hehe - this brings back memories :)

HotM is important to coders here because it is the only type of reward they get. Getting nominated and having a chance to win is a a cool kudos that justifies a lot of the thankless hours of producing free work for others (lord knows the donations button is little more than a pretty image).

In the grand scheme of things - it really shouldn't matter, however it does matter to people and it should be treated as such.

In defense of Chris, I too remember rules in regards to spamming for votes. However saying that:
1- Yes, it should be posted in the first post of the HotM.
2- I think its a dumb rule anyway. Who cares if everyone gets a heads up about it? They can make up their own mind which is best. Its like running for president but not being able to tell anyone :P

Anyhooo. Its a shame another HotM gets screwed. Not just for the one that was removed - but also for the others still in the race. It kind of tarnishes any kind of win - justified or not.

Maybe adopting a BotM approach would be best: Have a month where people nominate HotM. I think doing it strictly on installs is a bit pants anyway.

Anyhooo. Condolences to whoever was removed from the post (been there man ;) ) and condolences to those left in it. O, and condolences to the staff :)

Well, there ya go: Yet more bias towards V3Arcade at the expense of ibProArcade. Quite frankly, I'm not surprised it happened because I expected it to happen. Recent history on vb.org shows that it would happen. How can anyone possibly be surprised by it. Certainly not me! ibPro was beating V3Arcade and so ibProArcade was removed. V3Arcade win this poll. But morally ibPro has won hands down and this poll is not representative of the voting of vb.orgs membership!

Regardless of everyone's personal feelings here about how "wrong" it is, a hack of tamarian's a few months ago was removed for breaking this rule, and now, to be fair to those previously denied HOTM enrolement, the same must be done to Mr Zeropage, and any future rule breakers...

There is no conspiracy towards v3arcade - To my knowledge, John hasn't broken this rule...

Mr Zeropage, deliberately or not, has broken it...

You are free to report any misconduct by John if you feel it is spam, or against the rules...

Chris

Still leaves 200+ vb.org members who were not mass PMed who voted for ibProArcade whose votes were eliminated from this poll. As I said, this poll is not representative of the membership of vb.org!

Of course it is representative of vB.org - If those 200+ members who voted for ibPro wish to change their vote in this poll, they are free to PM me and give me an alternative to add a vote number for...

Just because it was removed does not mean it isn't representative; People who may have voted for tamarian's hack that was removed didn't moan about it to this extent and stop their virtual feet...

I can honestly tell you right now that if it wasJohn and the hack v3arcade that had broken the rules you would not be too displeased would you?

Again, this is nothing against Mr Zeropage or any kind of conspiracy - But what's the phrase? Ignorance is not an excuse? Just as others have found out before...

Chris

/me would have voted for ibProArcade

instead i voted for Adsense banners in the archive. After reading the overall feedback about v3 Arcade in its thread, it winning hack of the month would be a bit misleading to me. I submit that there be some sort of footnote added to this months vote about the removal of ibProArcade so that people are aware of what happened.

Personally, I don't want to change my vote. I voted for ibProArcade and as far as I'm concerned my vote stands. HotM for december is dead and as has already been previously posted this affair will detract from the winner probably to the extent that the declared winner will not be regarded as the true winner!

btw I too am waiting for the link to the HotM rule.

This is my last on this subject. I'm just too disgusted to post any more about it!

I wouldn't say 20 votes ahead was "hands down", but you know.. I don't care.

I don't see why v3arcade is even being brought in to reasoning behind ibProArcade's removal and the like, neither me nor John had any idea until someone mentioned it in the support thread.

Starting next month there will be a set of rules and guidelines sent to every hack author in the poll via PM, this will be listed in the thread, and on the rules page as well. Currently there is no rule on this, but as Chris said hacks have been removed or not allowed in the poll before due to similar situations.

Also lets get one thing in the clear, this is not a conspiracy to ensure v3arcade wins this poll. I assure you we have better things to do then rigging HOTM polls and if anyone on the staff ever did such a thing they would be dismissed.

Are you 100% sure because that's not what someone else has said in here and that same person placed blame directly on the coder here.

Has an apology been sent yet to the coder?