Web contests are often motivated by the publicity they get for the group that runs the contents, and the advertising sold during the contest. So, aside from fairness issues, those groups rarely want to discourage voting.

#649, MrPete, great points all. A capcha in the process might help, but there is always a way around everything, but there is a practical limit to what someone will do to skew a meaningless web poll.

#650 >> Our tendency in almost all situations is to minimize our sense of the uncertainty levels

So true, and to maximize our sense of efficacy. The end result is: we’re certain that disaster is coming, and we know we did it. Human conceit.

* Distinguish human vs automated voting responses.
* Distinguish natural vs anthropogenic warming.
* Distinguish natural vs intelligenic evolution.
* Distinguish natural vs anthropogenic equipment failure.
* Distinguish natural vs medicated healing.

Our tendency in almost all situations is to minimize our sense of the uncertainty levels — if we calculate them at all. I.e., we think we know what’s going on. But that doesn’t mean we actually do. People tend to be predisposed to think we know what’s going on… whether we really do or not. The fact that we’re VERY bad at predicting the future ought to bring some humility…yet too often it does not. (Overall, could this explain why most older scientists tend to be a less vociferous lot–they’ve learned caution over the years?)

Because anyone with control over an email server can process an essentially infinite number of email addresses. Think of it qas reverse phishing.

A non-techie explanation: a common form of spammer attack is the “dictionary” attack: attempt to send emails to DictionaryWord@somwhere.com, where DictionaryName is every word in a dictionary.

I’ve seen blunt attacks: one per second from the same source, in alphabetical order. I’ve seen sophisticated versions: randomized, with random timing, from a dozen sources… but over time it becomes obvious [if you are looking] that the dozen sources are all pulling from a single dictionary.

Similar tools can be used to generate a million “email validated” votes — (automated, and random reply time) response to each and every verification email.

If a computer can be used to emulate ELIZA (sorry for the four decade old example!), this is a nit.

A good voting system must distinguish between votes from 1,000 people at ibm.com and 1,000 “people” at FakeBigCompany.com, both of which are behind good firewalls — and that’s a tough order.

http://download-east.oracle.com/docs/cd/B14117_01/server.101/b10759/queries007.htm

And get yourself a copy of Date’s book. It really is a gem of clarity.

oar knot