Exhausting all my resources from Facebook ,Friendster, MSN and friends in University
I think that's perfectly alright...
What is not alright is the lack of screening of votes by the contest organizers
The major loophole in this contest is that the winner is selected purely based on public votes!
All you have to do is give a name and email address then later verify the email sent to you.
So technically you can create 1000 email addresses then vote for yourself if you have the tenacity to do it. well, (and the thick skin too)
I think that's what this contestant did.
http://contest.wou.edu.my/finalists_details.asp?rc=236&st=7
Scroll down the page about halfway through the voters and you start to see a pattern emerge. Click on the thumbnails to Enlarge
Oh..no not this... this is my vote for her/Him hehe
Scroll down further...
err... cousins?
Errrrr.. Step cousins perhaps?
If you go the page itself...
You'll see how you can save lotsa time from having to think up a Christian name for your newborn . (^.^)
I don't know about you.. but to me this appears to be a blatant use of the loophole.
I don't know about the other contestants, but maybe they have a better disguise..LOL
What can the organizers at this point you ask?
Well... I don't really know actually.
If only it were possible to contact Yahoo/ Gmail etc and enquire the age of the email addresses... then filter out the votes from emails with an age of less than 10 days (during the vote tallying time)
Maybe that would work? Alas its my wishful thinking..
The purpose of this post is to ensure that future contest organizers can make it a point to screen the votes... or better.. change to another method of voting.
Oh well.. that said.. I guess Huiyu deserved to win based on the photo. But I only hope he/she did it in a fair way.
i see the pattern..a lot of contest these days love the voting system.. but its true we do not noe how they screen the vote to be really fair.
ReplyDeleteHi. i totally feel u. congratz!
ReplyDeletei joined alot contest local ones suck because of voting system. like theres one contest i join, got 1 contestant 1500 + votes in one day for its vid submission, i check the original source yotube view only 30++. Total disgrace, if thtss what make a winner, then better not win.
Hmmmm... actually I'm rather suprised I'm not alone in this!
ReplyDeleteSince the thing is so widespread..
It actually seems as if in M'sia.. the contests actually promotes cheating?
Allison: This voting thing all started from American Idol... hmmm... What is the best way to tally the votes.. I wonder..
Sean : This winner above, had 66 votes only on the 5th day of voting.. then suddenly out of nowhere gained 350 votes!
The thing is.. All organizers love the voting system.. Because when you ask your friend to vote for you.. The organizer gets free publicity!
So this method of voting... will be with us for some time.
Maybe where bloggers unite against such blatant unfairness and boycott such contests by publicizing where the past contests went wrong.. we might actually create some change :-)
Hey...
ReplyDeleteI'm one of the contestants also and i'm not happy with the voting system. It's ridiculous. But i guess there's nothing they could do. Unless there's a system where they can check through IP address or something.
I sense Kim Hui Yu was cheating at the end also. But what to do. The judge decision is binding. There's a prize giving ceremony soon. Let's go check out the cheater. Hehehe...
The girl who won special prize also suspicious right? 100,000 intended emails.
M
Hello Anon!
ReplyDeleteHmm.. a fellow disgruntled contestant! Hi there!
It's so difficult to garner votes.. so we feel its so unfair..
You know what? For the sake of Air Muka.. I'm inclined to think that the Organizers may have tweaked the results of the contest at the very end...
The aunty cooking photo was top for 5 days in a row before being top-pled by Kim Hui Yu suddenly.
From the organizers point of view.. promoting the cooking pic as the Grand Prize might be sorta somewhat unprestigious...
The solution to that... Do not post the voting results on a day to day basis on the last 3 days to tweak the results.
I experienced problems refreshing the votes from Friday to Sunday.. wonder if you had the same problem?
The 100,000 intended emails... we'll if the organizers required the emails to be verified.. I think it'll be a different number
Ah, Sad to say I won't be there on that day as I'll be away in England at that time.. Aish.. would like to be there...
Good luck to you on our future photographic endeavours! (=^.^=)
I think it was the same for everyone from friday to sunday. There wasn't any new votes coming in. It was probably their "off-day"
ReplyDeleteI agree that WOU didnt want the aunty cooking to get first as well. There are more nicer pics which deserve the second place actually.
M
The rules are set by Organizer, and this the basis right they should have. If you feel the contest system is not fair, so don't join the contest. So did I. There are many other contests with fair system. Voting system has never been fair. So if any organizer still insists on voting system for the photo selection, we should boycott the contest...
ReplyDelete