RodrigoAB Posted January 26, 2020 Share Posted January 26, 2020 1 minute ago, Albert said: The rules don't explicitly state, "Don't create multiple accounts to vote in the polls", so I guess we should just allow it, then? It's sad that we'll have to take steps next year to try and prevent this from happening again. And Thomas doesn't have anything to do with "changing the rules". ZeroPage Homebrew and I are discussing how best to handle this situation. If you keep up with these unfounded accusations, I'm going to boot you from this thread. ..Al “Again “ You are not serious, now brazilian comunity knows. cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted January 26, 2020 Share Posted January 26, 2020 Just now, RodrigoAB said: Multiple accounts? Of course its not ok for me! How do you know is multiple? I know 10 friends, collectors that make a account to vote, they are real people my friend, very real. I've been running this forum for about 20 years now, and I've had to deal with people creating multiple accounts many times over that period of time. Usually this occurs after someone has been banned and they try to sign up for a new account to get around the ban. In the case of these polls for the 2019 Atari Awards, one individual from Brazil signed up for four accounts one right after another all using the same IP address. And that's not the only example. There are other ways for me to link accounts together as well. ..Al 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RodrigoAB Posted January 26, 2020 Share Posted January 26, 2020 (edited) 9 minutes ago, Albert said: I've been running this forum for about 20 years now, and I've had to deal with people creating multiple accounts many times over that period of time. Usually this occurs after someone has been banned and they try to sign up for a new account to get around the ban. In the case of these polls for the 2019 Atari Awards, one individual from Brazil signed up for four accounts one right after another all using the same IP address. And that's not the only example. There are other ways for me to link accounts together as well. ..Al Good example, they need to be banned, and the IP too. cheers, good sunday Edited January 26, 2020 by RodrigoAB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted January 26, 2020 Share Posted January 26, 2020 2 minutes ago, RodrigoAB said: Good example, they need to be banned, and the IP too. And the other, real people? I'm on vacation right now, and today I am driving 12 hours, so I do not have a lot of time to investigate this at the moment (I'm at a stop charging my car right now). When I do have time, I can go through the slew of new accounts (quite a few from Brazil) and nuke any that I can definitively link to other accounts. I will probably remove any new accounts that were created with a VPN or proxy as well, as I've seen several of those. ..Al 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RodrigoAB Posted January 26, 2020 Share Posted January 26, 2020 I totally agree Albert! Same IP, proxy or VPN created in the last few days can only be malicious and should be banned. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted January 26, 2020 Share Posted January 26, 2020 Hi @RodrigoAB. Yesterday, @Albert alerted me to some irregularities in the voting that was happening in relation to the 'Atari 2600: Best Packaging' category. The forum log files showed that there were a number of new accounts being created from the same IP address and were all voting in succession. This is our second year running the 'Atari Homebrew Awards' and although we don't have a rule outright banning the creation of multiple accounts from the same IP address and all voting in the event, it's strongly implied that there's only one vote per person. Ballot stuffing is not allowed in any contest or election that I'm aware of and will skew results in favour of the entry that the ballot stuffing is occurring for. We've never had to deal with this type of behaviour until this year and it's upsetting that it's happening now and we have to take measures to deal with it. At minimum we will be removing ALL votes that were cast from multiple accounts on the same IP address as none of them can trusted to be legitimate votes. Any further mitigation of suspicious voting efforts are still to be decided. There is no defence for this type of behaviour or the encouragement of this type of behaviour. Again, it is upsetting that we have been forced to take action like this, but it must be done to make sure that there is an even playing field without a finger on the scale for any particular entry. - James 8 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+evg2000 Posted January 26, 2020 Share Posted January 26, 2020 could all votes for the packaging category be removed, and start over? Kind of a pain but might help in this situation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RodrigoAB Posted January 27, 2020 Share Posted January 27, 2020 Hi guys, just making it clear that I am not responsible for the game Rally Racer, just a collector who knows the game well and thought that the arguments to ban the game were extremely strong and disproportionate. There was no movement on the part of More Work or its managers requesting mass votes on their game, nor creating accounts for that, let alone fake accounts. I believe that new users with good intentions, made on new IPs, are real people and only have to add to the award and the whole AtariAge. I am radically against any fraud, so I agree to ban any recent user created on repeated IP, or via proxy, VPN. Remembering that it is my opinion and of several collector friends, many who already knew Atariage and others who discovered it recently and intend to continue doing part of this great community. Please excuse any excess and I know that your decision will be as impartial as possible. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neotokeo2001 Posted January 27, 2020 Share Posted January 27, 2020 I run a FaceBook Atari 2600 Homebrew group with over 4000 members, I could easily influence the vote by making a post on that group asking/pleading with members to vote for certain titles in the different categories. James always keeps everyone up to date with his own post for Zero Page Homebrew and I think that is fair enough to leave it at that. Their was a post made to my FaceBook group as well as to many others that are asking people to vote for Rally Racer which I left alone since I don't have an issue with it. But, if people from a certain group or area are all voting for the same game in whichever category and not even bothering to vote in the other 2600 categories, then that is a problem since they obviously have not seen or care to see what the competition is. New users signing up to vote is probably not a good idea either, is their a way to limit voting only to members who signed up in 2019 or before? That is the relevant time frame. James and Albert are doing a great job with the awards but there will always be something that crops up that needs to be taken care of. Resetting the vote for that category and not allowing new members to vote is what I would do if possible. You guys will figure it out! Who allowed Albert to go on a vacation? 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karakenio Posted January 28, 2020 Share Posted January 28, 2020 On 1/25/2020 at 3:46 PM, Thomas Jentzsch said: I already wondered why there are more votes for packaging than for any other category. I discovered last week about the polls via Facebook, took a look, and only "could" vote on the artwork category, since I don't own any of the games (!). Plus: - Rally Racer shows 1st in the gallery. - And... it's another league; it shows that they really took an extra efford in the design. I understand they might be a lot of new users just to vote (I don't know if that's ok or not), but I think it the reasons I just mentioned have to be taken into account. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted January 28, 2020 Share Posted January 28, 2020 (edited) 47 minutes ago, karakenio said: I discovered last week about the polls via Facebook, took a look, and only "could" vote on the artwork category, since I don't own any of the games (!). Plus: - Rally Racer shows 1st in the gallery. - And... it's another league; it shows that they really took an extra efford in the design. I understand they might be a lot of new users just to vote (I don't know if that's ok or not), but I think it the reasons I just mentioned have to be taken into account. I hope you will vote in all of the categories, there are various ways you can find out about all the games nominated. 1) We have provided binaries for every game that had one publicly available (about 95%+ of them) that you can play on an emulator. These links are below each of the polls, on the same line as the link to pictures. Here they are again for you: Nominations Downloads: Atari 2600 Completed, Atari 2600 WIP, Atari 2600 Packaging, Atari 7800 Completed, Atari 8bit/5200 Completed 2) You can watch the four part series of videos that we streamed on ZeroPage Homebrew, where we play through every single game on the nomination list. or 3) You can watch videos of other people playing each of the games on YouTube. You still have about 18 hours left to vote, get out there and play some games and have fun! - James Edited January 28, 2020 by ZeroPage Homebrew 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted January 30, 2020 Share Posted January 30, 2020 On 1/27/2020 at 3:04 PM, neotokeo2001 said: Who allowed Albert to go on a vacation? My bad. I forgot to lock the cat flap and he got out. 3 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted January 30, 2020 Share Posted January 30, 2020 SpecSavers advertisement: Put the cat flap like that and any admin or moderator will have to do some exercise to leave... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swami Posted February 1, 2020 Share Posted February 1, 2020 What is with the shill voting from foreign countries this year? Same thing is happening with Intellivision homebrew awards where a terrible French game (from a company that was selling an AA members homebrew under another name no less) is getting a large number of awards, all from France. You can't trust the results that are due to obvious shills anymore than you can trust a great review rating on Amazon with less than 50 votes. Maybe they think this method is helping their friend or country's homebrew reputation, but it makes them look shady instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevKelley Posted February 1, 2020 Share Posted February 1, 2020 This is the first I had heard of this and hope it all gets worked out, as the packaging truly is magnificent. Not sure how prevalent issues like this are online but I have seen similar requests on various polls or contests. Hope this gets rectified nicely ?. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wongojack Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 You could do a runoff vote for that one category. That way the initial votes cast count for something and users who are knowledgeable show up again to choose from a top 2 or 3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randolph Laterca Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 As an Atari collector, i also collect homebrew games and i can say that rally racer has one of the most creative packages on the market. Geez...even the cartridge shell is brand new, i dont see any problem to freely advertize your game since the winner is chosen by popular vote. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randolph Laterca Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 And if this information is relevant, i didn't vote on any game this year! ? Sorry my lame english. ?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariLeaf Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 Perhaps in the future it may be possible to prevent votes from new users. Perhaps from the time nominations are announced anyone who signs up for a new account can be prevented from voting. Just spit balling Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 Without counter measures, not the best games but only the best advertised games would win in the future. Which would render the awards useless, IMO. I already feel sorry for Dave Dries who did the packaging which became 2nd and 3rd place. There sure has to be some limitation for new accounts next year (e.g. age of account, number of posts, reputation points). But I doubt the poll plugin supports this out of the box. Then either the plugin will have to be updated or exchanged which for sure would cost quite some money. Or there will be a lot of extra work for the organizers to sort out the non-eligible votes manually. And I am not sure if that is even possible. And if this doesn't work and that kind of voting continues, I am afraid the voting would have to become non-public or there will be no awards anymore. Which nobody would like to see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deteacher Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 On 1/26/2020 at 11:29 AM, Albert said: I'm on vacation right now, and today I am driving 12 hours, so I do not have a lot of time to investigate this at the moment (I'm at a stop charging my car right now). When I do have time, I can go through the slew of new accounts (quite a few from Brazil) and nuke any that I can definitively link to other accounts. I will probably remove any new accounts that were created with a VPN or proxy as well, as I've seen several of those. ..Al once you find all the multiple accounts/usernames, can't you strike those votes from the vote count? It may not be enough to overturn the results, but it's a start. This is why we can't have nice things... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deteacher Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 On 1/27/2020 at 7:52 AM, RodrigoAB said: Hi guys, just making it clear that I am not responsible for the game Rally Racer, just a collector who knows the game well and thought that the arguments to ban the game were extremely strong and disproportionate. There was no movement on the part of More Work or its managers requesting mass votes on their game, nor creating accounts for that, let alone fake accounts. I believe that new users with good intentions, made on new IPs, are real people and only have to add to the award and the whole AtariAge. I am radically against any fraud, so I agree to ban any recent user created on repeated IP, or via proxy, VPN. Remembering that it is my opinion and of several collector friends, many who already knew Atariage and others who discovered it recently and intend to continue doing part of this great community. Please excuse any excess and I know that your decision will be as impartial as possible. Whether or not More Work was directly responsible for the ballot stuffing is irrelevant. The fact that it happened should be enough to disqualify the entry. If More Work wasn't involved, then they should be very pissed off at those reposnbile for getting them disqualified (if that's what ends up happening.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 21 minutes ago, Deteacher said: once you find all the multiple accounts/usernames, can't you strike those votes from the vote count? It may not be enough to overturn the results, but it's a start. I am sure the most obvious ones have been eliminated already. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 16 minutes ago, Deteacher said: Whether or not More Work was directly responsible for the ballot stuffing is irrelevant. The fact that it happened should be enough to disqualify the entry. If More Work wasn't involved, then they should be very pissed off at those reposnbile for getting them disqualified (if that's what ends up happening.) IMO one should not change the rules in hindsight. And since Leandro didn't want to manipulate the voting, disqualifying him seems not fair. I hope the organizers make transparent which measure have been taken. It seems like only the most obvious votes from multiple accounts have been removed. Anyway, this win now has some smell to it and the award is partially ruined (at least for me). This cannot be completely eliminated anymore and I doubt Leandro is really happy with it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 11 hours ago, Randolph Laterca said: As an Atari collector, i also collect homebrew games and i can say that rally racer has one of the most creative packages on the market. Geez...even the cartridge shell is brand new, i dont see any problem to freely advertize your game since the winner is chosen by popular vote. What you are missing is, that the awards are not meant to be for the best advertising, most private friends and followers, most popular F***book and YouTube channels etc., but for the best GAMES. BTW: Nice collection you have there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.