Published: July 7th 2023, 12:10:33 pm
I didn't really want to make this post, as I have had some suspicions of this for the past few months. But after checking through the voting data of my polls since the start of the year, I have reason to believe that someone or some people are rigging the polls.
Every month, the polls will play out in a very similar fashion. They will start, and a few characters will pull ahead and be relatively even. Then, all of a sudden, the morning after I post the poll, a certain character will receive a focused burst of votes, putting them far above the rest. Usually, it comes from the same few users every time. Said users will only vote for that one character, and whoever else they vote for usually is who gets 2nd place.
I have checked this trend for the last several polls and have been aware of it. But out of respect for my patrons and hoping for the best, I have said nothing. I hoped it was a simple coincidence. But it happened again yesterday morning, with a focused cluster of votes for Reiju. Then, another burst of focused votes today after Lightning got close to her. It has been one time too many to me that this trend has happened. And it has been far too consistent to pass off as a repeated coincidence.
The difficult part to me is deciding how to go about handling this. I don't wish to single those out who I suspect are doing this. But I realize I should do something as this becoming increasingly frustrating to me, and I don't think it is fair to the other patrons.
So, as of now, I am going to disqualify Reiju from this month's poll. Going forward, I think I will simply just make a monthly character suggestion thread and put the regular polls on break for a while. I'll maybe do them on occasion to help decide on characters I'm torn on drawing.
If that is a deal breaker for you as a patron, I totally understand. I don't blame you if you'd wish to opt out after this month. But I don't want to run my page thinking people are rigging what are supposed to be fun polls just so they can get pictures from me at a discount from my commission prices.
Maybe a more open, suggestion based format would work better for me on this page anyway. I'm still early on with this page, so maybe it's good to figure out and work these things out early on anyway.
Regardless, thank you for the support as always 💚