"Anti-people" vote on the "Runet Prize"?
The results of the "Runet Prize" , summed up at the end of last week, caused a very expected reaction. Some sites that participated in the so-called “People's Vote” have signed an open letter to the organizers of the contest. Representatives of the Russian-speaking community “Mozilla Russia” and a number of Orthodox resources complain about the non-transparency of the voting mechanism and some other organizational errors.
Representatives of sites included in the "top ten" of the "popular rating", in particular, draw attention to the fact that many participants did not even post on their sites an announcement that they can vote for them. As a result, a huge amount of low-ranking “ballast” appeared on the voting page, which prevented users from finding a “favorite site”. The fact that the voices received via sms were equated with 12 “Internet voices” was also puzzling; no restrictions were placed on them. As a result, it is noted in an open letter, “the one who pays the most” could win.
The signatories directly accused a number of network projects (Dozory.Ru, Odnoklassniki.Ru, Poems.Ru, MyJane.Ru, Proza.Ru, Eurofootball.Ru) of "voice exchanges": their administrators organized a campaign calling for voting in bulk - immediately for all these sites. As if justifying their own “promotional campaigns” , the letter notes that the target audience is about the same for various Orthodox resources, while the “violators” actually do not match.
“Oppositionists” call for changing the rules of the “People’s Vote” in order not to repeat past mistakes, in particular, to publish in advance the detailed rules for holding the “People’s Vote” and not to change them in the process of voting, to abandon the idea of SMS voting, to reduce the number of sites for which can be simultaneously voted, up to 3-5 projects, etc.
A few days ago, Maxim Borzov, technical officer at the Regional Public Center for Internet Technologies (ROCIT), in an interview with AlgoNetin fact, he accused the Mozilla Russia community of “wrapping up” its rating: “An IP address source check was also used. If it is a proxy server, is it anonymous? For example, one Canadian anonymous proxy server sent votes by sorting addresses from its list. Such addresses were revealed and “cut off” ... Mazilla openly admitted that they had “cut off” 20 thousand votes, claiming that the votes were sent honestly. (Although in fact it was clear that Canadian and American proxies "tried" here). " Apparently, this accusation became one of the motives that prompted the administrators of several “popular” (based on the results of the “People's Vote”) websites to sign an open appeal to the organizers of the Runet Prize.
The ambiguity, lack of development and constant changes in the voting rules, in which both network users and owners of cell phones took part, led to numerous disputes around him. At one time, the campaign in support of Orthodox resources caused a lively discussion on the Russian Internet: already then it was clear that those sites around which a specific community had developed — loyal and easily mobilized — would win. It is easy to identify the right and the guilty in a situation where there are clear rules, but when the voting procedure is not clearly defined, it causes only useless disputes. However, it is worth remembering that the lack of normal regulation is a problem, first of all, of the organizers - and it was their reputation that once again suffered.
Representatives of sites included in the "top ten" of the "popular rating", in particular, draw attention to the fact that many participants did not even post on their sites an announcement that they can vote for them. As a result, a huge amount of low-ranking “ballast” appeared on the voting page, which prevented users from finding a “favorite site”. The fact that the voices received via sms were equated with 12 “Internet voices” was also puzzling; no restrictions were placed on them. As a result, it is noted in an open letter, “the one who pays the most” could win.
The signatories directly accused a number of network projects (Dozory.Ru, Odnoklassniki.Ru, Poems.Ru, MyJane.Ru, Proza.Ru, Eurofootball.Ru) of "voice exchanges": their administrators organized a campaign calling for voting in bulk - immediately for all these sites. As if justifying their own “promotional campaigns” , the letter notes that the target audience is about the same for various Orthodox resources, while the “violators” actually do not match.
“Oppositionists” call for changing the rules of the “People’s Vote” in order not to repeat past mistakes, in particular, to publish in advance the detailed rules for holding the “People’s Vote” and not to change them in the process of voting, to abandon the idea of SMS voting, to reduce the number of sites for which can be simultaneously voted, up to 3-5 projects, etc.
A few days ago, Maxim Borzov, technical officer at the Regional Public Center for Internet Technologies (ROCIT), in an interview with AlgoNetin fact, he accused the Mozilla Russia community of “wrapping up” its rating: “An IP address source check was also used. If it is a proxy server, is it anonymous? For example, one Canadian anonymous proxy server sent votes by sorting addresses from its list. Such addresses were revealed and “cut off” ... Mazilla openly admitted that they had “cut off” 20 thousand votes, claiming that the votes were sent honestly. (Although in fact it was clear that Canadian and American proxies "tried" here). " Apparently, this accusation became one of the motives that prompted the administrators of several “popular” (based on the results of the “People's Vote”) websites to sign an open appeal to the organizers of the Runet Prize.
The ambiguity, lack of development and constant changes in the voting rules, in which both network users and owners of cell phones took part, led to numerous disputes around him. At one time, the campaign in support of Orthodox resources caused a lively discussion on the Russian Internet: already then it was clear that those sites around which a specific community had developed — loyal and easily mobilized — would win. It is easy to identify the right and the guilty in a situation where there are clear rules, but when the voting procedure is not clearly defined, it causes only useless disputes. However, it is worth remembering that the lack of normal regulation is a problem, first of all, of the organizers - and it was their reputation that once again suffered.