If we are comparing fairness against some platonic ideal, I would point out that you already started with a significant advantage—being able to draw upon my Mnemosyne article advocating SRS and covering many of the questions jsalvatier asked. (You quote me, most obviously, but I also suspect you came to Wozniak’s equations by way of my own discussion of Wozniak’s equations for calculating the five-minute rule, among other things.)
I did not want to be first to criticize this because it would look like sour grapes for not having my act together enough to submit my own article (I was waiting for you to email or IRC me & I only have 4.6k karma anyway), but your article is exactly what you suggested in the contest thread: something rushed together, and a good example of what I meant by a contest not being a good incentive structure for such a spaced repetition article. For example, lukeprog suggested a number of solid useful references, which you did not use, and the review article you did link includes discussion and references for some of the questions jsalvatier is most interested in!
That said, I do understand why you are upset, and this is part of why I was against a contest format. If jsalvatier denies you the $300 or whatever, then you will feel aggrieved that a promise was broken and yourself deprived of a pretty substantial sum. If jsalvatier awards it to you, then competitors like myself will feel aggrieved that a low-quality product won and that the community was not as well-informed as it could be.
Currently, this seems to be a moot point. The terms of the contest were that the winner was the article be promoted to the main page, not merely present in article-space. Right now, after roughly 3 days, this article is still lingering at 10 points. I have the impression that articles tend to level off after a few days, having done most of their rising or falling by that point. So purely on the karma aspect, it seems pretty unlikely that this article will be promoted and so you would not have/will not won/win the contest (jsalvatier’s criticism not having affected the outcome either way).
If we are comparing fairness against some platonic ideal, I would point out that you already started with a significant advantage—being able to draw upon my Mnemosyne article advocating SRS and covering many of the questions jsalvatier asked. (You quote me, most obviously, but I also suspect you came to Wozniak’s equations by way of my own discussion of Wozniak’s equations for calculating the five-minute rule, among other things.)
I did not want to be first to criticize this because it would look like sour grapes for not having my act together enough to submit my own article (I was waiting for you to email or IRC me & I only have 4.6k karma anyway), but your article is exactly what you suggested in the contest thread: something rushed together, and a good example of what I meant by a contest not being a good incentive structure for such a spaced repetition article. For example, lukeprog suggested a number of solid useful references, which you did not use, and the review article you did link includes discussion and references for some of the questions jsalvatier is most interested in!
That said, I do understand why you are upset, and this is part of why I was against a contest format. If jsalvatier denies you the $300 or whatever, then you will feel aggrieved that a promise was broken and yourself deprived of a pretty substantial sum. If jsalvatier awards it to you, then competitors like myself will feel aggrieved that a low-quality product won and that the community was not as well-informed as it could be.
Currently, this seems to be a moot point. The terms of the contest were that the winner was the article be promoted to the main page, not merely present in article-space. Right now, after roughly 3 days, this article is still lingering at 10 points. I have the impression that articles tend to level off after a few days, having done most of their rising or falling by that point. So purely on the karma aspect, it seems pretty unlikely that this article will be promoted and so you would not have/will not won/win the contest (jsalvatier’s criticism not having affected the outcome either way).