There's been more cheating uncovered in the latest CAP Art poll. In fact, there was more cheating in that poll, than any CAP poll in the past -- and we have only scratched the surface in our investigation. We will continue to work to determine the extent of the cheating and we will announce final poll results later. Look for that in the Art poll thread. The point of this thread is to expose some unethical practices that are going on, and get some feedback from the community.
In case you didn't know it -- the CAP project has identified cheated votes in the past. I believe our first discovery of cheated votes was in the Stratagem art poll. In that case, the final poll result actually overturned the initial winner, Caladbolg, and YDG's design ended up with more "legitimate" votes. In the CAP 7 art poll we discovered more cheating. However, in that case, the amount of cheating was not enough to overturn the results of the initial vote count. However, during CAP 7 we discovered that manipulation of CAP art poll results had moved to a whole new level. Perhaps it had been going on for a long time, but I first became aware of it in the CAP 7 poll.
Cheated votes are fairly simple -- a user makes one or more alternate Smogon accounts, and casts several votes for their favorite option. These votes are usually easy to discover, with the forum tools available to the mods and admins. It's tedious work to investigate, but we CAN identify certain instances of cheating of this kind. There are some ways that technically-savvy users can create undetectable alternate accounts, and we have no way to prove that such votes are cheated. With all the cheating that we have actually caught on CAP polls, it would be foolish to believe that there aren't any "undetectable alt votes" out there as well.
The latest fad to manipulate CAP art polls is the one that bothers me the most -- "recruited votes". Recruited votes are votes cast by someone not involved in the CAP project at all. They are "recruited" by someone in CAP, and they are asked to simply sign up and vote in a CAP poll. I suspect recruiting has been going on for a long time, but with CAP 7, it really became widespread. People would go on IRC, AIM, Shoddy Battle, even Facebook -- and send messages to their entire personal network of gaming friends,
After CAP 7, I found out that a few different clans voted against my art because they don't like Smogon being so "elitist". Since I am a Smogon admin, they figured they would vote "against Smogon" by voting against my art. I probably got a few votes from some new Smogoners just because I am an admin -- so maybe it evened out. I dunno. I don't really care about winning or losing any of these polls, but I really hate the idea of polls be "tainted" with outright campaigning and recruiting.
But that's what it is coming to on CAP polls -- usually art polls, but I'm sure it's happened on other polls too. There are multiple behind-the-scenes efforts to manipulate poll results -- whether by outright cheating, or by "legally cheating" by recruiting votes. I don't know if there is any solution to the problem, but I want to get this issue out in the open and hear what the rest of you think. Even if there is nothing we can or should do to stop it, we need to acknowledge what is really going on. If any of you are looking at the most recent CAP 8 art poll results, and thinking that is simply the result of two good artworks garnering votes of interested CAP members -- you have your head in the sand. There's a lot more going on than that -- and we need to acknowledge it.
In case you didn't know it -- the CAP project has identified cheated votes in the past. I believe our first discovery of cheated votes was in the Stratagem art poll. In that case, the final poll result actually overturned the initial winner, Caladbolg, and YDG's design ended up with more "legitimate" votes. In the CAP 7 art poll we discovered more cheating. However, in that case, the amount of cheating was not enough to overturn the results of the initial vote count. However, during CAP 7 we discovered that manipulation of CAP art poll results had moved to a whole new level. Perhaps it had been going on for a long time, but I first became aware of it in the CAP 7 poll.
Cheated votes are fairly simple -- a user makes one or more alternate Smogon accounts, and casts several votes for their favorite option. These votes are usually easy to discover, with the forum tools available to the mods and admins. It's tedious work to investigate, but we CAN identify certain instances of cheating of this kind. There are some ways that technically-savvy users can create undetectable alternate accounts, and we have no way to prove that such votes are cheated. With all the cheating that we have actually caught on CAP polls, it would be foolish to believe that there aren't any "undetectable alt votes" out there as well.
The latest fad to manipulate CAP art polls is the one that bothers me the most -- "recruited votes". Recruited votes are votes cast by someone not involved in the CAP project at all. They are "recruited" by someone in CAP, and they are asked to simply sign up and vote in a CAP poll. I suspect recruiting has been going on for a long time, but with CAP 7, it really became widespread. People would go on IRC, AIM, Shoddy Battle, even Facebook -- and send messages to their entire personal network of gaming friends,
Votes cast in this manner are completely "legal". There's nothing we can do to stop it. However, I think it's unethical as hell. And, to be clear, NONE of this stuff is being orchestrated by the artists themselves. It's all happening without the knowledge or help of any of the contestants.
After CAP 7, I found out that a few different clans voted against my art because they don't like Smogon being so "elitist". Since I am a Smogon admin, they figured they would vote "against Smogon" by voting against my art. I probably got a few votes from some new Smogoners just because I am an admin -- so maybe it evened out. I dunno. I don't really care about winning or losing any of these polls, but I really hate the idea of polls be "tainted" with outright campaigning and recruiting.
But that's what it is coming to on CAP polls -- usually art polls, but I'm sure it's happened on other polls too. There are multiple behind-the-scenes efforts to manipulate poll results -- whether by outright cheating, or by "legally cheating" by recruiting votes. I don't know if there is any solution to the problem, but I want to get this issue out in the open and hear what the rest of you think. Even if there is nothing we can or should do to stop it, we need to acknowledge what is really going on. If any of you are looking at the most recent CAP 8 art poll results, and thinking that is simply the result of two good artworks garnering votes of interested CAP members -- you have your head in the sand. There's a lot more going on than that -- and we need to acknowledge it.
