Talk:FreeRice

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Well, I'll be the first to point out the obvious fact that the Glitch paragraph is not written at all encyclopedically, and probably doesn't belong here in the first place. However, since it seems to be making an attempt at fixing the glitch problem, I wouldn't erase it myself unless I knew it had been fixed. If there doesn't seem to be any other good solution, I think I would recommend sending an email to the advertising address (advertise@freerice.info) to see if it might get to the appropriate people. Gary 03:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] To add to the article?: Scripts

Since FreeRice became well-known through Digg and other news sources, many programming-adept users created scripts to automatically play the game for them. The scripts operate far faster than humans alone and run for 24 hours a day. At first, the scripts got only ~1/4 of the words correct by random chance. Eventually, these bots were adapted with dictionary files and word database dumps so the programs can choose the correct answers the first time more often. The word database dumps were created so when the incorrect answer was chosen, the bots would record the correct answer the next page would show. Thus, the bot would choose the correct answer whenever it happened upon the same words later. Due to the growing number of scripts used on FreeRice, the number of rice donated has remarkably risen.

Currently there are no rules governing "ricebots" as they are called. Therefore, until those rules are formed, anyone is free to program and use the scripts that will each literally feed over 10,000 starving people per day!

However, I need to find a credible source to back this up. On Google, if I search for "free rice script," discussions and downloads of them are found in many places. But I have reason to believe they're not strong enough to be called a "source." Or maybe they are? Can you help on this one? --Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 11:23, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know that it ought to be so positive, because I would think that's a bad thing. The more that goes on, the less advertisers will want to waste their money showing their ads to robots, and the less effective the site will be. The way to make a site like this effective for the long term is simply to get more people to use it, not to manipulate it. Gary 15:36, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Many negative facts about subjects are posted on many articles. Not every article on Wikipedia needs to be 100% positive. --Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 22:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
No, I mean the problem is that I think it's a negative fact being portrayed positively. Gary 14:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
I've left this in for now, but that part of the article is based on DIGG and on the blog where the script was posted, which are not reliable sources. The information is inherently unreliable - you can't go to a site and do your own analysis and speculation based on things, and expect that to be very accurate. The claim that they are called "ricebots" by any but a few people writing scripts is dubious. That term does not google. It's better to sit back for a few days or weeks and then get some proper information and sources than to put in fast breaking information only to find that it's premature or wrong. Incidentally, if you try to guess words at more than 1/2 second or so each, it tells you that it can't process so quickly. That may be a first attempt at evading the bots. Wikidemo 06:02, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the entry seems to promote "ricebots" in a positive light, while Greatdebtor correctly pointed out that they may spell the end of this site if they become a major factor.--Stew Stryker (talk) 22:32, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
It should be included in the article, yet if it is going to advertise the ricebots positively, it should be kicked out, because as Greatdebtor pointed out, this could hurt the website through the advertisers who support it.

if you use "rice bots" to do your game for you it will not benifit you. in order to keep a site like this running more words (correct and incorect) need to be submitted by real people then by "rice bots". so using "rice bots only adds to the chance that freerice will become a site that no compony would want to waste their money to get no results. so the use of "rice bots" is not a good thing". read the sub article "score higher" to learn more.

[edit] Deorphaned

I successfully deorphaned this page by linking a few pages to it. All the sponsors, and some articles on hunger, rice, vocabulary, etc. now have links to FreeRice. Click the "what links here" link in the toolbox to find out exactly what. I tried hard to only link appropriately, so that people won't delete the link from those articles. All in all, I linked about 8 articles to this one, which passes Wikipedia's standards of a non-orphaned page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.140.63.210 (talk) 04:44, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.171.49 (talk) 01:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Beefing up this article

Now all we have to do is add some more info to have a great article. I think we should add information on the level placement...there was a paragraph I wrote on the starting article on level placement, so I will try to recall it. A graph of the amount of rice donated per day would be awesome (and labor intensive). I'm still trying to get the article on "food" to link to here. It's locked right now, so I just wrote about it on the comments page, asking if I could get FreeRice on the page somehow. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adbelliveau (talk • contribs) 04:51, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] how many grains=one meal??

Is there any information regarding effectiveness of this campaign? Leotolstoy 17:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The BBC article said that the program had made enough money to feed 50,000 people for one day (three meals?). So all you'd have to do is find out when the article was written, find out how much rice had been raised so far on that day, and divide that number by 150,000. That would be the rice necessary for one meal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.140.63.210 (talk) 20:24, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I just got 7963. It takes that many grains of rice for one meal...Maybe the BBC article hasn't updated the figures in a while, but it did say that it was last edited on November 10. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.140.63.210 (talk) 20:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I eliminated the calculations and went with the BBC numbers. Doing your own calculations as part of an article is considered original research and not permitted. They rest on enough assumptions and generalizations that it's not surprising the total would be off by a factor of 2.Wikidemo 05:58, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

100 grams of uncooked rice = 330 calories. One grain of rice weighs about 20-30mg. So you need about 8000 x 25mg grains of rice to get 660 calories (200g). You need a minimum of 80 clicks to get 8000 grains of rice. 200g of rice costs about USD0.10 assuming 1000kg of rice is about USD500. So 80 correct clicks just donates about US 10 cents. Conclusion: if you really want to help the poor you might as well do something else. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.75.240.2 (talk) 07:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

No one is under any illusions that playing this game will help more than making a donation of any amount of money. The value of the game is that people can donate rice at no cost to themselves, and they're likely to do so because the game is challenging and improves their vocabulary. Obviously 10 grains of rice per correct answer doesn't go very far, but most people in the world have never donated even 1 grain of rice before. DOSGuy 09:28, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Its not so much the amount of money raised that matters but the amount of grains donated using the collected money - (even though 17.8 clicks (in 202.75.240.2's calculations) equal less than a us penny it provides funding for enough food (in my calculations) to feed a single person for a day (close to but not exactly 1351 grains of rice)) the money is just used to buy and pay for the rice even a very small amount of money like a us Penney provides a lot of rice in the FreeRice program.--Fang 23 (talk) 01:55, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Just a thought- if you get 10 grains per click, would you need 800 correct clicks, not 80, to get 8000 grains of rice? So, in essence, 202.75.240.2's number would more correctly read that 80 clicks would equal about a US penny. This doesn't aid the cause of FreeRice any, nor does it count for anything per WP:OR, but it just bugged me, I guess. MToolen (talk) 17:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Update: 20 grains of rice per correct click --Chinese3126 (talk) 02:49, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I found out that you need roughly 1351.408 grains of rice to feed one person for a day (i don’t think i can include this in the article because this is Original reaserch) i took the number of grains donated during the whole history of the project prior to 18 January 2008 when this movie was made and divided it by 700,000 - which is the number of people (according to this movie) that have been fed one days meal by free rice and concluded that each person was fed a ration of roughly 1351.408 grains of rice.--Fang 23 (talk) 01:41, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The advertisers aren't really donors

10 grains of rice are donated for every correct answer. In exchange for advertisements on the website, various corporations such as Apple Inc., Toshiba, Fujitsu, Reader's Digest, Liz Claiborne, Radisson, Macy's, iTunes, American Express, Time Life, and Office Depot donate the money necessary to pay for the rice and other costs to run FreeRice.

This doesn't appear to be true. If you hover your mouse over one of the logos, you'll see that they are Linkshare affiliate links. It appears that FreeRice gets money when people purchase something after clicking one of the ads, and they presumably honor their promise to donate 10 grains of rice per correct answer with the commissions they receive. Apple, Toshiba, etc, probably were not consulted, and have no formal participation in this project. It doesn't appear to be true that the advertisers are donating any money. They're simply paying a commission for whatever sales FreeRice drives their way. DOSGuy 12:48, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

DOSGuy, that doesn't seem to be true. LinkShare seems to act as the 'counter' for the advertisements, but there is no proof that you have to buy something to make that difference. In fact, all click+donate sites seem to work this way. Of course, you can imagine it is impossible for the companies such as apple and time to monitor the real time results of their advertising, to they get linkshare to do it.

Abhishekbh 06:07, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

You might be right, but I'd like some clarification from either FreeRice or one of the advertisers. The discussions that I've been following on Digg seem to be quite convinced that the links produce commissions for sales. I don't really see why Apple should need LinkShare to count clicks for them. DOSGuy 10:43, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

This says that $16 will buy a 25 kilo bag of rice. Thissays "There are an average of 36,590 rice grains in a Kilogram" So 25x36,590=914,750 Free rice's all time total 24,368,260,390/914,750 grains of rice per $16 dollar bag you get 26,639.2571 bags times 16 dollars a bag = $426,228.1136 Of course the grams of rice in a 25 kilo bag is off but how do they figure it out? I think I made my calculations correctly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.125.134.149 (talk) 05:41, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Picture worth a thousand words?

Perhaps it would be interesting to see a chart of how many grains were donated each day - that would be more informative and compact than the current prose (though we should probably leave in one statement each of the daily and cumulative total). Does anyone want to do that (sorry but I'm not good at making graphics)? Don't worry too much about WP:OR - I think making a chart out of cited numbers is fine. Wikidemo (talk) 23:17, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Legitimate charity?

I've heard that thehungersite.com really works. Does that mean that there is a chance that this site does?

-Landhermie ( not signed in)

Given that this site is not a registered charity...? Rklawton (talk) 22:13, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this article is far from encyclopedic, however it plays an important role as the viral nature of this site is creating a need to find a source to verify its credibility (or lack thereof). I'm looking into this today and will edit as necessary if I find anything verifiable. Mahalie (talk) 19:44, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

It works, it's real. Check out [1] from the World Food Programme website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smartyllama (talk • contribs) 00:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
That's correct. Freerice is listed on the WFP website. Jason2gs (talk) 02:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Totals

The article contains a link to daily totals. I'm not sure we need a paragraph with the same information - a paragraph that will need near daily updating. Rklawton (talk) 18:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How exactly does it work?

I toyed around with the site before. But I'm confused: how does the rice actually get to the hungry people? Is there any way to tell where your contributions go? Dark Executioner (talk) 17:39, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Dark Executioner

From what I understand, revenue from the ads on the bottom of the page (be it simply from viewing them, from clicking on them, or commission from any purchases made by clicking on them) is donated to a United Nations fund that buys rice for hungry people. MToolen (talk) 23:48, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
How exactly the money gets to the UN isn't clear, but the World Food Programme at least acknowledges a relationship to FreeRice. DOSGuy (talk) 00:42, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
One article I read stated that the site's owner has cut the WFP a $100,000 check. I think that bit is already in the article with the source. One issue, though, is that the site is not part of a registered charity. Rklawton (talk) 00:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't really have to be a registered charity since it isn't soliciting donations from visitors. I don't know where FreeRice gets the money from (whether it's from per-click donations from the advertisers, or commissions from sales generated by the ad links), but the important thing is that the real charity, WFP, is actually getting the money to buy the rice. DOSGuy (talk) 02:05, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] editing?

Why can't I edit this article? Is it protected somehow? I can edit others just fine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.194.176.5 (talk) 22:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] End of the game

This article can't be edited. Please can someone add the last message of encouragement ? It's "You have donated 100000 grains of rice. May you have a lifetime of happiness..." and then if you go on, the donation comes back at 0 grain. Moreover the corporations that give money have changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.30.172.202 (talk) 13:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FreeRice userboxes

{{User FreeRice}} gives:

This user likes to learn free vocabulary & give free rice.




{{User FreeRiceVocab|45}} gives:

This user's best FreeRice vocabulary level is 45.




The image is ineligible for copyright, so it should be OK to use in a userbox. - Gobeirne (talk) 02:29, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why isn't it a good idea to add the following to the article?

I wasn't able to find a valid reason why the above should be excluded. Unless/until I can find the reason somehow (and that is compelling enough), I'll assume something is being made up. --75.18.13.150 (talk) 11:09, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The text was removed per OTRS action. If you want more information, you can ask Krimpet, the user who removed it; it's possible that the information will not be freely given out, though. Please do not restore this content without OTRS approval. – Luna Santin (talk) 11:12, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia must have over 50 million pages. How are you onto me in 3 minutes? Do you use some kind of bot to follow me around? Because if anyone does, I wouldn't appreciate it. The police don't program flying surveillance cameras to hover over everybody's heads, and that would feel rather Orwellian if any police agency were to ever do that. There would be a huge outcry and outrage against this, and I'm sure you'd know why. --75.18.13.150 (talk) 12:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Nah, it's just a large edit (added a lot of text) -- those stick out like a sore thumb in recent changes. – Luna Santin (talk) 12:57, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, you wouldn't believe how many people are on Recent Edit patrol trying to earn points for an RfA. I tried patrolling, but no matter how fast I was, I always had an edit conflict when I tried to save my changes. If you make an edit that adds or removes a lot of characters, about a hundred people will be on it within 3 seconds. Plus, a lot of people are watching this article. Wikipedia isn't an Orwellian police state, but it is the world's largest Neighborhood Watch. DOSGuy (talk) 19:50, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Banners on the article

FreeRice of course gives permission to post these banners anywhere in an effort to link to their site. Therefore, there aren't any apparent restrictions. Could we upload those banners and place them on this article?

--Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 04:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Spoiler Warning

There's this spoiler on the front page, I don't like spoilers and I think that there should be a warning. I can't remember what the spoiler was because I bit myself hard, shook my head as hard as I could, and hyperventilated so I would forget the spoiler. --118.92.58.121 (talk) 03:56, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't give up the day job. 77.96.240.178 (talk) 13:08, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but Wikipedia's policy on spoiler warnings says otherwise. MToolen (talk) 16:11, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pruning Milestones

While the delete was reversed, I find some merit in getting rid of parts of the milestone section- how about every 5 or 10 billion instead of every billion? MToolen (talk) 17:41, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I guess I was supposed to go here first before making that edit (not very experienced with Wikipedia). I just thought it would make a bit more sense for the milestones to be at LEAST every 5 billion (although 10 would probably be better as a "milestone") instead of every 1 billion as it is now (which ends up with a milestone every 10 days which doesn't really make it a milestone). I realize it's not really that important but I just think that it would make it more worthwhile to add the updates that way and the list wouldn't grow too large and lose all recognition. Ttony21 (talk) 02:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
It hardly seems necessary to discuss something this obvious, but if consensus is needed, I vote to restore the edit and have "milestones" every 5 billion. The existing list isn't even complete. It looks ridiculous to see it jump from 10 billion to 13 billion, and then suddenly start being every billion. DOSGuy (talk) 03:44, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Does someone in particular need to give the consent? Ttony21 (talk) 20:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
No, the page isn't protected or anything. Someone felt that you should have gotten consensus before making that edit, and MToolen did the right thing by starting this section instead of starting a revert war. After 5 days I see no dissenters, so consensus has been reached. Edit with the community's blessing. DOSGuy (talk) 22:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Kk, Edit made :) Ttony21 (talk) 01:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] score higher

freeRice can improve your test scores on vocabulary sections on tests such as the IOWA, SAT, GRE, LSAT, and GMAT tests. when i was taking the SAT test (vocab section) i found a few words that I learnd when I was on freeRice. even though freeRice only gives 20 grains of rice for every word you get wright, it still is something that helps to blunt the effects of hunger and poverty.

[edit] Rice Crisis???

There is currently a rice crisis in the world because not enough rice is being produced. Is freerice.com contributing to this crisis? Is there a way to combat hunger without contributing to a world wide crisis? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.122.87.59 (talk) 16:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)