Cheating

Submitted by Jeremy on March 24, 2025
Cheating has always been a minor issue on jetpunk but it's been visibly getting worse over the past year, especially on more difficult quizzes. I really started noticing it when quizzes in this series started getting featured - there's a pretty consistent 5-10% of scores at 100% within a few hours of getting starred - then that percentage steeply drops off when the quizzes hit the front page and starts creeping back after. Point is, these are obviously not real scores - I would be willing to bet a lot of money that 8% of even the most hardcore jetpunkers don't know all 605 cities in Wisconsin but that's what the stats are saying right now. It's just really frustrating that realistically it's not even possible to get 5 stars on my own featured quizzes - even my own home state of Colorado where more than 150 cities doesn't even put me in the top 10% (I actually used to have 5 stars on this one, back when it was initially featured when the stats came from the people who had taken it because they were actually interested in the knowledge).

It's not just my quizzes - apparently more than 5% of people know every city in Europe with 5,000 people in 1346 and 2% know every single language featured on Wikipedia.

And I'd like to remind everyone that these stats only come from the first attempt - if it was the best score that was used or something like that these percentages would be much more understandable but the fact that this many people are supposedly consistently coming into all of these quizzes with a ton of obscure answers and getting 100% on the first try is ridiculous.

I don't know if this is something that can be fixed - I know I've suggested deweighting certain users' scores that are obviously abusing the system (getting 100% on the first take of every quiz they do regardless of the niche it falls into) but I don't know how easy or practical that would be. Just something I wanted to bring attention to.

7 Comments
+16
Level 83
Mar 24, 2025
I think the biggest deterrent to fixing this is… who cares? If people want to cheat to get meaningless points that aren’t worth anything, how does that hurt anyone? Think of your points as your odometer, not as a way to rank yourself against others. Don’t cheat, and your points will mean something to you.
+9
Level 56
Mar 24, 2025
I think it has more to do with the fact that someone would want to see the actual stats of people who do know all the answers vs cheaters. Despite that, I agree with you, if people take points so serious then maybe it's better to leave it like that
+2
Level 75
Mar 24, 2025
The one thing that JetPunkers don't cheat on is multiple choice quizzes for some reason. You can sometimes get a 14/15 or even 13/15 and still get 5/5 points.
+9
Level ∞
Mar 24, 2025
As everyone has pointed out, it's very bizarre that people cheat for fake internet points.

I'll try to take a look and see if I can flag the stats of obvious cheaters so they don't affect the general stats. Low priority though.

+2
Level 53
Nov 1, 2025
I wonder about cheating on the daily quizzes, but of course it's just fake internet points, like you said.

Still, so many comments are from braggarts and when I get a really crummy score, I'm embarrassed. The stats slap me in the face.

It's not a big deal, I would just be so happy to know those stats are skewed a little!

+1
Level 78
Mar 25, 2025
I agree. Cheating is a lack of integrity, period. Lack of integrity is always self destructive in the long run.

Since quizzes allow you to repeat tries, I’ve studied the answers on quizzes that I’ve found particularly interesting AND tough, and then done the quiz again later or some other day. Obviously my second score is going to be higher. Maybe some people are doing this as well?

+1
Level 79
Mar 25, 2025
Only the first attempt counts toward stats