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My wife made me do this....

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Vyer

Member
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. 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.

It's also pointless (the post about this thread) because chances are lots of people in that contest are doing the same thing.

Still, the second place may not necessarily be buying votes. There are whole forums and websites dedicated to this stuff. Soccer moms sit around all day and work on those forums. It's possible those profiles exist for that purpose.
 

leadbelly

Banned
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. 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.

Yeah. I didn't read them. The post I read was the one with the gif in it because it attracted my eyes to it. I just posted in ignorance based on that one post.
 
Still, the second place may not necessarily be buying votes. There are whole forums and websites dedicated to this stuff. Soccer moms sit around all day and work on those forums. It's possible those profiles exist for that purpose.

You could be right. It could just be from vote-exchange websites or whatever, in which case I would feel like a total dick for all but accusing them.

But that still doesn’t explain a few odd things: the fact that they were coming in large increments, every Wednesday (despite no activity for the entire week), during odd hours of the night (2:00ish am – 5:00ish am). We even noticed that two of the accounts (purported to be from completely different places with completely different names, age, gender) had the exact same profile picture of some random 3 year old girl that looked like it came up from a google image search. The evidence points very, very heavily towards our initial conclusion. Either way, I don’t think it’s going to be an issue regardless unless they bought 1000 and they’re all going to be delivered over the next week.

Yeah. I didn't read them. The post I read was the one with the gif in it because it attracted my eyes to it. I just posted in ignorance based on that one post.

No worries brah. Cheers m8 =)

Getting back on track:

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.

I like this idea a lot. It will save me a ton of hassle.

Is there any good random number generating freeware you can recommend?

Edit:

So are you winning OP? Can't tell since there's a bunch of Kitchens to look through.

Yup, we're in the lead by almost 600 votes =)
 

Tenck

Member
Is there any good random number generating freeware you can recommend?

Oddly enough the most obvious one is the best choice.

http://www.random.org/

Was recommended by the mod who took care of Bingo during the Steam Winter sales. I know I saw a mention of him on this thread (Probably a few pages back).
 
Oddly enough the most obvious one is the best choice.

http://www.random.org/

Was recommended by the mod who took care of Bingo during the Steam Winter sales. I know I saw a mention of him on this thread (Probably a few pages back).

It is settled then. Thank you, good sir (and thanks to you as well gabbo).

So unless there are any objections or suggestions on how to do this better, this is how the draw is going to go down:

- The list will stay as it is, in alphabetical order and get numbered from 1-250, or whatever number we're at by the end of this. All winning numbers will be generated using the site suggested by Tenck.

- If the list is at an even number, it will be divided into two groups. For example, if we have 250 gaffers on the list, #'s 1-125 will be group A. #'s 126 - 250 will be group B.There will be alternating draws for the first 4 winners and the final draw will be a number generated from the entire list.
To clarify, for the first draw, I will generate a random number from Group A (1-125). The second draw will be a random number generated from group B (126-250). Third draw will be group A again, fourth will be group B. And the fifth and final draw will be for the entire list 1-250.

-If the list ends up at an odd number, I won't divide the list into two groups and just generate random numbers for the entire list.

-Entire process will be recorded and uploaded to Youtube for full transparency

-Winners will immediately get a PM from me in case they aren't following the thread. They will have one week to PM me back with the game and platform of their choice and their shipping info. If I don't hear back from them in a week, the prize will be forfeited and another winner will be generated.

sound like a plan?
 

Kunohara

Member
It is settled then. Thank you, good sir (and thanks to you as well gabbo).

So unless there are any objections or suggestions on how to do this better, this is how the draw is going to go down:

- The list will stay as it is, in alphabetical order and get numbered from 1-250, or whatever number we're at by the end of this. All winning numbers will be generated using the site suggested by Tenck.

- If the list is at an even number, it will be divided into two groups. For example, if we have 250 gaffers on the list, #'s 1-125 will be group A. #'s 126 - 250 will be group B.There will be alternating draws for the first 4 winners and the final draw will be a number generated from the entire list.
To clarify, for the first draw, I will generate a random number from Group A (1-125). The second draw will be a random number generated from group B (126-250). Third draw will be group A again, fourth will be group B. And the fifth and final draw will be for the entire list 1-250.

-If the list ends up at an odd number, I won't divide the list into two groups and just generate random numbers for the entire list.

-Entire process will be recorded and uploaded to Youtube for full transparency

-Winners will immediately get a PM from me in case they aren't following the thread. They will have one week to PM me back with the game and platform of their choice and their shipping info. If I don't hear back from them in a week, the prize will be forfeited and another winner will be generated.

sound like a plan?

Sounds good to me. When exactly does the contest end by the way?
 
Sounds good to me. When exactly does the contest end by the way?

Voting ends at 2:00pm Eastern time on Monday. Winner is announced on the radio on Tuesday (one week from today).

I'll probably give it a day or two to make sure the list is complete and up to date, then do the game draws on Wednesday or Thursday.
 

gabbo

Member
Voting ends at 2:00pm Eastern time on Monday. Winner is announced on the radio on Tuesday (one week from today).

I'll probably give it a day or two to make sure the list is complete and up to date, then do the game draws on Wednesday or Thursday.

Everything looks tip-top. Hope there aren't any come from behind miracles in the last week.
 
I voted a while ago, but I have no idea what number it was. Is that important?

No worries at all friendo. IIRC you were one of the early voters and you're on the listo. I didn't have a fucking clue what the hell I was doing at the beginning of the thread and I just added in the number thing later on to keep myself organized and keep the list fair and accurate.

Yahahahahaha, I just figured out that I used to work with one of the owners of the second place kitchen.

oh boy. xD

That's what happens in small towns like ours.
Don't tell him/her about this thread! :p

BTW, speaking of small towns and such, did you catch this earlier post?
 
That's what happens in small towns like ours.
Don't tell him/her about this thread! :p

BTW did you catch this earlier post?

Yeah, saw that. Not friends (FB or otherwise) with this person. I should have caught the fact that half-a-dozen friends from the radio biz had voted for that kitchen. I didn't recognize the person based on the last name alone, but I figured it out by looking through the shares.
 
List Updated. Added: Donny Hayabusa, X Power Pad Death Stomp x, daCuk,MigueelDnd, -Winnie-, Sharath kumar, BladeoftheImmortal, XStasisX, RichieS99, Schnell, Ashhong, Oxrock, The anime man, Deadmeadow88, Xint. We're at 243 gaffers for the game draw now.

Sorry for the annoying thread bump again, but just a friendly reminder: If you voted and want in on the draw, please check the list in the OP and make sure your name is on it. If all goes according to plan, the list will be finalized on Wednesday and the draw will be on Thursday. Would hate for anyone to miss out on the draw and/or cry foul if they voted and were missing from the list.
 
^ Just added both of you to the list.

5 hours until voting closes.

btw, some crazy shit happened over the weekend with this contest, but I can't talk about it until this is over. I'll have some fun stuff to post about later =)
 
2 hours to go! We're still ahead by 127 votes but we are expecting something very crazy (and obvious) to happen at the last second.

Stay tuned...
 

jtb

Banned
I've been confused as to which vote count to report... 1657 (kitchen pic) or 5000-something for th eother page. good luck anyways!

edit: jk. i get it. 1657!
 
There are 24 minutes left and we are ahead by 162 votes.

2nd place team will need 162 votes in a 25 minute timespan to tie us.

Is such a thing even possible?..,

Let's just wait and see.
 
You've gone around the world with your wife and she still can't seem to find happiness with you. I'm not voting out of spite for people like her. I hope you realize this one day before you go on a long, arduous quest to get your spine back.
 

Kunohara

Member
Torque you're killing us here. You haven't responded yet. I'm hoping you and your wife are just going nuts because you won :)
 
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