Cheesemon vs. Contest
Contest Aftermath
Thanks again everyone for supporting my entry! I'm just waiting for the results now, and I remain confident and really happy with the results!: Most votes, most comments, most views, best video of the week winner, I posted a 2nd video to thank Toshiba and was more involved in the comments than any other entrant and responded to supporters and critics with class.
And man, were there a lot of critics in the last few days! Things they did included:
- Saying Toshiba would choose me simply because I was Asian and Toshiba was in Japan
- Saying I broke copyright laws because I used "Beethoven's 5th Symphony" and had split second shots of Winnie the Pooh magnets on my fridge
- Posing as friends from SFU and Livejournal to try to get incriminating information from me
- Saying that I should be disqualified because they read on my blog that I wasn't a student (I am now)
- Saying that I shouldn't be in this competition because they read in my blog that I had already been to Japan
- Saying my video was so horrible and disturbing that I would make an awful intern . .?
- Saying that on my blog, I tried to teach you guys how to cheat (WHAT??)
- Saying that I had bribed 2nd place to take the fall (WHAAAAT???!)
- Saying that I was uncreative, boring, talentless, unfunny, childish, etc. etc.
Then there was the guy who wrote a 50 paragraph essay about why the judges shouldn't let me win and posted it in the comments at the last minute -- only to find out that it wasn't the last minute and my supporters all tackled him. ^_^;
But yeah, I've never seen so much drama aimed at me in my life!! One of the things that really bugged me was how they used my Livejournal so much to discredit me -- I originally used "Cheesemon" to get positive attention to my LJ, but didn't expect the opposite!
Valid Contest Suspicions?
I really did care about the integrity of this contest, and even though I started with just a small circle of close family and friends, I worked my butt off to increase it everyday. I noticed that there were ways to cheat, but I didn't want to take any shortcuts. That's why it REALLY bugged me that the 2nd place guy appeared to have cheated like crazy!
The guy originally got my attention when he was getting 200 votes a day from the get go, up to the last few days when he was getting 600. Then I noticed this:
Toshiba uploads its videos to Youtube, so you can see how many views each video gets here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/toshibadev#play/uploads
And if you sort it by Most Viewed, you'll get something like this:
So I'm at the top with 2200 (!!) views, next is the Official Toshiba Contest video with 900 and the 3rd Place guy with 600 views.
With that in mind, check out the votes from the last hours:
My entry:
4053 votes
2212 views
So, of the 4053 voters, 56% viewed the video and 20% commented
3rd place:
575 votes
606 views
Of the 575 voters, 105% viewed the video
- 4th place video: 332 votes, 254 views = 77%
- 5th place: 238 votes, 320 views = 134%
- 6th place: 197 votes, 273 views = 138%
- 7th place: 169 votes, 218 views = 128%
.
.
And the pattern continues with every video. Every entry falls around this 50+% range.
EXCEPT ONE!:
2nd place guy:
3642 votes
297 views
=
8%
Which means that a whopping 92% of voters DIDN'T view his video! I remember one day when our votes both went up by 200, and yet while I also increased by 180 views, he only went up by 8. Heck, the 2nd video I posted up for Toshiba got 200 views in less than 24 hours -- that's over half the views he got in 2 weeks!
Crazier still, he has 809 replies, which means he received over 500 more comments about his video than people actually viewing the video. When I popped in to check a few of his comments, I noticed they sometimes had this strange pattern of aliases: like famous philosophers and South Park characters, all posted a minute apart.
The numbers didn't add up, so I assumed that he was voting for himself through hundreds of empty contest accounts and commenting on himself over and over, something that Toshiba's website doesn't prevent. If he or a few supporters did this, then obviously they wouldn't be viewing the video each time and probably weren't even aware of the Youtube data since the View Count isn't displayed on Toshiba's webpage.
So if my hunch is correct, then he would be violating this rule, correct?:
"The Contest Sponsor reserves the right, exercisable in its discretion, to disqualify and ban any participant from this Contest if the participant is found or is believed to have been tampering with the on-line entry process, the operation of the Contest, or the Contest website or if the participant is found or is believed to have been attempting to contact, threaten, annoy, harass or abuse any other person who has participated in this Contest."
- http://contest.askwhatif.ca/index.php?q=contest_rules
Still, now I was kind of stuck because:
1. Even though many 2nd place supporters threw mud at my video, I refused to throw it back. I would defend my video, but anything more wouldn't be civil. I'm just naturally a nice guy, and I wanted to show Toshiba that I was someone who could get along with anybody on its team.
2. I didn't want to post about it in the contest's comments after learning that it was easy to increase your Youtube count by thousands a day, so I was sure he could cover up his tracks pretty easily.
In the end, I just gathered a bunch of data like you see above and sent it to Toshiba. Its response?: They reassured me that there was no way to cheat and that votes and comments were only half of the judging criteria. :( I really do hope they take the View Counts into account. If they choose that guy over me, then I guess Toshiba doesn't care much for integrity and is not a company I would want to work for, Tokyo or not.
On the other hand, after what Toshiba told me, I wonder if I really do have a legitimate case here?
Poll
Thanks again everyone for supporting my entry! I'm just waiting for the results now, and I remain confident and really happy with the results!: Most votes, most comments, most views, best video of the week winner, I posted a 2nd video to thank Toshiba and was more involved in the comments than any other entrant and responded to supporters and critics with class.
And man, were there a lot of critics in the last few days! Things they did included:
- Saying Toshiba would choose me simply because I was Asian and Toshiba was in Japan
- Saying I broke copyright laws because I used "Beethoven's 5th Symphony" and had split second shots of Winnie the Pooh magnets on my fridge
- Posing as friends from SFU and Livejournal to try to get incriminating information from me
- Saying that I should be disqualified because they read on my blog that I wasn't a student (I am now)
- Saying that I shouldn't be in this competition because they read in my blog that I had already been to Japan
- Saying my video was so horrible and disturbing that I would make an awful intern . .?
- Saying that on my blog, I tried to teach you guys how to cheat (WHAT??)
- Saying that I had bribed 2nd place to take the fall (WHAAAAT???!)
- Saying that I was uncreative, boring, talentless, unfunny, childish, etc. etc.
Then there was the guy who wrote a 50 paragraph essay about why the judges shouldn't let me win and posted it in the comments at the last minute -- only to find out that it wasn't the last minute and my supporters all tackled him. ^_^;
But yeah, I've never seen so much drama aimed at me in my life!! One of the things that really bugged me was how they used my Livejournal so much to discredit me -- I originally used "Cheesemon" to get positive attention to my LJ, but didn't expect the opposite!
Valid Contest Suspicions?
I really did care about the integrity of this contest, and even though I started with just a small circle of close family and friends, I worked my butt off to increase it everyday. I noticed that there were ways to cheat, but I didn't want to take any shortcuts. That's why it REALLY bugged me that the 2nd place guy appeared to have cheated like crazy!
The guy originally got my attention when he was getting 200 votes a day from the get go, up to the last few days when he was getting 600. Then I noticed this:
Toshiba uploads its videos to Youtube, so you can see how many views each video gets here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/toshibadev#play/uploads
And if you sort it by Most Viewed, you'll get something like this:
So I'm at the top with 2200 (!!) views, next is the Official Toshiba Contest video with 900 and the 3rd Place guy with 600 views.
With that in mind, check out the votes from the last hours:
My entry:
4053 votes
2212 views
So, of the 4053 voters, 56% viewed the video and 20% commented
3rd place:
575 votes
606 views
Of the 575 voters, 105% viewed the video
- 4th place video: 332 votes, 254 views = 77%
- 5th place: 238 votes, 320 views = 134%
- 6th place: 197 votes, 273 views = 138%
- 7th place: 169 votes, 218 views = 128%
.
.
And the pattern continues with every video. Every entry falls around this 50+% range.
EXCEPT ONE!:
2nd place guy:
3642 votes
297 views
=
8%
Which means that a whopping 92% of voters DIDN'T view his video! I remember one day when our votes both went up by 200, and yet while I also increased by 180 views, he only went up by 8. Heck, the 2nd video I posted up for Toshiba got 200 views in less than 24 hours -- that's over half the views he got in 2 weeks!
Crazier still, he has 809 replies, which means he received over 500 more comments about his video than people actually viewing the video. When I popped in to check a few of his comments, I noticed they sometimes had this strange pattern of aliases: like famous philosophers and South Park characters, all posted a minute apart.
The numbers didn't add up, so I assumed that he was voting for himself through hundreds of empty contest accounts and commenting on himself over and over, something that Toshiba's website doesn't prevent. If he or a few supporters did this, then obviously they wouldn't be viewing the video each time and probably weren't even aware of the Youtube data since the View Count isn't displayed on Toshiba's webpage.
So if my hunch is correct, then he would be violating this rule, correct?:
"The Contest Sponsor reserves the right, exercisable in its discretion, to disqualify and ban any participant from this Contest if the participant is found or is believed to have been tampering with the on-line entry process, the operation of the Contest, or the Contest website or if the participant is found or is believed to have been attempting to contact, threaten, annoy, harass or abuse any other person who has participated in this Contest."
- http://contest.askwhatif.ca/index.php?q=contest_rules
Still, now I was kind of stuck because:
1. Even though many 2nd place supporters threw mud at my video, I refused to throw it back. I would defend my video, but anything more wouldn't be civil. I'm just naturally a nice guy, and I wanted to show Toshiba that I was someone who could get along with anybody on its team.
2. I didn't want to post about it in the contest's comments after learning that it was easy to increase your Youtube count by thousands a day, so I was sure he could cover up his tracks pretty easily.
In the end, I just gathered a bunch of data like you see above and sent it to Toshiba. Its response?: They reassured me that there was no way to cheat and that votes and comments were only half of the judging criteria. :( I really do hope they take the View Counts into account. If they choose that guy over me, then I guess Toshiba doesn't care much for integrity and is not a company I would want to work for, Tokyo or not.
On the other hand, after what Toshiba told me, I wonder if I really do have a legitimate case here?
Poll