And it looks like there is still 1 private goal.
The main rule for the contest, in contrast to how Beeminder normally works, is that you canât make your goal easier throughout 2019.
Just to clarify - does this mean you canât ever make it easier at any point? Or that you canât ever make it easier than it was on Jan 1, but if you made it harder after Jan 1, you can still loosen it a little?
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This might be a bit hard to monitor to make sure everyone is playing fair
Iâm not sure why itâs any harder to monitor: in one situation youâre looking at all rates since Jan 1 to make sure theyâre no easier than the Jan 1 rate, while in the other youâre looking at all rates since Jan 1 to make sure theyâre no easier than the immediately preceding rate.
In any event I donât think this is being actively monitored currently. @dreev @bee
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You can make the goal harder and then make it easier again, but it canât at any point over the year require that you have made less progress than it would have by that time given the way the goal was set up when the competition started.
So be really careful while tweaking your goal downwards after any upward changes! A calculation error could cost you your crown! 
Some examples:
The rate starts at 10 per day and you increase it to 15 /day for 20 days, and then decrease it to 5 /day for 20 days.
All good! Youâre in the clear, because at no point will you have been required to do less than what you committed to on the 1st.
The rate starts at 10 per day and you increase it to 15 /day for 20 days, and then decrease it to 5 /day for 21 days.
Nope! You went one day too long and now, even if you catch up, you will have been required to do an overall total of 5 fewer whatevers on a day than what you committed to on the 1st, so be really careful with these!
The rate starts at 10 per day and you decrease it to 5 /day for 20 days, and then increase it to 99 /day for 15 days.
Nope! Even though youâd have more than caught up, you canât fall behind and then catch up, and you would have had 15 days where your goal was easier than it would have been on those days as youâd scheduled it on January 1st.
[Thanks to @zedmango for catching my confusing typo!!]
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We wonât be monitoring it throughout the year, but we collected the states of all of the roads at the beginning, and weâll check the roads of those who are left to make sure they still qualify to win once the yearâs over.
So be SUPER careful, cause if you make it easier by mistake, you might not even know that you arenât eligible to win until the end. (And then youâll have stayed on your road and had a whole year of productively meeting your goal for nothing!!)
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Thanks for clarifying, and thatâs more generous than even I hoped for.
Typo? Should this read 5/day?
Love this 
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Typo fixed, thanks!
And Iâm glad that all sounds good. 
Itâs nerve wracking to pick guidelines and hope that they work out for people!
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@dreev since apparently there is a /group feature now that gives out a gallery-like overview, how about you give us the ability to form our own âgroupsâ and see them together. There could also be some private grouping feature. We could call it, âtagsâ 
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I have another question about this:
So what happens if you make the full amount of progress for the year that you pledged when the competition started, and then derail multiple times? This could happen because you retroratcheted, or because you made the goal harder.
For instance, you pledge 1/week, get your 52 in quickly so you have a large buffer, then you increase your rate to 10/week or retroratchet your buffer down, and then stop meeting your goal.
On one hand, you met your pledge, so you should have clinched a win, even if you derailed.
On the other hand, it seems wrong to count it as a win after derailing.
I have an answer to that question but itâs wrong
A: Your YBR encompasses an area, either above or below it depending on the goal type. At the end of the challenge the area your actual YBR encompasses is compared to the area of your originally planned YBR.
For a Do More goal if the actual area is equal or greater to the planned you are deemed a survivor. The other way around for Do Less goals.
Or in laymanâs terms: The integrals of both YBRs are subtracted and the result being >= 0 or <= 0 depending on goal type determines your success.
Assuming you managed to stay on your actual YBR that is.
And assuming steepness per se is not factored in. Which it is. Which is also the reason this answer is not how itâs done at the moment. But I like it. And at least in my head I could see this work beautifully for next yearâs survivor challenge.
Would be nice to have weekly/bi-weekly updates. I see we have a first dropout ! (Although it seems artificial / intended)
Which one dropped out and how does it seem intended?
Well this looks strange
Hi folks.
Thatâs me. I lost (and I mean lost-lost) first. (Iâve had a family member in the hospital and derailed on that goal and decided not to keep it going to keep it in the second tier.)
The big jump is because it has an automatic âpessimistic datapointâ created to force me to keep entering data thatâs a very high number, and thatâs the jump in the road that derailed it the day I didnât enter data.
Kind of a bummer that itâs the person organizing the contest who lost-lost first, but I still have two others in the contest!
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(PS - The derailment itself was not-legit given the extreme situation; itâs my decision to not continue it that killed its eligibility.)
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In this case, you could still be a winner in the second tier, but in the first tier, a derailment is a derailment!
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Agreed. Iâll give our first update early in the coming week, and then regularly (biweekly?) from there. (@hmowilliams has wanted to do that and I hadnât provided her with the info she needed for that yet.)
VoilĂ :
mary.commits.to/provide_an_update_about_survivor_by_tuesday_at_9pm
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Iâm a little confused. From the webpage:
And even in the contest, all is not lost if you derail â youâll end up below the fold in the gallery of survivors and get a lesser prize. But derailing twice at the same pledge level means youâre off the island altogether.
Is âbelow the foldâ the same as âthe second tierâ? If so, the webpage seems to indicate that multiple derailments prohibit you even from being a winner in the second tier.