# Is creating more than one account to bypass the once per day scoring limit considered cheating? **URL:** \ **Category:** GEMS Prize Challenge\ **Created:** [October 29, 2026, 4:21pm UTC](https://community.drivendata.org/t/is-creating-more-than-one-account-to-bypass-the-once-per-day-scoring-limit-considered-cheating/11592 "2026-10-29T16:21:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DIGENTLLC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cab0a1/32.png) [@DIGENTLLC](https://community.drivendata.org/u/DIGENTLLC)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2026, 4:21pm UTC](https://community.drivendata.org/t/is-creating-more-than-one-account-to-bypass-the-once-per-day-scoring-limit-considered-cheating/11592/1 "2026-10-29T16:21:21Z")
Is creating more than one account to bypass the once per day scoring limit considered cheating? Discuss. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk-dd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5ac83/32.png) [@chrisk-dd](https://community.drivendata.org/u/chrisk-dd)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2026, 4:22pm UTC](https://community.drivendata.org/t/is-creating-more-than-one-account-to-bypass-the-once-per-day-scoring-limit-considered-cheating/11592/2 "2026-10-29T16:22:10Z")
@DIGENTLLC Yes, bypassing the submission limit by creating multiple accounts is considered cheating. ---
**Author:** ![DIGENTLLC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cab0a1/32.png) [@DIGENTLLC](https://community.drivendata.org/u/DIGENTLLC)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2026, 4:55pm UTC](https://community.drivendata.org/t/is-creating-more-than-one-account-to-bypass-the-once-per-day-scoring-limit-considered-cheating/11592/3 "2026-10-29T16:55:21Z")
Agreed, it’s obviously cheating. So how will this be enforced? Because we see no actual mechanism to enforce it. If it can’t be enforced, consider lifting the daily limit for everyone for the final month, so teams following the rules aren’t at a disadvantage. ---
**Author:** ![oshbocker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/96bed5/32.png) [@oshbocker](https://community.drivendata.org/u/oshbocker)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2026, 7:49pm UTC](https://community.drivendata.org/t/is-creating-more-than-one-account-to-bypass-the-once-per-day-scoring-limit-considered-cheating/11592/4 "2026-10-29T19:49:26Z")
I don’t think lifting the daily limit for everyone is in the best interests of this competition. At least for the leaderboard, I think it will lead to extensive reward hacking. You can just submit the same map with a fault, or certain pixels removed, and know if they are part of the hidden set. That is already true today and I think that is why the competition has two phases but it would only get worse with unlimited submissions. I think the better solution is something similar to what Kaggle does which is restrict new entrants to the competition after a certain point. Kaggle usually does it in the week leading up to the final submission deadline but it might need to be sooner for this competition. I don’t want to discourage participants from entering but I think you are seeing what I’m seeing. Multiple users with 2 submissions achieving top 20 scores while never having competed in another Driven Data competition is very suspicious. I’m not saying all of them are cheating but it’s a suspicious pattern. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk-dd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5ac83/32.png) [@chrisk-dd](https://community.drivendata.org/u/chrisk-dd)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2026, 8:38pm UTC](https://community.drivendata.org/t/is-creating-more-than-one-account-to-bypass-the-once-per-day-scoring-limit-considered-cheating/11592/5 "2026-10-29T20:38:34Z")
@DIGENTLLC The top solutions will be checked for adherence to the challenge rules as the verification process is carried out. Any detected cheating will result in disqualification. @oshbocker Thanks for the suggestions, we’ll take these into consideration for implementation. ---
**Author:** ![DIGENTLLC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cab0a1/32.png) [@DIGENTLLC](https://community.drivendata.org/u/DIGENTLLC)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2026, 9:20pm UTC](https://community.drivendata.org/t/is-creating-more-than-one-account-to-bypass-the-once-per-day-scoring-limit-considered-cheating/11592/6 "2026-10-29T21:20:57Z")
We are asking DrivenData to say publicly what the cheating check will look at, because “checked during verification” could mean anything, or nothing at all, with 35 days left. Near-identical files across accounts? Accounts created in the last few weeks? Shared people or payment details? And will anything change before the deadline, or only after the money is decided? The rules never named multiple accounts as cheating until we asked. Today only a team’s own conscience stops it from running 12 accounts and testing 12 variants a day. One fix costs nothing: before any prize is paid, require every winning team member to sign a statement, under penalty of perjury, that they used no account other than their own in this competition and gained nothing from anyone else’s. Winners already sign paperwork. Add one line and announce it now, so everyone on the board knows it is coming. We will not cheat. Right now that is a handicap, and nobody running this competition has said how it gets fixed. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk-dd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5ac83/32.png) [@chrisk-dd](https://community.drivendata.org/u/chrisk-dd)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 4:01am UTC](https://community.drivendata.org/t/is-creating-more-than-one-account-to-bypass-the-once-per-day-scoring-limit-considered-cheating/11592/7 "2026-10-30T04:01:19Z")
@DIGENTLLC Our typical policy is that we do not publicly discuss the outcomes of any cheating enforcement and disqualifications, whether from multiple accounts or other violations of rules. This means that our enforcement of competition rules may not feel visible. If you have specific concerns that you would like to report, please email [info@drivendata.org](mailto:info@drivendata.org). ---
**Author:** ![DIGENTLLC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cab0a1/32.png) [@DIGENTLLC](https://community.drivendata.org/u/DIGENTLLC)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 5:40pm UTC](https://community.drivendata.org/t/is-creating-more-than-one-account-to-bypass-the-once-per-day-scoring-limit-considered-cheating/11592/8 "2026-10-30T17:40:46Z")
Perhaps enforcement is “not visible” because it doesn’t exist, just like the rule against this type of cheating does not seem to actually exist. The official rules, section 3.4: “each participating entity may submit… up to three per week,” where entity means “team, organization, or individual.” Staff in thread 11553: the website limit, one a day, “prevails.” Staff in thread 11569: “Limits are per user; teammates’ submissions don’t count against yours.” Three answers. A five-person team gets five shots a day; a solo entrant gets one. This thread has 36 views, so at most 36 people even know about the latest interpretation of the rules. Section A.12 already covers it: if fraud “impairs the integrity or proper functioning of the prize,” DOE may cancel it. DOE should. This competition is a mess. ---
**Author:** ![cfld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@cfld](https://community.drivendata.org/u/cfld)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 1:31am UTC](https://community.drivendata.org/t/is-creating-more-than-one-account-to-bypass-the-once-per-day-scoring-limit-considered-cheating/11592/9 "2026-10-31T01:31:20Z")
> Staff in thread 11569: “Limits are per user; teammates’ submissions don’t count against yours.” Oh … I didn’t catch that … submission limits are per user? I agree that is kindof disappointing. Due to the way this competition is set up (no examples of the target labels for the “Initial Prize Round” means that trying to figure out a good local surrogate for what we’re actually trying to predict is basically ~ the entire game), teaming as a way to increase number of effective submissions per day is an _enormous_ advantage. I’ve been competing by myself thus far, but … Separately - looking at recent patterns of submission - I do agree there appears to be something funny going on. Either one person using multiple accounts, or a group of people sharing information / submissions / code. That doesn’t feel great. (And further - per above rules - they don’t even need to be hiding it - they could just make a big team and be doing this totally above board!) Looking at the current leaderboard, I don’t think this competition is “too far gone”. However, I do think the organizers should strongly consider a) reducing number of submissions per team to 1 per day, to remove the advantage that being on a team currently confers b) limiting new entrants, to stem further covert coordination c) removing obvious cases of coordinated accounts. [EDIT: Looking at the leaderboard tonight … accounts that seem very likely to be covertly coordinating are now making up the bulk of positions 5-20. If a coordinated group making 10+ submissions per day is given another few days … I think unfortunately we will be “too far gone”, because they’ll have learned “how to get to the top,” and that’s an irreversible problem… So IMO there is some urgency here. **Perhaps submissions should be frozen for the time being.**]