polls , are they being manipulated ?

[lebesset]

just had a quick look at the poll for the winner in china

more than double the number of votes for massa compared to alonso ....or anyone else come to that ; over a thousnd votes cast so far

something wrong there methinks ; is the circuit such that only massa can drive fast there ?

if you look at something that tells you what people really think about the merits of the drivers , who they bet on , the picture is totally different

manipulation ?

[Hangaku]

I'm almost certain that someone or something is swaying the voting.

[Mr Alcatraz]

Where is the poll?
(then I'll tell you what is wrong with it)

[mx_tifoso]

Tazio, the poll is on the front page on the right hand side.

Manipulation? I don't know to be honest. I've voted once and that's it.

[Tomba]

Something looks fishy indeed with the polls.
I checked the logs and it looks like lots of votes for Massa were made in a very short timespan.

I am going to implement some changes to that system to prevent abuse.
One wonders what's the fun in false voting for polls anyway...

[Mr Alcatraz]

Never underestimate how shallow people are that visit sites like this.
He's leading at the moment, and his name is first on the list.
Other than a article featuring him on this web site, I see no reason for him to have any advantage.
To be the run-away leader is obtuse IMO.

[jon-mullen]

I checked the logs and it looks like lots of votes for Massa were made in a very short timespan.

And from the same IP?

It's not very difficult to write a program to do that, me and a friend made one back in '99 to vote for him as Time Magazine's most influential person of the century using...I believe it was the sendkey() function in VB. We didn't know how to use the DLLs, I'm sure you could make one that voted at an insane rate with those.

Why someone would do it for such an obscure (no offense, mods) poll is beyond me.

[Tomba]

Our poll system used to rely solely on cookies. Although this is obviously not failsafe, I found it not necessary to build more logic as it's not really mission critical.

Nonetheless, after the fraudulent votes, I've added ip checking as well. As for the Chinese GP poll I also removed the obvious double votes, but the results may still be a bit distorted.

I hope the results will be a bit more realistic in the future

[lebesset]

as you say tomba , hardly of great import
just offends my sensibilities that some idiot thinks they can fool us , when it jumps of the page that this is wrong

what doesn't jump off the page to me is that the thread is marked moved but seems to be in general chat as before

[mx_tifoso]

what doesn't jump off the page to me is that the thread is marked moved but seems to be in general chat as before

What's left in the General Chat section is a 'shadow'. I don't see the point of it but I forget to unclick the 'leave shadow' button sometimes. Although in this case it wasn't my doing.

[Giblet]

it would have been a fun project to trace a bunch of the ip's and see what ISP's they came from.

I suspect one near Marenello or Sao Paulo

[andartop]

See? Everyone cheats in F1!!!

[lebesset]

well , here we go again
latest poll , big alonso lead
if we had lots of spanish members you would expect that bias , but I don't think that is the case here
on the evidence so far alonso certainly wouldn't be ahead , some engine difficulties , and only the second best chassis behind red bull ; in mixed conditions not as good as the McLarens

so why ?

I may be wrong tomba , but I don't think that your efforts so far have cured the problem , my guess is that someone is using another method