Lately I have been challenged with some very difficult cubes. I do not want to put my rating at risk so I have been skipping the most challenging. My current 95% Type 1 accuracy seems to be very sensitive to errors. A few big mistakes could send my accuracy very low. Is it worth risking my rating on difficult cubes?. Is that what Eyewire wants? I believe my tracing is considered less valuable as my accuracy declines. How can I help the most?
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Hi dmacdougall,
Great question! It is quite normal for your accuracy to fluctuate in Eyewire as we are a consensus based game. Since the major factor in accuracy calculation is how much you agree with what other players have submitted (and each player can have a different solution), we take this variation into account; for example, you can trailblaze (be the first to play a cube) at 80% accuracy or higher. We’re all human!
While you may be worried about your accuracy, tracing difficult cubes are a way to learn and improve your Eyewire abilities 
If you find you are having trouble with a tricky cube, you can always ask for help in chat from a mentor or an admin. It’s up to you to challenge yourself with cubes (you can always skip a cube with no penalty), but think of low accuracy as a teaching tool. You may learn from review mode the best solution to trace a tricky cube or that there is a problem you need to report/flag in the cube.
In addition to review mode, the activity tracker (https://blog.eyewire.org/activity-tracker/) can help you keep track of low accuracy cubes and their status. Since we are a consensus based game, there will be times where you may disagree with what another player has submitted. Remember low accuracy can mean that you disagreed with another player, but you may still be correct! 
Some examples of low accuracy but good tracing can include:
- You were the second player after a bad trailblazer
- A cube contained a difficult trace (such as a fused merger or black spill) that the other players on the cube missed
- An AI seed merger in the cube making it difficult to tell what is the correct starting segment to trace
In these examples, your initial low accuracy may be corrected by other players playing the cube or a scythe correcting the problem. As a scout, you are able to bring the attention of a scythe to fixing these problems by flagging the cube. Once a cube has been reaped by a scythe, your accuracy will be updated on that cube to reflect that change.
I hope this info helps you go out and conquer those tricky cubes! As a scout and player, you have a lot of tools available to you to help handle low accuracy cubes. If you have any questions about scouting or using these tools, let us know or ask in chat
Cheers,
M.
I would skip anything that’s too difficult (I do that) and save them for the end. A lot of difficult cubes get piled up at the end, so it’s up to those who want to and/or able to take up the challenge to do so - even at the risk of losing accuracy.
PS - accuracy isn’t everything, just a number to guide, but if it goes down - it may not be your fault - as it’s based on the work of others!