Ballot Stuffing? For shame!

[bplus]

It *is* transparent voting. All you have to do is vote, then click the "Show votes" link which is right below the bottom of the poll itself. (right corner, bottom of poll)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH eee!!! I never knew! ha ha ha

I thought Norby Droid was Steve
   
   

Are you saying Code Hunter is back in the hunt? Wow.

We got a sheriff

I bet spriggsy is cracking up even more

[SMcNeill]

Norby Droid was Dan.  He's definitely not me!   LOL. 

Looks like it might be a group of the old time troublemakers coming together all at once, once again.  Maybe it's cause it's April and they're late on Fooling?  Maybe cause it's the eclipse?  Who knows why these guys do the things they do.

[grymmjack]

Hi.

Late to the party here. @Sprezzo pinged me on discord.

What's going on now?

Can someone just tell me what banner should go up? bplus won, correct? Aside from this drama, it was him as legit winner? If so, please paste the URL to @bplus submission and I can change it. @pete did anyone show you how to change the banner? I can show you if you like.

Thanks

[bplus]

Hi.

Late to the party here. @Sprezzo pinged me on discord.

What's going on now?

Can someone just tell me what banner should go up? bplus won, correct? Aside from this drama, it was him as legit winner? If so, please paste the URL to @bplus submission and I can change it. @pete did anyone show you how to change the banner? I can show you if you like.

Thanks

hi @grymmjack,

no i did not win, not nearly. the final vote appeared to favor steve but had 2 questionable votes brought up by spriggsy. as far as terry and i are concerned, steve won because we had no rules against guests voting before and is likely how some banners won in past. but it is quite right for neither steve nor pete to make final decision because they have top horses in the race.

the post with the banners and votes are shown are here
https://qb64phoenix.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=2565

up to you to decide, sure hate to see banner contests end because of some questionable votes.

[Kernelpanic]

So, if the topic is brought up again, I would also like to add my two cents.
The only logo that truly symbolizes spring comes from a certain Kernelpanic. . . oops, that's me.  

One can forget the rest! The image of bplus is stretched to the point of ignorance; after all, you can recognize something like spring. But the rest. . . What's that supposed to mean? Where is spring?  I would say that almost no one associates these suggestions with spring.  

The last logo was still accurate: Winter.

[Sprezzo]

Since I keep getting pinged over this topic, just an observation or two:

(i) Steve's banner looks the best, and was obviously done with AI, and thus attracted AI votes. At least that's the story he's sticking to. If we are deciding the AI banner is the winner, let's hope everyone is aware. That and it doesn't look like it has much to do with programming, or basic, or phoenixes. It's just cool pixel art in my opinion.

(ii) Pete's joke banner had a lot of votes, but there was also open talk of rigging the election to make him win, i.e. TheBOB signing up to the forums out of nowhere. Actually I think this is what led to Steve to seek more votes by one way or another. We can only speculate as why Steve won the bot demographic. Sounds like the way democrats have been winning elections if you ask me. (He's sworn off dealing with the contest or talking about it any further.)

From just those alone, it's as if the banner contest were some silly-ass inside joke among the social security-collecting members of the community.

But there's more to the banner story.

(iii) With every banner season comes another cool idea from bplus, and his work is always earnest, non-trolling. This is why I suggested that grymm make bplus the defacto winner of the contest.

(iv) No offense whatsoever to Kernelpanic. Yours is probably better but it seems like you tied for votes anyway.

(v) Whoever takes the banner contest seriously and has enjoyed it, I'm not saying to lose all faith, but don't hold your breath for another one. Steve is done, grymm already has a life, who is left with admin power, Pete?

Anyway, *exhales*... who do i pass this bong to?

[SMcNeill]

Since I keep getting pinged over this topic, just an observation or two:
(i) Steve's banner looks the best, and was obviously done with AI, and thus attracted AI votes. At least that's the story he's sticking to. If we are deciding the AI banner is the winner, let's hope everyone is aware. That and it doesn't look like it has much to do with programming, or basic, or phoenixes. It's just cool pixel art in my opinion.
(ii) Pete's joke banner had a lot of votes, but there was also open talk of rigging the election to make him win, i.e. TheBOB signing up to the forums out of nowhere. Actually I think this is what led to Steve to seek more votes by one way or another. We can only speculate as why Steve won the bot demographic. Sounds like the way democrats have been winning elections if you ask me. (He's sworn off dealing with the contest or talking about it any further.)
From just those alone, it's as if the banner contest were some silly-ass inside joke among the social security-collecting members of the community.
But there's more to the banner story.
(iii) With every banner season comes another cool idea from bplus, and his work is always earnest, non-trolling. This is why I suggested that grymm make bplus the defacto winner of the contest.
(iv) No offense whatsoever to Kernelpanic. Yours is probably better but it seems like you tied for votes anyway.
(v) Whoever takes the banner contest seriously and has enjoyed it, I'm not saying to lose all faith, but don't hold your breath for another one. Steve is done, grymm already has a life, who is left with admin power, Pete?
Anyway, *exhales*... who do i pass this bong to?

(i-a) Steve's banner had some of the artwork done by AI, some done by a member of the forums here, and some done by Steve.  All those components were then assembled by Steve to make the final product.  It's how we do things:  We don't create every image we use from scrach; we _PUTIMAGE resources together to create a finished product.  

(i-b) Steve never claimed that AI voted for anything, nor that it was a bot which was voting.  Those votes were both from one old-time user and their alt account -- ARB's.  Now, ARB was *BANNED* from the forums in the past, which I'm certain everyone is more than aware of, but he had to go out in his own way, by creating 812 alt accounts and spamming the forums repeatedly with various email accounts to temp email providers.  By my logic, since he was banned, his votes honestly shouldn't count, but AI had nothing to do with anything at all.

(ii) Pete's banner did what it was supposed to do -- he promoted it and had a long outstanding member rejoin the forums and vote for it.  Promoting one's work isn't "rigging the election", and drawing more people into the forums isn't a bad thing.  Why try to spin it to make it sound bad -- and once again, why try and push some "bot conspiracy"??

(iii-iv) bplus does excellent in these contents, and he's even won a few.  He just didn't have the votes necessary to be declared the winner of this contest.  

If we disregard the extra vote by ARB, and let his old account at least have one valid vote, me and Pete tied for votes.  
If we disregard both of ARB's votes, then Pete is the winner.
If we disregard both of ARB's votes *AND* TheBOB's vote (though why the hell we'd do that is a complete mystery to me), then Pete is *STILL* the winner.
If we toss out both mine and Pete's entries, then KernalPanic and bplus are both TIED with votes, with neither able to claim "victory" in the contest over the other.

From the way it sounds, there's no reason to ever have any votes EVER for a banner -- sprezzo will happily come along and dictate which one to use for everyone!   /BARF!!!   (Honestly, the sheer arrogance here, and the fingerpointing as if I did something wrong myself, is enough to make me personally question whether or not sprezzo himself had a hand in ARB coming back when he did and voting the way he had.  Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me one bit!)

(v) I doubt there'll ever be another banner contest, because it's more or less impossible to ensure a fair and valid voting system.   

Set a rule for "only members who were present before the vote started, can have their votes count", and you rule out TheBob's vote this time -- but not those votes from ARB!
Set a rule for "only members who have X number of posts, or X number of stars, or X hours online", and you *may* have a means to a valid vote TODAY.  But, there's three months still before the next season.  All the drama queens would have to do is create a second account, spam a few topics with, "Oh wow, I'm learning so much from you guys!  You rock!!", and then they can use those multiple accounts to stuff ballots into the next voting season.
Set a rule for "no votes from the same IP", and you just have someone taking time to switch VPN servers while logging into their alt account and then coming back.

These aren't secured voting systems, which require some form of verifiable ID for folks to vote with.  They're basically just for fun and trivial things, and if the ballot stuffers want to go out of their way to draw drama and contention into something which should be fun and inviting instead, then there's just no point in even having these contests.   As far as I'm concerned, let the original banner stay up there forever.  It may not be "fun and seasonal", but at least there's no ballot stuffing going on over it!!

[Dimster]

I've never contributed to the Banner contests, lack the flair and coding acumen, but have I ever enjoyed them. Is there not a way for everyone's work to be displayed on a rotating basis. Each season is 3 months long, so why not rotate (if that is possible) all the banners being submitted. Maybe set aside the first month of each season for the seasonal banners. Anyway, I'd vote to keep the display of banners and perhaps just allow comments rather than votes.

[Dimster]

Or .... here's another idea to save the season banner competition .... instead of voting, we could have a 3 member panel of non contributing members decide on the winner????

[NakedApe]

never mind