Portable-Palooza 2009 - Voting Was Influenced

[Steamdnt]

look at the case buddy

OHHH SHIIIIII.... I'm sorry, its late, and i'm retarded sometimes...

[neverused]

@DNT 2.5: Did you even look at his submission? It shares the same shape as the DC controller, but the back of it has a battery pack and there is a Famicon slot on the top, underneath the screen. If you watched his video, this would have all been explained for you.

I never said bacteria didn't deserve to win. In fact, he had a very good chance of winning anyway. But when he asked for votes while offering a kickback, I call that bribery.

This is true.

[Steamdnt]

@DNT 2.5: Did you even look at his submission? It shares the same shape as the DC controller, but the back of it has a battery pack and there is a Famicon slot on the top, underneath the screen. If you watched his video, this would have all been explained for you.

I never said bacteria didn't deserve to win. In fact, he had a very good chance of winning anyway. But when he asked for votes while offering a kickback, I call that bribery.

This is true.

I cant watch his video... I might puke. But yeah, i wasn't aware that it was a superjoy, I thought it was a NOAC in a modded DC controller..

[neverused]

It turns out that he actually set the camera down for that one

[eagle5953]

I doubt Bacteria actually got any significant amount of votes with the ploy of prizes. His portable would have gained votes all on its own anyways, though you did acknowlegde this already.

That is true - he probably would have received the same number of votes either way. The issues are these: voting for Lazer to get additional prizes, and not voting for Marshall (ie. to get Lazer second).

Now I'm not saying that Marshall deserved to win, mind you. However, take a look at the following list of people that didn't vote for him at all:
- ShockSlayer
- nightwheel
- Zero_D
- iamscuzzo
- bacteria
- schmellyfart
- icarus
- spinout
- DNT 2.5
- palmertech
- thewizdog
- eurddrue (through SS)
- HotDog_Cart
- Kyosho

It's composed almost entirely of MR members, including most of the mods and admin.

As far as the "for the lulz" argument - I think the evidence pretty strongly suggests their was more to it than that. However, look at it from this perspective: if you saw evidence that the moderation team here at Benheck endevored to stuff the voting to keep anyone from Modretro, especially Bacteria, from placing, how would you react? You would be apoplectic, and rightfully so. I doubt "it was for the lulz" would be a sufficient argument for you, either.

[nightwheel]

Look I'm sorry, I should have not done it.

I regret what I done, And now I have to live with this humiliation. Am I'm sorry to the members of benheck and to Hailrazer. I should have not done what I did and now I have to live with this burden. You guys can either forgive me or hate my living guts till the day I die. Either way, I'm deeply sorry.

[Basement_Modder]

And, just like that, I was mis-quoted. News-flash, bic, I did not support this!
This is the whole post: (You know, the one you butchered to prove a point?)


And here is even more evidence:


Next time, do not accuse specific people of doing bad things based on incomplete evidence and suspicion based in rage. Simply because I knew what was happening did not mean I took part in it.

[J.D]

[Basement_Modder]

Your contributions to the internet have helped us all see so much more clearly.

Since when is the facepalm used on somebody who had valad points and strong evidence?

[palmertech]

When I said "you missed the chatroom conversation", I think you misunderstood. I said people were voting for it for the lulz, and what I had said in the chatroom to people was that, again, it was "for the lulz". Nobody expected it to win, and you can look in the metadata of the photos, they were taken mere minutes before the compo ended, entered as well. It was made "the lulz" as a joke, nobody was told (By me, at least, and I think the other mods) "Hey, go vote for this to get us all the prizez!" Bacteria clearly said he would give away his prizes, I will let him defend himself on that, but Hailrazer has already said that he does not care where the prizes go.

For an example, look at the very person you quoted, Yoshilime: He is one of the top ModReto wiki contributors so far, and he manages the review site as well, by any measure, a through and through ModRetro member. Yet he obviously did not even know of any sort of plan to vote for Lazer, simply because there WAS no organized plan to vote for Lazer. When I posted that "chatroom discussion" bit, it was in response to those people saying to just vote for him, I really should have clarified more, I thought the bit about doing it for the lulz was enough to make it clear. Some people started going around and telling people on MR to vote for Lazer, but believe me when I say that I (And I think our mods) never posted or PM'd anyone telling them to vote for Lazer that I know of. The most that went on was people telling others that they voted for it for lulz, an that is about it.


Here is the TL;DR version people often request:

I did vote for Lazer because I thought it was funny. I did not, however, make some sort of official modreto vote skewing plan. Anybody who did that acted on their own, and I apologize as best I can for their actions. I never actually thought Lazer would win, and if I had really been out to make him win, I probably could have done it. I have a few friends on BenHeck from real life with ~100 posts, and heck, Lazer himself did not even vote (He is an IRL buddy of mine as well). In fact, some of my IRL buddies did not even vote for Lazer at all! It would have been trivial for me to call and tell them, but that was not the point. I can thus honestly say that I did not really think that Lazer would win, or even gain a serious number of votes. Not only did a lot of ModRetro members vote, but several BH only members did. The whole plan was actually a lot less sinister than you think, did you notice the "Benheck.com" logos in two of the pics? Some people on MR got some crap and giggles from it being a bad portable that was only on BH and not MR, a stupid childish plan, but not any sort of evil conspiracy.


As for my votes, I voted for Bac because I really thought he has the most unique portable, I voted for Lazer both because I thought it was funny and because he my IRL friend, and I did not vote for Marshall simply because I wanted Bac to win. Unfair, yes, but par for the course if you look at most of the other votes.


Long rant aside, I am really sorry if ModRetro made a sham of PP09, that was never the goal, at least for me. Hailrazer definitely had his generosity taken advantage of. I apologize for any role I had in this whole thing going down, and really hope that we can work it out peacefully.

One more thing before I go: If you thought Bac's plan was bribery, why did you not mention it before the contest ended? I know some people had said something about it, but if there was an issue, it should have been raised at that point rather than now. Unless you think that was fine, and it was only Lazer who crossed the line?

Not really possible for me to wholly defend this, it is not as bad as you make it out, but it really is a shame. Any other questions I can answer? Hit me with 'yo best shot, let's work this out.

[Steamdnt]

since....right.....now? Basement knows what he is doing.

[ShockSlayer]

I have apologized to hailrazer for any part that I have played in this. I voted for bacteria because he deserved it, I voted for EVIL_NOD because he deserved it, and I voted for lazer because I didn't want to vote for marshallh's huge snesp like everyone else. In my opinion, regardless of how it(the portable) looks it isn't an achievement or that great. If not voting for marshall was part of the plan, then so be it. He doesn't get hurt by not getting votes. I didn't think lazer was going to win, therefore, it was as I only had to vote for two people. In the end, that didn't happen, though.

I spoke with bacteria after the contest was over, and he proposed an interesting plan, so if there is anything wrong with it then do not blame any of the other mod or admins on MR for that:

His plan was that both his prizes and lazer's prizes would have gone to me, to make a portable and sell it, and then that money would be used to pay for hosting, the expenses for building the portable, and hailrazer would have been compensated as well. I cannot give enough respect to him for donating those prizes, and he deserves better than this.

@eagle: All of the BH mods that voted voted for marshallh for first place(cept bic, he voted for 2nd), we have every right to accuse you of a bias just as much as you accuse us. I didn't vote for marshallh because I didn't like his portable. Don't accuse people without proof.

SS

[bicostp]

(You know, the one you butchered to prove a point?)

I never accused you of anything. I never changed any words in that quote, either. I was using that line to back up my hypothesis that there was an intentional plan to skew the votes in place. Whether you did it or not, you knew about it, and publicly confirmed it. Also, neither of your posts say anything about the other half of the issue.

One more thing before I go: If you thought Bac's plan was bribery, why did you not mention it before the contest ended?

Because I don't follow ModRetro and it only came to our attention after the fact.

I spoke with bacteria after the contest was over, and he proposed an interesting plan

Like I said in the OP, I don't care what you do with the prizes. Build something with them, burn them, throw them at the Pope, whatever. What I disapprove of is the "vote for me and I'll give you kickbacks" talk that went on.

Let's not forget that bacteria, marshall, and lazer weren't the only participants. There were quite a few other good portables entered that barely got 1 or 2 votes.

http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=32407" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Skyone]

Next time, do not accuse specific people of doing bad things based on incomplete evidence and suspicion based in rage. Simply because I knew what was happening did not mean I took part in it.

He was using your post to prove ModRetro's strategy, not to go on a personal crusade against you. Get your head out of your self-praising ass and stay out of this if you have nothing to do with it and didn't support it.

Anyone who attempts to justify their wrongful votes with "the lulz" is horribly foolish. If you simply voted for his portable because it was "a spoof" or for the prizes to go the ModRetro, then you have successfully ridiculed what was meant to be a kind competition and furthermore, hailrazer himself.

@palmertech: explain snowpenguin's post regarding voting for lazer, then. When you ask why we did not take action until now regarding bacteria's bribery: it's because we did not have enough proof, and we were likely to be shut down by you and the ModRetro gang yet again. This is undeniable, so don't both arguing this point. I don't want to ask you any questions, or to "work it out" with you. As you said, you didn't have anything to do with the skewing of votes, because "it was unorganized." Quit being the long-winded hero of every argument if you have as much involvement that you claim you do. I'm waiting to chew out bacteria, "the voice of experience, logic and age."

@ShockSlayer: people voted for marshall's "big" (?) SNESp because it was good. While it is true that I'm a friend of marshall, he rightfully deserved votes. I'd like to see you argue that lazer's portable was of that quality. EDIT: also, marshall did not even accept the prizes. Why the hell would we skew it, then?

[argelfraster]

Re-vote?