Where are YoYoGames.com and Cre8buzz.com? Did you see the nominations list?
James
· 1 year ago
Dear Mashable,
Please consider this an open letter.
I write because I am somewhat surprised at two notable absences from the Niche and Miscellaneous Social networks category candidates, YoYoGames.com and Cre8buzz.com
The process for these Open Web Awards was already confusing, but you did state that “to nominate a site, leave a comment with the word “NOMINATE†in it. Nominations will remain open until 11:59pm PST on December 4th (next Tuesday). At that point, we will tally up the nominations and enter the second stage of the competition – voting.â€
I have just taken the time to “tally up the nominations†myself (albeit very roughly) and of the 456 nomination posts YoYoGames.com and Cre8Buzz.com combined had over 200 (YoYoGames.com = roughly 101 nominations; Cre8Buzz = 100+). Given that many more posts came after the deadline this represents roughly 50% of the total eligible nominations.
I’m aware that nominations were also included from other sites, but is this really the answer, did the tally count against these two sites on balance?
If not then why weren’t they selected?
I have a lot of respect for Mashable but I feel like you have misled your readers. Especially with posts like “One day left to nominate your favourite sitesâ€, encouraging what has amounted to be a pointless user activity. If you weren’t going to take account of the nominations then has this whole thing been a publicity stunt or a cynical attempt at driving traffic? On what grounds where the sites that made the cut selected?
For me this issue jeopordises the validity of the fledgling Open Web Awards. Something smells rotten and I, for one, would like a few answers.
-James Peddie
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
James, the answer is simple, I got word from several of the blog partners, that whoever was nominated those 2 above sites came from the exact IP address several times. Someone was trying to "Game" the awards, as opposed to Actual nominations. As you can see from the rest of the options, we didn't alter a single thing (there are some weird options in each category). We didn't add our own, etc. The only options that were discounted were the ones that were "gamed". There were a few others. I made a judgement call. If I wanted to "Fix" the awards, trust me, you'd have seen bigger names in all the categories.
There's a big difference between people nominating your site, or someone changing their username and nominating in an attempt to get a site in.
Sorry and better luck next time.
James
· 1 year ago
Thanks for the response.
First off I have to outright deny your allegation.
You honestly believe that each of those 200+ nominations was "gamed"?
Of course I can't speak here for cre8buzz.com, but I'm pretty aggrieved as a YYG employee.You explicitly stated that employees can vote, we the YoYoGames.com employees voted (there are 6 of us) and of course we all share a single IP, working as we do from a single office. Regardless, this only represents 6 of 100+ votes. How many nominations did the successful sites receive?
I've looked through the nominations again and I know many of those who nominated from the YoYo Games/GMC community. Each, I can only presume, must have had a different IP address.Therefore, I can only assume that the vast majority of nominations came from different IP addresses.
Presumably next year we will be able to remove all competition by voting for them multiple times? How can this be fair?
Finally which Blog partners are you referring to? As far as I can tell almost all our nominations were posted right here on Mashable. The data you refer to must be a very minimal subgroup of our total nominations.
This still seems very irregular.
-James Peddie
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
Sorry James, I do apologize. The Other 30 blog partners were listed on several of the nominations posts and can be found at openwebawards.com. Also, nominations ended on the 5th, and there are quite a few after the deadline. It seemed very suspect and after I got word of several of these nominations coming from the same IP address (probably not just your offices), I made a judgement call. However, you will notice the variety of other nominations for the Other Sites on the blog partners.
This was my call solely and I take full responsibility. Next year, I will try and figure out a safer/easier way to handle nominations.
BrandMan211
· 1 year ago
What if the user who nominated the site had a sibling? Couldn't they be interested in the site as well, and nominate it as well? I'm sure that nearly every single user who nominated YoYo Games can be paired with an account on the community; that was the only real place where I saw it was advertised. If you'd look through that I'm sure you'd find that every nomination was legit.
FredFredrickson
· 1 year ago
"James, the answer is simple, I got word from several of the blog partners, that whoever was nominated those 2 above sites came from the exact IP address several times. Someone was trying to "Game" the awards, as opposed to Actual nominations."
My question to you, Adam, is that what would stop a rival nominee from having people vote multiple times for a competitor in order to get them pulled? Why not just consolidate (or eliminate) all votes from IP addresses that voted multiple times, rather than punishing the site they were voting for?
I can understand your reasoning for suspecting voter fraud (I've faced similar problems with online polls), however, there are better ways to deal with this simply than by disqualifying the site the votes were cast in favor of. How can the results of this vote be taken seriously if you cherry pick the results?
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
Alright people, I am sorry, there was no cherry picking or anything, I actually had a long long long list of nominations from all of the blog partners, I discounted several of the votes in our blog, but overall there were stronger nominations in all 30 blog partners than yo yo games and cr8buzz.com. Everything you see above had stronger nominations across ALL of the sites and not just Mashable.
Blaa
· 1 year ago
Sorry - I've been trying to post under my own account from two different computers, and neither have worked, so I've sent this to a friend to post for me. This is James Peddie again.
It’s not me you need to apologise to, it’s the hundreds of people from our community (and almost certainly those from cre8buzz.com) who came here to vote, gave you a few cheap hits, and got nothing in return.
It’s suspect that people nominated us after the deadline? Maybe you should have closed the poll? Besides as mentioned above I only included nominations BEFORE the deadline (Surely Mashable also did this?!).
It’s deeply disappointing that YoYo and its community can lose out like this as the result of the action of a single individual who (presumably?) nominated us on more than one site. You yourselves must have received YYG nominations from many different IP addresses.
Frankly it’s amazing that the other entrants didn’t also receive multiple nominations from single IPs. The most sinister thing this is likely to be is an over enthusiastic user. Perhaps if this was such a serious issue you should have just counted the unique IP nominations and simply discounted any other votes.
The really sad thing is that it would have been so easy to validate these nominations if any contact had been made with the community at YoYoGames.
Finally, I’m surprised you’re already talking about next year’s competition. With the two most nominated sites already discounted (under these very peculiar circumstances) the competition must surely have lost a bit meaning.
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
As I said, I'm sorry. Perhaps I made a bad judgment call, but it was mine to make. Perhaps I made a mistake and I apologize for that. Unfortunately, the "damage" has been done already, and I just ask you to forgive me and accept my apology.
Keith Collins
· 1 year ago
Wow, all I can say is wow. We at Cre8buzz are not the biggest site. There’s only three of us. We don’t have millions in funding. We all work 24/7 to support what is a labor of love.
We saw these awards as an opportunity to get a bit of exposure to what we do have: a passionate, smart, authentic group of users who are building real community and real relationships through our social network.
THEY, our users, rallied together to give all of us a chance to win what we thought could be a pretty neat award. And then we hear that we “gamed†this, or we cheated. Or that we did not receive enough votes to be in the top 10.
We are disappointed for the users who got behind us. We feel like our integrity is questioned. What looked like a great opportunity has become a negative experience.
Despite this we still believe we have the best social networking site on the web for intelligent, purposeful, and passionate people. We’re going to keep moving forward.
Thank you to all the great Cre8buzz members who took the time to vote for us and show your passion and commitment.
"As I said, I'm sorry. Perhaps I made a bad judgment call, but it was mine to make. Perhaps I made a mistake and I apologize for that. Unfortunately, the "damage" has been done already, and I just ask you to forgive me and accept my apology."
"This was my call solely and I take full responsibility. Next year, I will try and figure out a safer/easier way to handle nominations."
"I take full responsibility" has become the most overused and abused expressions of modern times. Have you ever noticed that whenever someone says they will take responsibility, never actually do anything to actually take responsibility?
So Adam, what exactly are you doing to take responsibility, other than banning James account?
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
Haha, I actually don't have the capability to alter anyones account.
And "I take full responsibility" means you put the full blame on me, as I am the one running this and made the judgment call that something "fishy" was going on. Which it was. There were many "gamed" entries upon a double check.
Alex Olson
· 1 year ago
Thank you all for those who nominated filmcrave.com as a top niche social media site. I ask anyone who stumbles across this board to check us out before you vote. You may be surprised at what a couple of guys can do working on their free time away from work - innovating movie trailers, movie lists, and providing quality movie reviews. May the best niche based social media site win!
BrandMan211
· 1 year ago
"As I said, I'm sorry. Perhaps I made a bad judgment call, but it was mine to make. Perhaps I made a mistake and I apologize for that. Unfortunately, the "damage" has been done already, and I just ask you to forgive me and accept my apology."
What? That doesn't help anyone.
CSamarin
· 1 year ago
Thanks to everyone who nominated SwitchPlanet.com!
If you have some time check us out because we have some great members working hard to build a great community.
Good luck to everyone nominated!
cheers, Chris
Mark Overmars
· 1 year ago
I am one of the directors of YoYo Games. I am, like the other posters, disappointed.
However, I do accept the fact that it is impossible to change this at this stage because voting obviously is already taking place and it is impossible to remove other sites from the list.
I do accept Adam's apologies and hope another time this will indeed be run differently. So let us stop that discussion.
I hope you will compensate the potential loss of publicity we got in this way by giving us some additional attention on Mashable (or other sites) in the future. Cause I strongly believe that YoYo Games has a unique concept with a lot of potential. 10,000 games created by amateur game developers with 50 new ones being added every day. Free to be played, reviewed and discussed by everybody. And this combined with a strong community of these developers in which people help each other creating even better games.
- Mark
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
Thank you very much Mark, that means a lot to me.
ellen keenan
· 1 year ago
It seems to me if you were suspecting some kind of foul play you would have at least taken one minute to alert the websites in questions. The mistake you made was making these judgements without having all the facts. Simple and very basic business sense-not professional at all. Unfortunately, some of these winners won by default ,it is also unfair to them and their viewers.
Joerdgs
· 1 year ago
This isn't the first contest YoYo Games joined. And it isn't the first one that treats it unfairly either, sadly enough.
Sue
· 1 year ago
Dear Sir,
You know... I came here under the impression that only the votes here at mashable would count toward the nomination. I was not notified on the poll that other sites' nominations would also be tallied up. Nowhere, also, was there a notification that only one vote per IP address was valid. If these were your rules, they needed to have been stated forthright, and not post voting.
It is highly unprofessional of this site to game the voters, and then turn around and accuse the voters of gaming the system. Voters did not break a rule that did not exist. If the site had been concerned of fraudulent votes, a reasonable notice should have been published prior the commencement of voting to deter users from using your site.
Cre8buzz users are strong, our community is strong, and we stand on our integrity. For shame. I fear an apology is a cheap shot at our enthusiasm.
kaysha
· 1 year ago
Cafemom is such a wonderful site!
Ruth
· 1 year ago
Energy Drink Testers Wanted!
CafeMom Rocks!
Quirkee James
· 1 year ago
The guys at cre8Buzz.com are good people and I don't believe they would attempt to cheat this contest to win.
"And "I take full responsibility" means you put the full blame on me, as I am the one running this and made the judgment call that something "fishy" was going on. Which it was. There were many "gamed" entries upon a double check."
So my question is - Why you don't scrap this attempt at a legitimate contest and when you are prepared to run it correctly you can start it up again? I find it hard to believe that of all of the companies being voted on that cre8Buzz and YoYo Games had the only alleged "gamed" entries.
Let me just say and clear any misunderstanding, I do not blame the companies themselves at "gaming" one bit. I have been in talks with both the people from YoYo Games and CR8Buzz and they are both great companies with great hearts.
Chronic
· 1 year ago
I would like to suggest to Adam that the details (IP, name, date, and time) of votes (from all partners) which have been deemed "gamed" to be handed over to YoYoGames and Cre8buzz respectively so they can make there own internal call about this.
Yeah, sure this means nothing at all to this contest at this stage, but i think it would be interesting to look in to these votes for the sites concerned.
Chronic
· 1 year ago
May i also suggest that Mashable makes an entry of all the sites nominated with their total votes.
Xers
· 1 year ago
I love my cre8buzz community!
Although I am sorry that we did not win; I'm very happy to have been able to read as to why we did not. I'm even happier to have an apology from you Adam Hursch.
Although I am disappointed, I'm not mad.
I forgive you Adam, I accept your apology!
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
Thanks Xers. Perhaps we can use this opportunity to build upon what Cre8Buzz and YoYoGames means to everybody?
Perhaps let's turn this negative into a positive and get people to discuss why they love YoYoGames and Cre8buzz?
I'm very curious to hear the positives, as I'm sure anyone reading this thread is too, who doesn't know the 2 communities as intimately as their users.
umauma
· 1 year ago
Cr8buzz is the most wonderful site I have ever been a part of. Real people with real issues, Big hearts, and a genuine concern..I voted because I believe that they have the most genuine site. Uma
Stevenbrycesmomm
· 1 year ago
I am very disappointed in the insinuation that Cre8Buzz would be “gaming†the awards. The community at Cre8Buzz is made up of a lot of wonderful people who were very pleased to see that the site was nominated. Unfortunately we are now a community that is outraged at the slanderous nature of reasoning given for Cre8Buzz to not move onto the next round. I am a very shocked that a more through investigation was not conducted before the site was removed.
Richard P.
· 1 year ago
I hate buzz...
ws25
· 1 year ago
I am offended.
The GMC (a forum under YYG) is also offended.
So offended, in fact, that in just a few hours, during the off-peak posting period, the topic on your "Open" Web Awards has gotten 40+ posts, and none of them are complimetary.
It is strange that you even intend to keep this voting open after disqualifying the two biggest contenders in the biggest section. How can you explain to the other entrants that "No, the only reason you won was because of a strange mix-up with the two biggest entrants"? It totally nullifies the entire competion, rendering the award frivolous.
Also, consider that you have just alienated a few hundred thousand people in the vast user bases of these two sites. Free advertisement, yes, but now those few hundred thousand people are disgusted by Mashable, and possibly its 30 afffiliates, to the point of counterproductivity.
You disqualify the best sites on grounds of "rules" that never existed, accuse their users of cheating, and fail to inform anybody that nominations had stopped or that multiple nominations were illegal. And just to be clear, why did you disqualify us during the NOMINATION round? Not even the VOTING round, but the round where the number of nominations didn't count anyway . . . if we got 50 or 500 or 500,000, it didn't matter. It was only nominations.
I consider this a blaspheme to the entire concept of Web 2.0: user-generated content. Another real Web 2.0 site (DIGG) has accurately put it: "Open Web Awards - Rigged?" at http://digg.com/tech_news/Open_Web_Awards_Rigged .
Finally, the only "responsibility" that seems to have taken here was to ban James. I am offended that such an exemplary person was banned without cause.
However, if Mark, James, and the YYG staff agree to drop the thing, I cannot but consent and simply ignore this site and this competition.
BrandMan211
· 1 year ago
YoYo Games (Or it's main product, Game Maker, which was solely owned by Mark Overmars), is the single most influential site I have EVER seen in my LIFE. It has taught me an EASY way to bring my ideas for games to life. Through this, I collaborated with many other Game Maker's, and made several friends. The product has introduced me to the entire world of programming, and because of this I now know HTML, PHP, MySQL, and a bit of C# and C++. It has also made my time on the internet LUCRATIVE, and with my team I have made a small amount of money, but with what it has introduced me to, my income can only grow, and I am not yet even 16! I am not the only person who has been influenced this way, I know 10 YEAR OLDS who could make a fully functional Content Management System. On such a topic, I bet many members on the forum would have been able to come up with a better system to have these awards set up! I mean come on, not only is it completely inefficient to have people vote by posting, but you didn't even lock the topic after the polls were closed! And every single competent member of the community would know that through proxies, people could game these nominations WITHOUT having multiple IPs. In short, YYG has CHANGED MY LIFE, and many other members of the GMC's lives. If you made such a mistake, try correcting it instead of just assuming guilt!
I feel terrible for all of the people's votes that went to waste, both for YYG and Cre8buzz. I am even more sorry that I had to register an account to support my favorite site for nothing. Through this you have completely smeared your name and I bet none of the members will even take a look at this place again, even when James originally said that this was a cool place.
Please, direct me to the link that let's me cancel my account; I'm sure many other members of the community would like this as well.
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
I just wanted to update everyone that this was my "mistake" and although I work for Mashable, please don't have any ill feelings towards Mashable. I am in talks with both YoYo Games and Cre8Buzz. I know they appreciate the strong responses from their communities and I hope alone this creates a good buzz for both companies. I will post an update when we have an agreement.
dannyboy
· 1 year ago
"Please, direct me to the link that let's me cancel my account; I'm sure many other members of the community would like this as well."
The many other real members who have different IP addresses!!!
dannyboy
· 1 year ago
"I just wanted to update everyone that this was my "mistake" and although I work for Mashable, please don't have any ill feelings towards Mashable. I am in talks with both YoYo Games and Cre8Buzz. I know they appreciate the strong responses from their communities and I hope alone this creates a good buzz for both companies. I will post an update when we have an agreement."
Thank you this is very considerate :) I forgot to mention that I accept you apology and hope that something can be done about it.
Jerry Levin
· 1 year ago
I don't know what the I.P addresses are of any of the votes but to me it seemed like an overwhelming amount of traffic coming from one source - so much that it made it unbelievable. A majority of people on this site are venture capitalists or news men themselves, not social networking junkies or your average users.
The positive things that can come out of this as that there are still 10 other great sites listed in this category that all deserve to win, but only one can win. This is a great competition and it would be my suggestion that cr8buzz and YoYogames turn this into a positive as well.
Anyway, I commend the open social awards and their purpose. Remember, this is just the first year and every year will improve.
NakedPaulToast
· 1 year ago
You broke your own rules for determining nominations:
The rules specifically stated: "(2) The number of *unique* nominations will be taken into account in determining who makes the voting round."
You did not consider the "*unique*" nominations.
As it stands now, you have disqualified what appears to be the two leading sites. As it stands, your contest completely lacks any credibility.
It is my understanding that each category, will have two winners, "one “People’s Choice†and one “Judge’s Choice†from each category."
Since the voting has started, and it would be unfair to the current nominees, then may I suggest YoYoGames and Cre8Buzz, still be considered as candidates for "Judge's Choice".
This would not disadvantage the current nominees, as they are currently enjoying a voting process without two strong candidates.
A letter from you to the judges, indicating that you had inadvertently disqualified them and asking them seriously consider them would restore some credibility.
This is the kind of thing that demonstrates "taking responsibility", not running around saying "you can blame me".
Richard P.
· 1 year ago
Stop complaining to Adam. If you spent anywhere near as much time running your business as you do bitching about not being nominated, we might have heard of these sites before. This isn't the US Government and Adam is not accountable for his decision. Mashable isn't a publicly held company. Deal with the reality and focus on productivity, not complaints. Move on kids...
Meanwhile, I think these sites are very interesting. Good luck to CafeMom, CollegeTonight and Gocals.
-Dick
Ian
· 1 year ago
This was the first time that I signed up to vote for something that I believed in and it was disappointing to find my vote discarded. It would have been great to raise the profile of cre8Buzz and introduce more people to what it has to offer. This was not to be, so we all just have to move on and not let it spoil what we have. I'm sure that cre8Buzz and YoYo Games will continue to thrive and have passionate and enthusiastic members long past this incident and will get their recognition here or elsewhere in the future.
Good luck to those sites that were chosen.
Ian
kaysha
· 1 year ago
I want to see more votes for CAFEMOM
James
· 1 year ago
I'd just like to say that I have had personal contact from Adam and I believe this entire episode was an honest mistake.
I'd like to thank the whole YoYo Games community, and especially the GMC, for their nominations and support. They've showed their true colours as an active and passionate community.
YoYoGames, Mashable and, I'm sure, cre8buzz, are great sites and there's no reason we shouldn't have the friendliest of relationships. Let's move on and put this behind us.
Good luck to all the other contestants.
Office Goddess
· 1 year ago
I think the best lesson to be learned here is to make more concrete rules for the next contest and, if multiple votes come from the same IP address, to use email addresses to confirm the legitimacy of the votes. I would suggest requesting a confirmation from the multiple email addresses registered with the same IP address - I believe that few (if any) people who create a new email address for the sole purpose of casting votes would take the time to actually CHECK the email at a future time for a confirmation email...
That being said, I am a recent addition to the Cre8Buzz site and did not have an opportunity to vote for the nominations. I hope that the understanding and tolerance that the Cre8Buzz team shoed continutes in the future.
Mark Spellman
· 1 year ago
Let's put this all behind us. Some are acting like very immature. This is a contest, not a government election. This is the first year, not the 10th year.
In fact YoYoGames ands Cre8buzz are actually detering good pr for the other candidates. They are making these other 10 great comanpies look bad to an extent. There are many good VCs and Angel Investors on this site and this little stir up doesn't look positive for anyone.
Agreed, everyone should put this behind all as everyone's image seems to be hurt by this some.
Mark
midori miller
· 1 year ago
I don't believe for a minute this is immature at all. I too am quite disappointed..not #$&^*ing but rather concerned since I just joined Mashable in January. When I saw there was a contest and one of my social networks that I love was nominated... you bet I voted and so did my husband and brother. Why??? we are all on cre8buzz. How bad is it for this to be made a public conversation? Accusations of gaming the system is very strong. In my household alone we have 2 members on almost all the same networks. Does that make us game any system? So if you were to have a family of seven and each member voted does that make it gaming the system? Cre8buzz and the community is a great place, I know you are not questioning that but my concern is to be vocal..."RECEIVE WORD!" now to me that is funny. I can start any type of rumor...we all can...I hope you are basing this strong allegation on more than just RECIEVING WORD! As far as YoYogames never have been there but I will check it out...maybe I'll pull my membership here...maybe I won't but you can bet...I won't be taking the contests held on Mashable very serious. I wish you all the very best!
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
Hello Everybody. Good news regarding YoYo Games and Cre8Buzz nominations in the Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks Category...there were multiple nominations coming from the same IP addresses, which led to me taking those two sites out of the running, in addition to other factors. However, we spoke to the companies and confirmed that this was just a few overzealous users and not the companies themselves. Therefore, both Cre8buzz and YoYoGames are being allowed to proceed to the next round.
Mashable, YoYoGames and Cre8Buzz all thank everyone who showed such strong emotions during this ordeal. Good luck to all the nominees!
midori miller
· 1 year ago
Now that is good news...
midori miller
· 1 year ago
Adam-how do we vote if they are not on the list?
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
Midori, the 2nd and final round of voting begins Monday morning. That's when you'll be able to vote.
BrandMan211
· 1 year ago
Thank you Adam, at this point you did in fact take responsibility for your actions. I am very grateful.
Quirkee James
· 1 year ago
Well done, Adam. Thank you for giving the two sites the opportunity to compete again.
John
· 1 year ago
Adam,
You listen to your readers and that's great. Yet on this case - by going 180 degrees on your original stance and by letting the 2 said sites back into the finals - I think you gave in to the public pressure. As a result, you risk having a much bigger credebility issue on your hands when the vote moves to the finals.
I'm NOT saying you should re-re-change your mind. However, I think that to minimise a credebility hurt to the awards, you'll need to explaion the rationale for your new decision very well and very clearly to the vote participants during the finals.
If you don't manage explaining your decision in the right way, people won't understand what these 2 sites are doing in the finals. In this case most folks may just pick-up on 'easy' negative sound bites = there was some rigging in the contest, and sites that whined to you about it were excused.
So my advice to you: get the rationale for your re-decision water tight, and make it public asap.
Good luck, and thanks for doing the contest,
J.
Anonymous
· 1 year ago
I hope you realize when this poll is over that it is not valid. Maybe when you see Vizu.com at the Open Web Awards they can explain how they received so much funding for a completely unsecured polling application. This is two strikes on the integrity of this whole awards process. YoYo Games and Cre8Buzz are lucky not to be a part of the poll in this round. Now you've guranteed two sites to the next round and they don't have to be a part of this mess.
Oded Ofek
· 1 year ago
Congrats to the winners.
For a while there, it looked like glocals.com was going to make it to the finals, but in the end, we did not make it in.
As is the case with almost any vote/election, there will always be things that seem to be 'not kosher' to some people. Regardless of whether or not these perceptions are correct, the results are what they are, and it does not look like they will change.
Thanks alot to all of our members who took the time to vote for us and show their support, and thanks to Mashable for organizing this competition and providing a platform where Niche social communities can strut their stuff (and where, for once, we did not have to read about what Facebook did today)
Congrats to the winners who made it into the finals, and good luck.
It isn't that this "seems" unkosher. It was gamed badly. 17,630 votes. Even GloCals.com was a "victim" in the beginning. It's very apparent that this fact can be proven by many people. That includes the web administrators of Vizu.com.
CSamarin
· 1 year ago
I kind of wish some of my members would have been "fraudulent" during the nomination period to get me a free ride to the final round. Squeaky wheel gets the oil?
Oh well...good luck to the sites moving on!
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
Sorry CSamarin, the votes were all tabulated in the end removing any "fradulent" votes. All results have been tallied and "Double IP Votes" were removed from the final tally.Vizu did a great job of analyzing the votes and tabulated everything properly and accordingly.
As for Vizu, they accidentally set the polls to close at 11:59 pm and not am, therefore, you might see some discrepancies from there. I assure you the correct numbers are pulled and they are doing a final triple check as I write this with all of your concerns.
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
UPDATE: Through the Triple Check and the time difference, the Double IPs and Gaming that occurred for CollegeTonight & OpenSourceFood, which all came from othe same IP address has been discounted. Not ALL votes, just the duplicate address. Therefore, Glocals will be advancing.
Thanks to Vizu for running the thorough searches for us in their systems and correcting the issue.
Oded Ofek
· 1 year ago
Just saw the news that glocals.com is advancing to the finals, and want to make sure this is correct.
Is this 100% sure Adam? glocals.com is in the finals?
If yes, when is the vote?
Thanks alot
Oded
Jason Schutzbank
· 1 year ago
Adam,
Just like Cre8buzz and YoYoGames, we are saddened that this accusation of "gaming" is directed towards us and that we may in turn be penalized. We mobilized our base all weekend to try and trump the %'s of the leading pack and we are humbled by the support of our users and friends. Whatever "gaming" took place was certainly not to our knowing and we are extremely disappointed that a few over-zealous or deceptive individuals turned this great opportunity into a negative experience for us all. Obviously, double-votes shouldn't count (though I'm not sure how one would vote twice from the same IP), but beyond that, we used our vast network (no pun intended) to raise awareness of the contest.
Please advise if there is some assistance we can offer in legitimizing the process. You may call or email me at any time.
Thank you,
Jason Schutzbank EVP & CTO College Tonight, Inc.
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
As I said in an e-mail to Jason, no one is accusing CollegeTonight or OpenSourceFoods. The "gamed" votes were removed and the votes were totalled by Vizu. This was a close race...
Anyone reading this, please realize we do not put a single ounce of blame or accusation on College Tonight or OpenSourceFoods.
midori miller
· 1 year ago
Hi Adam-am trying to figure out where we are supposed to vote since I do not see Cre8buzz on the list.....please advise as to where and what catagory.....Thank you!
LancesMom
· 1 year ago
If I understand this right the top three that won in the last round are CafeMom, College tonight, and Open Food Source. When does this final round of voting for these three sites begin?
LancesMom
· 1 year ago
OH an dnow I read that their where some eliminations and glocals is advancing??? Whi is in the final round and when is it going to start! Will you clear it for all IP addresses that voted before will be able to vote again in the final. Or do I have to rally more troops??
Adam Hirsch
· 1 year ago
There were no eliminations. Only the double IP address votes from the "gamer" were discounted.
All Comments
Please consider this an open letter.
I write because I am somewhat surprised at two notable absences from the Niche and Miscellaneous Social networks category candidates, YoYoGames.com and Cre8buzz.com
The process for these Open Web Awards was already confusing, but you did state that “to nominate a site, leave a comment with the word “NOMINATE†in it. Nominations will remain open until 11:59pm PST on December 4th (next Tuesday). At that point, we will tally up the nominations and enter the second stage of the competition – voting.â€
I have just taken the time to “tally up the nominations†myself (albeit very roughly) and of the 456 nomination posts YoYoGames.com and Cre8Buzz.com combined had over 200 (YoYoGames.com = roughly 101 nominations; Cre8Buzz = 100+). Given that many more posts came after the deadline this represents roughly 50% of the total eligible nominations.
I’m aware that nominations were also included from other sites, but is this really the answer, did the tally count against these two sites on balance?
If not then why weren’t they selected?
I have a lot of respect for Mashable but I feel like you have misled your readers. Especially with posts like “One day left to nominate your favourite sitesâ€, encouraging what has amounted to be a pointless user activity. If you weren’t going to take account of the nominations then has this whole thing been a publicity stunt or a cynical attempt at driving traffic? On what grounds where the sites that made the cut selected?
For me this issue jeopordises the validity of the fledgling Open Web Awards. Something smells rotten and I, for one, would like a few answers.
-James Peddie
There's a big difference between people nominating your site, or someone changing their username and nominating in an attempt to get a site in.
Sorry and better luck next time.
First off I have to outright deny your allegation.
You honestly believe that each of those 200+ nominations was "gamed"?
Of course I can't speak here for cre8buzz.com, but I'm pretty aggrieved as a YYG employee.You explicitly stated that employees can vote, we the YoYoGames.com employees voted (there are 6 of us) and of course we all share a single IP, working as we do from a single office. Regardless, this only represents 6 of 100+ votes. How many nominations did the successful sites receive?
I've looked through the nominations again and I know many of those who nominated from the YoYo Games/GMC community. Each, I can only presume, must have had a different IP address.Therefore, I can only assume that the vast majority of nominations came from different IP addresses.
Presumably next year we will be able to remove all competition by voting for them multiple times? How can this be fair?
Finally which Blog partners are you referring to? As far as I can tell almost all our nominations were posted right here on Mashable. The data you refer to must be a very minimal subgroup of our total nominations.
This still seems very irregular.
-James Peddie
This was my call solely and I take full responsibility. Next year, I will try and figure out a safer/easier way to handle nominations.
My question to you, Adam, is that what would stop a rival nominee from having people vote multiple times for a competitor in order to get them pulled? Why not just consolidate (or eliminate) all votes from IP addresses that voted multiple times, rather than punishing the site they were voting for?
I can understand your reasoning for suspecting voter fraud (I've faced similar problems with online polls), however, there are better ways to deal with this simply than by disqualifying the site the votes were cast in favor of. How can the results of this vote be taken seriously if you cherry pick the results?
It’s not me you need to apologise to, it’s the hundreds of people from our community (and almost certainly those from cre8buzz.com) who came here to vote, gave you a few cheap hits, and got nothing in return.
It’s suspect that people nominated us after the deadline? Maybe you should have closed the poll? Besides as mentioned above I only included nominations BEFORE the deadline (Surely Mashable also did this?!).
It’s deeply disappointing that YoYo and its community can lose out like this as the result of the action of a single individual who (presumably?) nominated us on more than one site. You yourselves must have received YYG nominations from many different IP addresses.
Frankly it’s amazing that the other entrants didn’t also receive multiple nominations from single IPs. The most sinister thing this is likely to be is an over enthusiastic user. Perhaps if this was such a serious issue you should have just counted the unique IP nominations and simply discounted any other votes.
The really sad thing is that it would have been so easy to validate these nominations if any contact had been made with the community at YoYoGames.
Finally, I’m surprised you’re already talking about next year’s competition. With the two most nominated sites already discounted (under these very peculiar circumstances) the competition must surely have lost a bit meaning.
We saw these awards as an opportunity to get a bit of exposure to what we do have: a passionate, smart, authentic group of users who are building real community and real relationships through our social network.
THEY, our users, rallied together to give all of us a chance to win what we thought could be a pretty neat award. And then we hear that we “gamed†this, or we cheated. Or that we did not receive enough votes to be in the top 10.
We are disappointed for the users who got behind us. We feel like our integrity is questioned. What looked like a great opportunity has become a negative experience.
Despite this we still believe we have the best social networking site on the web for intelligent, purposeful, and passionate people. We’re going to keep moving forward.
Thank you to all the great Cre8buzz members who took the time to vote for us and show your passion and commitment.
Keith Collins
Co-Founder, Cre8buzz.com
"This was my call solely and I take full responsibility. Next year, I will try and figure out a safer/easier way to handle nominations."
"I take full responsibility" has become the most overused and abused expressions of modern times. Have you ever noticed that whenever someone says they will take responsibility, never actually do anything to actually take responsibility?
So Adam, what exactly are you doing to take responsibility, other than banning James account?
And "I take full responsibility" means you put the full blame on me, as I am the one running this and made the judgment call that something "fishy" was going on. Which it was. There were many "gamed" entries upon a double check.
What? That doesn't help anyone.
If you have some time check us out because we have some great members working hard to build a great community.
Good luck to everyone nominated!
cheers,
Chris
However, I do accept the fact that it is impossible to change this at this stage because voting obviously is already taking place and it is impossible to remove other sites from the list.
I do accept Adam's apologies and hope another time this will indeed be run differently. So let us stop that discussion.
I hope you will compensate the potential loss of publicity we got in this way by giving us some additional attention on Mashable (or other sites) in the future. Cause I strongly believe that YoYo Games has a unique concept with a lot of potential.
10,000 games created by amateur game developers with 50 new ones being added every day. Free to be played, reviewed and discussed by everybody. And this combined with a strong community of these developers in which people help each other creating even better games.
- Mark
You know... I came here under the impression that only the votes here at mashable would count toward the nomination. I was not notified on the poll that other sites' nominations would also be tallied up. Nowhere, also, was there a notification that only one vote per IP address was valid. If these were your rules, they needed to have been stated forthright, and not post voting.
It is highly unprofessional of this site to game the voters, and then turn around and accuse the voters of gaming the system. Voters did not break a rule that did not exist. If the site had been concerned of fraudulent votes, a reasonable notice should have been published prior the commencement of voting to deter users from using your site.
Cre8buzz users are strong, our community is strong, and we stand on our integrity. For shame. I fear an apology is a cheap shot at our enthusiasm.
CafeMom Rocks!
"And "I take full responsibility" means you put the full blame on me, as I am the one running this and made the judgment call that something "fishy" was going on. Which it was. There were many "gamed" entries upon a double check."
So my question is - Why you don't scrap this attempt at a legitimate contest and when you are prepared to run it correctly you can start it up again? I find it hard to believe that of all of the companies being voted on that cre8Buzz and YoYo Games had the only alleged "gamed" entries.
James Grayson
Editor
Quirkee.com
Yeah, sure this means nothing at all to this contest at this stage, but i think it would be interesting to look in to these votes for the sites concerned.
Although I am sorry that we did not win; I'm very happy to have been able to read as to why we did not. I'm even happier to have an apology from you Adam Hursch.
Although I am disappointed, I'm not mad.
I forgive you Adam, I accept your apology!
Perhaps let's turn this negative into a positive and get people to discuss why they love YoYoGames and Cre8buzz?
I'm very curious to hear the positives, as I'm sure anyone reading this thread is too, who doesn't know the 2 communities as intimately as their users.
Uma
The GMC (a forum under YYG) is also offended.
So offended, in fact, that in just a few hours, during the off-peak posting period, the topic on your "Open" Web Awards has gotten 40+ posts, and none of them are complimetary.
It is strange that you even intend to keep this voting open after disqualifying the two biggest contenders in the biggest section. How can you explain to the other entrants that "No, the only reason you won was because of a strange mix-up with the two biggest entrants"? It totally nullifies the entire competion, rendering the award frivolous.
Also, consider that you have just alienated a few hundred thousand people in the vast user bases of these two sites. Free advertisement, yes, but now those few hundred thousand people are disgusted by Mashable, and possibly its 30 afffiliates, to the point of counterproductivity.
You disqualify the best sites on grounds of "rules" that never existed, accuse their users of cheating, and fail to inform anybody that nominations had stopped or that multiple nominations were illegal. And just to be clear, why did you disqualify us during the NOMINATION round? Not even the VOTING round, but the round where the number of nominations didn't count anyway . . . if we got 50 or 500 or 500,000, it didn't matter. It was only nominations.
I consider this a blaspheme to the entire concept of Web 2.0: user-generated content. Another real Web 2.0 site (DIGG) has accurately put it: "Open Web Awards - Rigged?" at http://digg.com/tech_news/Open_Web_Awards_Rigged .
Finally, the only "responsibility" that seems to have taken here was to ban James. I am offended that such an exemplary person was banned without cause.
However, if Mark, James, and the YYG staff agree to drop the thing, I cannot but consent and simply ignore this site and this competition.
I feel terrible for all of the people's votes that went to waste, both for YYG and Cre8buzz. I am even more sorry that I had to register an account to support my favorite site for nothing. Through this you have completely smeared your name and I bet none of the members will even take a look at this place again, even when James originally said that this was a cool place.
Please, direct me to the link that let's me cancel my account; I'm sure many other members of the community would like this as well.
The many other real members who have different IP addresses!!!
Thank you this is very considerate :)
I forgot to mention that I accept you apology and hope that something can be done about it.
The positive things that can come out of this as that there are still 10 other great sites listed in this category that all deserve to win, but only one can win. This is a great competition and it would be my suggestion that cr8buzz and YoYogames turn this into a positive as well.
Anyway, I commend the open social awards and their purpose. Remember, this is just the first year and every year will improve.
The rules specifically stated:
"(2) The number of *unique* nominations will be taken into account in determining who makes the voting round."
You did not consider the "*unique*" nominations.
As it stands now, you have disqualified what appears to be the two leading sites. As it stands, your contest completely lacks any credibility.
It is my understanding that each category, will have two winners, "one “People’s Choice†and one “Judge’s Choice†from each category."
Since the voting has started, and it would be unfair to the current nominees, then may I suggest YoYoGames and Cre8Buzz, still be considered as candidates for "Judge's Choice".
This would not disadvantage the current nominees, as they are currently enjoying a voting process without two strong candidates.
A letter from you to the judges, indicating that you had inadvertently disqualified them and asking them seriously consider them would restore some credibility.
This is the kind of thing that demonstrates "taking responsibility", not running around saying "you can blame me".
Meanwhile, I think these sites are very interesting. Good luck to CafeMom, CollegeTonight and Gocals.
-Dick
It would have been great to raise the profile of cre8Buzz and introduce more people to what it has to offer. This was not to be, so we all just have to move on and not let it spoil what we have.
I'm sure that cre8Buzz and YoYo Games will continue to thrive and have passionate and enthusiastic members long past this incident and will get their recognition here or elsewhere in the future.
Good luck to those sites that were chosen.
Ian
I'd like to thank the whole YoYo Games community, and especially the GMC, for their nominations and support. They've showed their true colours as an active and passionate community.
YoYoGames, Mashable and, I'm sure, cre8buzz, are great sites and there's no reason we shouldn't have the friendliest of relationships. Let's move on and put this behind us.
Good luck to all the other contestants.
That being said, I am a recent addition to the Cre8Buzz site and did not have an opportunity to vote for the nominations. I hope that the understanding and tolerance that the Cre8Buzz team shoed continutes in the future.
In fact YoYoGames ands Cre8buzz are actually detering good pr for the other candidates. They are making these other 10 great comanpies look bad to an extent. There are many good VCs and Angel Investors on this site and this little stir up doesn't look positive for anyone.
Agreed, everyone should put this behind all as everyone's image seems to be hurt by this some.
Mark
Mashable, YoYoGames and Cre8Buzz all thank everyone who showed such strong emotions during this ordeal. Good luck to all the nominees!
You listen to your readers and that's great. Yet on this case - by going 180 degrees on your original stance and by letting the 2 said sites back into the finals - I think you gave in to the public pressure. As a result, you risk having a much bigger credebility issue on your hands when the vote moves to the finals.
I'm NOT saying you should re-re-change your mind. However, I think that to minimise a credebility hurt to the awards, you'll need to explaion the rationale for your new decision very well and very clearly to the vote participants during the finals.
If you don't manage explaining your decision in the right way, people won't understand what these 2 sites are doing in the finals. In this case most folks may just pick-up on 'easy' negative sound bites = there was some rigging in the contest, and sites that whined to you about it were excused.
So my advice to you: get the rationale for your re-decision water tight, and make it public asap.
Good luck, and thanks for doing the contest,
J.
For a while there, it looked like glocals.com was going to make it to the finals, but in the end, we did not make it in.
As is the case with almost any vote/election, there will always be things that seem to be 'not kosher' to some people.
Regardless of whether or not these perceptions are correct, the results are what they are, and it does not look like they will change.
Thanks alot to all of our members who took the time to vote for us and show their support, and thanks to Mashable for organizing this competition and providing a platform where Niche social communities can strut their stuff (and where, for once, we did not have to read about what Facebook did today)
Congrats to the winners who made it into the finals, and good luck.
Oded - glocals.com
Oh well...good luck to the sites moving on!
As for Vizu, they accidentally set the polls to close at 11:59 pm and not am, therefore, you might see some discrepancies from there. I assure you the correct numbers are pulled and they are doing a final triple check as I write this with all of your concerns.
Thanks to Vizu for running the thorough searches for us in their systems and correcting the issue.
Is this 100% sure Adam? glocals.com is in the finals?
If yes, when is the vote?
Thanks alot
Oded
Just like Cre8buzz and YoYoGames, we are saddened that this accusation of "gaming" is directed towards us and that we may in turn be penalized. We mobilized our base all weekend to try and trump the %'s of the leading pack and we are humbled by the support of our users and friends. Whatever "gaming" took place was certainly not to our knowing and we are extremely disappointed that a few over-zealous or deceptive individuals turned this great opportunity into a negative experience for us all. Obviously, double-votes shouldn't count (though I'm not sure how one would vote twice from the same IP), but beyond that, we used our vast network (no pun intended) to raise awareness of the contest.
Please advise if there is some assistance we can offer in legitimizing the process. You may call or email me at any time.
Thank you,
Jason Schutzbank
EVP & CTO
College Tonight, Inc.
Anyone reading this, please realize we do not put a single ounce of blame or accusation on College Tonight or OpenSourceFoods.
Voting has begun already on the final round: http://mashable.com/2007/12/17/owa-voting-final...
Please vote!