[prof1515]

Yes, ShadowsDawn summarized the problem quite well. I went on vacation to Europe for two months, then a third month spent touring around the state visiting some college buddies. While in Europe I wasn't in contact with people very much and despite bringing my laptop didn't always have easy internet access (my favorite has to be my hotel in Rome...they advertised as having internet access and when I asked if they had internet, I was told, "Si" and then he pointed across the street to an internet cafe). The other members of the committee have had their own work and family related stuff to deal with which I won't go into without their permission. Regardless to say, one has not had a good summer and the other has been very busy (one is also somewhat new to the committee having replaced another member who had issues in their life divert her time as well).

Having arrived back home about two weeks ago, I was trying to get the three of us organized and back on schedule when this domain problem crept up. I contacted Wade and we tried to deal with it quickly but godaddy seems to have had their own thoughts on the matter. Long story short, they won't let us renew or transfer it nor will they release the domain for repurchase. So, we're still trying to get one or the other but right now it's in limbo. For the time being though rpimud.genesismuds.com will take you to the website directly.

In regard to the voting, let me reiterate what was said on the forums and what ShadowsDawn has so kindly mentioned as well. Shortly after I left for Britain, she discovered a bug in the voting system. As I was in London, my time and attention was really distracted. I tried contacting the other members of the committee but it was only via email, not AIM since I wasn't online during the times they were (due to the time zone difference when I was at my hotel). I did finally speak with one of them and he looked it over and confirmed what we already knew from ShadowsDawn's testing: that it was possible to completely circumvent the one-vote-per-account. For some time, I had suspected this when I noticed suspiciously high numbers of votes while the numbers of those who had voted did not seem to indicate enough members voting to account for the totals shown.

Much earlier in the year, I had gone through every account and found that a good number of them were spambots. However, I had also noted several multiple accounts, many of which were voting on each account. I deleted these multiple accounts (and the spambots) and found a couple MUDs experienced a major drop-off in their voting indicating that cheating was likely occuring. I had not, however, done an account-by-account review since that time to ensure that the number of votes had exceeded the number of voters (as I was planning my vacation and didn't want to look over hundreds of accounts). I estimated however that we were still probably getting about 25% more votes than we had people voting (which I attributed at the time to some possibly suspicious accounts that I couldn't verify were indeed multiple accounts of some users).

The week after ShadowsDawn brought the issue to my attention, I spent a night at my hotel in Newcastle (was up visiting Hadrian's Wall for a week) going over the totals and confirmed that there were nearly 40% more votes than there were voters that week. Whether deliberate or not I can't say but the excess votes seem to have been directed at two, possibly three, MUDs in particular. I won't name which nor will I say definitively that they were engaging in deliberate cheating. Suffice to say, at least one of the MUDs was amongst the top three vote leaders (and had been one that I noticed suspicious figures in regard to earlier) which really skewers the question of which MUD was getting the most votes. Whatever the motives and circumstances, it was clear that the voting system was compromised and ShadowsDawn's tests had proven that the flaw was inherent in the system, not the result of a hack. My suspicions about the year's week-to-week totals confirmed, it was decided to discontinue the voting pending the site revamp. Therefore the vote reset was not carried out either.

When this domain issue is settled and we get back on track for the site revamp, the voting system will be undergoing some major changes. This will go beyond simply fixing this bug and will extend to how the rankings are displayed and organized. It's a slow process as everyone involved has other things to do with their lives in addition to the site (including working on or playing their respective MUDs of interest). We are also taking on additional committee members to help get things back on track.

Now that I'm back in the States and my life is returning to normal (*sigh* I miss Europe though) I'll be trying to get back in the spirit of posting updates on stuff. I also have my own site to deal with and we had a VERY BAD spambot attack while I was away which I have yet to deal with the repercussions of aside from having taken some of TSOY's forums offline. Like I said, lots of stuff to do....

Your patience is appreciated as the committee gets back in gear and tries to ready the site for its new look in time for the end of the year.

Thanks and take care,

Jason