Voltron,
AYoung, FPGWillyT, SteveGavazzi, and several others have given you some good advice. I think the healthiest thing for you to do right now is take a break from the show and put things in perspective. ...
Fair enough. But this is (to date) an
audience participation program. Hence, there are going to be audience members (at the point known or at the point unknown) who will identifiably affect the outcome of programs. That's the nature of the beast here. It doesn't matter, really, whether the show knew about them to begin with or not. The unfair advantage they claim is exactly the same.
If they don't want that kind of stuff to happen, then they have to silence the audience for all gameplay.
2) You conducted yourself in a way that the advice was traceable to you. That's both discussing your expertise in line, and in the studio conveying your advice in a way that the contestant could see it and the show personnel could see where it was coming from. ...
Big freaking whoop they can trace it to him. This is one of the reasons that (without a further explanation and policy statement) Maddy and I are all but done going to Studio 33 and may be done as fans of the show outright. (And my friend can only take so many more such disillusion-ments...) I mean, when a contestant is asked who he's getting advice from and the two people he points out are put on camera, then that becomes "trace-able" too.
So, as of yesterday, my friend and I have successfully concluded that we are, at the least, "Ineligible Eligibles", and that we're never going to get called down because we could end up treated as "card counters" with respect to the show. My friend has wanted to be a contestant on the show for 25 years, and now she can't be that because she's followed the show religiously enough that people want to look to her for advice?
It is now to the detriment of any audience member to give enough pertinent and valid advice that the show might be able to trace it to that person. What the Hell are they running here?
I mean, do you see where this is going? Basically, any unaffiliated person who can be seen providing any win to any contestant could now be subject to scrutiny by the production vis-a-vis whether that audience member may present an unfair advantage to certain people in the audience, presenting a threat to the show's bottom line.
I could see a scenario where tape is stopped after the second or third pricing game and people are moved (or
removed) as potential unfair advantages.
And how do you enforce this without people monitoring the line on the sidewalk too, to see what people are talking about overnight?
AND
3) You came back and tried to do it again.
You make him sound like a freaking criminal, at that point! (And that might not be that far from the truth, given that they're basically accusing him of cheating and the like -- which would be, to a degree, a federal offense...)
Again, and I stress this for emphasis: There is no way a legal audience member doing things legal and encouraged by the show should ever be silenced, unless you are planning to end the audience participation portion of the program.
(Now, I can understand if you've become a "friend to the show" and the like like Marc and John have. That's a different scenario. But that's handled differently!)
Therefore, the show perceives you as potentially giving some players an advantage that others don't have. Protecting the show's integrity is more important to them than anything, even the possibility of going over budget. If the public thinks the show isn't "fair," they have a serious problem.
Then the show has no option but to immediately cease audience participation. There is no way that perception of integrity can be preserved once the show begins to identify certain people as "knowing too much" and "willing to give out that information". Once they open the door, they cannot close it again. I mean, if the show could pre-screen everyone (including the members of all the groups which come in) for unfair advantage and the like, then you could try to deal with it -- but you're still having to ask the question of whether the show is deliberately attempting to mislead the contestants into losing.
There's a vast difference between everyone in the audience shouting out prices, whether or not they know what they're talking about, and "the guy in the white shirt in the first seat of the third row told me in line how good he is at this, and he told me he would give me hand signals. I saw him on stage with a Showcase winner, so I know he knows what he's talking about" That's why Starcade's (multiply repeated) demand that it should be either all or nothing really isn't relevant. Everybody's advice, and everybody's conduct, isn't equal.
Baloney. You can make that same arrangement (as an unknown person to the show) with the group you come with, and create the same damned unfair advantage.
It IS either all or nothing. Either allow people like Voltron to give his advice and deal with what that brings, or cease audience participation altogether because there is no damned way you can level the playing field again by silencing individual audience members unless you are willing to start putting cameras on the audience to surveil them during the course of gameplay (rather than simply to add color to the broadcast), and re/move any person unaffiliated with the contestant who aids in any win.
Because any person unaffiliated with the contestant now has the potential of being an unfair advantage for that contestant over any other contestant or potential contestant in the audience.
That you guys aren't looking at the bigger picture is mind-boggling to me.
Roger did give you a straight answer on your contestant eligibility. He told you that you're not ineligible. ...
No, he's NOT eligible. Now, that is not (in this practice) the same as being ineligible (hence, my term "Ineligible Eligible").
He's not going to get selected -- ever!! -- unless there is a reversal of this policy. Think!! This guy is known to the show, has been identified as a problem to the production (for whatever reason), and yet you want to consider him eligible. He is, but only in the most technical of broadest of senses. He's been blackballed and dis-welcomed from the studio. They finally got to the point where they had to bar him pending conditions.
In fact, wouldn't he have an S&P complaint
now, anyway? Not only on the basis that he is silenced, but the fact that he has to know (if he's as intelligent as he appears to be) that he's never going to get picked? He's been called the equivalent of a "card counter" -- would it not be clear to anyone so referred to that they are now identified as someone who could take the show for huge amounts of cash and prizes they have no desire to give out?
If they really wanted to ban you completely, wouldn't Roger have just told you that you're not eligible because you know people who work for the show? Given that he and Stan (and others) know you on sight, if I wanted to argue that that means they "know" you for ineligibility purposes, I think I could figure out how to phrase it that way.
Basically, anyone, at that point, who's attended more than a couple tapings would probably be similarly ineligible. I know we've chatted with Roger for a moment after the show -- would that make us ineligible?
Starcade, I don't have the time or the patience to respond to every point you've made in this thread. Let me just say that I think your criticisms of the show's motives are both uninformed and uncalled for. ...
The motives are on the table, and, given who's running/ruining the show (Fremantle), I damned well am going to question the motives of the production company here. The decision is asinine, probably will result in the end of several people being fans of the show, and, frankly, borderline illegal. It's starting down the road to rigging the games (and, hence, a crime) to only allow advice which can be construed as deliberately incorrect, misleading, or confusing.
Fremantle is the master of the televised bait-and-switch. It's the only reason they've made it this prominently. And I will be damned to watch something I've cared about for three decades now be devoured by Syd Vinnedge and what he's doing to the show.
