We are now accepting entries for the 2011 CBC. All the details can be found at the contest site at
http://www.chatterboxchallenge.com/

I have a question: Are the bots downloaded/judged from the moment that they are submitted or when the contest starts? The reason for asking: do I need to wait till the very last minute for submittal or can I do this know and continue to work on it till the judging actually starts?

Interesting that it’s now an entry fee of $50 of which $20 gets creamed off for expenses. Can I ask what expenses arise at the cost of $20 per bot?

I’m afraid $20 will never ever ever cover the costs of hosting, webdesign and little present for the judges…

It’s actually time for a real challenge in AI, with real prices.

$20 per bot is just a money maker as far as I can see. I can’t see many people entering this competition. Say ten bots entered, that’s $200. If the organisers need that sort of money for hosting and web design, I would suggest they find a different supplier.

do you perceive 200$ as a lot of money?

I do for someone to cream off as “expenses” for a contest that has run for ten years for free. Why not be honest and say he wants to make some money from it?

I think people will vote with their feet here but time will tell. I see it has zero entries so far.

Not a very good way to celebrate the Chatterbox Challenge’s ten year anniversary!

Doesn’t the Chatterbox Challenge usually have sponsorship?

@Steve: So I take it I wont have to compete against you?
I can understand your frustration concerning an entrance fee. I would also have preferred to keep that money. Of course, a story tends to be multi-faceted, so what would be the other side of this one? My guess: perhaps they are trying to attract judges who know a little about NLP, so testing can be done in a manner that doesn’t simply gauge how well a chatbot can fool someone into thinking it is not a chatbot at all (a major failure in the Loebner awards, according to me). If these people are willing to spend a considerable amount of time testing all these apps, the least you can do is take them out for dinner and give them a plaque or something as a token of appreciation.
Secondly, I had prepared something about how it’s hard to find sponsors, but looking at the site, those appear to be coming in ok (including a considerable one from Wendell himself, so you can hardly blaim him from wanting to make a profit). Perhaps, if there are enough donations, the entrance fee can go down?

It’s not the entrance fee that bothers me, it’s the 40% which is almost half that is creamed off as “expenses” which annoys me. If it were a more modest amount like 10%, I would have no problem.

No, you won’t have to compete against me in this.

Expenses include the following:

Domain name registeration fee.
Website Hosting fees.
Purchase of plaques, trophies, or medals to winning bots.
Postage to send medals to winners.

Based on the above I don’t believe money from the contest will cover actual cost.

As far as past contest we had sponsors to cover expenses. Those years with no sponsor it was covered by donations or I covered it out of my own pocket.

This small amount of money doesn’t even begin to compensate the thousands of hours put into running the contest by myself and others over the past 10 years.

Wendell Cowart
CBC

As soon as Chatbots.org will generate some serious revenues, we’ll sponsor! Promise!

The only thing we have to take into account that if we sponsor you, we should sponsor all contests, because we’re independent (and we’d like to stay independent).

But the more we can help, the better it is!

You don’t need to sponsor but organize your own independent contest. I know many botmasters would love the opportunity to compete in another contest. Another Loebner like contest without all the programming requirements would be fun.

I have to agree with Wendell about botmasters and the availability of more competitions for their bots. Being a botmaster myself, I would love the opportunity to expose Morti to more contests and such. I don’t care all that much about the prize money, myself (although it would indeed come in handy), but the “bragging rights” would be awesome.

Anyway, I’ve gone ahead and entered Morti into the CBC, and I’m really looking forward to seeing him handle his first competition; hopefully, the first of many.

Wendell Cowart - Feb 5, 2011:

You don’t need to sponsor but organize your own independent contest. I know many botmasters would love the opportunity to compete in another contest. Another Loebner like contest without all the programming requirements would be fun.

I agree, competitions are so helpful in developing a bot, they are also just plain fun.

Hi, Patty, and welcome to chatbots.org. thanks for posting. When you get a chance, I invite and encourage you to hop on over to the introductions section of the forums, and let us know a bit about yourself. We’re always eager to get to know our new members.