Gamers Help Scientists Discover New Planets

[Cowabungaa]

Crowdsourcing, gotta love it.

Shame they're out of data already. Come on Keppler, the big human science machine needs moar dataz!

Ok. While planet hunting, Play the track "Uncharted Worlds" from the Mass Effect 1 soundtrack.

That's so awesome.

 

[WilliamRLBaker]

I went and signed up...and had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do...

 

[ph0b0s123]

Sorry to rain on the parade, but after having a go on this, I think it is more a victory for crowd sourcing than gaming skill. All they are doing is asking 100's of people to look at the same plot of data to see if they can see anything. Only plot that get a lot of votes are looked at by the researchers further.

This is not gameification....

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

Sorry to rain on the parade, but after having a go on this, I think it is more a victory for crowd sourcing than gaming skill. All they are doing is asking 100's of people to look at the same plot of data to see if they can see anything. Only plot that get a lot of votes are looked at by the researchers further.

This is not gameification....

BUT, it DOESN'T make us gamers bad guys, unlike soooooooo much other news and such, so I'm not against the credit it gives us, even if it isn't deserved.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Sorry to rain on the parade, but after having a go on this, I think it is more a victory for crowd sourcing than gaming skill. All they are doing is asking 100's of people to look at the same plot of data to see if they can see anything. Only plot that get a lot of votes are looked at by the researchers further.

This is not gameification....

BUT, it DOESN'T make us gamers bad guys, unlike soooooooo much other news and such, so I'm not against the credit it gives us, even if it isn't deserved.

I am saying that lets not start claiming credit for everything just to trying and counter points these stupid detractors. It devalues the message.

In this case I would not be jumping up and down about gaming saving the day here as the system is using crowd sourcing rather than gaming skills. The web site is more like taking part in a 0n-line survey rather than playing a game.

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

Sorry to rain on the parade, but after having a go on this, I think it is more a victory for crowd sourcing than gaming skill. All they are doing is asking 100's of people to look at the same plot of data to see if they can see anything. Only plot that get a lot of votes are looked at by the researchers further.

This is not gameification....

BUT, it DOESN'T make us gamers bad guys, unlike soooooooo much other news and such, so I'm not against the credit it gives us, even if it isn't deserved.

I am saying that lets not start claiming credit for everything just to trying and counter points these stupid detractors. It devalues the message.

In this case I would not be jumping up and down about gaming saving the day here as the system is using crowd sourcing rather than gaming skills. The web site is more like taking part in a 0n-line survey rather than playing a game.

I'm not suggesting we claim credit ANYWHERE, just saying it's better than the "LOOOK MURDER SIMULATIONS ARE KILLING US ALL!" crap that happens to be everywhere whenever a gamer so much as farts in the same neighbourhood as someone who goes on a rampage and kills people.
Cuz we don't claim credit there either, it's just... better to see something we aren't doing that's good being spotlighted and miscredited in our favour as opposed to something that's bad... as is usually the case... so I agree with you, and also am a little happy about this article, if even just a little happy.

 

[raankh]

Although, calling Planet Hunters a game is reaally stretching it. There isn't any gameplay, just science.

Are we really that desperate for positive news related to gaming in the general media?

 

[gigastrike]

Hey, Jack Thompson! Gamers have cured AIDS (ok, not really) and discovered two new planets! What have you done with your life?

 

[Ickabod]

"This was a triumph."

"I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS."

"It's hard to overstate my satisfaction."

 

[Alduin Silas]

So, in theory, my playing Unreal Tournament with a weaponlord mod could mean advances in the field of advanced dairy projectiles (Cheese gun). I'm all for gaming then!

 

[Spud of Doom]

Gamifying research knows what's up. So good for the industry/culture of it all IMO. It started with slactivism in the form of folding and now people are actually wasting their time on something worthwhile. Is this stuff good enough to count as volunteer work? I think it should be.

 

[AngryFrenchCanadian]

News Flash: Brain beats computer at processing complicated patterns, more after the break.

Seriously, why haven't we started doing this kind of thing 10 years ago. We'd have invented Warp Travel by now if it was the case.

 

[Sovvolf]

Well its not so much that its gamers really. Just, if you put a big program like that out to a large crowd of people, your going to get thousands of people with a fresh perspective looking at your work and your going to get much better results.

They should use it for military work .

 

[orangeapples]

So why do we keep sending money to scientists if gamers are willing to do it for free? Do the gamers who make these discoveries even get anything back?

I mean, it isn't our fault we're good at looking at fine details because we're always trying to glitch games or being really good at solving puzzles. Society built us that way.

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

Now if only gamers could be a bit less rigid in their defence of gaming. Being helpful is cool, but being fanatical drowns it out.

I mean, I can already see "grargh, Fox News, look how wrong you are" comments, lending a distinctly negative edge to what ought to be a positive event.

Basically, haters gonna hate.

 

[Scow2]

I don't think it has anything to do with gamers. All this is doing is appealing to the nerd within us, and then convincing us to do minimum wage menial tasks for them. Sure its for a good cause. But these discoveries could have just as easily happened by paying a Chinese gold farming sweatshop $100 and have them go over a month or 2 of data.

Not quite true, unless I'm underestimating the skill of Chinese Gold Farmers.

Programs like these benefit from the strong pattern-recognition and strong visual reflex/acuity that gamers have developed that most don't have... Especially PC players, who have to have incredible visual acuity in order to notice and complain when their framerate drops beneath 60frames-per-second. Being able to distinguish near-microscopic detail against relatively large backdrops is also a critical skill developed by gamers.

Scientists are needed to enable the recording machines to be created, and to set down the parameters to problem-solving. Gaming is just muscle-work. And it's been known for a while that we consider points on a leaderboard to be considered viable currency.

 

[Unesh52]

As a physics/astronomy student and a gamer, I deem this officially math as fuck.

Scientists constantly are looking into space, the Government usually lending millions of dollars into companies like NASA...

Don't forget that it's "companies" (not a company) "like NASA" that you know, built Kepler in the first place, and are going to be doing the rest of the analysis to figure out what we can about these new planets. And though "millions of dollars" is probably accurate, at least for the science budget as a whole, the fact of the matter is that that's a pitiful amount of money to be putting into theoretical research. Just wanted to make that point.

That being said, I couldn't be happier about this. People working together to do science. It's... *single tear* beautiful. I want to get in on this. Where do I sign up?

EDIT: I just realized I know you from pony chat. Hi Caramel!

 

[Discord]

That's cool, I imagne if they expanded a game like "StopDisaters" Gamers could create some ultimate defense against disasters (Maybe not possible but it's fun to dream).

Link -
http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/en/home.html

Also anyone get the urge to watch The Last Starfighter???

I sure did