RE: [eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee] Possible vote rigging

["Tim Wagner" <twagner@xxxxxxx>]

John Graham has already extended apologies on behalf of Sybase for their
marketing department's "aggressive" use of the voting system. We
discussed this on one of the PC telecons last year.

The votes on the list below didn't influence PC thinking - we solicited
DTP's own input as a top-level project for two talks that would
represent it, and including one talk for the nascent STP project made
sense - I suggested that myself, and without reference to the community
votes.

In general we used community votes in a number of ways, including tie
breaking and as a sanity check to ensure we weren't missing important
topics or speakers, but not as a replacement for critical thinking about
the program content. A reasonably strong correlation between highly
voted talks and selected talks should be expected if the PC is
representative of the community at large (and, exceptions aside, the
votes fairly represent community interest).

I would support putting some policies in place next year to guide
behavior - e.g., asking people to use their professional email addresses
rather than hiding identities, asking that marketing departments not get
involved, insisting that only users of Eclipse can participate, etc. But
there's a fine line between a marketing department getting random people
to vote and a presenter asking his colleagues to support his effort...it
will never be possible to completely circumscribe what's acceptable
behavior without a formal restriction (like committership or conference
registration).


-----Original Message-----
From: eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Paul M Vanderlei
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 3:39 AM
To: mike.milinkovich@xxxxxxxxxxx; Eclipsecon Program Committee list
Subject: RE: [eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee] Possible vote
rigging

I agree completely with Mike on this. I appreciate the information Ed
has
gathered. To me, it just tells us to ignore the votes on those
submissions
and evaluate them on their own merits. That was sort of the approach I'd
been taking all along.

Paul VanderLei
Embedded Java Enablement Team
1750 Ridgemoor SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49506
616.975.1985
pvlei@xxxxxxxxxx

"I don't see architecture coming from you." -Jerry Seinfeld



Sunday, January 08, 2006 10:53 PM
To: "'Eclipsecon Program Committee list'"
<eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee@xxxxxxxxxxx>
cc:
From: "Mike Milinkovich" <mike.milinkovich@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: [eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee] Possible vote
rigging




IMHO my general feeling is that you guys are taking these votes
waaaayyyyy
too seriously.

The idea is that this program is being run as an open source project.
You
are the committers. That means you make the decisions. The votes are an
interesting data point, but I really hope that you're not just using the
voting mechanism to drive the decision making process. As one of many
decision inputs --- great. As *the* decision criteria --- bad.


> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee-bounces@eclip
> se.org] On Behalf Of Ed Burnette
> Sent: January 8, 2006 9:45 PM
> To: Eclipsecon Program Committee list
> Subject: [eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee] Possible
> vote rigging
>
> I have reason to believe that votes for the following
> submissions have been falsely inflated:
>
> #1  130   Data Tools Platform Project Tutorial (*)
> #2  187   Building Integrated Help for a Commercial
> Eclipse Product
> #4  199   Data Tools for Rich Clients (*)
> #6  207   Implementing SQL Debugger using Eclipse Debug framework
> #3  234   Extending Eclipse WTP to Build Commercial
> Development Product
> #5  235   STP Project Overview (*)
>
> The ones marked with (*) have already been accepted, partly
> because of the number of votes we thought they received. The
> ranking in overall community votes is shown on the left. As
> you can see these are the top 6 vote getters. They all
> received 37 or more votes, while #7 received 28 votes.
>
> Most or all of the votes on these entries are suspicious. As
> evidence of this, consider the large number of accounts that
> voted for these exact same 6 submissions. The odds that that
> so many people would independently vote for the same 6 items
> are astronomical. Bogus votes make it hard for us to say
> which submissions were actually wanted by the community.
>
> The PC needs to decide what to do about it, from doing
> nothing, to erasing the votes we suspect are bogus and
> re-evaluating, to automatically disqualifying all 6 entries.
> I mean, we all knew there was a little ballot stuffing with
> people asking their buddies to vote for things, but this is
> beyond the pale. A strong response might discourage this sort
> of thing in the future.
>
> Here's a list of 30 email addresses that voted for the the
> exact same 6 submissions listed above:
>
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=ajay.telang@xxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=barbara.schott@xxxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=col1kid@xxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=danny.janssens2@xxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=duquetteb@xxxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=fishboneml@xxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=franklopez2000@xxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=fricke@xxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=garyrstu-web@xxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=gibbonsp@xxxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=haroldwmason@xxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=info@xxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=jdunrue@xxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=Kimberlytroupe@xxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=kwringe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=laniyuen@xxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=louise_kirby@xxxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=marckaneko@xxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=mercer116@xxxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=naeem_maqsud@xxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=nikki15161@xxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=pat_e@xxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=pauld_ec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=prince1968@xxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=prwhalen@xxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=sheila.fraser2@xxxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=sujayshetty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=susan38xs@xxxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=the.kesslers@xxxxxxx
>
> And here are 3 more accounts that voted for the 6 listed
> above plus number 245. (submission number 245 looks ok though):
>
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=emdelaney@xxxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=jwhite@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://canuck.gda.itesm.mx/eclipsezilla/votes.cgi?action=show_
> user&user=ysmalinowski@xxxxxxxxxxx
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