I got an E-mail this morning from Duskrider, with this link in it
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/849/

Yup! Wendell has decided to retire the CBC after 12 years. Very sad, indeed.

The CBC has been very important to the chatbot community, since it has been the second biggest contest for us, and since it was also far more accessible to many than the Loebner Competition. Being an involved member of the community, I couldn't let that stand, so I've decided to do something about it. I'm gathering an informal committee, made up of AI/chatbot enthusiasts/experts, and we're discussing the creation of a new contest; one that carries on the best traditions of the CBC, while also having a new perspective and focus. I've also discussed the new contest with Wendell, as well as several leaders in the field, and have created a round table discussion over at chatbots.org to bounce ideas back and forth. Everyone is invited to participate in these discussions, regardless of your involvement and/or experience.

I noticed you posted this over on AiDreams Dave, where should I post some thoughts? Well I'm here now so here goes but I will probably post the same thing over on Dreams.  

I would like to see a tougher approach to judging the bots, something like 1, 2, or 3 strikes and you're out.

If a bot gets asked a question and it gives a wrong, misleading, inaccurate or just completely changes the subject as an answer it should get a strike.

The winner could be the bot that goes on the longest without making a mistake or deviating from the subject.  

EDIT:
I would also add:

Trying to fool the judges into thinking they are talking to a human should be completely dropped, the judges know they are talking to bots, lets treat them as what they are and see where that leads us. 

The major part of the discussion is happening over at chatbots.org, in this thread. But feel free to post here, if you like, or over at AI Dreams, for that matter. I watch all of the places I've posted.

With the number of chatbots I hope to attract, I think I'll need to set up a Round Robin, single (or maybe double, if the numbers are short) elimination tournament, but I'm not completely certain how the final structure of the contest will turn out yet.

Glad to hear your taking over Dave I have some Ideas to throw your way, I will have to get back to you on them though soon. maybe tomorrow if time permits.

Sure, Syber! That's great. I'm not sure what your interest level is with regard to AI or chatbots, but whatever level it is, I would like to invite you to check out http://www.chatbots.org - We have a lot of friendly folks there, the vast majority of whom are AI/chatbot enthusiasts, and most of them are also researchers in the areas of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), NLP (Natural Language Processing), and other areas. The nice thing is that, while these folks are frighteningly intelligent, they still "talk" like real people. I'm a very active member there, as well as a site moderator, and I really enjoy my time there, and I've learned a lot from the community.

I merged two pc's today, both older xp machines, for a good friend. plus had a lot of errands, so I did not have time write down my Ideas. I will try and get them typed out and post them.

QuoteI'm not sure what your interest level is with regard to AI or chatbots, but whatever level it is

I always had a big interest in AI and chat-bots, I even want to have a couple of chat bot on my new site once it is up. I was going to run my ideas across you and the other here once that time has come. I been sorta following/keeping up with the chat-bot competitions for a few years now, and I always thought the competitions lacked a few things.

QuoteI would like to invite you to check out http://www.chatbots.org -

Thanks for the invite, I read the post from there that you linked the other day, just did not have time to join, or even post a comment here on some of the suggestions made. Tomorrow I also have lots to do, but maybe I can free up some time to join. I been so busy I had to take down my forum, for I don't have the time to maintain it right now. plus it was coming down anyway with the new site, and a smf forum was going up.

I rushed righting this, I'm sorry if there are any errors, or things don't make sense.



 

Dave here is my Ideas. 

   My Idea is to have categories for the bots to compete within.
Each category would be a round where a bot can score points.
Say 10 categories with 5 questions each.

Each year you can have the public submit a certain category
question, the best question for each category gets added to the
list of questions for that years category.

Judges are allowed to only ask the competitions question, the
judge can answer the bots question, but cannot answer the bots
question with a question. Only the initial answer to the
competitions question can be scored.

The public can have a site to go to to pick a question from a
random category to be asked to all the bots. The identity of
the bots will not be present at this time. The person who picked
the question now has to judge each answer, say on a scale of 1-5.
once the person has finished scoring all the answers they would
be brought to a page showing results of all the bots from the
public's participation.

The public has a choice to make a contribution/ donation to the
challenge, all contributors will have the ability to see the results
of each round as soon as it is finished and posted to a contributors
only area webpage.

The results of each round will be displayed to the public in a video,
sort of like a game show video, or a compilation like dance with
the stars. Within the video's description that rounds scores for each
bot can be posted along with total points tallied from previous rounds.