phpBBHacks.com Idol: If You Voted, Please Vote Again!

[Patrick]

Hello,

Thank you for visiting phpBBHacks.com.

I have some bad news. Earlier this evening, Nadia P. pointed out that she was able to vote multiple times in a poll. This kicked off an immediate investigation to look into the matter to check whether or not this was actually happening.

Unfortunately, upon researching it in depth, I found that it was possible, for certain users. In order to deter abuse, we are not accepting votes from people who registered after the voting announcement was made and we had enacted a measure in order to block these votes. Unfortunately, this measure opened up a separate issue that allowed a number of people to vote multiple times.

Upon discovering this issue, I spent time researching our options. I was able to deduce how many duplicate votes there were, who made them and on which polls they were. But, that's as far as I could drill down, due to the way that the phpBB 2 database system is structured in regard to polls.

The integrity of the phpBBHacks.com Idol vote is very important to me. It may be a game, it may be for fun - but, if the vote has no integrity, it is not enjoyable, it is not fair and that is not acceptable. As such, after agonizing over the decision and searching for an option that would allow us to keep valid votes, I found that there just wasn't one that could adequately work in a manner that would allow me to sleep at night.

As such, I have opted to wipe the polls clean. All of the links remain the same and I ask anyone that has voted to please vote again. I sincerely apologize and I feel terrible about the fact that we will lose some votes. It really, really bothers me and I am definitely upset about it, but this is really the best course for us to ensure that the vote has the integrity it needs to have.

I have pushed the voting deadline back a day and if you are nominated and have already mentioned the poll on your site, you are welcome and encouraged to let your members know that the results have been reset and, if they already voted, they will need to vote again. That said, as I said before, please do not encourage them to vote in an indescriminate manner or to simply vote for you, no matter what.

I would like to thank Nadia P. for pointing this out so quickly. We will lose 24 hours worth of votes and that hurts and it's bad, but it is much better that we lose just 24 hours of votes than have a question mark a couple of weeks from now over who should or should not have won. So, a big thanks to her for pointing it out and giving us an opportunity to fix it to ensure the competition is fair and honest.

I always feel that it's important to be honest with our visitors and, most of the time, that means sharing the good stuff. In this case, it means sharing the bad. Once again, I apologize. I appreciate your understanding and support.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at patrick@ifroggy.com.

Thank you for reading.

Sincerely,

Patrick
_________________
Patrick O'Keefe - phpBBHacks.com Administrator
Author, Managing Online Forums (New Book)
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