May's TOTM Results.

[Shattered]

I have seen and had numerous reports and comments about potential rigging in this months TOTM and have confirmed some instances of this. Votes have been much higher for Hentai and Interactive teases and at least some of these votes have been fraudulent.



Keeping TOTM going was one of the reasons I became a moderator of this site - it was a big motivation to me when I started making teases particularly and wanted to pay it forward when TOTM became inactive, and in all my time I've never noticed anything amiss, so I'm disappointed that it's come to this stage at this event. There is no 'prize' beyond a job well done, so having these numbers manipulated goes against the spirit of Milovana and the TOTM.

Pending further investigation I will not be handing out any awards for TOTM for May. These may or may not be given out at a later date depending on any evidence that comes forward.

June TOTM will proceed as normal, and we will see the results. If anyone would like to monitor them daily that would be useful information. If it's a 'normal' month, this may just be a one-off for whatever reason. Or it may well just be that theres been a drastic increase in TOTM, in which case I'd expect to see similar numbers next month. Interactive has at least seen a similar interest spike once before but Hentai as not, so next months results may be telling.

If this is a consistent issue I have a few ideas going forward, but I will hold off on any changes for now.

[forbiddendesire]

Shame it's come to this really, TOTM was a good tradition, and I liked the new addition of Hentai TOTM. I'm glad you became a mod to keep it going, thanks for that. Don't know why people would want to hack an online poll for little to no reason

[lolol2]

And I'm still pretty sure that the december voting was also not 100% clean, but I said everything back in the days.

Is there any possibility in the forum software that only users with for example at least 25 posts are able to vote in that topics?
I guess this would be the easiest way to kick out newly created accounts, would be a lot work to post 25 comments on all accounts without get banned for spamming.

But don't do that if this would affect all votings here in the forum.

[undeniable_denial]

And I'm still pretty sure that the december voting was also not 100% clean, but I said everything back in the days.

Maybe. I wouldn't mind that one to be investigated, too. Can't really be happy about having won, to be honest.
If I remember correctly, you mobilized the entire e-stim community to vote. I'm sure that contributes to the spike. And christmas. But still...

only users with for example at least 25 posts are able to vote in that topics?

I'm sure not everyone who votes is actually active in the forum. What would they write about in 25 posts?
As I said in the TOTM-thread this is a much bigger hurdle for legitimate users that for cheaters. The cheaters would need fewer fake accounts, because much less people vote, which makes it harder to detect.

[Qu33nsGambit]

I noticed how close the numbers were for interactive TOTM and was a bit confused honestly. Perhaps I am missing something as to the reason to 'cheat' on something like this? Suppose it builds a better resumé or allows one to feel accomplished?

A perhaps more complicated solution would be to require the voter to have completed all the said teases before voting. Obviously this doesn't remove the easy cheating for classic, but the others I am unfamiliar of a way to skip through them. Thus the cheater would be forced to watch every tease on every account that they wished to use to vote. While this doesn't make it impossible, it certainly makes the cheating process more difficult. For me, I don't vote unless I have multiple to juxtapose since it feels wrong to vote if I have only viewed one. How can I say objectively/subjectively it is better than another without actually viewing the other.

The only other thing I can think of is checking MAC and IP and thus limiting votes to like 2-3 per cheater depending on the number of devices they have. With this though, you would have to hope that they don't know how to spoof a MAC since any moron can change their IP.

[undeniable_denial]

Perhaps I am missing something as to the reason to 'cheat' on something like this? Suppose it builds a better resumé or allows one to feel accomplished?

I imagine someone other than the creators who wants their favourite to win. Someone young or childish. A literal script kiddie.

[fapnip]

Perhaps there's a bug in the forum's voting system that's being exploited? Else, I guess all one would need to do is sign up a new account, use one or more of their invite codes to sign up another account, then use invite codes from the new accounts to sign up more accounts ad nauseam. They could then vote with all of these accounts.

I'm trying to wrap my head around why someone would do this. Perhaps a sore looser from a previous TOTM?

Regardless, I find it depressing and insulting. Not because I didn't win, but because one or more people decided it was better to spend time gaming the system instead of trying to create a better tease.

To be honest, this kinda sucked all the fun out of the experience of building teases.

[tigrotto]

Perhaps there's a bug in the forum's voting system that's being exploited? Else, I guess all one would need to do is sign up a new account, use one or more of their invite codes to sign up another account, then use invite codes from the new accounts to sign up more accounts ad nauseam. They could then vote with all of these accounts.

New accounts need to wait a month before getting their 4 codes so at least this should slow them down a little and give us time to find them (hopefully). As I wrote to Shattered a couple of weeks ago:

So, in conclusion, if someone is inviting himself over and over and he started with only one account this would have started at least 2 months ago (the initial account>4 accounts a month later>16 more another month later=21 accounts) or if he had more accounts from the start or it was a group of people (5 people and a month of time would give them 20 new accounts so 25 in total).

If you wait one more month for both the hypothesis I made you'd have 84 and 100 accounts respectively which are enough to steer the TOTM towards a tease instead of another.

I'm trying to wrap my head around why someone would do this. Perhaps a sore looser from a previous TOTM?

To me it's probably users, not creators who lost a previous TOTM. On r/gonewildaudio audios get downvoted. They usually get downvoted for the gender of the artist who created it (male audios tend to be downvoted more than those made by Women) or depending on the tags of the audios. The reason? I don't know...
They probably want only certain audios to appear in the top positions of GWA according to their likes.
I guess it's the same here: some loser wanting the tease he/they like to win.

Regardless, I find it depressing and insulting. Not because I didn't win, but because one or more people decided it was better to spend time gaming the system instead of trying to create a better tease.

I agree, it's sad.

[tigrotto]

If anyone would like to monitor them daily that would be useful information.

I made a spreadsheet. I'll start compiling the data from tonight (at 23 CEST) since I only saw this post today.
Link to the spreadsheet.

EDIT: Currently adding more graphs. Random numbers may appear. I'm just testing to see how it will appear.

[Shattered]

If anyone would like to monitor them daily that would be useful information.

I made a spreadsheet. I'll start compiling the data from tonight (at 23 CEST) since I only saw this post today.
Link to the spreadsheet.

EDIT: Currently adding more graphs. Random numbers may appear. I'm just testing to see how it will appear.

Thanks :)

[tigrotto]

If anyone would like to monitor them daily that would be useful information.

I made a spreadsheet. I'll start compiling the data from tonight (at 23 CEST) since I only saw this post today.
Link to the spreadsheet.

EDIT: Currently adding more graphs. Random numbers may appear. I'm just testing to see how it will appear.

Thanks :)

You're welcome!

[tigrotto]

The spreadsheet is ready.
Let me know if there's any mistake or things like that please so I can fix them. Thanks.

I'll also keep track of the votes on every tease of the three TOTM. I'll update the spreadsheet once a day at 23 CEST.

[bbzerkanime]

I'm trying to wrap my head around why someone would do this. Perhaps a sore looser from a previous TOTM?

I find it hard to believe it is the users that lost a previous TOTOM. Orbittee is a previous TOTOM winner. Avr33 and Qu33nsGambit are new tease authors and newly nominated. Most teases nominated in May for Interactive/Classic have not been nominated for TOTOM's at all. Where is the sore loser mentality if there is no history?

It is not surprising that TOTOM winners like Thexxxpenguin garnered a lot of votes.

[Qu33nsGambit]

I find it hard to believe it is the users that lost a previous TOTOM. Orbittee is a previous TOTOM winner. Avr33 and Qu33nsGambit are new tease authors and newly nominated. Most teases nominated in May for Interactive/Classic have not been nominated for TOTOM's at all. Where is the sore loser mentality if there is no history?

I'm not saying there wasn't foul play for the classic, but the numbers don't suggest it from what I have seen. I more feel it's people trying to win something for some reason. Perhaps they aren't doing too great in life, they made a bunch of compromises and are working a dead end job and feel like they can't succeed and have to win some internet thing? Perhaps they simply just have to win at everything... no matter how.

Personally I am more interested in the 'cheating' than the actual TOTM

Could it be a possibility that the site has more traffic with the current state if the world and there actually wasn't any cheating?

[fapnip]

It is not surprising that TOTOM winners like Thexxxpenguin garnered a lot of votes.

What is surprising is the number of votes in total, and the high numbers that seemed to happen in a very short period of time.

There is no doubt in my mind that one or more people were trying to game the system. I just have no idea what the motivation was.

Whatever the motivation, I've lost mine. I'm taking a break from tease development for a while. (Many thanks to those that have sent words of encouragement. I may try again in the future.)