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Post by altissima on Jan 12, 2009 18:40:16 GMT -5
What's going on is that CakeWrecks is clearly in the wrong category! Look at the Best Humor Blog category, and you will see that the voting figures are in the same order of magnitude. Of course Cake Wrecks is wrecking the competition in the Best Food Category! Cake Wrecks has a more universal appeal of general humor and attracts a completely different fanbase than "serious" food blogs, which are a niche category. I agree it's unfair to the other blogs in this category that they are competing against CakeWrecks here, but I see no evidence of fraudulent voting.
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Post by sedasa on Jan 12, 2009 19:40:12 GMT -5
I agree that Cake Wrecks is in the wrong category. I, too, am a Cake Wrecks reader. What am I not? A food blog reader. I hadn't heard of any of the other blogs in the category.
We go to Cake Wrecks for the humor, not the food. If you went for the food (excluding on Sunday), you'd probably be grossed out most of the time.
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Post by lisabee on Jan 12, 2009 19:44:37 GMT -5
Here's another cw fan who registered just so that I could say that yes, we are legit and we are huge. Jen and Cake wrecks are the first thing I check when I get on the internet everyday. She's like a drug, we're all addicted and we have to get our daily fix. I have also gone on Serious foods, and although I enjoy the site, when I had to make a choice about who to vote for, I voted for Jen because I actually read everything. Once I discovered her site I even went back and read all of the previous posts. Do you know how long that took? And I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. It's a good thing she only said to check out this discussion, not post on it (although I couldn't help myself), otherwise it would be 20 pages long by now. I do wish she had been in the humor catagory though.
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Post by tatterdemalion on Jan 12, 2009 19:47:00 GMT -5
I get Cake Wrecks on LiveJournal, so I'm not included in the feed statistics either, but I can't be the only person who saw Jens message and went to vote for Cake Wrecks. According to LJ there are over 1000 people on that feed alone, so if we all went and voted and voted daily it would also add a large spike to the voting.
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Post by teaganb on Jan 12, 2009 21:20:09 GMT -5
Yes, I am another fan of Cake Wrecks that registered today.
I must be guilty because I share Cake Wrecks with everyone in my designer groups, blogs, plurks, facebook, and more. I have had people tell me that I got them in trouble with their spouses because once they discovered Cake Wrecks they could not stop reading until the got through all that they missed.
If it were not for CW I would not have found the Weblog Awards. Two blogs I read were nominated in this category but I gain more enjoyment from CW so it got my vote.
As someone said, we are all loyal, dedicated readers and will back our favorite blog in all things.
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rocks
New Member
Posts: 11
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Post by rocks on Jan 12, 2009 21:24:25 GMT -5
First off I'm not trying to be cynical and I can't really say whether Cake Wrecks would appeal to me as I have never read it. Save for the post which specifically links to this thread. That being said I am very happy you all found Cake Wrecks and enjoy it so much, please continue to do so. It's wonderful.
Second, yes let's compare it to the humor category. In that category the leader is being very heavily promoted by at least a dozen blogs and probably more. Cake Wrecks has nearly 3 times the number as the leader in the humor category. Cake Wrecks has twice the number of votes of the top 2 in Humor combined.
Let's compare it to the best blog category. Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish is leading there. He has actively promoted this with posts. He appears regularly on cable news. He is a blogger for a national magazine. He has very devoted fans also. He has less votes than Cake Wrecks and 538. More importantly his votes have come in bunches, not a steady dribble night and day over 12 days, as you would expect.
I still maintain someone is gaming this site and someone has chosen Cake Wrecks and 538 to do it. Why? Who knows? For the hell of it. Because the Admins pretty much said you couldn't. But the voting for Cake Wrecks and 538 is suspect if you ask me. The numbers don't add up. Cake Wreck fans could but Elvis fans to shame, it still doesn't add up. Look at the numbers over the past years and how votes have accumulated over the past 12 days and you might see it.
Or don't, I was trying to be helpful, not upset a bunch of fans. I still have no idea why anyone from Cake Wrecks would care about this anyway. No one ever suggested they did anything wrong.
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Post by teaganb on Jan 12, 2009 21:40:03 GMT -5
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. Rocks, please read the original clarification to your complaint that Sean made. They looked into this issue and the votes are genuine. Edited: To fix name.
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rocks
New Member
Posts: 11
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Post by rocks on Jan 12, 2009 21:52:12 GMT -5
teaganb, I read it. I am sure the votes are genuine. Which in this case means validly cast as they have set it up. It still doesn't explain the number and how they were accumulated. When someone is gaming your system and it doesn't stand out by obvious fraud they you have to start looking at patterns and how the votes came in. How do they compare to others that might be similar. How does it compare to past voting with the same criteria. Or not but I have no doubt Cake Wrecks won.
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Post by stephanie1588 on Jan 12, 2009 22:15:54 GMT -5
I've been tracking this thread for awhile, since I first came upon it. And yes, I came upon it via CakeWrecks. I have to say, we are an obsessed group of blog readers, aren't we, Wreckies? While I have no doubt that our vote numbers are possible, even probable, one can NEVER rule out the possibility that rocks may be right. We can be reasonably sure, but never 100%.
So here's what I say. As far as this discussion goes, it seems like Sean has figured out what can be figured out for now. Rocks has done a good deed by pointing out what he thought seemed like a flaw in the system. And if what he says about the voting patterns is true, then it certainly is a suspicious pattern. And Wreckies have declared their unfailing loyalty to the blog they love.
Results: official type people are looking into things. I can't ask for more, and I don't think anyone else can either. CakeWrecks is winning. Yay for us.
So let's stop the name calling, please, and act like adults.
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Post by popchex on Jan 12, 2009 22:27:55 GMT -5
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. This is faulty logic rocks - I'm in Australia - at 3am EST, it's about 6:30pm here, and I know I'm not the only one of my friends online at that time, or later. So that's at least...oh 8 of us that could be voting at that hour of the night in the US. I'm sure there are plenty of others out here who are doing the same.
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Post by cherry86 on Jan 12, 2009 23:12:03 GMT -5
I know that the only reason I even know about Cakewrecks and this competition is because I loyally read BoingBoing and they were featured a couple weeks ago (may have been sooner). Based on how many people look at BoingBoing and everything already said, I'm sure the majority of the votes are legit.
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Post by palidamors on Jan 13, 2009 1:34:26 GMT -5
UGH.. it took me like 5 minutes or something to register and get my authorization code and stuff before I could post here to say that I VOTED FOR CAKEWRECKS!!! Compared to the something like 5 seconds that it took me to click the one or two buttons that I needed to click to vote. I'm even on the weblogs site right now and I'm trying to find where I would even vote and I'm getting too lazy to keep looking. Unlike Cakewrecks which had the link directly to the page on where to vote. Also, I would have voted for it for best humor but since I couldn't, I voted for it for best humor food blog. And the websites listed in the best humor blog (which I FINALLY found)? Never heard of them.. but just by the name of them, they sound stupid so I wouldn't even probably go look at them. On the other hand, I look at Cakewrecks probably about 4 or 5 times a day when I'm conference calls and stuff because it's quick and it's funny.. and when I have time I go to old entries and I laugh so hard that my stomach hurts... Also I like failblog for that reason and if I had known there was some kind of blog award or whatever, I probably would have nominated both sites for the humor section. Seriously, Cakewrecks totally freaking cracks me up and I send the link to people all the time.. people who have a totally cracked sense of humor and LOVE it!!! The Sunday Sweets are nice and all and sometimes I'm all like, "Hey that looks cool." but really, I'm much more interested in the failures... I mean, I might never be able to make those fancy cakes but at least I can spell "It's a girl!!" Also, "Somewheres over the rainbow" made me choke. For real. Oh, AND... sometimes I wish I had more opportunities to order store bought cakes just so I could hope to find an actual wreck. Sadly, no wrecks to date. In addition... (I just can't seem to stop talking..) I also just looked at the names of the other blogs in the food section and really wasn't interested in looking at them. Except for maybe the foodie at 15 one. I'm pretty much a kitchen failure.. (I melted a pot once, you know) so I get off on other people's culinary failures.. And I know I said also a whole bunch of times.. whatever.
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Post by tracey1968 on Jan 13, 2009 1:42:36 GMT -5
Hi all I am yet another devoted CW fan that has registered purely to let everyone know that I am voting. I don't usually read blogs but I stumbled upon CW and spent nearly 2 hours reading everything on the site. At times I had tears streaming down my face from laughing so much. I have told everyone I know about this wonderful site. I have been thinking about the reason why I like CW. The best answer to that is its like reading the daily comics, every day I look forward to the next instalment. I never comment on the site just view what Jen has provided for us. I went to trouble of voting each day just so that this site gets the recognition that it deserves. It's not something I would normally do, I just really get a kick out of reading it each day. Oh and Jen and Jon, if you are ever in Australia, I'd love to have you both at my dinner table. Wreck On!
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Post by palidamors on Jan 13, 2009 1:55:00 GMT -5
oh and popchex said that she was voting from Australia and Tracey too which may account for some NorthAmerican late night votes.. I, however, am just a Northamerican night owl.. 11:54 here.
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Post by swaragirl on Jan 13, 2009 4:53:44 GMT -5
3:51 AM Dallas Time.
Placed my daily vote for Cake Wrecks!
Jen 8)
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