Polls

[Rob Monster]

Just wanted to support you in this post @Ategy.com. I voted a number if days ago in the poll, but to me it seemed immediately obvious that the voting was rigged for VettedName. It had 30% of the votes but no mentions (at the time) in the thread as to why anyone was picking it. I also saw it as a relatively poor name and for the vote to be at such an overwhelming majority was highly irregular. I was going to mention at the time that someone should check how many new NP accounts were voting for it, but thought better of it and deleted the comments before I posted them. So I just stopped watching the thread and decided to ignore it since I was pretty sure others would figure it out too. So I've read nothing between page 2 and page 9. I just decided to jump in again as the thread was in the 'popular this week' box. I read this last page and from your post I can pretty well guess what the pages of posts have been about so I'm quite happy I've been ignoring the thread till now. Anyway, your post seems very diplomatic and well thought out so just wanted to say so. I shall now go and hide back under my rock...

I do think @Paul Buonopane will want to look at the problem of "Ballot stuffing" and "Brigading". The technique that I think is interesting is to use a service like Maxmind that measures the integrity of a user. In the case of Maxmind score, the risk goes from 0 to 100, where 0 is riskless and 100 is almost certainly a fraud. We are using this for TrustRatings as a way to adjust ballot-stuffing using bots or proxies. I won't comment on any particular group because last time I did, the moderators considered it off-topic and removed my post. My goodness.

 

[equity78]

This is a huge reason why online polls, have very little meaning online unless they have massive sample sizes.

Obviously someone tried to enrich themselves by thinking they would financially benefit by selling their below par name if they got enough votes. There is no other need for someone to promote such a poll, other than to attempt to believe the dollars would fall from the sky once they weighed the scales on false hope.

So whose name is this?

And there was never a guarantee that the vote getting was going to be picked anyway. As I mentioned Rob did not do that for the smart search aggregator.

 

[oldtimer]

What I stated was fact there is no more @Paul Buonopane with all due respect I have found your comments on this topic worthless, so the feeling is mutual.

I didn't call your comments and suggestions "beyond nonsense",

I am just responding to you trying to degrade all the constructive opinions and suggestions that are made here by me and others, whether they are practical or implementable that's beside the point. They should not be called beyond nonsense.

 

[equity78]

I didn't call your comments and suggestions "beyond nonsense",

I am just responding to you trying to degrade all the constructive opinions and suggestions that are made here by me and others, whether they are practical or implementable that's beside the point. They should not be called beyond nonsense.

Well to be fair I was not attacking anyone, it seemed to me that @Paul Buonopane was befuddled and I will give you on using nonsense in the wrong way, I meant it like "Paul it's unreasonable for someone to think you could do more. Look Oldtimer this is because there is money involved it got this heated. No one ever got skeptical over other polls. I don't think Rob set it up best. That's just my opinion not that Rob or anyone has to agree with me.

I think people made constructive comments to a poll starter, IMO Rob should have made clear the winner of this vote does not guarantee it will be picked. No multiple votes.

 

[domainer111]

I explicitly stated that, as far as I can tell, all of the votes are real. I did not say that the poll was manipulated.

I did say NameSeal was popular in Nigeria, which it was:

Show attachment 130450

I also said someone was encouraging people to vote for a specific answer, and I provided links showing where that occurred. Those links appears in a large number of Referer headers for requests to this thread. I did not say anything specific to NameSeal in that context.

Personally, I do not consider anything I've observed to be manipulative.

Okay Paul thank you for clarifying that.

 

[wwwweb]

And there was never a guarantee that the vote getting was going to be picked anyway. As I mentioned Rob did not do that for the smart search aggregator.

Of course not, we all know that would be silly, just one more indication level this poll gives them that’s all, we all know Rob, and his team have the necessary skills to brand a product of their development, but for someone to make this effort they thought otherwise. It’s just ill intent, obviously best name deserves to win, but someone’s attempt to stuff the ballot box just leaves a bad taste that’s all.

This is the thing 99.9% of domainers are honest people, it’s that .1% that enter this industry that ruin things for everyone.

 

[Cal2]

It’s just ill intent, obviously best name deserves to win, but someone’s attempt to stuff the ballot box just leaves a bad taste that’s all.

This is the thing 99.9% of domainers are honest people, it’s that .1% that enter this industry that ruin things for everyone.

For me, it goes beyond just a bad taste. They're targeting someone who has come here offering what so far has been help and hope to those willing to try Epik, thinking to take advantage of Rob. If anyone wants to try justifying that...

 

[Vimal Kumar]

What is unethical about this poll? It seems to be confirmed that there is no multiple voting by the domain owner.

The polling was not unethical. But the process of influencing a distinct group to vote for a name purely based on 'Brotherhood' factor was unethical and biased.

The only factor which should have mattered was if the name made sense to the branding and came closest to it. Period.

 

[Dealtor]

But you type alot
You a journalist?

@Rob Monster .. As much as that would be great .. I think what you're asking for is somewhat beyond the scope of what NamePros could and probably should do. Particularly since your "naming contests" are pretty unique. Also, a big part of the problem is that to date, you've always gone with the domain with the most votes .. hence incentivizing people (who have never seen you skip over a top vote-getter) to get as many votes as possible.


I did look a bit at the Nigerian forum in question, and a couple of people there brought up a very valid point. Namely that it's not indicated anywhere that submitters aren't allowed to ask their friends, family, colleagues to vote for them. Yes, you'd think in a contest where people are supposed to vote for the best name, people would vote for the best name, but people in all kinds of online "best picture" or "best video" contests are always encouraged to invite their friends and family to vote (usually because the website in question wants more registrations, so it's good for their growth even if it's not good for the contest). To be clear though .. that is NOT the situation here.

So in the end, while the submitter should have known better himself, we can't really be too angry with him. More importantly, we really can't blame anyone else who joined and voted for their friend .. there's no indication anywhere that it's not allowed or even that it's not wanted/encouraged (again, most websites usually want more registrations). I never really thought of that .. plus looking at that forum it seems the suggester of VettedName did reach out to you to ask if it was ok to ask his "fellow countrymen to vote for him" .. so in the end while I think think what he did was wrong, we really can't blame him.

I didn't even know who it was until I just checked that forum now and crosslinked his avatar, but I'm sorry @Etinosa for being so harsh on you .. looking at everything as a whole, I see you were just being overly ambitious, and you obviously tried to maximise your chances and you did try to find out if what you did was ok.

That being said .. unfortunately the name really is not a good one for the reasons I mentioned here, so while I personally feel really bad for you because of the obvious emotional roller-coaster this ordeal has put you through, I hope that @Rob Monster will reach out to you to explain that the domain would never have made the final cut (unless Rob indeed loves it .. in which case .. congratulations).

For the other Nigerians who did vote for VettedName .. since the rules weren't clear, I can't really blame you either. If anything, it shows you care for your friend. That being said .. many of us here take our domains and domaining seriously, so I kindly ask that the next time there is a vote for best domain, that you actually vote for what you feel is truly the best domain.

I also want to reach out to some of the Nigerians on the Nairaland forum and let them know that I read some of their posts, and some of them made some excellent points .. and some showed a lot of honour in saying what some others of them were doing by blindly voting for VettedName was wrong. It takes a lot of guts and integrity to stand up to others within your own community like that when you feel they are doing something wrong!

On that topic, I want you to know more than anything else, that I personally NEVER judge individuals based on anyone's actions but their own. For myself personally, never fear that I will judge you because you are from a certain place or are a certain race. I will only judge you based on your actions .. which is the way it should be for everyone. I invite all of you to come and participate at NamePros. While I most definitely do NOT consider myself an expert domainer yet, I have started to find some success .. so if any of you have any questions or want any pointers or advice, please do not hesitate to reach out to me!


The real story here is that if I and a few others hadn't spoken up, it seems this would have continued unchecked ... but ...

MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY ... if the domain wasn't so obviously a bad choice, we might never had noticed "enhanced friend/associate voting" or brigading as I think you put it. For all we know there could be several others who did the same thing, but because their domains are a little bit stronger, we simply have no way of noticing or knowing. Most people in the domain community do have integrity, but just like any large group of people, there are some individuals who do not .. and there most certainly has been a history of mini-groups within the domain community who have cheated, lied, stolen and who WILL break the rules to act strictly in favour of their own self-interest rather than the interest of the industry ... THERE IS NO WAY 100% TO STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING IN FUTURE POLLS WITHOUT MAKING SOME SIGNIFICANT CHANGES!