$$$ for WPI vote daily now in Vivint Round 2!

[jace]

The good news - It Gets Better votes are down below WPI votes yesterday. The bad news - WPI only got 600 votes, the lowest I've seen. Lets land that prize!

For interest, here is the battle for the $250,000 top prize. Note how they seem to go up and down together. It makes me wonder how they are doing it.

 

[eric_s]

Wow, Jace. That is indeed pretty remarkable, how they move in synch. I have no idea how that could be explained...

 

[eric_s]

With regards to the WPI votes, i don't feel good at all to see them go down. I think everybody should keep voting for them, especially if it doesn't mean these people have switched to the IACFS/ME. We will see when we get the stats.

We are looking good, but we are not there yet and it's not the time to let go already. Not before the contest is over. It would be a very bad time to look weak now!! We don't want It Gets Better or others to think they can catch up! So, if people have left, please come back.

 

[jace]

On the 11th, the Vivint site was very slow - you'll see IGB lost votes that day too, whereas the WPI voters were more dogged, and lost only a few. But that does not explain the way the top two charities seem to be joined at the hip over the whole fortnight. I haven't pulled out the figures from before this graph.

 

[eric_s]

Both are foundations, they're about a neurological illness where genes seem to be involved and the symptoms sound a bit similar (from their texts on Vivint). So maybe they have support from some big group or community that has split the vote between the two. Still i find it quite hard to imagine how they could move almost exactly the same. I think you would expect more differences, not that they go up or down on the same day, every day.

 

[eric_s]

Hmmm... now wait, this is really only speculation and i'm not saying that's what they are doing. But one thing that just came to my mind that could explain something like this is that the same people vote for both of these charities. One day a given person votes, the other day that person might not vote for whatever reason. If you vote for both of the two that would explain the pattern.

 

[Dolphin]

Hmmm... now wait, this is really only speculation and i'm not saying that's what they are doing. But one thing that just came to my mind that could explain something like this is that the same people vote for both of these charities. One day a given person votes, the other day that person might not vote for whatever reason. If you vote for both of the two that would explain the pattern.

Or you have two accounts and you give one to each of them each day??

 

[jace]

You could only do that by having two accounts.

I'm definitely a spreadsheet nerd now. I've just analysed the top six overall, and the interesting thing is that they all follow a similar pattern to the one that the two leaders set, excepting the WPI. The current drop in Cherubs votes is likely due to the appeal on their website to vote for Sanfillipino - see here: http://www.facebook.com/notes/cheru...nfilippo-instead-of-cherubs/10150411631075884

 

[eric_s]

Yes, that's what i meant.

 

[eric_s]

I think there's something fishy going on, after looking at this latest pic. We should think about things a bit (i'm having a hard time thinking right now, because it's hot here and i have a lot to take care of), but i feel like Vivint should look into what's going on here. All these groups moving in synch can't possibly be due to chance. There must be some sort of control and the most likely explanation to me seems to be multiple votes by the same person. It could be that many of these voters are casting the votes for family members and friends, then it would not really be cheating though.

 

[Sasha]

Could this pattern (which I agree is clearly nonrandom) just reflect something about how likely people in general are to vote on any given day, regardless of which charity they're voting for? I would expect a day-of-the-week effect (e.g. slower voting at the weekend), fewer votes on public holidays... trying to think of other possible things that would affect everybody.

One way of checking would be to see if it shows up in other charities who are getting large enough numbers of votes (around 1,000/day) to smooth out random variation. Perhaps the same pattern even shows up with the WPI!

 

[Dolphin]

(Just a theory) People might feel by voting for different organisations, it wouldn't get flagged up. It's not impossible to get a second account - indeed one of my siblings has more than one account (business and personal) but I like to play fair so we have only voted from one his accounts.

 

[eric_s]

Could this pattern (which I agree is clearly nonrandom) just reflect something about how likely people in general are to vote on any given day, regardless of which charity they're voting for? I would expect a day-of-the-week effect (e.g. slower voting at the weekend), fewer votes on public holidays... trying to think of other possible things that would affect everybody.

One way of checking would be to see if it shows up in other charities who are getting large enough numbers of votes (around 1,000/day) to smooth out random variation. Perhaps the same pattern even shows up with the WPI!

I don't think the day of the week can have such a strong smililar effect on different people. Seems rather improbable to me, because they move in synch almost every day. Yes, it would be interesting to compare to others. I don't expect to see the same pattern in the other charities, i guess it's just a group of charities whose vote is controlled by the same people in some way.

 

[Dolphin]

I doubt we're going to get all 5 groups ahead of us thrown out so I'm not going to look into it.

 

[SpecialK82]

POSSIBLE GAME CHANGER! Check out these stats for Aug 14 - Light & Love has lost 4,134 votes! How did that happen? Did the votes get disqualified? Could it have been a technical problem? If it was cheating, I would think the whole charity would have been disqualified, Oh boy, we need to do some investigating and determine if it's possible they could be eliminated! If so, we are only 3,000 behind 2nd place. Someone has a contact name and number for Vivint.....was it Helen?

WPI 58164 + 598 = 58762
Be Perfect 14815 + 80 = 14895
Surfer Healing 9264 + 37 = 9301
Hailey mayz 7514 + 35 = 7549
Next Gen 4422 + 6 = 4428
Invisible 5846 + 41 = 5887
Jumpstart 4178 + 8 = 4186
King Bellflower 4859 + 21 = 4880
Sean Vernon 3604 + 22 = 3626
Partner Living 2483 + 7 = 2490
Shared Hope 2937 + 5 = 2942
Austin's House 3067 + 26 = 3093
Trevor 1129 + 2 = 1131
Dream 1294 + 10 = 1304
Courage 1963 + 8 = 1971
Ameriface 1901 + 14 = 1915
Prader Willi CA 564 + 1 = 565
Gets Better 12475 + 508 = 12983
Tinnitus 394 + 0 = 394

IACFS/ME 771 + 73 = 844


Light & Love 30723 - 4134 = 26589
St John Hospital 11865 + 89 = 11954
ME/FM Action 8885 + 93 = 8978
Prader-Willi 7664 + 75 = 7739
Nightingale 389 + 2 = 391

 

[helen41]

WOW I did some hunting and couldn't find anything irregular, but I know a couple of people have worked very hard to see where the votes were coming from. As you say, this could be a game changer

 

[eric_s]

I doubt we're going to get all 5 groups ahead of us thrown out so I'm not going to look into it.

I think what matters if it really were people voting through multiple accounts would be wheter these are fake accounts or wheter there is a person behind every account that is ok with the voting. If the accounts are real, then probably they are doing the same like some of us, only maybe on a larger scale. And if we told Vivint about it, it might backfire. So it's a bit tricky. We are not cheating, at least not as far as i know, but we should probably think well before telling Vivint to look into something that might make them question our voting as well.

 

[glenp]

There is still concern as to whether light and love and home Vancouver is actually local - most of their money is distributed globally - they have local offices and a small amount is spent locally. I am still voting ME/FM National on the presumption that light and love home Vancouver may be disqualified on the grounds that it is not actually local

glen

 

[eric_s]

But do the rules actually say a participant has to be local? The way i remember it they don't.

 

[glenp]

Grey

Each charity is for their region so it is a grey area. Light and love Vancouver's donations are being used globally and not much to the Canada region. The Vancouver office is an affiliate.

glen