The winning gimmick
We are overwhelmed by the vote counts in this year’s poll. However some of the categories are seeing meteoric rise in the votes for a select few blogs. We also received reader comments and mails from the nominees about this. It was thus needed that we compile the points we have been raising time and again in this post.
- We cannot afford to buy a poll software (Sparklit Poll Gold option would cost well above $100 for all the polls) and while we have been soliciting sponsors for the prizes we just cannot do so for the blog gimmicks. We thus have no option to rely on the limited functionality provided by the free version of the poll.
- The free version of the poll offers some common modes to prevent cheating during voting, cookies, IP address and Captcha blocking. Each of these has their own set of advantages and limitations. Cookie blocking would prevent multiple votes being cast from the same machine, captcha blocking can differentiate to a fair extent between man and machine. These are the two preventives we have right now for all polls. IP address blocking is a bit tricky since it can potentially prevent people behind a firewall or using a common gateway from voting, reason why we dropped this option.
- We have repeatedly stated that the ultimate aim of this blog is to showcase the outstanding blogs from across. The list of nominees is the effort that matters for us and we cannot prevent technically savvy people from playing foul. Fact remains that if somebody is adamant on tilting the votes (the science technology category has seen 600 voters while the average votes for all other categories is close to 200) we think readers are wise enough to gauge whether he deserves to win.
2 Comments (Add your own)
1. None | January 20th, 2005 at 1:48 pm
hello,
i’ve been given to understand that there have been a no of votes coming frm the same ip address. in fact, i should admit at the rate at which the votes have gone up in a couple of days.
but, i’m perplexed how this can be done…
for instance, a colleague told me that she tried to vote after the machine hung the first time she voted. bt the vote was rejected. if this is the case, then, how can one subvert the system? excuse my ignorance, but i aint no software person. my knowldge is elementary.
and two, how do i figure out how or who is doing this?
three, of course, is i wonder if i can stop it and how. but if i were to, i guess u’d have to tell me what to do. apart from telling junta not to, of course.
2. tweedledeetweedledum | October 1st, 2005 at 12:50 pm
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