No signs of vote fraud at all. Ngamer64 (34): Board List | Topic List | Post New Message | Log Out | Help Page 1 of 4 | Next Page | Last Page From: CJayC | Posted: 4/27/2004 10:56:37 PM | Message Detail Yes, I do keep a close watch on nights like these. No signs of mass-voting by small groups of similar IPs, no mass votes from proxy servers... Votes are coming from all over the place, not centered anywhere, no patterns of fraud... *shrug* I guess people are just getting the vote out. Take battle.net for example... geesh... --- I'm drunk with power! Wait, no, "Buttershots". I'm drunk with "Buttershots"! ------------------------------------------------------- The Zelda III pic is the official Japanese artwork. From: CJayC | Posted: 5/25/2004 1:13:35 AM | Message Detail Scary, I know. The FFIII is as well, of course, but you probably knew that. --- I'm drunk with power! Wait, no, "Buttershots". I'm drunk with "Buttershots"! ------------------------------------------------------- ***User-Submitted Battle Artwork Notes*** From: CJayC | Posted: 5/26/2004 1:40:28 AM | Message Detail From the front page, if you're too busy to visit: For the final 3 rounds of the contest, we're accepting your images for the battle match-ups. Follow these guidelines, and your artwork could be on the front page of GameFAQs: * Submit an image for one game, in an uncompressed format (NO JPEGs), sized 100 pixels wide by 125 pixels high. Photoshop format is best, but GIF, PNG, TIFF, and BMP work well too. Images must contain the name of the game, and you should keep in mind which side of the battle image your game will be on (top = left, bottom = right) * Images should use official game artwork, screenshots and/or sprites, or your own fan art. You may not use fan art from others without permission, and the source of your images must be credited in the e-mail you send them in. * Submit your image as an e-mail attachment to art@gamefaqs.com, with a subject of "Contest Art". All submitted images become the property of GameFAQs; by sending an image, you are allowing us to use it on the site for nothing in return (except proper credit, of course). Additional notes to consider: * Paint Shop Pro native format is also acceptable; submitting as such will keep your layers intact (and allow for alterations on my end if necessary, such as reversing the image's facing). * NO JPEG. NO JPEG. NO JPEG. The final image will be JPEG, so we don't need doubly-compressed graphics. * If a game can potentially be both the "top" or "bottom" entrant in a battle, you may wish to submit two images; one right-facing, one left-facing (or just make one where it "faces" forwards), or just submit an image with easily-flippable layers. * You may want to hold off spending time creating images for the 32/64 and 128 divisions until you know who's going to make it to the round of 8. * You are welcome to go as crazy as you want with the image, but, of course, images that don't look good or are in poor taste won't be considered. * You may use official game artwork (official character sketches, box images, etc) for your image as much as you desire, but any fan-created art not created by you can only be used with advance permission. * Your image may be edited for display (i.e. positional/facing/JPEG compression) but not for content (i.e. changing your artwork). * Submissions for a game will be accepted through 6PM the day before the battle that game will be featured in. * Images not used in the divisional finals will still be considered for use in the tournament semifinals and finals; up to 3 images for any particular game will be used, as there's three rounds left. * Don't forget that the image for a game you create will be joined up with the image for the other game; try not to create an "overpowering" image that won't look good as just half of the overall picture. * Good luck! --- I'm drunk with power! Wait, no, "Buttershots". I'm drunk with "Buttershots"! ------------------------------------------------------- The standard "Nope, no mass cheating" topic... From: CJayC | Posted: 5/29/2004 11:25:45 PM | Message Detail Checked over voting data, checking IP addresses and the usual stuff. No aberrant data pops up. No mass proxy voting, no mass votes from a single IP address or a range of addresses that doesn't have around as many votes for the other side. Voting is fairly 50/50 across the board, with very few exceptions. The biggest voters, by IP block: * Comcast subscribers are voting for Starcraft 51% * Cox Cable users are pro-Zelda, voting 52% * AOL users are the biggest Zelda fans at 65% * Just as unsurprisingly, the Korean netblock is voting Starcraft, but again, just at 65% Fun with numbers. And, from the contest rules, announced from the very beginning, in case you've forgotten: While we do make every effort to stop individuals from voting numerous times without restricting anyone from voting that wants to legitimately, outside forces can and will attempt to push the vote for their favorite. --- I'm drunk with power! Wait, no, "Buttershots". I'm drunk with "Buttershots"! ------------------------------------------------------- blah blah blah cheating blah blah... From: CJayC | Posted: 6/2/2004 12:16:39 AM | Message Detail Nope, no mass cheating. Again. At least, none that's distinguishable. If there's a couple of people voting thousands of times out there, they're doing it in a way that I can't detect, so yay for them. But I don't think that's happening, simply because the vote totals are so even across both time and IP space. Of course, there are some people that appear to be using multiple accounts to vote (can I get a "duh")... but nobody I looked at had a for-prizes contest entry, so it's really not worth going after them, since it's people voting for both sides doing it just as often. Of course, there are a couple of people out there that seem to be pushing the boundaries of fairness, so this is a nice, open, friendly warning to them to give it a rest. No point in cancelling out votes, as they pretty much cancel each other out, given that both sides "cheat" on the same scale as much as the other. And for the record, the only time I've canceled votes is when one person found a glitch in the system and managed to record over 3000 votes all by himself. That's the only kind of "cheating" that can be stopped, and that's the only kind we're concerned about; one or a few individuals should never be able to control a contest vote. The anti-cheating safeguards for the contest are intended to prevent small numbers of people from affecting the contest by themselves, and that's pretty successful. Of course, it's next to impossible to stop people from voting a few times with multiple accounts without blocking people who are attempting to vote legitimately, and, of course, that was announced to everyone at the beginning of the contest. We want to allow everyone that wants to vote the ability to do so; beyond that, it's a great big popularity contest, and I've no control over it. So, relax. It's only a game. --- I'm drunk with power! Wait, no, "Buttershots". I'm drunk with "Buttershots"! ------------------------------------------------------- The Starcraft vote surge... From: CJayC | Posted: 6/3/2004 10:23:59 PM | Message Detail Seeing a lot of proxy server votes for Starcraft, from votes # 76000 to 79000. Looks like someone got real sloppy; this is kind of obvious. I may end up throwing out that entire block of 3000 votes unless I can sort out the legitimate from the proxy votes. Let me see what I can do here... --- I'm drunk with power! Wait, no, "Buttershots". I'm drunk with "Buttershots"! ------------------------------------------------------- 400 proxy votes found all lined up in a row... all for Starcraft. From: CJayC | Posted: 6/3/2004 11:06:25 PM | Message Detail I still haven't found the proxy list this guy used, but I'm piecing it together. So far, I've found 400 votes for Starcraft made through proxy servers, all coming pretty much one after another. You can actually see when the proxy program starts in the server logs. This is a case of one person (or a couple of them) going through all the trouble of creating a program to auto-vote through proxy server after proxy server. I can only hope they're doing it for the fun of it and not for their own contest entry. I mean, you usually see 1-2 votes from known proxies an hour, but those votes are for both sides. Then suddenly, between votes #75562 and #78961, there are over 400 votes for Starcraft, all from known proxies. Of course, I'm fairly sure another 300-400 votes in that range are from proxies as well, but I'm still hunting them down. --- I'm drunk with power! Wait, no, "Buttershots". I'm drunk with "Buttershots"! ------------------------------------------------------- Okay, I'm tired of looking... From: CJayC | Posted: 6/3/2004 11:57:23 PM | Message Detail Total confirmed open proxy votes found for Starcraft: 637 There are likely more, but I've exhaused all of the public open proxy lists I know. All of the votes came within a specific time frame, and 100% of them were for Starcraft (something that can't really be passed off as a coincidence). They started off heavy, then slowed down (I guess as the guy exhausted his lists). There are likely more than the 637 I found, but I was only going by public lists (i.e. ones I could find on Google). How I found them: Looked up a suspect vote IP address on Google with the word "proxy" as well, and then taking the lists that popped up and adding them into my known proxy list. I started with around 200 that I already knew about (I hadn't updated my lists in a year and a half), then found the other 400+ through Google tonight. Oh, and this is pretty telling: http://www.cjayc.com/kekekeke.png The plot points are votes per game per 1000 votes. And now, for the frequently whined questions: How do you know that these are all fradulent votes? They're from known open proxy servers (most of them in countries like Malaysia, Turkey, China, and so on), 100% of them are for Starcraft, and they all came in a huge rush (as if someone started off a program to vote automatically). How do you know that this didn't happen earlier in the contest? I don't know, but I'm fairly sure, given that there wasn't a surge like this on any other contest. Every other lead change has been gradual and taken hours to fully come about; a 1000 vote gain in an hour isn't normal. You're just a Nintendo fanboy, aren't you? How sad is it this? I mean, I've been accused of being for/against so many different companies at this point, it's not even funny. Just a day ago, I was anti-Nintendo for not finding any cheating going on in the LTTP battle... For the record, I don't care who wins, as long as both sides play as fairly as the other. If you'll recall what I said just a day or two ago, the only kind of "cheating" that I would remove votes for was when one person attempted to seriously sway the contest vote all by themselves, and low and behold, someone got desparate enough to try it. If you were online and watching it when the swing happened, there can't really be any question that this wasn't legitimate. So, what are you going to do about this? I'm not sure. Ask me in an hour. The options range from nothing (if SSBM holds out), to removing all proxy server votes, removing all votes within the known "cheating" timeframe, or even a complete re-run of today's battle from scratch, with new intensive security measures in place to prevent this from happening again. You're just making this up, aren't you? Why in the hell would I open myself up to this much criticism without a valid reason? I mean, seriously, tracking this crap down has been an amazing waste of my time that I could have spent updating the site. Instead, we've got some guy attempting to ruin things for his own personal benefit, and that's not right. --- I'm drunk with power! Wait, no, "Buttershots". I'm drunk with "Buttershots"! -------------------------------------------------------