https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...461#post853461

Wow, LEAD, still going after me? All I did was take an example from the same post that is in ibProArcade's thread. Thus the "What's good for the goose" lead-in. I also noted that they should vote for that or "(or other modification)".

So is there an explaination for removing ibProArcade from the list? I cannot find anything regarding PMs either. Lack of staff response is disturbing. By all accounts, if it is against some rule somewhere, it is not posted predominantly enough for everyone to see and the PMs sent to his own people involved with testing, etc. should not count against the ibProArcade script.

Staff, can we get some sort of response to let us know you have some sort of justification behind this?

This is the information I have:


and then I got



I asked for any Link to vb.org where I can find that information that any PM, Reminder ect. is forbidden, but got no answer yet.
As stated before other Hack-Authors even emailed around and nothing happened, and you should think about all the other ways to notify people of such a vote: messenger, mail, pm, other forums, chats ect.


Just remember what if now PMs or anything else appear to inform v3arcade-users about the HotM-Vote, would that also remove this Hack ?
I think this is ridiculous, everybody should know on his own what to vote for, the only thing I agree that any kind of Spam has to be kept out of vb.org, but as long nobody is spamming around it should be ok ...



I am now waiting for the Link to the Rule where it says that those PMs for HotM-Votes are forbidden. If there is none, I (and even some more users here I think) ask the Team for the base of their decision ...

And not just the arcades, but I would agree that ANY modification that has had unsolicited PMs or e-mails sent should be disqualified. Testers knew they were getting PMs and e-mails. This should not count against them. People make mistakes and having mistyped one username was an honest mistake it seems. Public posts have had comments like "Be sure to vote" and "I voted" throughout the history of Hack of the Month. If we were to disqualify because of this, then that would cancel every winner (I believe) out there.

100% agree !

You know, now that I've gone looking for one.. I can't find one.

Hmm.. :speechless:

do you honestly think MrZeropage was vote hunting??????i dont think so,if this was the case dont you think he would have Pm the 380 odd members that downloaded his hack????? asking hey vote for me,this is unbelievable

sucks i didnt get no pm :( and i was a beta tester

ah well Dear :) your hack still the best....no matter what happens :) you still got 380 install!

Well I guess googlemap needs to be disqualified also. How about hacks with 3rd party support sites? How do we know what goes on there? Especially in the private forums.

I think this decision should be reversed. We await staff comment.

Yea, I beta tested it, and didn't get a PM either. So to say he was spamming is ridiculous.

Here's to hoping the Staff here sorts this out correctly.

Even if they now reverse, there are currently 14 votes that got added to v3arcade while there was no choice for ibProArcade - nobody knows how many of that 14 would have voted for ibPro, so the whole Voting is somehow unfair now anyway

I should be reset to the point it was before deletion (ibProArcade was 20 votes ahead) or should be deleted at all, that is what I think is fair...



But I think the staff will think about all that ;)



@Sooner95, MissKalunji and other Testers:
As I told before I even did not sent that PM to all Testers, just to few ...



Yes, never thought about that - they even can promote their product in small, seperate community while I do only have a single Thread here on vb.org with the Hack itself :surprised:

A "lack of staff response" would mostly be due to the fact that staff are either a.) asleep at the time you posted or b.) unable to comment due to the fact that it's Christmas...

As for a link to the HoTM rules, I believe there was one somewhere but I cannot find the link at this time; However it is a rule that people should be familiar with due to the removal of a few hacks this year for breaking the same rule...

And, regardless of this, there is also the main site rule, the relevant part bolded:
I count 17 people as being Mass-PM...

As for rumours of "vote transferring", thats rubbish...

Chris

Then I should be warned/banned for doing that, but not remove my Hack from this poll ;)

Anyway, this is somehow ridiculous, as stated before other Hacks got promoted via Email and nothing happened, so "due to the removal of a few hacks this year for breaking the same rule" seems not to work everytime.

I even have no chance, in some situations I have to PM the same text to multiple users, like I did when spreading the Link to a new Test-Version to all Beta-Testers during Develoment of ibProArcade ...


I am looking forward to get this answered:as I believe there really is no such rule.


It was no spamming, no mass-PM or anything like that for getting any votes !
I even did and do more PMs when a new Beta-Version got released ect.



I think this decision is not good for community and not good for me either, I am not feeling well this way in this community and ready to grab my cases :(

What possible reasoning would the staff have to remove your hack if such a rule was not in place?

We don't have personal vendetta's here - We came to a decision between us, and I removed it, mostly because I have no mixed feelings over which arcade hack to use - I use neither, because I don't believe they are of any real use to me or any of my sites...

Chris

This whole episode is really bad for Vb.org

this is my suggestion.. I feel this is the best thing to do.. Why not reset the votes and let the voters re vote?

It was really very harsh on ibProarcade and zero page (although i love and prefer v3arcade)

I myself have received 2 or 3 mails from Googlemap hack owner to visit and vote.. Isnt that spamming?

Whatever happ is really sad

man just forget this hotm junk. u get nothing from it anyways, and we all know who is really winning and who will win so it doesnt matter.

Someone needs to have a muzzle put on him because blaming others for not knowing a rule that even he can't produce is assinine.

And sadly, typical.

What you've posted is total BS until you produce this "rule", and prove it was in place at the start of this poll. Emotions such as your "mixed feelings" should not come into play - making such a decision based on emotions IS showing that you are biased... all future votes will be tainted if you do this.

its over with already. this month is dead. the hotm for dec is corrupted and there is no point in even continuing with this argument. they cant produce anything. no rules. no mumbo jumbo blablabla. v3arcade was getting beat out and thats that. i swithced my vote and never got a PM.

its all horse shizzit and shouldnt have happend. who cares if he asks people to vote for him on the hotm. if they use his hack why the hell shouldnt they vote for him?

grow up people.

dont get anything but a label on the hack for the hotm anyways so whats the big deal? no money..no advertising spots, no perks

I'm removing my one measly hack from here. I'll release it on another website.

why is Hotm of the month is so important to you people? ppl being grateful giving donation isnt that the real reward? come one lets just forget about it....and lets enjoy each other's work :)

how about that?

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?

Only thing left is my wish to see where this rule is ... By doing a decision on a rule somebody should know where it is ;)



Nope

There is no rule against PMing members to gain support for HotM but hacks have been removed for flouting it. Hmm, ok.

Regardless of whether this is a conspiracy to ensure v3arcade wins this poll or not, that's the way it looks to all and sundry I think.

There was a 'rule', it was 'unwritten' and until this happened we always solved these issues before the public had a chance to see them. As I said before next month a clear set of guidelines will be sent to everyone to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Oh come on. This is getting more ridiculous by the minute. If a rule is unwritten how is everyone expected to know about it? There was no rule against PMing members to gain support for HotM, MrZeroPage didn't break the rule which didn't exist, and this whole affair sucks. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it.

I'm speechless really. All I can say is the staff made a very poor decision here and no amount of complaining will make them reverse it.

It's a sad sad day when a hack that requires you to pay $60 to get real support wins HOTM. That should be a bigger issue than 17 pms.

It's 'unwritten' because nobody took the time to write it up for public viewing evidently - I believed it was somewhere but upon further investigation it turns out that if there was, it has since been removed...

tamarian broke the rule a couple of months ago, and we took similar action - As for what is going on with the vBgooglemap hack, I don't know - Chances are that will be chased up when the Administration gets around to it...

You call pull apart statements by not reading them and picking out words taken out of context all you like; The staff decided, it is a rule, and the mistake of it not being plastered all over anything remotely to do with HOTM will be rectified...

Chris

what ever its over with. we know who is winning this poll and who will win.

Agreed. Quite frankly, if the "Staff" are going to knobble the voting like this I personally can't see any reason why I should vote in future polls. Obviously it's the "Staff" who decides who wins!

Ok guys - Take a few deep breaths, go get a stress ball and think before you make wild accusations...

I'll repeat what I have said earlier so you can understand this:

This hack was removed to make it fair for everyone who has ever been subject to this rule, and as a reminder against doing it to those thinking of doing so in the future

This has nothing to do with any personal or professional agendas...

Chris

Jesus people, Stop the fraking crying already..the Admin part of the vB.org team has spoken on this issue, aswell as part of the moderation team..if you dont like their decision, oh well, there's no prize in aruging here..most it can get you is a ban here and on vb.com if you continue and it gets out of hand.

Just drop the whole sherade, and know who you voted for. It's no matter at this point, as staff already said they aren't re-instating the hack.