Countdown

[Anagnos]

3,567

[StardustSoldier]

3,566

[LeventeII]

I took the effort to search this and the "count to 2000" topic for mistakes.
Basically, the value of the number must decrease by 1 with each post. I found 2 types of errors on my search: Repetitions and increments.

Repetition means that someone did not reduce the number of the previous poster, but simply copied it. He copied it even though the number was meant to sink. This causes a mistake to occur which increases the final total by 1.

Increments occur when the poster does not decrease the previous number, but increases it. This increases the value of the total number by 2.

From time to time I came across something more complicated. Sometimes a poster counted up, increasing the number by 2.
The next one then tried to correct this value and counted down 2.
But this corrector overlooked that his post is also meant to count down. So to do it right, he would have to count down by 3.
With this, I would like to illustrate it:



In the following, I'm going to mention the number of the reply which did the mistake and the type of the mistake. Behind it I then describe how the final number was affected.

Reply #34, incremented, partly corrected, +1

Reply #49, incremented, +2

Reply #69, incremented, +2

Reply #415, incremented, partly corrected, +1

Reply #1710, repeated +1

Reply #2244, incremented, partly corrected, +1

Reply #2374, incremented, partly corrected, +1

Reply #2474, repeated, +1

Reply #2774, repeated, +1

Reply #2866, repeated, +1

Reply #2927, repeated, +1

Reply #3098, repeated, +1

Reply #3342, incremented, +2

Reply #4003, repeated, +1

Thus, we are 17 numbers above the actual value.
Now my question is, how do we move on?

If we continue without change, then my number is 3,565. If we would see my post as a correction, then my number would be 3,548.

Another way to find the correct number is to subtract the start number 10000 from the reply number. My reply would have the number 6422, so 10000-6422 = 3578.
With this trial I come to another number. Although I documented the mistakes with screenshots... So I'm hopeless.  What do you think, what should we do?

[Mumbling]

Sweet! We knew the number was off by quite a bit, mostly because of small accidents like this. The 2000 count topic had the same issue (though less frequently). I think that having both a count down and count up topic caused these accidents to occur more often. Now that there is just a countdown topic, I think counting up accidentally will no longer occur.

I'm very curious about the discrepancy between your calculation and the number of replies. In all fairness, it doesn't make much sense that the number of replies is much higher than the current number, especially since we seemed to count up and repeat so many times. How can the number of posts be so very different? Were there any more posts like my post #36 in which two numbers were removed 'legally'? Anyway, I'm confused

I think it might be best to go on with the current countdown and perhaps have a showcase of errors at the very end to commemorate our humanity

So... 3,564?

[Flathead770]

First off thanks for the in depth assessment of our blunders Levente!

Back to when I started participating in this topic Hypno brought up the fact that the numbers were off and I remember finding out that we were out by around 15 or so at the time, but it went pretty much ignored by everyone else haha. Now that we have reply # we can easily determine how off we are in the end and I was already planning on adding in an error % at the end to see how far off we were

So yeah I'm fine with staying on our current path.

3,563

[LeventeII]

Haha, all right, then.

Back to when I started participating in this topic Hypno brought up the fact that the numbers were off and I remember finding out that we were out by around 15 or so at the time, but it went pretty much ignored by everyone else haha.

I got this thing. It was pretty hard to find the mistake there and to understand the mistake.

Mistakes truly prove our humanity! 

3,562

[Anagnos]

^ Yes, I agree what others have said. But remember that we're only humans. 

3,561

[StardustSoldier]

Wow, good discovery there, LeventeII. Thanks! You know, earlier on in the thread, I already had a feeling the number was off, as I noticed the top reply on each page kept ending as XXX7, which didn't seem right to me, but I never really stopped to question it beyond that. Although it is interesting that, even with all the mistakes here and there, it didn't make a significant difference in the long run.

There is one thing I'm confused about, however:

If we continue without change, then my number is 3,565. If we would see my post as a correction, then my number would be 3,548.

Another way to find the correct number is to subtract the start number 10000 from the reply number. My reply would have the number 6422, so 10000-6422 = 3578.

How is it that those two numbers are different? If we subtract the reply number from the start number (to get 3578), then shouldn't it be the same as your initial correction (3548)? Or does this mean that your initial correction was still wrong somehow?
 

Anyway...

3,560

[Flathead770]

Ah you noticed that too StardustSoldier? It's actually something I always check when we start a new page to make sure we haven't strayed even further from our path

3,559

[Mumbling]

3,558

[StardustSoldier]

3,557

[Anagnos]

3,556

[StardustSoldier]

3,555

[Anagnos]

3,554

[StardustSoldier]

3,553

[Anagnos]

3,552

[StardustSoldier]

3,551

[Anagnos]

3,550

[StardustSoldier]

3,549

[Anagnos]

3,548