Hey gang. Our anti-spam mechanisms are numerous – we check the url against known spam blacklists, we do the same with user IP address, have a bank of “trigger phrases” in the title and description that are checked against a database, and we have a system called Askimet which many bloggers may be familiar with, too. And still, this morning, a couple of spam entries went through to publish, Twitter, Facebook etc. We weren’t on the site at that very moment, we were having some eggs. Seems we can’t eat spam for breakfast every day…
It seemed like a good moment to do a little more explaining on voting, what it does, and why we’ve incorporated it. The number to the right of a submission, see it? Well next to it are a blue arrow up and a red arrow down. Up votes the submission up, down votes the submission down, and changes that number. Here’s why you should vote:
1. Voting demonstrates what you think of a competition. Is the competition relevant? Running? Vote it up. Is the competition shady looking? Vote it down. Voting is a way for the community to moderate (very gently) the content as a democracy. Because the site is populated by compers and a few brands, all parties are interested in improving the experience for each other. So vote!
2. Voting earns you Karma. Don’t forget, lots of activities on the site earn you Karma, like submitting competitions, and commenting. So does voting!
3. Voting will eventually dictate where competitions appear. Because it’s early days, all competitions submitted go through to the “Published” section. The “Upcoming” section is empty. Eventually, as more people join and vote, submitted competitions will only reach Published and the front page after a certain number of votes, further improving the overall quality, by showing only the best competitions.
4. Voting can stop spam. The last, and possibly most important reason we implemented a voting system is that you, the user, can kill spam. If an entry gets 5 downvotes, it is marked as spam and removed from the system. This means spam, if it’s lucky enough to cheat its way through, can be killed right there and then, without needing to flag for a moderator.
So there are your reasons to vote. Reward yourself for reading this, by entering some competitions!