our Red Baron puzzles, can we?

[Carnut]

We can't "unsolve" our Red Baron puzzles, can we?

I've had several puzzles that I thought were good ones, and quite hard, solved by 'The Red Baron' (who I thought must be incredibly well-informed) and I feel they have been wasted as they were only on the Rookie site for a matter of minutes.

I know it's satisfying to solve puzzles and get points but is that really all it's about?

[Paul Jaray]

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who is deeply disappointed about that.
I was waiting for Allan's puzzle, I spent a lot of time looking for some details about the cars and I had my reply ready for further posting.
I have 40\50 solved puzzles in my PC, waiting for promotion and I know that only a small part of them will reach the Pro board, but that's a game.
I'm not happy about that.

[Otto Puzzell]

Of course you're not the only disappointed party.

As João quickly admitted his error, and as he has been electronically pilloried, we can use this as a "lessons learned" exercise, and, hopefully, this discussion of his mistake will be a guidepost to others. 

I expect João will stay on the straight and narrow, going forward. 

[Arunas]

A way when rookie has to reach a pro rank is hard an challenging. I'd love to repeat that again if I could, but this is really unfair and yes, some puzzles have been wasted indeed...

[Carnut]

Yes, my NEH 90 (Austin Sports Car) and 106 (Gustav Weiner's Flip-Car) would, I think, have taken quite a bit of solving.
Also NEH 96 (Alart Coupe) which would certainly have reached the Experts at least, not to mention the Kurtis-Omohundra, which was generating quite a bit of discussion!

All wasted as they died from under-exposure.

When so many of mine were solved by The Red Baron in such a short time I had in fact already decided not to post any more puzzles until he was promoted to Expert level.  At least I can now resume..

I'm really surprised and disapointed with Joao, who I have always respected through his Coachbuild connection.

[Ultra]

Mistakes happen. Let's not let this one happen again.

Onwards and upwards!

[João]

Sorry guys,I´m really ashamed and as the youngest here ( I believe) I still have to learn an entire world ,I learnt the lesson and i´ll never do it again,Carnut,Otto and others my big apologizes

[Otto Puzzell]

Apology accepted.

Let's put this behind us.

[Ultra]

Apology accepted.

Let's put this behind us.

'xactly!!!!

[metalshapes]

Sorry guys,I´m really ashamed and as the youngest here ( I believe) I still have to learn an entire world ,I learnt the lesson and i´ll never do it again,Carnut,Otto and others my big apologizes

To be honest, from seeing how fast and how many Puzzles you have been able to solve, I was hugely impressed.


But it seems to me, that you missed the point of the game when you created the other account.


And going by which account you chose to be frozen, you might still be....



Its the conversation, man...

Likeminded people talking about obscure cars.

The Points are a ( welcome ) by-product...

[TheItalianJunkyard]

If there is something I understood since the beginning of my (so far) short time here is that you are not acting differently with new members and few-points users, which is often unusual on other forums unfortunately.
I highly appreciated the way Paul Jaray and I started talking about his list, didn't expect that as one could be a bit jealous of such a tough earned work.

Often new members are supposed to know everything that was written and talked about in the previous time in that forum, which kind of pointless, not only because you don't have to read the whole forum before of joining it, and also because you must start from somewhere.
That said, even if I respect those with an high rating as it's a sign the do know their stuff in most cases, and I know I can learn from them.
So, I don't really see why to have a new account to solve puzzles you already demonstrated to be capable of, like playing a videogame again but with all the abilities and weapons you gained in the last level...of course you'll win!

So, good to see João understood this, no harm, no foul.
It doesn't matter how points you have, what matters is what YOU/WE can share with all of us