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The good old "ATOT effect needed" threads

T

TheNinja

Lifer
I'm surprised this is allowed to happen on Anandtech and things like piracy, theft, etc. are not. This is basically just cheating on a poll and is unfair to the other contestants. How is this any different than telling someone how to steal a DVD by cracking it? Or even mentioning a coupon code for that matter. It's a difference between stealing from a company, or stealing from another individual

Agree or Disagree...discuss
 
I agree on some polls and not others. Ethics depends on the reward.

I don't know where you're going with the piracy stuff, but winning a competition with help from a few hundred of us seems unfair, but how do you know the other person isn't cheating either ? It's the Internet right ? Dog eat dog. Every advantage you can get.
 
I disagree- I think that it is just like getting some help on some physics homework that you have from your dad, who happens to be a physicist. You just use resources you have available to you.
 
undecided. it isn't like the recipient of "the effect" are getting anything but a boost in pride. now if they got a huge record contract or something else i would just move along and not help and let the person win on their own merit.
 
The ATOT effect is a slippery slope. Sometimes its unethical because others are relying on 'honorable' voting. Sometimes its necessary because others are using other forums to boost online polls in their favor. Ultimately, I don't really like the way the ATOT effect skews results but its not always bad.
 
It is called networking..............happens in the workplace all of the time, some peeps got connections, others don't. I personally think it is o.k. , I see this as being resourceful.
 
If the votes contest is based on number of votes, the ATOT effect is fair game.

If it is based on merit, then it is cheating and unfair.

What happened last night with the racing vote was a mess... but it was the fault of the contest promoters. The voting should have been based on merit alone and the voting should not have been open to the public. It should have been decided by the people who were footing the bill on the 'pimping'. They erred on making it open voting, with the highest number winning... therefore, we did not cheat or do anything wrong, as long as we voted our conscience.

🙂
 
Originally posted by: nakedfrog
Well, sometimes I vote for someone else for precisely this reason. Does that help any?
Click to expand...

Exactly. At the end of the day, the AT effect is bringing visitors to the site, which is probably the actual reason any contest is created, regardless of the ostensible goals of the contest. It's all advertising, and you can't beat people posting your website to forums with tens of thousands of users as they lobby to win.

Many of us go to these requests, read what it's all about, and then vote based on who we think is the best candidate anyway.

Talk of fraudulent voting, however, that should be treated the same as any other fraudulent activity.

But lobbying people to vote for you should be OK as long as the contest rules don't specifically prohibit it (although I can't imagine why that would ever be the case).
 
Originally posted by: AcidicFury
I disagree- I think that it is just like getting some help on some physics homework that you have from your dad, who happens to be a physicist. You just use resources you have available to you.
Click to expand...

for sure
 
Its a community and the community can vote anyway it wants too. The ATOT effect posts just make users aware of votes. Often I do not vote for what the posted wants.
 
Ideally all ATOT people should vote on merit if it is supposed to be a merit based contest, but do you really think most people vote merit rather than blindly voting for who the OP asks them to vote for?
 
The point is to be unfair. We help out our own and to hell with the rest of the Internets.
 
For example:

A modeling contest where the winner receives $500 in gifts and prizes. ATOT votes for a particular girl blindly b/c she's some dudes girlfriend and she wins. However, had "ATOT effect" not been used someone else would have won. I guess it could be looked at as talking to your buddies or emailing them to vote, but the fact that ATOT has hundreds of regulars that aren't really even your friends can really tip the scales.
 
Most voting contests are popularity contests anyways. I'm not a fan of people that write scripts to cheat, but hell, knowing someone that posts on a forum with people that enjoy surfing the web and clicking random links is fair game.
 
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