Webcomic Drama…Sketchbattle BUSTED again…
It was only a matter of time before MORE things came out against Sketchbattle- You might remember the problems I had with them…. well, in this crazy news, it’s been found out THEY were actually cheating on the TOPLIST sites they were on. An inside source sent me this e-mail that was sent out to all the list members— see inside
Here’s the e-mail:
Hello all,
I am sending this e-mail to each of the webcomics in the top 10.
Sketchbattle a couple months ago figured out a way to use the IP address of each visitor to act as a proxy server to vote for his webcomic automatically.
Today my researching is finally done and I have conclusive proof, so I have modified the engine to count each fake vote as a negative vote, both to his current vote and his total vote. Further, I have removed the restriction of 1 vote per IP for each negative vote, so if you visit his site and refresh the page, each refresh deletes a vote from his total.
I have not told him of my conclusions nor of my engine change. But seeing as a lot of you update your description fairly regularly, if you want to poke some fun at him, feel free. J
I haven’t made the engine affect everyone universally with this change yet, because its possible it could capture some legitimate voters who use proxy servers or whatnot. In the near future, when the system detects a potentially fraudulent vote, it will require more user input to verify it’s a person (most likely one of those randomly generated images and requiring them to enter the text/numbers).
These changes won’t affect normal voters using normal internet connections, only those who are using proxy servers to access TWC. I want to minimize the effect any security restrictions have on normal visits to TWC, but I also want everyone to feel confident that people who are in the top 10 deserve to be there.
Thank you,
Richard M Mathis
http://www.topwebcomics.com
I’m encouraging any bloggers or comic news outlets to spread this information around. Not to just bust the Sketchbattle’s balls, but for the fact we need some TRUTH in webcomics. People can’t go around starting up contests and fudging numbers and making people waste their time participating or helping to promote a crooked endeavor. Seriously, for webcomics to grow, we need MORE honest people and we need to totally OUT the asshats of the interwebs.
PEACE!
January 9th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
As the host of the soon to be televised interwebscomics gala award show — I agree. We need truth, transparency, and really nice tuxedos.
If we don’t tell the people what’s good — how will they know?
January 9th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
hum. now on sketchbattle it says you need to register to vote.
January 9th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Has anyone posted this on the Sketchbattle site yet?
January 9th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
doesn’t look like it– but i sincerely hope someone else forwards this news around.
January 9th, 2006 at 10:36 pm
*Ack* Ahem.
AH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HA!!!!!!!!
January 10th, 2006 at 8:36 am
Oh he posted something on the main page. He just doesn’t sound apologetical about it.
…unsurprisingly so…
January 10th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Guess he really did know something about proxies.
January 10th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Next you’ll be wanting objective webcomics journalists, preferably with an ‘outsiders’ perspective..
January 10th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Hey! A feller can dream!
January 10th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
I believe I already posted about his auto-voting both here and elsewhere. I figured that someone who cared would complain to the people in charge, and I’m surprised it’s taken this long for something to be done about it. You know, since it apparantly warranted something to be done. Until now I just thought that it was ok for him to do it since no one seemed to react.
January 11th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
“people waste their time participating”
You mean I’ve been wasting my time drawing for SB? Shit, I was hoping to win the umm… what do you win?
January 15th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
I have the original complaint e-mail to both TWC and bCx :p It took a lot of evidence gathering to make a proper complaint; I wasn’t going to accuse a fellow webcomic artist without a well structured case.
I don’t like webcomic drama, though, so I’m acting in the shadows @_@ Think Zoro, but for webcomics.
January 15th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
Well.. the original e-mail is what i posted word for word. Anyone who claims that that is a fabricated e-mail is lying through their teeth.
January 15th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
Ah, you have the original e-mail FROM TWC. You don’t have the pre-existing e-mail TO TWC that reported the issue. Not that there weren’t others, but Sketch Battle was removed from TWC within a day of sending the e-mail and the response back was pretty much “yup, looks like you’re right.” (paraphrasing)
August 6th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
[…] The entire purpose of this website is provide rankings. But it seems that they overlooked a small little security flaw in their methodology. And it strikes me as unlikely that SketchBattle is going to be the only one poisoning the pigeons in this park. […]