10 ms·

Regardless of the cheating, this type of post doesn't fully sit right with me. Given the permanence of record on the internet, this does bring up the issue of h

by npunt 10y ago

Regardless of the cheating, this type of post doesn't fully sit right with me. Given the permanence of record on the internet, this does bring up the issue of how we police bad behavior, and how we incorporate forgiveness into that. That said, the poster was pretty fair, and generally refer to her as "the runner". It definitely reads as an obsessive sleuthing, no doubt in part because there were follow-on discoveries made. As the saying goes, "one is a fluke, two is a coincidence, three is a trend", and it seems there's a trend here. What's interesting is someone in the comments mentioned this: > The majority of those "30K" instagram followers are fake accounts - many of the likes on her recent photos are spam bots. She 100 percent buys followers/likes. My guess is a lot of people probably do this to bump up their social status a bit. It's relatively innocent (if a bit narcissistic), though if its true in her case, it fits a clear pattern. Can't verify though, given it seems she's shut down her social media presence. This is one of those cases where sympathy and revulsion are equally valid emotions. I wouldn't want to be on the other end of the hive-mind, but it is a self-inflicted wound.

gabemart 10y ago
I commend your call to sympathy. I don't like taking a drive-by, salacious interest in a story that doesn't affect me in the least, but will probably have serious, perhaps devastating consequences for the person involved for a long time professionally. I also think it's worth pointing out that the original article, while using photos of the person involved, never uses their full name, so is to some extent not google-able. However, the full name is used in the comments, and then extensively in other media coverage of this story, so this is a moot point. As with the parent, I'm not defending cheating in a competitive race, especially if sponsorship is involved. But ultimately, I can't take any pleasure in a worldwide glee-fuelled shame-fest over what is ultimately a relatively trivial, presumably non-criminal misdeed.
- npunt 10y ago
  The drive-by internet mob can be awful. A just & fair society is one where punishments fit the crime, and internet mobs deliver outsized punishment for all sorts of minor and often illusory things. I worry about how this woman is dealing with this situation, right now, in realtime - perhaps her past behaviors are a sign of some issues she's dealing with. I'm heartened by many of the comments in the blog who advocate for sympathy, as the punishment has already been meted.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - leereeves 10y ago
    I think people don't realize how the little things add up. Any one member of an Internet mob doesn't hurt an alleged wrongdoer much, but together they do deliver outsized punishment for all sorts of minor and often illusory things.
    - jerf 10y ago
      Social feedback mechanisms appropriate for small tribes of 100-150 people become overwhelming when used by 100,000-150,000 people, to say nothing of what happens if you add three more zeros. You can see modern celebrity as the flip side of this problem, too. 100,000,000 people giving just a bit of respect and thumbs up to someone becomes quite a torrent of social currency.
- fergie 10y ago
  Thirded. It can be really easy to make navigational errors in amateur races, especially with turnaround points. Usually there is no crowd lining the whole course, signage is bad, and the marshalling can be spotty. Yes, this person is a bit narcissistic and a tad dishonest, but it might just have been easier to go along with the misunderstanding rather than fess up to messing up. EDIT: OK, OK, "very dishonest" then. My point being that this stuff sometimes happens, people deal with it in different ways, and that witch-hunts can be just as damaging as the transgression itself. But yes, a lot of you (rightly) care about the integrity of amateur sportspeople who are also in the public sphere.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    The author has another blog post to explain who s/he writes about: http://www.marathoninvestigation.com/2016/05/the-differerence-between-holding-people.html http://www.marathoninvestigation.com/2016/05/the-differerenc... > The overall feedback I have received from the public regarding my work on the blog and the Boston reviews has been positive. (At some point I will try to clarify the review and filtering process - but runners that just had a bad day in Boston, or paced a friend, or just took their time, are not going to be singled out. They have nothing to worry about). In this case she cut part of the course; she sought out officials to reassure them of her time; she accepted the medal; she faked data after the race; she only came clean after she was confronted with this information. I agree that now she's come clean any identifying information should be removed. And I hate some of the comments that are clearly piling on. And it should be obvious but any attacks on social media are unacceptable.
    - skrebbel 10y ago
      > I agree that now she's come clean any identifying information should be removed. How?
      - DanBC 10y ago
        Ah, yes, that's a good point. Once it's on the internet it's there forever.
- timdaub 10y ago
  > while using photos of the person involved, never uses their full name, so is to some extent not google-able Wat? Clearly her name is exposed in the Strava screenshot. Took me exactly 2mins to find significant details about her in the blog post (also: if not, you can easily reverse-image-search her runner photos). It's great to have her disqualified from the race, she clearly cheated. Putting the whole story on the internet without worrying about her identity being exposed. Why? Is this really what you deserve when you cheat at a half-marathon?
  - kbart 10y ago
    She has cheated in public event and took 2nd place, so yes, due to respect for other participants, it's alright cheating fact to be made public.
  - usrusr 10y ago
    The podium is all about attention. She put her face and name out into the public before the blogger did.
    - flocial 10y ago
      Yes but the comment's assertion is valid. Because the screenshots clearly reveal her name and social media handles even if the article refers to her as "the runner".
      - sixstringtheory 10y ago
        I'm not so sure I agree with this line of reasoning. I'm betting she'd have had no problem with her face/name being plastered up for all to see that she had won 2nd place in the race, and promoting that on social media. This outcome is the same magnitude, just with the sign bit flipped.
  - mst 10y ago
    > Wat? I believe the idea is that, given the runner's name doesn't appear in the text, googling said name from cold should not produce that article. I think that counts as "to some extent not google-able".
- kbart 10y ago
  Maybe it's only me, but I don't see any "shame-fest" here. The article is facts based and points to concrete wrongdoings, not simply taking some moral stand. "what is ultimately a relatively trivial, presumably non-criminal misdeed." While it's not criminal behavior, it must be discouraged and punished as it does tremendous damage to competitive sports and other sportsmen by discouraging them ("What's the point? Everyone cheats anyway") or forcing them cutting corners themselves to stay competitive (see recent doping scandal).
  - DanBC 10y ago
    > but I don't see any "shame-fest" here. Did you read all the comments? Did you see she's closed her social media accounts?
    - kbart 10y ago
      I was talking about the article itself. I don't usually read comments bar selected few sites (HN included), because there are always trolls and haters. It's not the article's fault that we have such dire situation on the whole Internet.
      - Belphemur 10y ago
        I think you're missing the big picture. As said in the parent, other news are covering also the story with her real name and pictures. It's a shame fest with media trying to give as much info on the woman they can. Not this article in particular, but the coverage of the story is borderline hateful. The Internet don't like cheater.
        pc86 10y ago
        > other news are covering also the story with her real name and pictures Should they blur her face and not use her name?
        dmix 10y ago
- jackmott 10y ago
  don't have sympathy, these people are always awful.
- mikestew 10y ago
  I don't like taking a drive-by, salacious interest in a story that doesn't affect me in the least, but will probably have serious, perhaps devastating consequences for the person involved for a long time professionally. Long before the Internet showed up, what you describe was why you don't do such things. Is the punishment disproportionate to the crime? Yeah, could be. But whether it's pre-internet community gossip or the whole world knows, you don't such things because it could ruin your reputation if found out. Right or wrong, that's always been reality. "Devastating consequences...professionally", as it should be. If she'll cheat in a race to make herself look good, what will she do in your business when real money is on the line? Cook your books? Lie about results (already has a track record for that one)? As long as she comes out looking good. Its a common theme on HN to scoff at the trivial fines for companies caught cheating when the profits gained through cheating are much larger. In the case of this runner, I think a global calling-out is appropriate given that she'd sure accept the accolades were she not found out.
- oska 10y ago
  The problem with this argument in this case is that she put herself out in front of ‘the mob’. She actively promoted her ‘achievement’ to a public audience. Presumably she would have been happy for any level of adulation from the public. So when it turns around to public revulsion, that's just the other side of the sword, which she first actively employed. I would have more sympathy for your argument if this story was about some form of private cheating. But this was cheating on a public stage, one that she particularly sought out.
cxseven 10y ago
Sorry to distract from the effort of leaving her name out of this, but your discovery about her followers seems kind of like a funny coincidence considering her last name.
seesomesense 10y ago
The runner is a journalist for Huffington Post. I wonder how many of her articles are faked....
wingerlang 10y ago
> It definitely reads as an obsessive sleuthing The whole blog (business?) is about identifying cheaters in marathons. Just in case you missed it (I only noticed the second time I went to the page).
- flocial 10y ago
  The domain name is quite straight forward. I honestly don't understand the discussion revolving around the morality of investigating falsified competition times in a recorded sports event with prizes for placement.
skc 10y ago
>>My guess is a lot of people probably do this to bump up their social status a bit. I had thought the Black Mirror episode titled "Nose Dive" was a bit silly at first, but as usual with that series, it 's turning out to be pretty prescient
jackmott 10y ago
In time you will come to know that obsessive internet race cheat sleuthing is the greatest form of entertainment in the world. You get your Sherlock Holmes fix, you get insane psychologies to study, and you do good for the world, putting honest racers back on the podium. There is a new crazy story every year or so, tune in next year, it is going to be great!
aioprisan 10y ago
Why should someone who cheated at a PUBLIC event and very publicly claimed the prize and actively misled other runners and the judging committee not be exposed publicly? Is it not in the public interest to punish these peoples? Or should we never report on such misdeeds for fear of any personal and professional retribution? Isn't that part of being a responsible adult in a civil society? She's a sponsored running/lifestyle blogger, for God's sake! The social contract works for a reason.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  I don't think there's any reason this post shouldn't have happened, or the cheating shouldn't have been given a public, lasting record. And yeah, the sponsorship and team membership raise this from "costing someone else a medal" to "serious manipulation". But I share the sense that something is weird here. Maybe it's just the section trying to cast doubt on the claim that she was feeling nauseous - there's a sentiment here that I find strange regardless of the bare facts.
  - aioprisan 10y ago
    >> Maybe it's just the section trying to cast doubt on the claim that she was feeling nauseous She was feeling so nauseous that she couldn't finish the extra 1.5 miles all by herself but could bike the entire course to falsify data on Strava to double down on her cheating? Give me a break. The fact that she only recanted after all the evidence was presented to her about the depths of her cheating tells us all we need to know about her character in this instance. Positions of public trust bring with them public responsibility, and this is what it looks like, for better or for worse.
  - nicky0 10y ago
    Yes I agree. It went beyond proving the simple facts of the case, into attempts discredit the runner's character in other ways.
    - aioprisan 10y ago
      You mean by pointing out another race a few months ago where she ran another half-marathon but pictures show that someone else finished the race with her bib?
JoeAltmaier 10y ago
This runner cheated consciously, lied afterward, covered up the cheat with a conspiracy later (biking the route to create a fake data trail). Its hard to smear any investigation as 'obsessive' compared to that. And cheating at public events is not innocent. Its a rupture of the social contract, up there with stealing and libel. It should be dealt with promptly and vigorously. She should be banned from all further events. This is not the sort of person you want in your society, in your business, in your life. I'm more disturbed with the evident impulse to forgive. Is nothing important any more? Is character and honesty so worthless?
- nswanberg 10y ago
  I think those who would forgive her believe that the response is disproportionate, and that the cheating doesn't rate worldwide infamy. I guess I side with runnr_az on this in that what she did is not right but it also isn't very important. But maybe he and I share the same worldview on running and racing, in that in almost all cases racing's value comes from doing the race, not the result. Yes, in the moment I'll do whatever I can to scratch out one higher place in the result, but after the race is done it really doesn't matter if I got 23rd or 123rd. Those that finished faster could have trained harder, trained more, had more experience, had better coaching, had better genetics, or even cheated, but I found that in the end those places don't matter nearly as much as the experience I got, and even if I found out that one or five or twenty people had cheated in the races I've done, it wouldn't have taken away from that experience. I guess if one subscribes to the race-as-life metaphor, where cheating in a race is tantamount to stealing from someone, and how one acts in a race is how one will act in the rest of life, I can see more reasons to get angry, but I think that viewing this as "rupturing the social contract" is a more extreme view, and is entering the area that Hugo was exploring with the Inspector Javert character. Yes, she cheated, yes it's wrong, and yes, she should face consequences, but how much mental energy should we expend in the pursuit and punishment of this cheating? I think I'm almost as disturbed by the obsession with the cheating as by the cheating itself. Maybe this thinking is objectively wrong, but at least for me that's why, if forgiveness means not to ban her from all future events, my impulse is to forgive.
  - 10y ago
PKop 10y ago
I don't agree that it's innocent. Competitors in marathons (the ones that have a chance of winning especially) have put a lot of time, energy, effort, and pain into training to be successful. To have their rewards for that effort and commitment stolen by someone who didn't earn it is not fair and should be scrutinized and called out. To call this "trivial" seems like maybe you have no interest or experience with marathons? It might be trivial to you, but substitute marathons for some challenging endeavor in your life. If your success was stolen by someone who cheated, you wouldn't think it was trivial either. Certainly mass internet lynch mobs are a bad thing. But what this site does is necessary. There are many instances this kind of behavior documented on sites like this. Some of these cheaters are obsessive and do it over and over again. It is very unfair to other competitors (even those who have no chance of being winners...), taking credit for the commitment to something that you don't have. Maybe this kind of thing bothers me more because I've seen it with people who pretend to have military service ("stolen-valor"). It's just frustrating seeing people blatantly pretend to have done something difficult just to get the accolades. Anyways, I agree that these are self-inflicted wounds for sure.
- runnr_az 10y ago
  A little surprised to see this on the front page of HN, but I don't think we can deny that running is probably the nerdiest of sports. Anyway, that's nice that she owned up to it. Most of the cheaters don't. As a guy who's no doubt proved my running bonafides -- 3:06 marathon pr + there's a picture of me on the Western States 100 wikipedia page -- I always wonder why people get so angry about this kind of thing. I mean, sure, it's not cool to cheat, but this ain't the Olympics. Who gives a shit? Nothing is getting "stolen," especially not if you weren't in the top 10 or whatever.
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    Cheating and doping both make me very angry as a casual athlete. I don't let it ruin my day, but it annoys me. Like come on, we are training 10h a week to go pay money to run a race and get a $1 medal. Let's kinda sorta keep it fair?
Retric 10y ago
Cheating is endemic in the sport and finding these people can quickly become it's own kind of game. So, IMO there is nothing odd with this effort. EX: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Philadelphia-Marathon-Cheaters-411552135.html http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Philadelphia-Marat...
Taylor_OD 10y ago
Back in the days when you could buy 7,000+ twitter followers for $5 on Fiverr I use to buy followers for people all the time for fun. Friends from high school with very silly twitter account would wake up with 7,000 new followers. I also bought followers for small companies from time to time because I really enjoyed them. I noticed that their own real followers would increase after that. Confirmed this with my own twitter account. I made the conclusion that people are more likely to follow a account that already has a lot of followers. So if the first 7,000 are fake the next 1000 or 2000 will be real and actually valuable followers.
tinus_hn 10y ago
She's a 'lifestyle blogger' so it's not like she's trying to be anonymous and then being outed by some troll. Also she didn't mind everyone celebrating her second place.

by npunt 10y ago

gabemart 10y ago

I commend your call to sympathy. I don't like taking a drive-by, salacious interest in a story that doesn't affect me in the least, but will probably have serious, perhaps devastating consequences for the person involved for a long time professionally. I also think it's worth pointing out that the original article, while using photos of the person involved, never uses their full name, so is to some extent not google-able. However, the full name is used in the comments, and then extensively in other media coverage of this story, so this is a moot point. As with the parent, I'm not defending cheating in a competitive race, especially if sponsorship is involved. But ultimately, I can't take any pleasure in a worldwide glee-fuelled shame-fest over what is ultimately a relatively trivial, presumably non-criminal misdeed.

npunt 10y ago
The drive-by internet mob can be awful. A just & fair society is one where punishments fit the crime, and internet mobs deliver outsized punishment for all sorts of minor and often illusory things. I worry about how this woman is dealing with this situation, right now, in realtime - perhaps her past behaviors are a sign of some issues she's dealing with. I'm heartened by many of the comments in the blog who advocate for sympathy, as the punishment has already been meted.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- leereeves 10y ago
  I think people don't realize how the little things add up. Any one member of an Internet mob doesn't hurt an alleged wrongdoer much, but together they do deliver outsized punishment for all sorts of minor and often illusory things.
  - jerf 10y ago
    Social feedback mechanisms appropriate for small tribes of 100-150 people become overwhelming when used by 100,000-150,000 people, to say nothing of what happens if you add three more zeros. You can see modern celebrity as the flip side of this problem, too. 100,000,000 people giving just a bit of respect and thumbs up to someone becomes quite a torrent of social currency.
fergie 10y ago
Thirded. It can be really easy to make navigational errors in amateur races, especially with turnaround points. Usually there is no crowd lining the whole course, signage is bad, and the marshalling can be spotty. Yes, this person is a bit narcissistic and a tad dishonest, but it might just have been easier to go along with the misunderstanding rather than fess up to messing up. EDIT: OK, OK, "very dishonest" then. My point being that this stuff sometimes happens, people deal with it in different ways, and that witch-hunts can be just as damaging as the transgression itself. But yes, a lot of you (rightly) care about the integrity of amateur sportspeople who are also in the public sphere.
- DanBC 10y ago
  The author has another blog post to explain who s/he writes about: http://www.marathoninvestigation.com/2016/05/the-differerence-between-holding-people.html http://www.marathoninvestigation.com/2016/05/the-differerenc... > The overall feedback I have received from the public regarding my work on the blog and the Boston reviews has been positive. (At some point I will try to clarify the review and filtering process - but runners that just had a bad day in Boston, or paced a friend, or just took their time, are not going to be singled out. They have nothing to worry about). In this case she cut part of the course; she sought out officials to reassure them of her time; she accepted the medal; she faked data after the race; she only came clean after she was confronted with this information. I agree that now she's come clean any identifying information should be removed. And I hate some of the comments that are clearly piling on. And it should be obvious but any attacks on social media are unacceptable.
  - skrebbel 10y ago
    > I agree that now she's come clean any identifying information should be removed. How?
    - DanBC 10y ago
      Ah, yes, that's a good point. Once it's on the internet it's there forever.
timdaub 10y ago
> while using photos of the person involved, never uses their full name, so is to some extent not google-able Wat? Clearly her name is exposed in the Strava screenshot. Took me exactly 2mins to find significant details about her in the blog post (also: if not, you can easily reverse-image-search her runner photos). It's great to have her disqualified from the race, she clearly cheated. Putting the whole story on the internet without worrying about her identity being exposed. Why? Is this really what you deserve when you cheat at a half-marathon?
- kbart 10y ago
  She has cheated in public event and took 2nd place, so yes, due to respect for other participants, it's alright cheating fact to be made public.
- usrusr 10y ago
  The podium is all about attention. She put her face and name out into the public before the blogger did.
  - flocial 10y ago
    Yes but the comment's assertion is valid. Because the screenshots clearly reveal her name and social media handles even if the article refers to her as "the runner".
    - sixstringtheory 10y ago
      I'm not so sure I agree with this line of reasoning. I'm betting she'd have had no problem with her face/name being plastered up for all to see that she had won 2nd place in the race, and promoting that on social media. This outcome is the same magnitude, just with the sign bit flipped.
- mst 10y ago
  > Wat? I believe the idea is that, given the runner's name doesn't appear in the text, googling said name from cold should not produce that article. I think that counts as "to some extent not google-able".
kbart 10y ago
Maybe it's only me, but I don't see any "shame-fest" here. The article is facts based and points to concrete wrongdoings, not simply taking some moral stand. "what is ultimately a relatively trivial, presumably non-criminal misdeed." While it's not criminal behavior, it must be discouraged and punished as it does tremendous damage to competitive sports and other sportsmen by discouraging them ("What's the point? Everyone cheats anyway") or forcing them cutting corners themselves to stay competitive (see recent doping scandal).
- DanBC 10y ago
  > but I don't see any "shame-fest" here. Did you read all the comments? Did you see she's closed her social media accounts?
  - kbart 10y ago
    I was talking about the article itself. I don't usually read comments bar selected few sites (HN included), because there are always trolls and haters. It's not the article's fault that we have such dire situation on the whole Internet.
    - Belphemur 10y ago
      I think you're missing the big picture. As said in the parent, other news are covering also the story with her real name and pictures. It's a shame fest with media trying to give as much info on the woman they can. Not this article in particular, but the coverage of the story is borderline hateful. The Internet don't like cheater.
      - pc86 10y ago
        > other news are covering also the story with her real name and pictures Should they blur her face and not use her name?
        dmix 10y ago
jackmott 10y ago
don't have sympathy, these people are always awful.
mikestew 10y ago
I don't like taking a drive-by, salacious interest in a story that doesn't affect me in the least, but will probably have serious, perhaps devastating consequences for the person involved for a long time professionally. Long before the Internet showed up, what you describe was why you don't do such things. Is the punishment disproportionate to the crime? Yeah, could be. But whether it's pre-internet community gossip or the whole world knows, you don't such things because it could ruin your reputation if found out. Right or wrong, that's always been reality. "Devastating consequences...professionally", as it should be. If she'll cheat in a race to make herself look good, what will she do in your business when real money is on the line? Cook your books? Lie about results (already has a track record for that one)? As long as she comes out looking good. Its a common theme on HN to scoff at the trivial fines for companies caught cheating when the profits gained through cheating are much larger. In the case of this runner, I think a global calling-out is appropriate given that she'd sure accept the accolades were she not found out.
oska 10y ago
The problem with this argument in this case is that she put herself out in front of ‘the mob’. She actively promoted her ‘achievement’ to a public audience. Presumably she would have been happy for any level of adulation from the public. So when it turns around to public revulsion, that's just the other side of the sword, which she first actively employed. I would have more sympathy for your argument if this story was about some form of private cheating. But this was cheating on a public stage, one that she particularly sought out.

cxseven 10y ago

Sorry to distract from the effort of leaving her name out of this, but your discovery about her followers seems kind of like a funny coincidence considering her last name.

seesomesense 10y ago

The runner is a journalist for Huffington Post. I wonder how many of her articles are faked....

wingerlang 10y ago

> It definitely reads as an obsessive sleuthing The whole blog (business?) is about identifying cheaters in marathons. Just in case you missed it (I only noticed the second time I went to the page).

flocial 10y ago
The domain name is quite straight forward. I honestly don't understand the discussion revolving around the morality of investigating falsified competition times in a recorded sports event with prizes for placement.

skc 10y ago

>>My guess is a lot of people probably do this to bump up their social status a bit. I had thought the Black Mirror episode titled "Nose Dive" was a bit silly at first, but as usual with that series, it 's turning out to be pretty prescient

jackmott 10y ago

In time you will come to know that obsessive internet race cheat sleuthing is the greatest form of entertainment in the world. You get your Sherlock Holmes fix, you get insane psychologies to study, and you do good for the world, putting honest racers back on the podium. There is a new crazy story every year or so, tune in next year, it is going to be great!

aioprisan 10y ago

Why should someone who cheated at a PUBLIC event and very publicly claimed the prize and actively misled other runners and the judging committee not be exposed publicly? Is it not in the public interest to punish these peoples? Or should we never report on such misdeeds for fear of any personal and professional retribution? Isn't that part of being a responsible adult in a civil society? She's a sponsored running/lifestyle blogger, for God's sake! The social contract works for a reason.

Bartweiss 10y ago
I don't think there's any reason this post shouldn't have happened, or the cheating shouldn't have been given a public, lasting record. And yeah, the sponsorship and team membership raise this from "costing someone else a medal" to "serious manipulation". But I share the sense that something is weird here. Maybe it's just the section trying to cast doubt on the claim that she was feeling nauseous - there's a sentiment here that I find strange regardless of the bare facts.
- aioprisan 10y ago
  >> Maybe it's just the section trying to cast doubt on the claim that she was feeling nauseous She was feeling so nauseous that she couldn't finish the extra 1.5 miles all by herself but could bike the entire course to falsify data on Strava to double down on her cheating? Give me a break. The fact that she only recanted after all the evidence was presented to her about the depths of her cheating tells us all we need to know about her character in this instance. Positions of public trust bring with them public responsibility, and this is what it looks like, for better or for worse.
- nicky0 10y ago
  Yes I agree. It went beyond proving the simple facts of the case, into attempts discredit the runner's character in other ways.
  - aioprisan 10y ago
    You mean by pointing out another race a few months ago where she ran another half-marathon but pictures show that someone else finished the race with her bib?

JoeAltmaier 10y ago

This runner cheated consciously, lied afterward, covered up the cheat with a conspiracy later (biking the route to create a fake data trail). Its hard to smear any investigation as 'obsessive' compared to that. And cheating at public events is not innocent. Its a rupture of the social contract, up there with stealing and libel. It should be dealt with promptly and vigorously. She should be banned from all further events. This is not the sort of person you want in your society, in your business, in your life. I'm more disturbed with the evident impulse to forgive. Is nothing important any more? Is character and honesty so worthless?

nswanberg 10y ago
I think those who would forgive her believe that the response is disproportionate, and that the cheating doesn't rate worldwide infamy. I guess I side with runnr_az on this in that what she did is not right but it also isn't very important. But maybe he and I share the same worldview on running and racing, in that in almost all cases racing's value comes from doing the race, not the result. Yes, in the moment I'll do whatever I can to scratch out one higher place in the result, but after the race is done it really doesn't matter if I got 23rd or 123rd. Those that finished faster could have trained harder, trained more, had more experience, had better coaching, had better genetics, or even cheated, but I found that in the end those places don't matter nearly as much as the experience I got, and even if I found out that one or five or twenty people had cheated in the races I've done, it wouldn't have taken away from that experience. I guess if one subscribes to the race-as-life metaphor, where cheating in a race is tantamount to stealing from someone, and how one acts in a race is how one will act in the rest of life, I can see more reasons to get angry, but I think that viewing this as "rupturing the social contract" is a more extreme view, and is entering the area that Hugo was exploring with the Inspector Javert character. Yes, she cheated, yes it's wrong, and yes, she should face consequences, but how much mental energy should we expend in the pursuit and punishment of this cheating? I think I'm almost as disturbed by the obsession with the cheating as by the cheating itself. Maybe this thinking is objectively wrong, but at least for me that's why, if forgiveness means not to ban her from all future events, my impulse is to forgive.
- 10y ago

PKop 10y ago

I don't agree that it's innocent. Competitors in marathons (the ones that have a chance of winning especially) have put a lot of time, energy, effort, and pain into training to be successful. To have their rewards for that effort and commitment stolen by someone who didn't earn it is not fair and should be scrutinized and called out. To call this "trivial" seems like maybe you have no interest or experience with marathons? It might be trivial to you, but substitute marathons for some challenging endeavor in your life. If your success was stolen by someone who cheated, you wouldn't think it was trivial either. Certainly mass internet lynch mobs are a bad thing. But what this site does is necessary. There are many instances this kind of behavior documented on sites like this. Some of these cheaters are obsessive and do it over and over again. It is very unfair to other competitors (even those who have no chance of being winners...), taking credit for the commitment to something that you don't have. Maybe this kind of thing bothers me more because I've seen it with people who pretend to have military service ("stolen-valor"). It's just frustrating seeing people blatantly pretend to have done something difficult just to get the accolades. Anyways, I agree that these are self-inflicted wounds for sure.

runnr_az 10y ago
A little surprised to see this on the front page of HN, but I don't think we can deny that running is probably the nerdiest of sports. Anyway, that's nice that she owned up to it. Most of the cheaters don't. As a guy who's no doubt proved my running bonafides -- 3:06 marathon pr + there's a picture of me on the Western States 100 wikipedia page -- I always wonder why people get so angry about this kind of thing. I mean, sure, it's not cool to cheat, but this ain't the Olympics. Who gives a shit? Nothing is getting "stolen," especially not if you weren't in the top 10 or whatever.
- brianwawok 10y ago
  Cheating and doping both make me very angry as a casual athlete. I don't let it ruin my day, but it annoys me. Like come on, we are training 10h a week to go pay money to run a race and get a $1 medal. Let's kinda sorta keep it fair?

Retric 10y ago

Cheating is endemic in the sport and finding these people can quickly become it's own kind of game. So, IMO there is nothing odd with this effort. EX: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Philadelphia-Marathon-Cheaters-411552135.html http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Philadelphia-Marat...

Taylor_OD 10y ago

Back in the days when you could buy 7,000+ twitter followers for $5 on Fiverr I use to buy followers for people all the time for fun. Friends from high school with very silly twitter account would wake up with 7,000 new followers. I also bought followers for small companies from time to time because I really enjoyed them. I noticed that their own real followers would increase after that. Confirmed this with my own twitter account. I made the conclusion that people are more likely to follow a account that already has a lot of followers. So if the first 7,000 are fake the next 1000 or 2000 will be real and actually valuable followers.

tinus_hn 10y ago

She's a 'lifestyle blogger' so it's not like she's trying to be anonymous and then being outed by some troll. Also she didn't mind everyone celebrating her second place.