www.bigwindowchallenge.com. With every contest we hold we get some outrageous enthusiasm, and we had an overload of it last Thursday in the windows at Bloomingdale's and then afterwards at the bumpin' party on the fifth floor (all pics above). Then over the weekend we found that a few folks had figured out a loophole in our voting system and were voting hundreds of times each!....
Fortunately, we were able to close the loophole this afternoon and track down the ISP's where the enthusiastic vote stuffing was occurring. Unfortunately, we had to subtract those votes from the three remarkable designers and it completely shifted the standings - for today. Unbeknownst to them, they had a few fans who were very good with their computers and gamed our system. Design addicts know no boundaries sometimes.
The race, however, is back to being very close again and we urge you to make sure to vote - if you haven't already - and feel free to get all your friends to vote, because we still have four days to go.
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Comments (24)
looks really fun!!
loophole! yikes.
I never ever take online voting systems seriously for that very reason. So it doesn't matter who wins this comp -- all are great!
"Loophole"? "Gamed your system"? Um, okay.
Most people I know HAD to vote again the next time they logged on just to *see* the results.
That doesn't sound like a loophole. It sounds like you guys made a programming error when you set up the contest.
A corruption in a voting system is never a good thing! (ah Florida hello!)
Hmmm...
I don't necessarily believe the ISP/IP address can be successfully linked to the lone individuals voting over and over again.
I know numerous people who share the same (work) computer, use different profile names, but are unable to cast a vote on AT -- a frustratingly common occurrence!
I'm not taking the AT voting system seriously.
It's obviously flawed.
Bummer!!
Patrick is right! Come to think of it i remember voting twice, the second time just to see the results a few days later!!
There goes this contest! This is a HUGE programming fumble!!What a disappointment, AT!
This is bunk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maxwell:
This "loophole" is far more serious than you make it out to be. It's not a flippant "Oh well, we'll just erase a few votes based on ISPs" type of situation. I'm a computer programmer myself & I know this is a big league botch! And it blows.
Shall we start over?
(in the very least we can now say all three windows are equal winners! It was a tough choice regardless.)
I think bccanada is right. Why not just announce all three great windows as equal winners. I also had to vote again just to see the results so how can you really be sure the voting is accurate.
Meanwhile, we functional illiterates can't even figure out how to vote at all! Somebody! Please! Give me a link to vote! I keep clicking links that lead me in big circles that don't include one. . . .
Aulaire if you can't vote through AT's site, goggle "Bloomingdale's Big Window Competition" and you should be able to vote directly there.
I agree with all of the above.
"Loopholes" and "Gamed System"... huh?
"Subtract those votes from the designers to shift the standings"... What?!
Maxwell/AT!!!
Be honest here!!! You need to address your loyal readership.
This is more than a lil hiccup -- this is big time error on YOUR part! It's not OUR fault this is all messed up now!!!
People are now feeling defeated and deceived!
Your voting system has been an ongoing headache for YEARS with your many contests: "I've got Color/ See my Artwork/ Fall Color/ Smallest Coolest" etc.
The procedure is confusing and full of technical glitches. People are often left feeling gypped. And now THIS!! Again! It's *very frustrating*.
If you are going to promote "fun" polls/contests/competitions please get it together and ensure your voting system is *solid*. Get it right! Other sites are able to do it so I have faith you are capable of mending your carelessness.
Otherwise, it's a complete and utter waste of OUR time.
Hey folks,
A couple more details that will hopefully address some of the concerns, from the tech side of the room.
First, please understand, there is no foolproof way to prevent "ballot stuffing" in online polls. Any online poll can be gamed, and usually quite easily. Given the spirit of this contest, instead of a rigorous registration process, we opted to go for a simpler voting system with less friction.
There was a bug early on that essentially allowed people to vote more than once if they visited the site after closing their browser. That has been fixed. Since people who voted multiple times tended to make the same vote, these double-votes canceled each other out.
When we checked the results, there were a very small number of IP addresses with a very high number of votes. Again, these they largely balanced each other out, and did not skew the results significantly except for one particular IP address which had more than 2000 votes associated with it -- at the time, this enthusiastic voter accounted for more than 30% of all votes. This IP was clearly in the network space of a major US cable Internet provider (so not, for example, a large corporate network that may realistically have many users behind one IP address). Because this one IP so egregiously skewed the results, we decided to subtract the votes from that single IP to make sure the results reflected a more accurate distribution of votes for each window.
We are now discarding votes past a certain limit from any single IP address (to provide leeway for shared Internet connections) and keeping an eye out for other obvious ballot stuffing.
And, for those who haven't figured it out yet, the voting is happening over at http://bigwindowchallenge.com which is also linked in red under the city navigation in the site header. The vote buttons will be near the top of that window if you haven't already voted. Also, if you're in NYC, the windows are worth checking out-- I'm glad I waited to vote until I saw them in person, since it totally changed my opinion!
I have a bachelor's degree in computer ccience so this kind of tainted programming really irks me! Just a pet peeve of mine from an IT/software engineering point of view.
Still believe that the general consensus is such that
**all three be declared equal parts top champ**
Still won't trust your results Scott-AT.
Sorry. You lost me.
Scott T.--
Thanks for taking the time to respond and give a bit more detail and insight. I know your job is not terribly enviable at contest time(s)!
Just how much is that **gift card** to Bloomingdales!!??
2009sunshine -
As my grandmother would say, "You tell me and we'll both know."
Curtis: huh?
It means, "I don't know".
Hi Curtis, the bridge is lovely.
And your grandmother and I would understand each other.
: )
Ahhhhhhhhh, guido! Long time no see! Thank you so much. And yes, you just might.
If there's a way to cast a vote, I'm unable to find it. After half an hour, I give up.
Curtis, here's hoping!
what's the denomination? (:
Christler -
The voting ended last night at 8:00pm although it's kind of unclear why there is -- literally more than 25 hours later -- no acknowledgement of the winner other than the status bar for the contest. It clearly says that there would be a "shout-out" on here. Meanwhile, I think we're to believe that I came in 2nd from what that status bar says.