Never prosper. I know who it is and it’s been fixed.
If you think it will help your favorite site by padding votes or hacking you are wrong. I’ll be lopping off the cheaters votes and banning addresses. I am watching the vote logs and zapping cheaters votes.
Yesterday I saw the rise in Lessig, LGF, and Scripting News and figured they were moving together. This was not exactly the case.
Scripting News rocketed up 5000 votes in short order. I combed through the Scripting News vote logs and didn’t initially see any issues. It appeared that LGF and Lessig fans tried to match the Scripting News gains illicitly. Lessig, LGF, and Kottke were all docked due to heavy vote fraud from individual address. Lessing (5K), LGF (3K), Kottke (500).
That was not the end of the story. Checking the referral logs showed where all the Scripting News votes were coming from. He benefited from some underground hacking games and did not earn the votes I though he had. He wasn’t involved, but I found the little twerps who where doing it. There were lots of other mirrors like memepool.com who were carrying similar code.
Pete Holiday was able to come up with some code to block the kind of direct link “magic” vote fraud that was happening. Things should run smoother now. Serious thanks to Pete!!!
The moral of the story is earn your votes the old fashion way: beg for them.
Update: There are 19 categories (if I remember correctly) and the voting problems have only occurred in the Best Overall Blog category and only with the sites mentioned. The illicit votes have been removed and the poll code has been modified to disable the cheating. None of the other polls were affected.
In the Best Overall Blog category all of the aforementioned sites are aware of the situation, and none of them are encouraging people to game the system. With the vote totals corrected and the polls more secure the contest will continue. It turns out that I don’t have to guess about totals when removing votes.
Some have called for the contest to end. To this I say “no”. Aside from wanting to stage a competition, I also wanted to give non A-list bloggers a chance to get some new readers at their sites. Numerous sites (even when complaining about the Weblog Awards) say that they’ve found some new blogs of interest in the Weblog Awards.
I started voting on the various categories but stopped when I got to “Best Foreign Blog.” This Americentric idea of “foreign” is rather strange in the blogosphere, where national boundaries don’t apply the way they do in the physical world.
Listen, I hope I didnt screw up. I voted when I got home last night and then again this morning figuring you were counting at 12a.m. and 12p.m. Please let me know if this is correct.
Kevin never said one person = one vote.
Kevin also said that if you didn’t like the way this was run, you were more than welcome to start your own awards.
I think some people are missing the point that this is for fun. Whether you win or don’t win, your life will not be forever changed.
hi ladies and gents:
michelle ma belle: cheating scandal=fun? lgf is a fun blog? you will be shown to be further incorrect in surmise that its all mere ha-ha, as totten uses results to tout “i am a lib, hear me snore” vichy embossed credentials. do you know mary lott?
eugene murphy
Okay, maybe eugene’s life will be forever changed. I stand corrected.
Dear Kevin, Please accept my sincere apologies for inadvertently sending more than one trackback. I regret the extra work it caused you. Given the fact that you have been managing this contest I am sure you have more than enough work to do already.
As for the “whining” well I can’t do a whole lot about the tone heard in the heads of those who read. But I assure you that if I spoke what I’ve written to you, whining would not be the tone you would hear.
It’s been my experience that those who are the targets of criticism tend to “hear” that criticism through internal filters that apply tones to the content that did not exist at the time of transmission.It is a kind of internal buffer and all too human. Indeed, that’s why smilies were born. Perhaps, in the future, when all comments are in audio this little problem will go away.
After some reflection I’ve decided that everybody here should vote early and vote often and vote without letup until the last ding-dong of doom. I’ve finally seen this as what it is, a “Way-New Democracy” voting system that even Diebold must envy, if not emulate.
As a service to those who like to vote a lot and in quantity, it might be a good idea to provide instructions on how to set up a fully automated chron job that would make sure the person’s vote got in as soon as the system allowed them to vote again. It would save a lot of trouble in having to remember to vote.
Thanks.
It would be really nice to know what most of your “categories” mean. Maybe it’s clear to those who visit this site often, but
“Best Large Mammals Ecosystem Level Blog” means absolutely nothing to me, and makes it that much harder to determine which of the sites listed best fits whatever “Best Large Mammals Ecosystem Level Blog” means.
Next year you should have a best Libertarian post.
I just found this blog that I love! Samizdata.net.
I am a conservative, but I like the topics discussed and it has a really cool international flavor and discusses UK/EU issues in a way that make you feel like an insider. It’s also constructed nicely.
Okay, Gerard, I’ve heard enough out of you. I was happy to sit by and merely read your pithy remarks. But aren’t you being just a bit hypocritical here, accusing Kevin of applying internal “filters” to what others say? Whose feathers got in a ruffle when One Fine Jay pointed out some “underhandedly malicious” trackbacks? Why, none other than yourself, sir. And turns out, it wasn’t you that he was referring to at all. That would make you extremely self-centered or extremely sensitive. Or both. Take those filters off in your own head. You may be amazed at what worlds then open up to you.
Oh, and thanks a BUNCH for giving all of Kevin’s readers your permission to “vote a lot and in quantity.” Personally, I wouldn’t have dared sally forth without YOUR permission. I mean, it’s Kevin’s web site and his poll and his contest, but what the hell, right?
That is all. Carry on.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Joni, the “trackback” you key on wasn’t malicious, but inadvertant as stated.
very nice and informal comments
great joy being here..