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My wife made me do this....

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Eric C

Member
It's been going on for a fucking eternity. We entered on March 5. Winner gets announced 2 weeks from tomorrow.

We're sitting pretty on a lead of 473 votes, but it looks like the people in second place hired a company to spam votes for them from fake FB accounts, so we have no idea what's gonna happen over the next 2 weeks.

Well, that sucks. Hope you still win.
 

LProtag

Member
Oh wow, I forgot about this, didn't know it was still going on.

That latest development sucks. Already voted for you and hope you manage to get through to win.
 
Wow, so my wife just texted me from a dinner party she was at tonight. She started talking about the contest trying to get people at the party to vote for us and brought up the thing about how we suspect that the 2nd place entry might be cheating by buying likes.

One of the girls interjected with "Oh, one of my good friends is in that contest!" My wife asked who, and who was it other than the 2nd place girl that she was just talking about! Needless to say things got quiet and awkward and the girl left like 5 minutes later. She probably got right on the phone and called her friend.

mckenzie-o.gif


Anyways, at least she knows that we're on to her now and that might stop the cheating.


I like you

Dawww. :blushface
 
List updated. 19 gaffers added and list is now up to 230 gaffers. As always, let me know if I missed anyone.


So guise, I know it’s still way too early to start doing a victory dance. There are still 10 days to go and a lot of crazy shit can happen in that time… but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about if we win, how to keep the game raffle fair, transparent and 100% free of any bias, favoritism or other bullshit (yeah, I know eh? Free vidya gaemz is srs bizness!)

I’ve never done any kind of random draw raffle thingy before so any advice or experience would be appreciated.

Here’s what I had in mind so far:
-Copy and paste the list into a chart format.
-Print off the chart, and cut up all the names into individual tickets.
-Shuffle the tickets around, fold them up, put them in a jar, shake up the jar
-randomly pull out 5 tickets one by one. Was thinking of possibly even recording the whole process and uploading it to youtube for full transparency?

Let me know if this sounds like a fair way to do it, or if you have any better ideas.

I want to have this all figured out before the end of the contest, so that if we win I can just immediately go straight to Gamestop and get the games while Im still in a good mood
It’s going to cost me a little over $400 for the 5 @ $60 games + 15% tax, + shipping, so I damn well better be in a good mood if/when this goes down :p
 

gabbo

Member
List updated. 19 gaffers added and list is now up to 230 gaffers. As always, let me know if I missed anyone.


So guise, I know it’s still way too early to start doing a victory dance. There are still 10 days to go and a lot of crazy shit can happen in that time… but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about if we win, how to keep the game raffle fair, transparent and 100% free of any bias, favoritism or other bullshit (yeah, I know eh? Free vidya gaemz is srs bizness!)

I’ve never done any kind of random draw raffle thingy before so any advice or experience would be appreciated.

Here’s what I had in mind so far:
-Copy and paste the list into a chart format.
-Print off the chart, and cut up all the names into individual tickets.
-Shuffle the tickets around, fold them up, put them in a jar, shake up the jar
-randomly pull out 5 tickets one by one. Was thinking of possibly even recording the whole process and uploading it to youtube for full transparency?

Let me know if this sounds like a fair way to do it, or if you have any better ideas.

I want to have this all figured out before the end of the contest, so that if we win I can just immediately go straight to Gamestop and get the games while Im still in a good mood
It’s going to cost me a little over $400 for the 5 @ $60 games + 15% tax, + shipping, so I damn well better be in a good mood if/when this goes down :p

You could talk to Opiate about how to set something up. He ran GAFBingo pretty smoothly over the holidays, so he probably knows a thing or two about keep things random/fair/unbiased. Just a suggestion so you don't have to put 250 names in hat.
 
List updated. 19 gaffers added and list is now up to 230 gaffers. As always, let me know if I missed anyone.


So guise, I know it’s still way too early to start doing a victory dance. There are still 10 days to go and a lot of crazy shit can happen in that time… but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about if we win, how to keep the game raffle fair, transparent and 100% free of any bias, favoritism or other bullshit (yeah, I know eh? Free vidya gaemz is srs bizness!)

I’ve never done any kind of random draw raffle thingy before so any advice or experience would be appreciated.

Here’s what I had in mind so far:
-Copy and paste the list into a chart format.
-Print off the chart, and cut up all the names into individual tickets.
-Shuffle the tickets around, fold them up, put them in a jar, shake up the jar
-randomly pull out 5 tickets one by one. Was thinking of possibly even recording the whole process and uploading it to youtube for full transparency?

Let me know if this sounds like a fair way to do it, or if you have any better ideas.

I want to have this all figured out before the end of the contest, so that if we win I can just immediately go straight to Gamestop and get the games while Im still in a good mood
It’s going to cost me a little over $400 for the 5 @ $60 games + 15% tax, + shipping, so I damn well better be in a good mood if/when this goes down :p
Make a googledocs, uneditable list that contains every gaffer with an associated number. Generate random numbers. You can youtube this if you like. This might be a bit easier.
 

Theonik

Member
Make a googledocs, uneditable list that contains every gaffer with an associated number. Generate random numbers. You can youtube this if you like. This might be a bit easier.
This is probably the best solution. He could also try and be fancy and for each draw generate several numbers in the range he wants, finding the average value between them and awarding the game to the nearest number.
 

Tenck

Member
Seems a bit ironic almost that you are using GAF for your own campaign but don't seem keen on people using other tactics

One thing is having a community of people you talk to sometimes, the other is having people buy votes with fake FB accounts. I'll let you decide which one is worse.
 
lol, just checked up on the status of the contest and found this posted on the company's wall:

Richard Gilliam

"Alamin Kitchen (that's us) should be disqualified for soliciting votes from an internet forum: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=466010"

was this a gaffer? if so, smh.
 

Riggs

Banned
lol, just checked up on the status of the contest and found this posted on the company's wall:

Richard Gilliam

"Alamin Kitchen (that's us) should be disqualified for soliciting votes from an internet forum: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=466010"

was this a gaffer? if so, smh.
Oh Hell no, the investigation begins. We will find this gaffer, justice will be brutal.
 

GraveRobberX

Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
lol, just checked up on the status of the contest and found this posted on the company's wall:

Richard Gilliam

"Alamin Kitchen (that's us) should be disqualified for soliciting votes from an internet forum: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=466010"

was this a gaffer? if so, smh.

THIS IS WHY WE CAN"T HAVE GOOD THINGS!

Fuck it, if people wanna be assholes, then you bring the claim about those assholes paying for votes

Flame On FUCKERS!

Also you're Muslim, I'm Muslim, so my 8 votes count, we're practically cousins LOL
 

Mayyhem

Member
Ouch. Hopefully that was not a Gaffer.

Ever think maybe one of the other competitors seen all the comments on your kitchen pic about "gaf", did some nifty searching and found this thread? Could be another possibility.

edit; then again, it could also be some lurker gaf troll
 
Ouch. Hopefully that was not a Gaffer.

Ever think maybe one of the other competitors seen all the comments on your kitchen pic about "gaf", did some nifty searching and found this thread? Could be another possibility.

That's a possibility.

Based on the profile, the person who made that comment seems to have some connection to Kentucky. Since the competitors are in Halifax it seems like it would be a pretty elaborate scheme if it was a fake account created by one of the competitors just to post that comment.

Either way, we're not worried about it at all. As I mentioned earlier we asked the company about the rules of the contest at the beginning and have emails from them as proof/confirmation that this wasn't against the rules. I know of at least 3 other entries (the second place entry among them) that have done the exact same thing, so it would definitely be a case of throwing stones in glass houses if it was on of the other entries.

We will be emailing them shortly to ask that they remove that comment from their wall.
 

Riggs

Banned
That's a possibility.

Based on the profile, the person who made that comment seems to have some connection to Kentucky. Since the competitors are in Halifax it seems like it would be a pretty elaborate scheme if it was a fake account created by one of the competitors just to post that comment.

Either way, we're not worried about it at all. As I mentioned earlier we asked the company about the rules of the contest at the beginning and have emails from them as proof/confirmation that this wasn't against the rules. I know of at least 3 other entries (the second place entry among them) that have done the exact same thing, so it would definitely be a case of throwing stones in glass houses if it was on of the other entries.

We will be emailing them shortly to ask that they remove that comment from their wall.
Good! Win dat kitchen for us man! This isn't about your wife wanting it anymore. It's about us! Errr or not.
 
Did some investigation and it looks like it was definitely a gaffer that tried to sabotage us!

Under "recent activity" on that facebook account I found this:

"Would easily pay for a proper PC port of monsters, instead of this facebook cash-shop crap. Already own it on PS3 but would buy again." on PixelJunk Monsters Online's timeline."

Gamer-talk like that can only be a gaffer and not one of the other competitors.

So who was it? show yourself! :p
 

Riggs

Banned
Did some investigation and it looks like it was definitely a gaffer that tried to sabotage us!

Under "recent activity" on that facebook account I found this:

"Would easily pay for a proper PC port of monsters, instead of this facebook cash-shop crap. Already own it on PS3 but would buy again." on PixelJunk Monsters Online's timeline."

Gamer-talk like that can only be a gaffer and not one of the other competitors.

So who was it? show yourself! :p

Let's fuck em up!

ib0v8AXU3Csf6k.gif
 
Let's fuck em up!

ib0v8AXU3Csf6k.gif

Lawl!

I honestly don’t really care abt that comment since it won’t have any bearing on the contest whatsoever. I’m honestly just laughing it off at the moment.

But at the same time, going through the trouble of doing that just to try and get a fellow gaffer disqualified from a contest?.... one that you're not even in?

wow. That makes you kind of a dick in my book. I just want to see if whoever posted that comment will have the cojones to admit it.
 

Apath

Member
Did some investigation and it looks like it was definitely a gaffer that tried to sabotage us!

Under "recent activity" on that facebook account I found this:

"Would easily pay for a proper PC port of monsters, instead of this facebook cash-shop crap. Already own it on PS3 but would buy again." on PixelJunk Monsters Online's timeline."

Gamer-talk like that can only be a gaffer and not one of the other competitors.

So who was it? show yourself! :p
Wow, what a piece of shit. It'd make sense if everyone else in the contest were relying on "honest" votes, but that's clearly not the case.
 
D

Deleted member 81567

Unconfirmed Member
Well isn't every public internet contest like that then?
 

leadbelly

Banned
The people who get paid actually get something out of it.

They do, but that is kind of besides the point. The purpose in both cases is to manipulate the vote. There is only so many people you can pay for it to be worth the bother in the end. And the amount you pay them becomes quite a big factor.
 
“Cheating” implies breaking the rules.

This contest has rules. And the company was pretty clear about them : Get votes/likes any way you can. The only thing off-limits is paying people/companies to spam votes for you from fake accounts.

Why is this against the rules? Because fake accounts that are all owned by the same person/company do nothing to generate exposure for their business (which is the whole purpose of the contest), but real accounts, whether they are from forums, random strangers on the internet, or other sources, do.

Rules. A very simple concept that isn’t that hard to understand. Don’t get why a few people are still whining about this.
 

Ashhong

Member
Probably. I just don't see much of a difference between paying people to vote, and pleading to people on a popular forum to vote.

He said the number 2 contestant is paying a company to create FAKE facebook accounts and vote for them. Big difference.

edit: beaten

edit2: liked, 1483 I think.
 

leadbelly

Banned
“Cheating” implies breaking the rules.

This contest has rules. And the company was pretty clear about them : Get votes/likes any way you can. The only thing off-limits is paying people/companies to spam votes for you from fake accounts.

Okay, well first of all I didn't know the rules before making a comment. Second, paying people and paying someone to generate fake accounts is a little different.
 
Lol, dick move by the supergrass gaffer. Not a fan of these things but that was pretty low.

These threads are pretty annoying tho, I think they should probably be banned after this one. I mean, after the other guy got his free wedding or whatever and you get your free kitchen there'll be someone else wanting something else. GAF is becoming people's personal army.

By no means do I include the guy with the sick mum, what's happening in that thread is heartwarming stuff, I strictly mean freebie grabbing shit like this. Still, I hope you win and not the cheating team. Best of luck.
 

Vyer

Member
Yes it's too late. Way, way, way too late :p
we don't want any more competition




Yeah, I guess I wasn’t really clear about that. My fault.

A few weeks into the contest we noticed that she created a facebook group for her entry. Someone posted “Buy Likes!” on her wall put a link to his/her website. I copied the link and held onto it for evidence just in case things got ugly.

A couple of weeks later we noticed that on random days of the week they would get bursts of votes in increments of 40-70 votes during odd hours of the night (like 1a.m to 5a.m-ish) No votes for the entire week, but a sudden burst of 70 votes overnight during odd hours of the night.

So I decided to look into who these mysterious overnight voters were. All these votes came from facebook accounts with open profiles, no friends, and the only activity from these accounts was liking hundreds of facebook pages.

I went back to that link and saw that the pagemaster had even put up a voting schedule, listing the times that they vote (which matched the times they were getting votes). Didn't report them to the company or accuse them and I'm hoping I don't have to. It's only a last resort if things get ugly and we lose.

Out of curiosity, that doesn't necessarily link the second place voter with some 'buy likes' spam though, does it? Or am I just reading it wrong?
 
Okay, well first of all I didn't know the rules before making a comment. Second, paying people and paying someone to generate fake accounts is a little different.

Yeah, I tried explaining what was going on a few posts back, but I think that post keeps getting missed and this debate about what does and doesn’t constitute cheating keeps re-surfacing.

I’ll just repeat it all anyways for the purpose of an update.

We saw someone post “need votes? Buy likes!” on their (the other contestant's) wall and posted a link beneath. I followed the link and this person was advertising that they own “over 1000 facebook accounts, with pictures of nature, astronomy, etc.” and offering to sell facebook likes in packages of 250, 500 and 1,000. They had even listed a voting schedule posting the time that they vote.

Two weeks later we noticed that a certain entry was getting votes in increments of 40-70 likes from the hours of roughly 2:00am-5:00am. This was happening every Wednesday night for about 3 weeks, then mysteriously didn’t happen this Wednesday after a certain other event that I posted about.

Wondering who these mysterious late-night voters were, I clicked on their accounts to check it out. These accounts had open profiles, no friends, and the only activity from these accounts was liking hundreds upon hundreds of facebook pages. Not only that, but these accounts were all liking the SAME pages (wet t-shirt contest, car contest, etc) The times they voted also matched the “schedule” from that person’s website. We put 2 + 2 together, contacted the company to double check if this was against the rules, and that was that.

Very different from getting help from gaffers (who are actually real people).

I also find it kind of disheartening that we didn't report/complain about them to the company because I didn't want to cause any un-necessary drama or hostility (or cause them any uneccesary embarrassment) and yet a gaffer, for whatever reason, decided to go through the trouble of going to the company website and telling them to disqualify us on the basis of this thread.
 
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