A few months back, the gals from Ladies…. It all seemed like a great idea at the time1. They called for entries, and got a ton of them. Who knew the men of the blogosphere were so vain? (Shut up.)
Now, most polls, contests, and surveys spend a lot of time and energy to keep cheaters out. For credibility’s sake. Because The Ladies were running a hotness/popularity contest, it didn’t really start out with any. Instead of just turning a blind eye, however, they let it be known that cheating was allowed: (emphasis supplied)
5. We’ll post our choices in bracket form, and here’s where the real fun begins. Voting for each round will take a couple days. Cheating, shenanigans, and ballot-stuffing are encouraged, especially if they’re undertaken in a blatant and hilarious manner. We remind all entrants that we are susceptible to flattery.
This was a stroke of genius, and I applaud They Of The Dots for their candor. Unfortunately things took an ugly, yet comical, turn.
Quite a few of the contestants were engaging in “Chicago Style” voting. To be fair, I sincerely doubt that any of the match-ups went from start to finish without a little chicanery. If they had, you understand, it would’ve probably been frowned upon by The Ladies. We were just doing what they wanted.
A few of the contestants were a little better at stuffing the ballot boxes than the others. Joe Speaker (UNC Fan?) and Matt Jones (UK Fan) — or, rather, their supporters — proved to be very, very competent in the dark arts of internet voting. Imagine the excitement when these two met up in the Sweet 16!
Well… the UK contingent was not accustomed to not stomping all over their -victim- opponents, so when Speaker & Co. got an early lead, the reaction from Jones’ fans was… dramatic. They were appalled — appalled, I say! — by these dastardly shenanigans perpetrated by Speaker’s supporters, who are clearly inferior to Kentucky fans, you understand. So these UK fans, so aghast that anyone would cheat on an internet poll did the only noble, classy, and dignified thing they could think to do2: they were going to cheat better.
This touched off a nerd-tech arms race, the likes of which I’m fairly certain the sports blog world has never seen.
To make a really long story not quite so long, this lead to hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of votes being cast, causing a great consternation for the operators of the 3rd-party website that hosted the polls, and they eventually removed the offending poll, thus ending (at least for now) the exceptionally well run contest (that I was going to win, by the way).
This wouldn’t really merit a post of this length… except that the Ladies… entry for the fourth round of voting racked up nearly 500 comments. Many of them, inexplicably, dealing with quiche3.
The ones that didn’t center around yummy egg-food provided some pretty entertaining reading material. Observe:
BIGBLUEinFL: Another thing to absorb is Matt didn’t say anything about cheating being encouraged when he asked in his blog that he’d appreciate a vote. It wasn’t even necessary. [It wasn't necessary because UK fans cheat without being told? -ph]
You guys knew things were gonna be tough when you were pared with him this round, so your posts asking for votes and friends blog sites all painted the story as Joe was “up against a bunch of cheating UK fans, so lets show them how it’s done”.
You just can’t imagine how that many UK fans could exist [Enough for at least a half dozen full sets of teeth. -ph]. Come to Rupp Arena in the middle of October for our first PRACTICE of the season (24,000 tickets scooped up in 30 minutes by fans who camped out the week before - good luck getting in). [Tuscaloosa. 94k for a practice. Now STFU and GBTW. -ph] Also, isn’t it a bit interesting how many UK fans have posted here calling you guys out from the get go. A bit unbalanced in posts compared to your followers don’t ya think? OK, I’m done trying to convince a guy who just doesn’t understand that he’s simply wrong.
There’s a lot more chest-thumping and posturing from “passionate”4 Kentucky fans. It’s pretty priceless, but this is probably the comment thread winner (excepting the quiche-related ones):
Bobby Bracelet: Well, we’ve all learned a few things today.
Kentucky fans have lots of “Passion” which, when loosely translated, means their state is so devoid of anything even remotely impressive that they latch onto a college basketball program like it was created personally for them by Jesus Christ. (He doesn’t exist, by the way. Sorry.)
Kentuckianites can’t take a joke when it comes to anything about their beloved basketball program or their beloved slightly above average website.
Fans of this Matt guy have lots of “Passion” which we all don’t understand.
Cheaters who suck at it are the sorest losers.
We all have Passion-Envy while all Kentuckyanites have Passion-Tourette’s.
And…
They have computers in Kentucky now!!!
Maybe the most ridiculous comments, though, were from various and sundry UK fans assuring us that this was the first round in which Jones’ followers engaged in ballot stuff. This is, of course, ridiculous. MJ was getting roughly 3,000 votes a round. If we believe that no vote stuffing was involved, that means 3,000ish individuals clicked through from the KSR site, selected Jones, and voted.
This might not be implausible… but… yesterday Matt posted this entry which contains a YouTube video. YouTube keeps meticulous stats. That video had been around for about a week when it was posted on KSR. It is currently deleted, but earlier this afternoon it had only been watched a little over 1,500 times.
So those insisting that this is the first round the KSR contingent had engaged in vote stuffing would like for us to believe that a video, which takes exactly one click to watch and got rave reviews from Jones, got HALF of the click-through rate of a “Vote For Me In A Hot Guy Contest” link on a site inhabited predominately by straight men.
They probably have some swamp-land in Arizona to sell us, too. Or maybe a really outstanding dental plan.
To be perfectly clear, I think it was stellarly executed and I appreciate the chance to participate. Thanks, Ladies…
To be clear — I think this is actually a fine reaction given the circumstances, but the way the UK fans preached about ‘ruining’ the contest made their choice of retaliation unintentionally humorous
It also happened to be the single largest assembly of Petes in the history of blogging. Just FYI.
Why does it seem to me like “passionate” is a euphemism for “enthusiastic to the point of abject stupidity”?
Tags: Hot Blogger
June 21st, 2007 at 1:51 pm
And the SEC now kicks the Big Ten’s ass at a whole new feat: ripping on Kentucky fans. Well done Pete.
June 21st, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Just for the record Pete, I am a fan of your site and I actually came here way before this whole blogger thing. And some of your criticisms (although aimed only at the UK folks and not the other side) actually made me laugh. But on the notion that the UK folks cheated because there is no way we could have had 4,000 votes early, I will just present our site numbers for this week….
Day Date Page Loads Unique Visitors First Time Visitors Returning Visitors
Thursday June 21st 2007 18,930 12,065 3,486 8,579
Wednesday June 20th 2007 44,524 25,757 8,391 17,366
Tuesday June 19th 2007 49,223 24,676 7,075 17,601
Monday June 18th 2007 52,492 24,914 7,354 17,560
Sunday June 17th 2007 20,929 14,256 3,890 10,366
Saturday June 16th 2007 20,783 13,679 3,884 9,795
Friday June 15th 2007 32,953 19,456 5,340 14,116
Thursday June 14th 2007 35,150 21,691 5,949 15,742
The first number is hits (generally between 35 k and 50 k during the week) and the second is unique visitors (20 k and 24 k). Of course this is June….during the offseason. The tech dork war did get ridiculous…..but the Cats folks didnt start it.
Now as a Bama fan, cant we all just hate on the overrated Big 10…..
June 21st, 2007 at 2:55 pm
I understand that you get a lot of hits, Matt, and I’m not insinuating that your 3,000ish hits were MAINLY a result of ballot stuffing… but you could get a million hits a day, and it still doesn’t explain why a link to go vote for you gets easily twice the through-put the other off-site content you post.
The claims made by your readers in the Ladies… thread was that there was NO vote stuffing going on. That’s a fairly absurd claim. That every single one of your votes came from a unique individual? That nobody voted twice?
What I think is more likely is this… you had between 1,000 and 1,500 people click-through and vote. Easily enough to beat anyone else’s vote totals.
A healthy number of them voted twice. A few people voted quite a few times.
As I said before… there’s nothing wrong with it. The Ladies encouraged it. But for those folks in the comments to act all high and mighty and claim that NO ballot stuffing had been going on… well… it’s just silly.
June 21st, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Thanks for the love, Pete. And yes, you had more than your fair share of fans in the Ladies… camp.
June 21st, 2007 at 3:46 pm
<—-UK Fan who voted once and think this whole thing is ridiculous.
The bottom line is UK>UA
lol
June 21st, 2007 at 4:09 pm
This isn’t that hard to explain. A Youtube video, no matter how highly touted, isn’t going to get as many hits as a contest such as this precisely because it’s a video. People are at work. They don’t want to play a video on their computers. The contest, by contrast, doesn’t play sound (or noticeable video). It’s really not that hard to explain. I’m sure a few voted more than once, but honestly, probably not that many. There wasn’t ever any reason to (until the last round).
June 21st, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Your an idiot, quit kissing the ladies asses. Its like you think your gonna get some ass or something the way you continually give them props. Nice try comparing the UTube video. Not everyone can watch the video at work you clod. Most people could care less about anything on there other than bball. So, when they log on, they get their update and leave. Real original jokes about teeth and computers.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Oh, I’m sure there are lots of possible explanations.
We could believe that nobody reads KSR at home.
Or maybe there was some sort of technical anomaly where UK votes were magically multiplied by two.
Or we could believe that UK fans are just really, really eager to vote on the relative hotness of other guys.
OR we could just all agree that there were people who voted multiple times in every poll.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Insulting Kentuckians based on stereotypes really makes you and other others that did it look real big. Way to go.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Wow guys. Look at the substance of your posts and blogger’s thread. Talking about how pathetic someone else is, by default, equals… In other words, you are spending your precious, collective cerebrums on how it was “not cool” that some poeple tried to cheat on a hot blogger contest? It’s OK, much like the existence of a higher power, you either get it or you don’t. Why waste your time talking down about it or the other decisions you’ve made just to attempt to validate yourselves? Guess you all just need something to feel good about.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Ok then, Pete. Put up a poll that won’t allow cheating on who has the more obsessed fans - UK basketball or UA football. And a second poll that is yes/no on the question “Is Pete Holiday an idiot?”. I guarantee the results won’t go your way.
June 21st, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Did I “ballot-stuff”? Hells yes I did, must’ve voted at least 20 times yesterday… unfortunately for me, I’m not that tech savvy. It was a friggin’ “Hot Blogger” contest for goodness sake (and I always try my best not to disappoint the Ladies). Who cares?
However, some of our more “passionate” fans do tend to get a bit too worked up. You see, we’re not (or didn’t used to be) accustomed to losing. This contest was giving us all flashbacks to Marches gone by, and obviously things got out of hand.
Why some felt the need to insult the Ladies is beyond me, but insulting Kentuckians is usually reserved for those of a bit more northerly disposition. Those who live in glass houses should refrain from throwing stones, as it were.
As far as dental plans go, I have a great one. If you’d like join my employ, I could hook you up.
Cheers!
June 21st, 2007 at 5:35 pm
The last post, probably directed at me, doesn’t make any sense. You said we could all just agree that there were people that voted more than once in the poll. I never disagreed with that. In fact, I said there probably were people that voted more than once. My point was simply that the website has far more fans than you’re cognizant of, and that most of the votes were from individuals voting only once (meaning multiple voters were an outlier). In addition, I never said anything about computer glitches or the like being the explanation for the large number of votes (it was the large number of individual voters, anyway). I simply made the point that the YouTube video statistics were basically irrelevant, because people (myself included) are often wary of watching any videos at work, thus explaining the reason that the video had so few hits relative to the number of votes cast for Matt (a frankly plausible rationale given the lousy comparison you had posited). I also made the point that, because there were so many individual fans voting relative to Matt’s competitors, resulting in large leads early on for Matt, that none of the voters had any reason to cast multiple votes to help him get to the next round–that was, until it was clear in his final round that he was competing against technical devices rather than individual voters. Thus, in the early rounds, your theory requires that there were several people sitting around that had nothing better to do than cast multiple votes when doing so (very clearly) wasn’t necessary. Even for the lazy and idle, watching TV, paint dry, or the like would be more enaging, so that’s unlikely to be the choice that people make. Coupled with the usual number of hits the site gets, your criticisms of Matt’s vote totals in the early rounds are basically without foundation.
June 21st, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Did I “ballot stuff”. Hells yes I did. When I saw my boy Matt was down, I had to do something (and who am I to disappoint the Ladies?). Plus, who really gives a shit, it was a “Hot Blogger” contest after all.
I’ll agree some of our contingent tends to get a bit out of hand when it comes to losing. You see, until recently, we weren’t used it… we were flashing back to Marches gone by & got a bit overzealous.
Why some of us went after the Ladies is beyond me. It makes the rest of us look bad. However, insulting Kentuckians is usually reserved for those of a bit more northerly dispostion. Those who live in glass houses should throw stones, as it were.
As far as dental plans go, I have an excellent one. If you would like to join my employ, I could hook you up.
Cheers!
June 21st, 2007 at 5:51 pm
why is everyone in such a tizzy? it was funny…it’s over. as far as the kentucky stereotypes, too bad you stooped to that level as you were the only person that i voted for other than Matt. I thought that I would support a fellow SEC-er. I won’t start a Kentucky / Alabama stereotyping match-up, but it’s true about people in glass houses.
June 21st, 2007 at 6:13 pm
I wish to comment here, as I tend to do when people insult me or my state or my beloved Wildcats. I voted for Matt once. Yes, I attempted to vote twice but the site said I had already voted and wouldn’t allow it. So I got in one vote. Then, later on while checking the totals, I noticed Matt’s opponent’s number climbing exponentially. Really silly numbers, like 100 per second. Others noticed this and not wanting to be cheated out of such a wonderful thing as a hot blogger contest, they also began to cheat. I checked throughout the evening and went to bed when the numbers crossed the million mark……Enough said right there. It got silly and stupid then and some people, who have small penises, began to insult the state of Kentucky over this. Just like anything, we get the brunt of the blame. A few got pissed and tried to make us look innocent, but no, we cheated and they cheated, but they started it. And yet we are the toothless wonders who latch on to a basketball program because we have nothing else to do? Who the $%^& are the other guy’s fans? Do they have so little to do they have to cheat on a freakin blog contest to win and feel like men?
BTW, we get 24K for a basketball practice because that’s all the building will hold. Don’t think we couldn’t draw 100,000 if there was room for that many? We could. Trust me. UK led the nation again last year in attendance, beating out programs with larger buildings. We support our teams and support those who are fans, like Matt. If that makes us stupid or petty or whatever, then we are.
Oh, Saban sucks. Can’t wait to see him run off like the whore he is when someone else shakes more money at him……See how it feels?
June 21st, 2007 at 6:22 pm
As for stereotypes, women who hang around the Internet project an image that is discussed only on the redneck page. The image of those who have nothing better to do than blog is, well, I am embarrassed to type such words. Matt, must be the typical nerd. He has, so he says, a Duke law degree. Is there anything more nerdy than a blogging Dukie lawyer?
June 21st, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Surprise, surprise… UK fans show up to “defend” themselves and end up looking even worse.
Steve: I’m not sure what part of my last post is confusing to you, Steve. The point, again, is that there are lots of possible or plausible explanations for the discrepancy between video click-throughs and voter click-throughs.
I’m sure there are some people who only read at work and, therefore, could vote but not watch videos. Anyone who reads at home and at work wouldn’t really fit into that theory.
And since those posts sit on the front page for basically the entirety of the contest, it stands to reason that these “hardcore” fans probably clicked through every day of the contest to vote.
The bottom line is that the UK fans on the Ladies… page that I’m talking about are the ones who claim that there was NO cheating until after Joe Speaker’s voters started cheating.
How much cheating there was is basically impossible to determine, and it doesn’t really matter.
That said… it’s interesting to see just how sensitive and insecure UK fans are about their team and state.
ukcatfan88: “It got silly and stupid then and some people, who have small penises, began to insult the state of Kentucky over this.”
Actually, if you want to be accurate, the first thing that happened was UK Fans going to Ladies… and badmouthing them because their buddy was losing.
June 21st, 2007 at 7:37 pm
The way I seeit is This site sucks like donkey dic$#@! Yes Pete you are gay.Dont tell the nation.You got a problem with UK!You and them Ladies Suck.Can’t deny that we are the best and your school sucks.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Peter-
Your ability to decipher reality is as mutated as your apples to oranges comparison of basketball to football crowds. To make that analogy shows how thin crust of a sports perspective you have to depend on for you material.
Here are factors you don’t present because you are on the outside looking in:
Matt Jones has appeared on the scene, out of the UK faithful woodwork, to supply KY Wildcat fans with better basketball recruiting updates and info than any other media outlet to date (that includes Rivals, Scouts, UKAthletics.com, ESPN, or Lexington Herald Leader). With multiple updates per day on his blog combined with an internet streaming radio show each weekday from 3-7, he has changed the game in media coverage of Kentucky Basketball news.
After a trying last couple of years with Tubby “comfortable” Smith, Matt saw an opening in providing something that simply no one else was offering: daily coverage of the after hours work of our newest coach (Billy Gillispie). It has been incredible timing on Matt’s part to be the premier source of these off season events with KY Basketball, as the legion of Kentucky fans are bouncing off the walls with what has been done just in the first couple of months, and Matt’s site as the source with the scoup is blowing up.
Matt has provided this FREE of charge. WE LOVE THIS GUY!
Matt has struck the iron while its hot with a clever dish of goodness… and when he asks in his blog for a vote against others in a blog competition, WE GIVE HIM OUR SUPPORT!
Most of those who go to his blog, are there for the UK recruiting news. Your reference to a youtube post as proof his following is hollow, shows how subjectively you looked at the post. Matt always adds off the path tidbits to the beef of his blog. Your just a gimp with nothing to talk about, and bad analysis to boot.
You don’t know, as your on the outside looking in. KY fans know… and we’re laughing at your multiple choice style attempts of solving the great Matt Jones mystery (How does he do it? ROFL) All your assumptions, along with all the other Geraldo Riveras out there with orphaned blogs, are as flawed as your methods of not knowing when to read the lines, or when to read between them.
Just chalk it up to inexperience and go brush your teeth (BTW.. thats not an insult, it’s just advice). You might also some day decide to provide a worthy product to the internet, instead of gambling your entire articles foundation on an assumption. I wonder if having your credibility snapped on your own blog is as humiliating as having the entire state of Kentucky laugh at your meritless effort.
Go Big Blue!
June 21st, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Yet, another example of UK envy.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:15 pm
You have no clue what you are talking about and I hope you do get rid of this post because you have no credibility. Don’t be jealous because Matt Jones is on ESPN radio, you are a talentless writer that can’t hack it in the mainstream. Not only that, you lie about the truth.
I can just see you looking back at UK records, trying to find something to get UK on…Well, good luck with that buddy, you will always lose. You aren’t the first, certainly wont be the last, and all others failed too.
You will always lose.