If you have not noticed already, the scores of people in the top 25% of the standings have been fluctuating - some wildly.  The reason for the movement is our latest reaction to recent attempts to influence the standings of the competition through the submission of false votes.

In the past it has been enough for us to simply delete the fraudulent votes.  After some discussions with the other producers we have decided it is time to take additional action.

We have detected everything from a rotating IP robo-voting script (and yes, we have identified the male contestant who deployed it) that was submitting thousands of votes each day to the individual user clickon on their own vote button every hour or so.

Please remember that you may only vote once per audition per day.  From this point forward any use of automated voting tools will result in the disqualification of the contestant who deploys the tool.  We have very detailed usage logs from this website, as well as several others that are frequented by video internet marketers.  Further, we have received reports from active contestants who have named the names of people who are influencing the voting system and the methods they are using to do so.

There are still fraudulent votes in the system, and they are being detected and rooted out every day.  The top 10 is pretty pure at this point.  If you are hell bent on cheating, please remember that every single vote is going top be inspected by human eyes before ANYONE is selected for the show.  You will eventually be caught, even if you make it to the end.

The sad thing is that some of the best videos that were submitted were submitted by less than ethical people.  I was personally saddened to learn that some of my favorites that were doing so well did not belong in the top 10 at all.

This is the final warning that I will send on this matter.  No one wants to work with a dishonest teammate, and there is no room for cheaters on our show.

This isn’t a fun post to have to write, but we knew things like this would happen eventually.  We have our first confirmed case of robo-voting by a contestant.

Robo-voting is using a piece of software to cast large volumes of votes through our website on behalf of an audition video.

I am not going to disclose the name of the contestant involved - we are not even informing that contestant directly.  They know what they have done.  Over 649 perfect ‘10′ votes - by far exceeding the audition’s Revver views - were cast for their audition video within a 10 minute period.

We have purposefully been vague about the countermeasures we have in place on the website to detect vote fraud because the less we divulge about our detection methods, the more difficult it is to defeat them.

This contestant has LOST all 649 votes that were cast on their audition video during that period.  We have chosen not to disqualify this contestant at this point, even though the show’s terms clearly allow us to do so.

We want this to stand as an example to those who feel they need to cheat to get on the show.  Our system logs all activity, compiles that data and analyzes it for trends.  Don’t even try to game the system.  You will be caught.

Situations like this complicate our job because we understand that if the integrity of our voting system is compromised, the entire show is compromised.  Fraudulent actions force our coders to do work that closes loopholes rather than adding new functionality to our website.  It’s not fun for anyone involved to put it bluntly.

In the coming week we will be installing new anti-flood countermeasures as well.  These new anti-flood measures will prevent mass voting by any single person.  That means that even if you decide to robo-vote, you won’t receive the benefit of those votes at all - not even for an afternoon.

To reiterate, you are allowed to vote for your own audition video once every 24 hours.  People who vote on your audition video can vote for you once every 24 hours.

For those of you who are honest and playing by the rules, I’m sorry you had to read this.  Thank you for your integrity.