There has been some shady activity on our forum. Patrick and I are about to head out of the country for 5 days and we will not have internet. We have decided to pause the contest voting so that we can research IPs of the voters on the contest. More info soon.
Paddy, Keith, Sans, and Sean. Please send us an email at contactfstoppers@gmail.com. I would like to start a discussion with all of you.
good idea.. i hate to say it, but if it comes down to it, you may need to find yourself only counting the votes of members who were already on here when the contest voting started. it looks like there's a lot of "people" signing up, commenting 3 or 4 times really fast, then voting. especially for football composite. makes you wonder if "they" really watched all the videos, or if they are really just one person. i dunno, hopefully im wrong.
Why does there always have to be so much shady activity when people try to do something cool to build a community. UGH! Have a safe trip guys.
email sent
100% agree with David Keller's comment.
I too suspected something fishy. I can clearly see our Corvette video isn't going to win, but the spread of votes seems off. It's ashame that people can't be honest these days. It's truly difficult to have an honest online poll. From some of the comments, I also felt some people were voting on the best video from a cinematography aspect and not the actual content and information in the video. Don't let this discourage you. You have a great site and many good people involved in the fstoppers community.
I thought it should have been up to the creators of fstoppers in the first place. We should trust your decision who wins the contest. Sure, the viewer's comments on the videos can help, but the vote and final decision should always be with you. This isn't American Idol. This is Fstoppers! And you guys run the show. Keep it simple.
Don't jump to conclusions yet. Everything may be legit.
@ Nicholas, I agree with you. Let Lee and Patrick decide. I don't think it is even possible to have an online poll that's not flawed in some way.
I don't think anyone could complain about Lee and Patrick choosing. I mean they are giving away the camera...and they did start this website where they pick good BTS videos to post...
We can't decide because we know some of the people in the top 10...that wouldn't be fair either.
Maybe you could get other pro photographers not involved in the videos to vote.
Sadly it would seem that the offer of winning a valuable camera is too tempting for people to play fairly. I really hope that it's all a big coincidence, but we shall see... Personally, I would be happy to see the a judging panel make the decision but I have a lot of admiration for Lee and Patrick for trying to involve the community as much as possible.
Aw. I just want you all to know that I've really enjoyed the videos and I hope this doesn't stop you from wanting to do some other contests again in the future. :)
Thanks for all your hard work on the site!
We could play it like golf... I might have a chance if the LOWEST score was the winner ;)
Thanks guys for trying to run a clean contest and like others have said.. hope you don't get to soured on the whole deal..
it maybe best to let those who submitted a BTS video to vote...just an idea.
I'm inclined to assume that there's nothing shady going on, just good politicking. For example, Paddy (who created the football video) noticed that I liked his video from the comments I left (I did) and asked for my vote by email. I had already voted by that point but don't see the harm in Paddy asking for my support.
Hey its just growing pains. This is their first contest and there may be some bugs to work out, but Im sure they will figure it all out and be fair to everyone. Good job Patrick and Lee!!
Well I for one have been following the videos and submissions (and entire site since launch) and only realized that there was a prerequisite to join the forum and comment on three videos before voting. Yup, you guessed it, went through the entire library of submissions since day one (video in Vegas) and went ahead and voted.
HAHA Doug! if it was golf I believe I'd win! lol
I definitely commend Lee and Patrick for sure for attempting to create the fairest contest online, but all online contests have problems.
Being an online database any contest should output to Spreadsheet form with IP addresses of all voters. It's just a few keystrokes to eliminate duplicates.
Also I know a few people that registered and weren't able to vote after 48 hours or longer of posting in the forums, are you guys manually approving people based on post content? if so, than you should know who is and isn't duplicating things.
I really love all the submissions and am honored to even be a part of it. There's a lot of great work out there, and you never know where or who you'll learn your next skill from!
So did we figure out what we need to do? I wanna vote even though i didnt make it for the finals.