$50 encryption policy contest

$50 www Contest

I will pay $50 to the best www page created by 12noon EST, February
15, 1998, meeting the enclosed specifications.  In short, the page
must have a form through which anyone may enter a question, which will
be automatically entered onto a list of submitted questions displayed
on another page.  I will use the winning entry to collect questions
for the upcoming March 6 talk on encryption policy by Barry Smith
(FBI).

How to enter:
email a url of your entry to sherman@cs.umbc.edu
include the phrase "Barry Smith Contest Entry" in the subject header.
All URL's for all entries will be listed from
http://www.cs.umbc.edu/events/spring98/crypto2.shtml

Rules:
1. The page must work from the CMSC computing environment, but
     initial judging will take place on the designer's server.
2. Anyone in the world may enter.
3. If no one submits an adequate entry by February 15, 
      a $20 prize will be awarded
      to the best entry that meets a restricted set of specifications.
      In this case, the contest will be extended for one more week,
      with a reduced prize of $30 for the best full entry received
      by 12noon EST, February 22, 1998.
4. Entries will be judged on the basis of satisfying the specifications,
   robustness, creativity, ease of use, and visual appeal.
5. Group work is allowed and encouraged.
6. I will be the sole final judge of the winner.

Specifications:

A. $20 Restricted Specifications

 1. The form must include entries for a restricted-length
    question (at most 500 ascii characters), an email address,
    and optionally a name.

 2. The form must include a submit button, which when clicked,
    will automatically append the question to a list of questions 
    on a separate www page.  Each displayed question must include
    the author's email and name (if provided).

B. $50 Full Specifications

In addition to the $20 specifications, the forum must also
meet the following sp[ecifications:

 3. (**important**) The page of submitted questions must have a means
    by which anyone can score the quality of the question on a scale
    of 1 to 5 (say, by clicking on the appropriate score button), with
    5 being the highest score.  For each question, its median score
    must be displayed.  Questions must be listed in order of
    decreasing median scores.  

 4. The form must have an entry for optional URLs.  These URLs must
    be posted with the question in such a way that they are active.

 5. There must be an entry for sender status (selection from
    a list of options, such as cypherpunk, NSA employee, 
    UMBC student, other student, government employee, faculty,
    industrial engineer, ...)

 6. (optional) For each question, also list the number of votes entered
    for each score in addition to the median score.

 7. (optional) Reject any question containing a vulgar word.

 8. (optional) Feel free to add other appropriate constructive
    functionality.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

An entity claiming to be Dr. Alan Sherman wrote:
: 
:  3. (**important**) The page of submitted questions must have a means
:     by which anyone can score the quality of the question on a scale
:     of 1 to 5 (say, by clicking on the appropriate score button), with
:     5 being the highest score.  For each question, its median score
:     must be displayed.  Questions must be listed in order of
:     decreasing median scores.  
: 

I'm amused by how this requirement was thrown in.  Never even mentioned
in the overview.

So, what you're looking for is some kid who will work for peanuts writing
some CGI scripts for you.  This comes off as an insult.

Mark

- -- 
[] Mark Rogaski                   "That which does not kill me
[] wendigo@pobox.com                 only makes me stranger."
[]
[]      finger wendigo@deathstar.jabberwock.org for PGP key
[] anti spambot: postmaster@localhost abuse@localhost uce@ftc.gov

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