I was reviewing the voting booth system today and was pleased with the performance of the system in catching cheaters. I noticed one account in particular had registered a respectable 1000 votes, but none of the votes were being counted because the system had flagged the account as a vote cheater. Sure enough, I check the logs and it was clearly a case of vote fraud.

Someone had registered a username specifically to vote many times on the day that they uploaded an image. Eventually the person's image would come up and the cheater account would vote high on that image. However, since the system automatically ignored all the votes the cheater was essentially just wasting his/her time.

I hope this gives some of you out there a bit more confidence in the system's ability to deter cheaters.

Lol! I can't believe the length some people will go to. 1000 votes just to get one on their own image. This person really needs to get out more!

Really liking the new system by the way.

Thanks for the hard work you have done and still do Caedes to keep this site solid and respectable. It is much appreciated. Kudo's :~)

Sure glad you found a way to catch the cheaters.. Cheating is something I will never understand..

Well done Caedes... good to see it works, its amazes me how some people do things like that and think they are going to get away with it... obviously they never heard the old saying "cheaters never prosper!"... sounds like they need to get a life and back into reality... i feel sorry for them that they have to do these things to make there work look good.. oh well.. at least we know the system works well... Thanks Caedes

What a shame you can't 'tar & feather' people, like that cheating miscreant, on the internet. ;c/

I hope that people will now see the need and effectiveness of the voting booth system. Yes, there has been alot of "getting use" to it, but this just goes to show that it indeed has a purpose and works!

Good to see it works.

I can't believe someone would care so much about a vote. No offense, but I don't take pictures to please anyone but myself. I'm happy if someone else is pleased by them and I'm happy to share, but voting on their own picture? unreal!

I'm not that surprised. In fact to me it's surprising it would be such a surprise... ^_^ To me it seems very much in line of "human nature" (as I see it) as one might expect from a fair amount of people, once you have enough of them in one place...

I.e. there's always bound to be one or two (or so...) in a large group of people that care enough of their precious ego to have the need to be looked upon as important or outstanding in the eyes of other in the community. These simple numbers in the voting system have the unfortunate effect of bringing out this ego boost (or need for it) in some people that are wired in a particular way...

Yeah, but if they fake the numbers to make their stuff look better than it really is, then what does that do for their egos? They know their stuff isn't as good as its c-index. Just don't get it ...

In their own eyes, it seems, they care if they can be looked upon by others as successful, and use their ratings as a shield in discussions about permanent gallery and general ranking and such. Sad as it may seem, this was the case earlier at least. There's still rankings even if there isn't dedicated pages on the site to sort them. I guess I don't get it either though.

I enjoy looking at the new images and I try to vote and leave input, but I can't imagine voting on 1000 images. Did they really vote 1000 times in one day? or was that over a significant time period?

What kind of lowlife is so worried about his c-index rating that he'd pull a stunt like this. People that cheat should be permanently banned if caught. That's the only way they're ever going to care.

My sentiments exactly. But to really care about it they should also be exposed to the public for what they are. That will never happen though I recon but it is my personal belief that would keep the cheating down to a minimum. It would stop people from thinking they can go on and cheat and wreak havoc and still be renowned as upstanding members of the community. But alas. Won't happen. I've settled for just being grouchy about it... ^_^

The real down side of it is... Well. Who was it this time. Was it some of the old gang (closest to Joost) or just some new kid making some rackus that was inspired by the great old masters of deciet? We will never know. And that ticks me a bit. It will mean that this person is left roaming about here and try and find new ways to undermine the community. It could be anyone, and since it's never stated out in the plain it will always be an uncertainty about who you can trust.

This is a nifty technical solution and all but I'm not really sure it is the final remedy for these kind of behaviour (and people)...