[Labs-l] Down to the millisecond

Sun May 29 00:24:27 UTC 2016

Thanks all! We are specifically looking for something that (a) is an "in
wiki" solution and (b) generates a random number that is permanent.

By the way we found the answer: create a page at your will, then look at
the page_random value for that page! It is as random a number as you can
get.

On Fri, May 27, 2016 at 5:35 PM, Platonides <platonides at gmail.com> wrote:

> El 27/05/16 17:29, Huji Lee escribió:
>
>> Okay let me explain: we want to create a tie-breaker mechanism for ties
>> in elections. My idea is that if we have two people who tie, we will
>> have our local election representative make a null edit in a designated
>> page.
>>
>
> Terminology nitpick, what you need is a dummy edit, not a null edit
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Dummy_edit#Null_edit
>
>
> Then we will use the right-most digit of the timestamp as a
>> psuedorandom number, and use it to break the tie (if it is odd, the
>> first person wins, if even the second person wins). The problem is you
>> can plan your edit such that it'll happen on an even or odd second. It
>> is hard, but possible.
>>
>> Rev ID is a good idea. Are there any other such pseudorandom numbers you
>> can think of?
>>
>
> The revision id could be gamed as well by the local election
> representative.
> You could use something like the stock value at closing that day of a
> given exchange.
>
>
> On 27/05/16 17:56, Merlijn van Deen (valhallasw) wrote:
> >
> > http://cgi.cs.duke.edu/~des/vct/vct.cgi
> > <http://cgi.cs.duke.edu/%7Edes/vct/vct.cgi>
> >
> > There are probably a few other options online as well.
>
> Interesting. random.org offers the same service, but it's a paid one
> https://www.random.org/draws/
>
>
> They wouldn't preclude the rogue organiser to request several coins until
> his desired result is chosen, though,
>
>
> Additionally, there's the option to implement something like this
> ourselves (this is a trivial service).
>
>
> Regards
>
>
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