A public statement and explanation of what I did with the contest.

I have received a PM from user Nutz expressing his discontent towards me, my actions and TF2Maps.net. As per our policy these matters are not to be handled in PMs so I am posting my statement here publicly, as well as his message to me for context.

Firstly, the actions taken were 100% on me. No other staff were around at the time and after I investigated, I weighed my options for half an hour before beginning to taking action.

I would like to direct you to a statement in the main post of the contest voting:

We specifically request that all voters view all submissions before making a decision. This has been standard for our contests for quite some time. We are not running a popularity contest here, we are looking for quality and ability.

Next, a quote from your own website. I was unable to locate a website/community with activity of which TeamNightHawk was a member during my investigation. So I thank you kindly for providing it.

"it'll only take a few seconds of your time"
This is in direct contradiction to the spirit and guidelines of all our contests. You are asking your members to go vote for their friend and ignore all other contestants. Again, we are not running a popularity contest.

I never claimed in my post that they were "fake" votes on dummy accounts, or anything of the sort. The assumption of apparent illegitimacy was in context of the guidelines of the contest, which was, in light of your website posting, the correct assumption.

I would greatly appreciate it if you, good Sir, would make sure you do the right thing and investigate, rather than bash and defame our whole community in a rage.
I personally ask if you could find it in you to remove that latest post from your website.

 

Thanks for clearing at up. Oh and look at their latest post. :facepalm: http://www.fith-gaming.net/ Filth is right.

 

i like how their latest post states "their" rigged vote


lol

 

I would like to chime in here and say that Boojum's actions conform with our community's policies. None of our contests are about who can garner the most friends. It's about judging quality and effort of the work. As it stands, I do believe this was an honest misunderstanding by Fith-Gaming, and I hope their users continue to support custom TF2 Some people are just determined to be angry :facepalm:

 

I apologize for the actions that took place. I knew it was bad idea to tell one person and it spread and spread. I am sorry what has happened and probably won't happen ever again.

 

We cannot be help liable for the fact they liked his theme better than the rest, nor can their votes be considered bias, I cant control how they vote.If I asked them to vote,they have their own opinion and could have voted for anyone, I simply gave them a suggestion.It was in each voters hands how they voted.So just like the people in Florida a few years back our votes don't count.And I would like to apologize for bringing guys over to view your site or partake in your contest.I sent a public message to an admin here who decided to make it public, im not here for a flame war, we are a group of adults in our E-family, with our own opinions, im sorry you feel I or we persuaded any votes one way or the other, by me saying vote for him.But I thank you for thinking my opinion means so much. So thank you for your time and hopefully your next contest will be won again by whos more popular , but the voters have been on your site longer.And if your new here your vote doesnt count, so make sure your here long enough for your vote to count.

 

I don't come here often, so, to everybody at FITH: don't let my opinion reflect that of tf2maps.net
That being said, here is my actual post.

I loaded this page and the FITH page at about the same time, and went away for a bit before i was able to read it. When i got back, i was enraged at the events that took place. I went to look at the comments on the post on the FITH website flaming tf2maps. It appears that the post has since been removed, so I am glad everybody lived happily ever after.


@Nutz:
Thank you for removing the post on the FITH website. All it accomplished was setting a horrible first impression of your group for the largest tf2 mapping community. But after reading your response to this thread, it appears as though the first impression was spot on.

----------"Please go to this site register and vote for swamp_teamnhk"
----------"they have their own opinion and could have voted for anyone"

----------"FUCK TF2MAPS..." i forgot the rest
----------"im not here for a flame war"


@Boojum:
You could not have handled this any better, and i am glad to see we have such professionals running this place. :thumbup1:

 

I think we're done here.

 

It should go without saying for future contests a ruling may include a 'rigging votes' disqualification penalty.

 

Or some rule like 50+ posts needed.

 

You can't force them to vote for him but that's a pretty damn good SHOVE in the forced direction.

 

/facedesk

 

Fifty+ posts only limits the contest to regulars to the site, which I think is going to far to prevent biased voting.


SNIP! There is no need for that as it was done in anger and has since been removed. ~ DJive

 

-snip, chrono beat me-

 

I agree on the 50+ posts being a bad idea...but it seems like the easiest method of filtering

And to be fair...he did not come here to start a flame war...technically speaking we went there to see that we were flamed <_<

 

Things got heated and there was a misunderstanding, no need to drag this through the dirt.

Its over now and lets not take away from the great entries that are in the contest.

 

Anti-muckraking is anti-American!

 

yikes, if i ever go to court, my worst nightmare would be Booj as my opponents attourney....
well handled mate

 

Guys, I know now of a bias against me; with that said, my community now feels our votes don't count. Everyone is congratulating A Boojum Snark, but remember that this was a private message to him. It was made public. To judge someone on what they do, as I've been done here, would be unjust. We now feel our votes didn't count due to the fact you feel our votes did not reflect our opinion. With this said, you guys posting our anger posts after making our votes mean nothing is laughable. We tried to voice our opinion in this contest and bring traffic to this community, and for that we were judged. It is sad that the contest was done this way and it shouldn't have been made public with such a flawed system.