Quit Jerking Up the Voting Thread

[hellcatv]

Chris: Your forum your rules... there may have been more IP masking--perhaps I shouldn't have shared that one anecdote--but I don't see why me not telling you folks about it would help you---nor that it must have clearly failed otherwise the PiArmada vote would have been higher (it was one for a *long* time)

I don't know of any of the cheating that's apparently going on to bolster Priv Gemini Gold. and it's possible some of the people I talked to between 9 and 25 didn't vote and cheaters voted instead--- that, however, would be a sad state of affairs.

I do know one or maybe two people who had brothers/sisters who both played the game and were WC fans as well and they voted---but that would only be at most 2 votes per IP (NAT) (though in the case I'm thinking of the IP spaces would have been different anyway because the two didn't share a place)--and if this behavior is discouraged then make it clear that you want one vote per person in different IP blocks from other all other persons...which would avoid this sort of problem--

I'd say just relax and see--- I agree that the sampling is so small that these seemingly small numbers of cheaters can cast a disproportionate number of votes--the solution to that is to increase the number of samples--and the best way to do that is to make it easier, not harder, to vote and then cull the samples down. *Most* people I talk to refuse to vote on the *basis* (not despite) the registration.

 

[PeteyG]

Here's an ultimatum: fix your own house or you're banned from mine. Do not post here again until you've deleted the offensive thread in question.

I'm not going on some vauge notion here - I'm looking at the IPs of the people who've voted. There are now six IPs that have been used to vote twice... funny, the projects that don't have message boards where their moderators encourage people to do this aren't running into this problem.

I really like Privateer Gold, it deserves to win as much as Standoff does -- I'm just saying that there's a valid, conscious effort, supported by your own message board to cheat at this poll. That's just plain wrong.

I just read over the thread on the Vega Strike forum, and I can't find a place where it specifically encourages multiple voting. Voting for a particular project is strongly encouraged (understandably). There are posts further down that discourage cheating. Unless posts have been edited, I don't think that there is even any nudge nudge wink wink encouragement to cheat at voting.

The tone of MKruer's original post is pretty acidic. His encouragement for other people to troll on Crius really isn't the best thing ever. Especially since the OP came from an admin of the VS forums.

I think that it should be edited to specifically discourage vote-cheating (since it is apparently a problem). It should also be edited to not encourage Crius trolling.

Deleting the entire thread would be excessive and unreasonable.

 

[PeteyG]

I just read over the thread on the Vega Strike forum, and I can't find a place where it specifically encourages multiple voting. Voting for a particular project is strongly encouraged (understandably). There are posts further down that discourage cheating. Unless posts have been edited, I don't think that there is even any nudge nudge wink wink encouragement to cheat at voting.

The tone of MKruer's original post is pretty acidic. His encouragement for other people to troll on Crius really isn't the best thing ever. Especially since the OP came from an admin of the VS forums.

I think that it should be edited to specifically discourage vote-cheating (since it is apparently a problem). It should also be edited to not encourage Crius trolling.

Deleting the entire thread would be excessive and unreasonable.

Um, or... you know... they could delete the thread too. whatever! (lawl)

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I do know one or maybe two people who had brothers/sisters who both played the game and were WC fans as well and they voted---but that would only be at most 2 votes per IP (NAT) (though in the case I'm thinking of the IP spaces would have been different anyway because the two didn't share a place)--and if this behavior is discouraged then make it clear that you want one vote per person in different IP blocks from other all other persons...which would avoid this sort of problem--

We will be deleting all posts by users with the same IP.

We will be deleting all posts by users with the same IP *range*.

If you go to your office and have all your pals vote for your favorite project over lunch, their votes are not going to be counted.

We're going to DNS every single one and we're going to see that lunx23.whatever.com, lunx24.whatever.com and lunx25.whatever.com have voted in a half hour span. You've already done this and you know who you are. You should be incredibly, incredibly ashamed of yourself. If you actually thought there was enough value in winning to go through the extreme of working for it, you should have done so legitimately. Winning with fake votes is the same thing as not winning at all - and mark my words, you will do neither.

They're not going to be removed *now*, though. They're going to be removed *after* the deadline, to prevent people from being able to decide they think they know what the vote total is. We thought that this year the CZ poll would be a fun way to let people see how the voting was going.

Wing Commander fans are smart people, we said, they'll get a kick out of this. We did not count on weird jerks coming from other communities to mess with the system. Let me be the first to apologize on behalf of the staff for any confusion real fans are looking at over this (as it seems clear the people responsible for it are going to fuddle about and feign ignorance for the rest of their lives).

Um, or... you know... they could delete the thread too. whatever! (lawl)

... and there you go, having MKruer post the same inane crap again. Your way doesn't work. You should ban him for a few days -- it's what I'd do, and these forums are great.

 

[AD]

Armada Online gets my vote

 

[NinjaLA]

I'd like to take this moment to say that I voted for Gemini Gold, but thats just because I am a privateer fan, I have always been and always will be.. Making updated privateer caters perfectly to my desire.

It was still a tough call IMHO, though because standoff is, quite frankly, amazing for a fan project and in a technical sense probably took more effort to produce than the Privateer remakes ever will.

That said though.. I do loves my privateer.. and I am NOT a vegastrike forum member, despite the fact that I am a new member.

 

[Nomad Terror]

You shouldn't feel like you have to justify your vote.

If you feel any project deserves your one vote, and you are not voting for the purpose of skewing the results in someone else's favor, then your vote is legitimate, regardless of what you are voting for.

The apparent controversy would have received the same kind of attention had it centered around any other choice.

 

[Chicken]

Pretty hard to choose between Standoff, Gemini Gold, and Armada Online.

Only problem is Armada is being stupid as usual despite my best efforts with DosBox.

I applaud all efforts for these projects. But Standoff narrowly won for me...

 

[klauss]

We will be deleting all posts by users with the same IP.
We will be deleting all posts by users with the same IP *range*.
If you go to your office and have all your pals vote for your favorite project over lunch, their votes are not going to be counted.
We're going to DNS every single one and we're going to see that lunx23.whatever.com, lunx24.whatever.com and lunx25.whatever.com have voted in a half hour span. You've already done this and you know who you are. You should be incredibly, incredibly ashamed of yourself. If you actually thought there was enough value in winning to go through the extreme of working for it, you should have done so legitimately. Winning with fake votes is the same thing as not winning at all - and mark my words, you will do neither.

LOAF... you're making a big mistake.
You're ruining all the effort you put into removing CIC bias from the voting process.
You can't delete votes under any circumstance. It's actually much more acceptable to reject nominations than it is to delete votes!
So... you'll delete all the votes of people that voted from the same university? My university accesses internet through a proxy (and I guess many do... it's common). So you have a few hundred computers registering as a single IP address, even their host names are similar (dc001.ub.ar, dc002.uba.ar, etc...).
That's what I meant when I said IPs are maeaningless... you can't arrive to conclusions with them.

If you do that, I'm afraid this poll is meaningless as well.

 

[LeHah]

You're ruining all the effort you put into removing CIC bias from the voting process.

The voting process is ruined by ballot stuffing. LOAF is removing "extra" votes by bad people. Or do you not want the outcome to be fair?

You can't delete votes under any circumstance. It's actually much more acceptable to reject nominations than it is to delete votes!

Its bad form to tell a cook what to do in his own kitchen. And considering the circumstances, you should count yourself lucky that Gemini Gold doesn't have it's nomination removed. (No, I'm not a mod or admin, but that just stands to reason)

So... you'll delete all the votes of people that voted from the same university? My university accesses internet through a proxy. That's what I meant when I said IPs are maeaningless... you can't arrive to conclusions with them.

I work at a major northeastern university with roughly 3500+ students. The closest Wing Commander fan to me that posts here - the biggest WC site on the internet - is Frosty, who lives about 40-50 minutes away. Unless you're telling me that your school is some kind of secret hub for WC fans, you just admitted to ballot stuffing.

Most people wouldn't step into that kind of bear trap, but, hey, I guess you have your reasons.

 

[Ghost]

I'm going to the same university that Mklauss, University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and voted for Gemini Gold
But i voted from home or it was from work?

 

[Nomad Terror]

I think it stands to reason that if there are multiple votes being legitimately sent from a single IP address, then those votes should be spread out among different results, unless the group is small or there is some kind of plot to skew the results.

That is to say that, ideally, at this point, 35% of the removed duplicate IP votes would be for GG, 37% for Standoff, and the rest distributed respectively among the other candidates.

All of these duplicate votes would be removed, and if the results change significantly, it highly suggests that some kind of foul play was in practice.

In other words, if you're playing fairly, there isn't much you need to worry about.

 

[klauss]

The voting process is ruined by ballot stuffing. LOAF is removing "extra" votes by bad people. Or do you not want the outcome to be fair?

Yes... I agree... ballot stuffing is bad.
But if anyone, be it LOAF or not, deletes votes... how can people be certain that
a) he's not deleting votes he doesn't like, and b) he's not deleting their votes, mistaking them for "stuffing attempts"?

I see b more likely than a... but both possibilities will be in people's minds.

I work at a major northeastern university with roughly 3500+ students. The closest Wing Commander fan to me that posts here - the biggest WC site on the internet - is Frosty, who lives about 40-50 minutes away. Unless you're telling me that your school is some kind of secret hub for WC fans, you just admitted to ballot stuffing.

Nice logic. Faulty, but nice.
I just can't see a connection between saying: "You're risking heavy bias" and "I voted twice".

Besides... seriously... in any country, messing with vote counting is one of the gravest things to do.

I know that here in the internet LOAF can mangle the numbers all he wants. But if I don't see a 40 drop to 10, say, I have no reason to think he did. Now, if I've already seen GG has 40 votes, and then, suddenly, when voting ends I see that the count reads 10 votes for GG, then I'll smell something really fishy. And most people will. How can I be certain that LOAF didn't make a mistake? I can't, because I know it's very easy to make a mistake the way he's filtering stuff.
I know you don't care what I think or smell, but I guess others will get the same impression.

 

[Ghost]

But if anyone, be it LOAF or not, deletes votes... how can people be certain that
a) he's not deleting votes he doesn't like, and b) he's not deleting their votes, mistaking them for "stuffing attempts"?
likely than a... but both possibilities will be in people's minds..

And why LOAF will do a) ?
I've been here for almost like 6 years and never saw anything like that, even when LOAF don't like some projects (and he doesn't like many of them)
If people thinks that LOAF could a), then they are some trolls here or they aren't members mebers of the CIC for a long time to know each other, and that means that they are some n00bs that joined just for voting GG

But if I don't see a 40 drop to 10, say, I have no reason to think he did. Now, if I've already seen GG has 40 votes, and then, suddenly, when voting ends I see that the count reads 10 votes for GG, then I'll smell something really fishy. And most people will. How can I be certain that LOAF didn't make a mistake? I can't, because I know it's very easy to make a mistake the way he's filtering stuff.
I know you don't care what I think or smell, but I guess others will get the same impression.

Man, yesterday i saw GG going from 29 to 40 in less than 2 hours...and you speak about something fishy?

 

[PopsiclePete]

The best solution would have been to simply disallow forum accounts created after the creation of the poll to vote.

I don't like this thread. This vote should be about a bunch of happy fans voting for their favourite project as a big "thank you" the the people who worked their asses off to make something for all the community. (That includes HellcatV whose work his the basis of Priv GG.) We WC fans form a big familly. Even in the tight-knit famillies there are disputes, but in the end once or twice a year all the familly happily gets around the table to slice the ham/turkey/whatever. Why can't everyone stop fighting just for a few weeks for we celebrate the efforts of the people behind all those huge efforts ?

Let's now all be merry and white. And may all your Christmases be WC.

 

[Maj.Striker]

Yeah, to be honest I would disallow any newly registered users to vote. They can vote next year. If they were truly WC fan members then they would have already had a CIC account. If they've just discovered the CIC then that means they can't have had a fair exposure to all the projects listed. (I.e. if they were all vegastrike forum members then how much are they likely to know about Standoff, WC Saga, PiArmada etc). I don't feel its fair to vote for a project just because its the only one you've played.

 

[LeHah]

Yes... I agree... ballot stuffing is bad.
But if anyone, be it LOAF or not, deletes votes... how can people be certain that
a) he's not deleting votes he doesn't like, and b) he's not deleting their votes, mistaking them for "stuffing attempts"?

Anyone who's spent any amount of time on here knows that LOAF is exceedingly fair. The fact that he's telling you that theres suspicious IP activity during voting and the reasons why he's removing votes is him being candid about the problem and what he plans to do. If he were being a mean ol jerk, he'd just remove whatever he wanted and edit it to his favor. But he's telling you why it's happening - too many suspicious votes from an IP address.

I see b more likely than a... but both possibilities will be in people's minds.

Speak for yourself. The CZ is the only place on the internet I've seen thats so well moderated and free of general assholeisms that the internet seems to thrive on.

I know that here in the internet LOAF can mangle the numbers all he wants.

And what does he gain from that?

 

[klauss]

@Ghost

I was just being thorough with a)... as I said, I suspect b) rather than a).

And I don't think 19 votes in 2 hours is fishy.

And why would votes from people that registered specifically to vote GG be less valuable?
I don't know... if you don't want that, during the vote disable registering of new accounts. Anything is better than deleting votes, IMO.

(this was written before Popsicle Pete posted... so I guess there is consensus in that new accounts shouldn't be allowed to vote - and that would solve double voting without resorting to vote deletion).

All others: Frankly, I agree.

And what does he gain from that?

Nothing. I was just commenting on the possibility. Since I work in cryptography, I've gotten accustomed to think of every possiblity (not that I always find them all) and not disregard them by any chance. So... LOAF could. Now, wanting to and eventually doing it is another matter.

 

[LeHah]

Nothing. I was just commenting on the possibility.

You misunderstand. There is no "possibility" - LOAF said the ballots *would be* edited due to "stuffing". He has nothing to gain by editing ballots, though.

I mean, then again, you'd probably be complaining if someone was stuffing ballots for another nominee. But thats just the way people are.

Since I work in cryptography, I've gotten accustomed to think of every possiblity (not that I always find them all) and not disregard them by any chance.

To quote one of my favorite wingmen - "Stop beating your chest. You're going to bruise it."

 

[klauss]

I mean, then again, you'd probably be complaining if someone was stuffing ballots for another nominee. But thats just the way people are.

Meh...
I'm not complaining.
Right now, IMO, this poll has no meaning.
Both because of the stuffing (if it did happen - I won't be certain until I see the results, I guess), and because of the filtering.
The stuffing is obviously a spoiler, but the filtering can easily go wrong, and spoil the poll just the same.
So, I just don't care what happens... I'm just trying to warn LOAF about the dangers of performing that kind of filtering.

To quote one of my favorite wingmen - "Stop beating your chest. You're going to bruise it."

Can't say I understand that... but If I do, (jk)