Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we have a result. However, we also have a problem.
As we all know, the vote this month was very close. At the final count we have hwood's KMAC with 39 votes, and Yoe's 60% Alps creation with 36 votes. As it happens, the vote was neck and neck until an hour before the vote was due to close. Three votes were then cast in the space of 13 minutes. Those 3 votes gave hwood his 3 vote lead, and ultimately the win.
This, unfortunately, piqued my suspicions. I asked the mods if there was a way to see who voted for who. A google document is produced with a list of all the users who voted for which entry, along with timestamps of when they voted. After requesting the list from the moderators and casting my eye over it, my attention was drawn to a number of names that I had not heard before, and seemed a little strange. Due to there not being a member search function for non-admins, I had to go through members by changing the numbers of their User ID, which is done by date created, with iMav being user ID number 1. I then compared their time registered, last active, post counts and voting times, and my findings you can find below. All findings are accurate as of 20:25 Geekhack time on 08/04.
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https://geekhack.org/index.php?action=profile;u=46981 - MFW - created 07 April 17:13:35. Voted 07 April 17:16:03. Zero posts. Last active 07 April 17:15:49. Voted for hwood's KMAC.
https://geekhack.org/index.php?action=profile;u=46980 - reddittttttt - created 07 April 17:10:18. Voted 07 April 17:11:51. Zero posts. Last active 07 April 17:11:51. Voted for hwood's KMAC.
https://geekhack.org/index.php?action=profile;u=46978 - 1337 - created 17:02:12. Voted 07 April 17:06:16 Zero posts. Last active 07 April 17:06:07. Voted for hwood's KMAC.
https://geekhack.org/index.php?action=profile;u=46972 - QuickLime - created 07 April 13:48:10. Voted at 13:55:57. Zero posts. Last active 13:56:52. Voted for hwood's KMAC.
https://geekhack.org/index.php?action=profile;u=46931 - karrigan - created 06 April 15:57:14. Voted 06 April 16:00:45. Zero posts. Last active 06 April 16:00:37. Voted for hwood's KMAC.
https://geekhack.org/index.php?action=profile;u=46932 - d3n13D - created 06 April 16:03:32. Voted 06 April 16:06:01. Zero posts. Last active 06 April 16:05:38. Voted for hwood's KMAC.
https://geekhack.org/index.php?action=profile;u=47023 - zzyzz - created 08 April 16:04:52. Voted 08 April 16:09:24. Zero posts. Last active 08 April 16:09:11. Voted for hwood's KMAC.
https://geekhack.org/index.php?action=profile;u=47024 - topgun - created 08 April 16:11:43. Voted 08 April 16:14:36. Zero posts. Last active 08 April 16:13:52. Voted for hwood's KMAC.
My interpretation is, that all 8 of these accounts have been created to sway the results of the vote.
I sent these results to the moderators, who did further investigations with the tools that only they have. I was told that seven out of the 8 email addresses for the accounts in question are clearly generated and are not legitimate. They follow the same format and are very suspect. Half of them are also from TOR nodes.
In the interest of fairness, I asked the moderators to use their user search tool to look at the last dozen users who voted for Yoe's board, and all of them came back as genuine users.
Ultimately, I am disappointed. Why anybody would do this to try and fix the results of something like this is beyond me. I have tried to be fair with everything, not letting my personal preferences get in the way of nominations or results, and I am always open to feedback. I want this competition to go ahead, because I really think it is a great way to showcase people's hard work and dedication to a hobby a lot of us love.
My decision, ultimately is to decide what to do with the result of this month's vote. While we could do a re-vote, I am afraid that the person or persons responsible for fixing this month's vote, would just do it again. I could strike off the vote completely, but I believe that would be unfair to the real voters, the three competitors, and the competition itself.
So I have decided to strike 7 votes off the total for hwood's KMAC, thus giving the win to Yoe.I apologise to hwood for having to strip him of this win like this, but I do it out of the fairness of the competition. I apologise to Yoe for him having to win like this, and I apologise to Billnye for him having to be apart of the controversy.
Finally, I have to apologise to all those who voted, especially those who voted for hwood's board who are expecting me to announce his victory. I hope this doesn't deter people from participating in the competitions in subsequent months, and doesn't stop people from voting or nominating. In the future, I will ensure that votes are hidden until the end, so nobody knows how close the votes are, and we can prevent a similar situation happening in the future.
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