Survivor Winner Revealed By Bad Web Site Coding?

We got a number of submissions about this. The Tribal Council Voting History page for the CBS TV show Survivor apparently contains a bug that lets you see which contestants have been kicked off the show before their names appear on the site, sort of like the Slashdot bug (now fixed) that sometimes let you see our stories before they appeared on the main page. The clearest instructions I saw for exploiting the "Survivor Spoiler" bug were here. I'm sure CBS will fix this soon, but you could still pull the trick as of 6:40 a.m. (US EDT) this morning. Do you think this is a true bug, or is CBS doing it on purpose (with the "wrong people" crossed out) to increase interest in the show?

Comments

The Real Ending

[Jim Tyre]

Gervase may be the last of the current crop, I don't know, but the show won't end there.

Just as he's being rescued, the S.S. Minnow, out on a three hour tour, somehow will run ashore, giving viewers a new cast of the Skipper, Gilligan, the Professer, Mr. and Mrs. Howell, Ginger and Marianne.

The Professor will build a beowulf cluster from coconuts, Marianne will get the idea to connect to AOL using all those disks she's been collecting as coasters. The Skipper will activate his GPS system, newly installed since his last charter.

Yet, despite all that's been learned over the years, they'll always just miss being rescued, at least until they've supplied the public with another 20 years of rerun fodder.

Histroy repeats itself

[RIP]

This happened the first time Survivor ran in Sweden too.

That forum...

[Anonymous Coward]

makes Slashdot look like a Mensa meeting. I guess you shouldn't expect too much from people that sit around and talk about a stupid tv show.

Re:this probably means nothing

[Fred Ferrigno]

Richard with an X (who hasn't been cast off yet)

Gervase without an X (done only by replacing "richard_VH.gif" with "gervase_VH.gif")

As well, it seems very likely that the website was completed some time ago; it would be a waste of time to have the webteam make an X-image every time a show aired. If the images are gone or changed when you see this, take my word for it (or just read the board).

Possibly disproved

[The Original Bobski]

Here

Re:Possibly disproved

[CalmCoolCollected]

But they don't have "x pictures" ready for everybody in the _VH.gif set. That's true for the tribal council set, but not the "voting history" set.

Sure they do, that's what this whole controversy is about. There's a _VH picture with an X for everyone except Gervase.

Yes, exactly. There is a {name}_VH.gif picture for each of the 16, and only one of those is "clean" : Gervase's.

Where would they put the picture of Gervase without an X anyway? What exactly is it's use? I would find this whole theory much more credible it there was NO gervase_VH picture at all.

They would put it at the top of the final column on the Voting History Grid. There are sixteen slots. Last slot is for the winner even though it is marked "voted off." (and yes that discrepancy bothers me a tad).

Why do the other Gervase pictures, used in different areas on the site, have an X version?

The one other place that there is a picture of Gervase with an "x" is in the Tribal Council pictures. There, you need two sets of pictures -- one set without x's that you are going to use a lot: they are used to show how people voted and who got votes. Then there's a second set : the x'd set that you reference to show the person in the upper left corner who got voted off. In putting this page together, it's convenient to generate two full sets first and then use them as necessary in all the various spots. You are going to end up with one picture you don't use.

The top row of the Voting History page is different. You need only one set of pictures to show the results of the voting, and it is in this single set of pictures that you have 15 red x's and 1 picture that is clean.

It's so much more believable that it was simply an error in putting an X on the one picture.

Not if this was all done with full knowledge of the results and the assumption that people just wouldn't call up the {name}_VH.gif files that hadn't been posted to the top bar of the Voting History chart yet.

Offtopic

[QuoteMstr]

Why *wouldn't* Slashdot want to post stories as soon as they were available?

Why does it delay them?

Checkout this link.

[Ice Station Zebra]

While surfing around the CBS web site I found this link which shows a script for a future version of Survivor. It would seem that the cast aways find themselves trapped at the Microsoft campus when their VW bus is run off the road by an obnoxious guy with the license plate "vb rulz" (Bill Gates???). They are then led through a wild trip and discover that Microsoft employees have all been transformed into oompa loompas.

Katz reviews Survivior

[jacks0n]

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the corpratists at CBS are finding sucess with an anti-geek show like Survivor. The very theme of the show is lifted from Lord of the Flies, which many of us remember with horror, as we identified with the weak, chubby, emasculate, glasses-wearing anti-hero. The book's message was that Civilization is fragile. Lord of the Flies judges the survivors, and declares them evil. But in Survivor, we have a celebration of a culture that is anti-cooperative, machiavellian, and uncivilized. You can see the effect of this culture as the TV show makes it's way into High Schools everywhere, where you can hear jocks and other popular types saying to geeks, "I'm voting you off my island" then laughing. Often they are too busy laughing to engage in beating or wedgieing the geek, which is their usual practice. The rise of geek culture was bound to engender a backlash, and this is only the beginning. Network Television, fearing for its life from internet-savvy-geeks, will encourage the backlash. We will be seeing televised death camps within a year, you wait and see.

Stand by for Congress to get involved.

[phil reed]

Next thing you know, CBS execs will be in front of Congress, using this as an excuse to call for an extension to the DCMA making it illegal for anybody to access a web site in any way other than the author intended.


...phil

Why?

[SamHill]

Just what is the attraction of shows such as Survivor anyway?

Where I live now, we have a channel that shows ``Real Life TV'', and it looks awful! I have a life, thank you, and I'm not especially interested in hearing other ``real'' people argue about meaningless topics, fight over who'll get the last slice of bread, debate which of two kinds of music (both of which I despise) is the greatest, have babies, get married, survive on an island (with a huge television crew watching their every move), or anything else!

What happened to having to write shows? To having intelligent people think about ideas and create a dramatic presentation? Oh, yes, it's expensive. It's much cheaper to throw together some people no one would even talk to if they didn't already know them, force them to interact under surveillance, and broadcast the results.

If you want to watch some ``reality'' television that still has some educational and entertainment value, I recommend Junkyard Wars (originally Scrapyard Challenge in Britain), now airing on The Learning Channel.

More information from HTML file...

[ecktech]

Here is some text from the HTML file for that main page... this is the scripted part that caches the images for the players (for mouseovers, I suppose). Take notice of the order of the names, even though it doesn't perfectly work out:

if (document.images) {
// on states
gervaseon = new Image(); gervaseon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/gervas eR.gif";
gervaseoff = new Image(); gervaseoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/gervas eB.gif";

jennaon = new Image(); jennaon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/jennaR .gif";
jennaoff = new Image(); jennaoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/jennaB .gif";

rudyon = new Image(); rudyon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/rudyR. gif";
rudyoff = new Image(); rudyoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/rudyB. gif";

richardon = new Image(); richardon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/richar dR.gif";
richardoff = new Image(); richardoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/richar dB.gif";

gregon = new Image(); gregon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/gregR. gif";
gregoff = new Image(); gregoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/gregB. gif";

seanon = new Image(); seanon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/seanR. gif";
seanoff = new Image(); seanoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/seanB. gif";

gretchenon = new Image(); gretchenon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/gretch enR.gif";
gretchenoff = new Image(); gretchenoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/gretch enB.gif";

susanon = new Image(); susanon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/susanR .gif";
susanoff = new Image(); susanoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/susanB .gif";

colleenon = new Image(); colleenon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/collee nR.gif";
colleenoff = new Image(); colleenoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/collee nB.gif";

kellyon = new Image(); kellyon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/kellyR .gif";
kellyoff = new Image(); kellyoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/kellyB .gif";

joelon = new Image(); joelon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/joelR. gif";
joeloff = new Image(); joeloff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/joelB. gif";

dirkon = new Image(); dirkon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/dirkR. gif";
dirkoff = new Image(); dirkoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/dirkB. gif";

ramonaon = new Image(); ramonaon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/ramona R.gif";
ramonaoff = new Image(); ramonaoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/ramona B.gif";

staceyon = new Image(); staceyon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/stacey R.gif";
staceyoff = new Image(); staceyoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/stacey B.gif";

bbon = new Image(); bbon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/bbR.gi f";
bboff = new Image(); bboff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/bbB.gi f";

sonjaon = new Image(); sonjaon.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/sonjaR .gif";
sonjaoff = new Image(); sonjaoff.src = "/network/tvshows/mini/survivor/show/images/sonjaB .gif";

}