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Post by swaragirl on Jan 12, 2009 10:24:47 GMT -5
Hello all! My name is Jen and I love Cake Wrecks (note: I am not the Jen-that-owns-the-site... I am only Jen-the-reader.) I am not surprised at the voting totals - and I would be very surprised if any votes were found to be fraudulent. Not only does Cake Wrecks have a huge number of readers, but we are all very chatty. I never voted for anything until the notice was put up about this contest, and since then I have faithfully voted once a day. (As a point of interest, also, it just so happens that I work third shift - meaning that every day, one of those three-o-clock-in-the-morning votes belongs to me!) A "voting update" notice has been put up on the Cake Wrecks blog, and so I came and registered just so I could chime in about the contest. There are a lot of people that loooooove Cake Wrecks! Jen 8) (The Cake Wrecks reader)
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Post by missnenes on Jan 12, 2009 10:46:14 GMT -5
Hi!
Like a few others, I just signed on to comment about the controversy over the CakeWrecks blog.
One of my co-workers stumbled across this fantastic blog many months ago and now at least 8 of us in the office follow it religiously and have our e-mails set up to receive the daily RSS feeds. It's often a topic of conversation at breaks and lunch. In addition, we forward particularly hysterical entries to friends and family who, I've no doubt, forward it along in turn. I, personally, have a link to it at my own blog and tell everyone about it. I know I'm not the only one in my office who does this.
And yet, I only voted for it the first time Jen at CakeWrecks announced the award contest. That's one vote out of thousands (because I wasn't aware of the daily voting deal). Of course, when she mentioned the controversy over the overwhelming response here and that some found it questionable, I came back and voted for it again... and then created an account just to add my two cents on the issue.
Seriously, CakeWrecks has an amazing following and I'm sorry some of the other bloggers in nominated in this category find this questionable. It's funny and everyone I've mentioned it to has become an instant fan. I've no doubt the vote tally is 100% valid. Sorry to all the other nominated blogs but the fact is, CakeWrecks IS one of the best food blogs around. Don't be haters.
~ Renée from Long Beach, CA (another serious CakeWrecks reader, lover and fan)
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nka
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Post by nka on Jan 12, 2009 11:01:36 GMT -5
I want to jump in and defend Cake Wrecks as well. It is a great blog - and most importantly - with a loyal fanbase.
Rocks mentioned that it is strange that CW gets a lot of votes even at 3 o'clock in the morning EST... Well, I live in Sweden, so I don't see what's so odd about that. There are many other good food blogs in Swedish that I read, so I have no interest in English food blogs, but CW is something that is one of a kind and that I haven't found anything similar to.
My point is that I believe that is a blog that attracts more international readers than the other food blogs, which might give it some advantage. Thought I'd throw that in as well to widen the perspective a bit.
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Post by Apron Straitjacket on Jan 12, 2009 11:09:24 GMT -5
Like swaragirl and missnenes, I too registered just to let my voice be heard. When I first found Cake Wrecks, I instantly added it to my favorites and linked it on my blog. Every person that I've shared it with has become an instant fan (even those friends who don't normally read blogs). We've all been voting for her site and I personally have voted several times. I have no doubt that the votes are legit. As stated previously, look at how many comments she gets on a daily basis. Her fan base is huge and vocal! Everyone needs to just take a deep, have a slice of cake and be friends.
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Post by revallyson on Jan 12, 2009 11:20:35 GMT -5
Hi there! I read Cake Wrecks, too. I don't find it all that odd that they're getting the kind of votes they are - I *personally* know over a hundred people who read the blog and are voting every day (myself included ... I set up an email reminder for myself!). If I know that many just in my own relatively small circle of friends and acquaintences, how many thousands of others are voting? Cake Wrecks is one of the few sites that has a large appeal, and is set up in a very user friendly way. It's comical, well written, gramatically correct, and has a truly massive user base. People who don't like to cook can still enjoy mocking badly done professional cakes, you know. Surely, if 'bad' votes are cast, delete them. I think you'll find Cake Wrecks easily continues to lead the pack, though. Allyson
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lisas
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Post by lisas on Jan 12, 2009 11:29:04 GMT -5
Non evidence of cheating is persuasive but you have to take into account statistical anomalies. Sites like Cake Wrecks and Fivethrityeight are off the charts, beyond even the "major" categories. They are receiving many times the votes their entire category received in the past. The Anchoress may have endorsed Cake Wrecks but that does little to explain why it's received 9 times the votes she has. Votes for 538 are going up at a steady rate minute by minute.....at nearly 3 o'clock in the morning EST. The same for Cake Wrecks. I don't care how sure you are, someone is scamming your system and they have automated it. It may not be the bloggers themselves, but a dedicated fan. One thing is for sure, something is going on. I feel compelled to respond to this, because I'm not a huge blog reader but the ones I do read faithfully are Cake Wrecks and 538. For completely different reasons, they are both amazingly interesting and engaging. Cake Wrecks is funny beyond belief and 538 appeals to the political junkie/math geek in me. Plus the 538 guy has been all over the place pre-election pimping his blog... he was a guest on the Colbert Report at least once (that's how I learned about his blog). Just in my own personal circle, I have had four different people tell me about this hilarious cake blog that I must check out. Both blogs are unique in their category, in my opinion, and have a loyal following (for very good reasons). I don't think we're seeing much of any voting shenanigans going on, rather, the demonstration of what being an excellent blog that stands out among others can do for a vote count.
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rocks
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Post by rocks on Jan 12, 2009 11:33:51 GMT -5
Listen lets get something straight. I am sure cake Wrecks is a wonderful blog with wonderful fans. They vote night and day blah blah blah. The same for fivethirtyeight.com.
They could have fans all over the place. I am sure Cake Wrecks would have won very easily, 538 too. It doesn't explain the patterns of voting. Someone is scamming both of those sites on here. Why? who knows? As said earlier too it doesn't need to be anyone connected with the actual site. I do find it odd that Jen and Jon feel such a need to defend themselves, even calling on their readers to post in a little read forum. No one is doubting Cake Wrecks won and no one accused them of doing anything wrong.
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Post by hurricaneranch on Jan 12, 2009 11:35:19 GMT -5
Yet another loyal Cake Wrecks fan here who registered just to show my support! It doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I shared the site with hubby a few months ago and his *very large* place of business is now a Cake Wrecks fan - he tells me they talk about CW all day long and people have even printed out wrecktastic photos and posted them up in their cubicles. I have to say my favorite gift under the tree at Christmas was my Cake Wrecks t-shirt. Who says a food blog can't be funny?
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Post by randomnimities on Jan 12, 2009 11:40:50 GMT -5
Well, I must say I have gotten a good laugh out of this. It really is ridiculous how when voting in some sort of popularity contest shows a definitive lead, accusations begin to fly. I have voted nearly every day for Cake Wrecks, but on other days threw in some votes for Foodie at 15 (now 16) because I discovered the blog through these awards and found it to be a very good blog. Sean, I think you nailed it. It's all in how the voting was presented. Jen is a master of calling all the wreckers to action.
I personally read the blog daily and then show it to my fiancé. I have told many friends about the site who have gotten a big kick out of it. Many of them are overseas. What time of day the votes comes in means nothing on the internet as nka so effectively illustrated.
I have never seen a blog more religiously followed than CW. My fiancé, who reads a lot of blogs, said it was the best blog he's seen in a long time. In fact, we found it so good, we featured it in a recent podcast episode in the "Randomly Awesome" segment of the show. A new segment which CW inspired me to create. I have sent out links to the blog over twitter and gotten responses about how awesome it is.
My fiancé has a background in IT and web security. After poking around a bit, his analysis was that if somebody was of a mind to submit fraudulent votes, it's going to be quite difficult. Also, as Sean pointed out, if it did happen, it doesn't vilify the blogger or the readers. The demographic of CW doesn't really appear to be the evil hacker type to be quite honest.
Never underestimate the power of effectively engaging your audience. Jen does so quite well.
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Post by huianasukari on Jan 12, 2009 11:45:51 GMT -5
heya Rocks, I bet you'ld like this blog: www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/I'm just a cake wrecks fan who had no intention of posting here, but just wanted to show you that blog.
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Post by randomnimities on Jan 12, 2009 11:50:41 GMT -5
Listen lets get something straight. I am sure cake Wrecks is a wonderful blog with wonderful fans. They vote night and day blah blah blah. The same for fivethirtyeight.com. They could have fans all over the place. I am sure Cake Wrecks would have won very easily, 538 too. It doesn't explain the patterns of voting. Someone is scamming both of those sites on here. Why? who knows? As said earlier too it doesn't need to be anyone connected with the actual site. I do find it odd that Jen and Jon feel such a need to defend themselves, even calling on their readers to post in a little read forum. No one is doubting Cake Wrecks won and no one accused them of doing anything wrong. Ok, first of all, we were not called upon to post in this forum. Perhaps you should check the post for yourself. This discussion is an inconspicuous link in the post for those who wanted to read it for themselves. Secondly, CW was in second behind Serious Eats before Jen's initial post asking us to vote as screen-shot shows on CW, which dramatically illustrates the power of a loyal fanbase. Third, why are you just so sure of yourself that these votes are fraudulent? Can you see something in the servers that we can't?
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Post by Sean Gleeson on Jan 12, 2009 11:53:30 GMT -5
Rocks: Kevin and I have gone over the votes in this category, searching for any evidence of fraud. We subject all the server logs not just to a visual perusal, but also to very sophisticated programs that look for telltale patterns of robot activity over thousands of hits. Our analysis tools are very thorough.
I do acknowledge that your suspicion seemed somewhat reasonable, since Cake Wrecks earned far more votes than many powerhouse blogs. But the truth is, the votes are genuine. Apparently the fans of that blog really are the kind of people who will take the trouble to vote.
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rocks
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Post by rocks on Jan 12, 2009 12:15:53 GMT -5
Third, why are you just so sure of yourself that these votes are fraudulent? Can you see something in the servers that we can't?
Yes, I can. After a quite reasonable initial burst after the first posting you see a very steady increase in votes. The same with 538. Like clockwork, night and day at a very steady rate. Even with fans around the world there should be variations, especially late at night. Cake Wrecks may have many fans and those numbers quoted are great for them but they don't translate into these kind of votes. Wonkette, along with a number of sites they agree with, have been pushing and spreading the word all over the net, My Space and Facebook included and they haven't got any site near those numbers. Nevermind to 20,000 in 10 days. Those sites combined have many time the readership of Cake Wrecks.
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Post by randomnimities on Jan 12, 2009 12:20:11 GMT -5
Third, why are you just so sure of yourself that these votes are fraudulent? Can you see something in the servers that we can't? Yes, I can. After a quite reasonable initial burst after the first posting you see a very steady increase in votes. The same with 538. Like clockwork, night and day at a very steady rate. Even with fans around the world there should be variations, especially late at night. Cake Wrecks may have many fans and those numbers quoted are great for them but they don't translate into these kind of votes. Wonkette, along with a number of sites they agree with, have been pushing and spreading the word all over the net, My Space and Facebook included and they haven't got any site near those numbers. Nevermind to 20,000 in 10 days. Those sites combined have many time the readership of Cake Wrecks. Actually, I asked if you could see something in the servers we couldn't see. That means you'd either have to be an admin or a hacker if you could see such things. Anyway, it seems the debate is over now that Sean has returned after investigation by the admins and given the once and for all answer that the votes are indeed legit. Site traffic isn't everything. Engaging your readership is.
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Post by tonimarie on Jan 12, 2009 12:22:30 GMT -5
I'd have to agree, Sean. I would say the stay-at-home-mom fanbase is big... and hey, we've got time on our hands, right? I would also suggest that the types of readers Cakewrecks has are not the type to know how to game the vote anyway. (Not that there aren't nerds... I mean "Dr. Who" is a recurring theme... but still, more of the pop culture type nerds)
I, personally, am a web developer and CakeWrecks is in my "check every morning" while I have my coffee set of bookmarks... along with the news, my email, and security vulnerability reports for my software. I get disappointed that there's only one post a day.
To answer John's question about how Alexa calculates their numbers... they're kind of like Nielsens for websites. People who use the Alexa toolbar (or like me who have an alexa rank-checker for working on websites) have their visit statistics gathered by Alexa... who then calculate what percentage of the total users on the Internet are visiting those sites.
The same way 10,000 Nielsen families turn into a TV viewership of 15 Million, small Alexa numbers get multiplied and it's really just a guess on Alexa's part. If the viewers are not the type to have an Alexa toolbar, they're not getting factored in.
Compete.com gets certain small portions of search engine and ISP reports also, and is a bit better than Alexa at times. At least the numbers are based on real, if incomplete, numbers.
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