Originally Posted by toxinologist

Hi Folks,

I want to thank everyone once again for all their support in this contest. It is now on the final straight and will be over at 11:59 pm Singapore time on 31 January - check to see how this translates to your own local time (the UK is 8 hrs behind Singapore for example, so the UK cutoff will be 3.59pm) if you are going to post last minute votes...

A number of people have been monitoring the voting for the last couple of weeks, and there appears to be a very clear pattern emerging that involves the other main competitor pulling in very large numbers of votes, very quickly, at extremely unusual times.

Last night for example he posted 530 votes between midnight & 3:00 am (Islamabad local time) and another 690 votes between 3:00-5:35 am. Interestingly the first Muslim morning prayer session (Fajr) started in Pakistan at 5:40 am today...

On the 28th January he posted 395 votes between midnight and 01:20 am, followed by another block of 295 votes between 5:00-6:30 pm that same day... in between he got only 10 votes - during the middle of the Pakistani working day.

It seems highly unlikely that these sudden bursts of voting, mostly very late at night could be the result of hundreds of random people accessing the site and deciding to vote for the same guy. What is much more likely is that he and few family/friends are mass-registering email addresses and then submitting large blocks of votes at time when they think nobody is likely to notice a sudden rise...

This has tempted some people to suggest that my supporters should do the same, but I would like to ask that nobody do this, because it may result in votes being disqualified later by the promoters.

A lot of herpers from all over the world have cast votes for me in the past month or so, and it would be a terrible shame all that went to waste, if over-enthusiasm or frustration at what appears to be blatant cheating by someone else, caused someone to do the same, and thereby jeopardized my own entry.

All we can do is play fair, and trust the promoters to check the validity of the votes after the contest finishes tomorrow night. They won't be declaring a winner until the 14th February, so I am sure they intend to sure those two weeks to compare email addresses to IP or MAC addresses on the originating emails, and if that is the case I am confident that any cheating will be uncovered.

Even if it seems unfair, please don't be tempted to copy the competition's tactic. I am sure that there is some leeway to allow for family members who share a computer using the same machine to vote, but I am pretty sure than the Holiday Inn will end up disqualifying votes if they find 10 or more email addresses all originating from the same IP or MAC address.

Cheers, and once again, thanks for all your support.


David Williams
David Williams' Australian Herpetology ONLINE - Entry Portal
AVRU - Research Area


20
20.0

Originally Posted by tigersnake

Hi all,
Just went online and voted. As part of his work in Papua New Guinea, David Williams published a guide to treatment for health workers and doctors called " Venomous Bites and Stings in Papua New Guinea".
I would highly recommend it to anybody interested in venoms and envenoming.
All the best,
Brian.

Originally Posted by pythondave82

i have this book its fantastic

Originally Posted by DeanThorpe

trying to vote but waiting on an email to confirm registration.... its taking ages.