Vote for your favorite board - vBulletin Board of the Month - December

**smackLAN** · Sat 8 Dec '07, 10:26am

Wow...and the "longtime" vbulletin members that never seem to post here until an Arab site is in the running for this contest (if that sounds anti-arab, tough...we have a saying where I live..."It is what it is") are still out in droves. Scott, I had no problems with the translation and I doubt Mr. Aljawariss's assertion of his innocence but it's your contest to let continue to be run in the ground.

**Vile** · Sat 8 Dec '07, 1:20pm

I think it's a shame that this simple, fun contest has turned into this and has resulted in ballot stuffing and I would also like www.mgforums.com to be removed from the list.

Thank you to those that voted and showed your support for out site, and perhaps we'll be nominated in the soon future.

**Diamond777** · Sat 8 Dec '07, 3:59pm

Originally posted by vanpelt

Lol, I rest my case.

I don't know what are you loling at !!

Did I tell a joke!! I see no one loled at any reply

When I voted to aljawariss. , It wasn't because of race or religion as other have said , I like the design and that's it . Other boards didn't attract my attention like wetalk.tv just tell me where is the creativity in it with respect to Mr. Floris .( except planet-flipside.com if there was another pick I will chose it)

After reading all replies ,I felt as if we are sitting at a court and there is someone who is awaiting sentencing if guilty or not because others voted for him.

Can other copetitors swear that they didn't ask their friends to vote for them secretly !!! Who knows!!!

let's turn scales , if wetalk.tv or any other board has got the top percent, that will be fair and no one will complain, but as it is aljawariss arab board , this is unfair , isn't it?

Anyways, wish luck to all of you .

**Floris** · Sat 8 Dec '07, 4:12pm

It has nothing to do with it being an Arab board. Don't turn this into something it isn't. Leave me out of your issue please, I am not part of it.

**vanpelt** · Sat 8 Dec '07, 4:56pm

Originally posted by Diamond777

When I voted to aljawariss. , It wasn't because of race or religion as other have said , I like the design and that's it . Other boards didn't attract my attention like wetalk.tv just tell me where is the creativity in it with respect to Mr. Floris .( except planet-flipside.com if there was another pick I will chose it)

After reading all replies ,I felt as if we are sitting at a court and there is someone who is awaiting sentencing if guilty or not because others voted for him.

Can other copetitors swear that they didn't ask their friends to vote for them secretly !!! Who knows!!!

let's turn scales , if wetalk.tv or any other board has got the top percent, that will be fair and no one will complain, but as it is aljawariss arab board , this is unfair , isn't it?

Anyways, wish luck to all of you .

Yeah, aljawariss.com has a nice design, but you signed up and voted after being urged to do it on that thread over at aljawariss.com. That is against the rules and is what is called ballot box stuffing. Post after post on that thread says something like 'I have voted for you, good luck' after the first post urged people to do it. I could have emailed all my family and friends and asked them to vote for my board here because a 'board of the month' accolade would have been good for us, and they would have done it out of loyalty. Is that fair? Is that judging a board on it's merits? Nope.

As to it being a racial issue about being an arab board, the people over there seem to be turning it into a racial issue themselves. It looks as if some people were urging on voters to vote for the arab board over there for religious and racial reasons, including a comment about the 'Jewish' board wetalk.tv. (unfortunately, it seems, intended as a slur) Are they Jewish? I don't know. And if they are, who cares? It has nothing to do with the design or the functionality of their site, which is what this competition is all about.

The ballot box stuffing I could have dealt with, as really, this is only a competition and not a life or death situation, but the racial and religious implications smearing this competition really are distasteful and we don't want anything more to do with it.

**Ghassan** · Sat 8 Dec '07, 4:57pm

Voted aljawariss.net

**Ozscot** · Sat 8 Dec '07, 5:09pm

Originally posted by Diamond777

I don't know what are you loling at !!

Did I tell a joke!! I see no one loled at any reply

When I voted to aljawariss. , It wasn't because of race or religion as other have said , I like the design and that's it . Other boards didn't attract my attention like wetalk.tv just tell me where is the creativity in it with respect to Mr. Floris .( except planet-flipside.com if there was another pick I will chose it)

After reading all replies ,I felt as if we are sitting at a court and there is someone who is awaiting sentencing if guilty or not because others voted for him.

Can other copetitors swear that they didn't ask their friends to vote for them secretly !!! Who knows!!!

let's turn scales , if wetalk.tv or any other board has got the top percent, that will be fair and no one will complain, but as it is aljawariss arab board , this is unfair , isn't it?

Anyways, wish luck to all of you .

If Aljawariss had won in a competition which was based on the relative merits of the board no one would have been more delighted than myself. The internet is dominated by English speaking sites and that is unfortunate (IMO) as many, many foreign language sites (foreign to me that is) are wonderful in their design, content and originality. My complaints have been on what you have been doing, and the basis on which you have been voting for Aljawariss which has NOTHING to do with the spirit of the competition. My complaints have nothing, and had nothing, to do with Aljawariss being an 'Arab' board - until it's supporters made it such an issue. Can't you see that? I maybe the main protagonist here but I can assure you my only interest is in fair play and the best board winning - (And that may indeed be Aljawariss!!) but that will never be known because of the nature of the voting you have deployed!

So what will you have learned after all this? You will have learned that cheating can indeed bring results - I dare say anyone could have told you that prior to entry, but some of us have more integrity, more interest in seeing people justly rewarded for their efforts. I would suggest that the voters for Aljawariss have actually done it a dis-service and have rendered any victory a shallow and hollow one, when in actual fact Aljawariss could have been a refreshingly original winner.

Congratulations.

Ozscot
http://www.planet-flipside.com/

**Floris** · Sat 8 Dec '07, 6:04pm

WeTalk.TV is not a jewish board. Our staff is from NL, UK, CA, US. And have various believes (or none). It's not a jewish community - it's about tv shows

I do not speak Arabic so can't read for sure if that's what they implied the site is. So I can't judge on that.

**vanpelt** · Sat 8 Dec '07, 7:11pm

But the whole point is that it doesn't matter whether or not the board is Jewish - even if it were, it should be judged on the competition criteria, not on it's nationality or religion, so really, you didn't have to justify at all which nationality your board is! It is a good design, and the large amount of (unbiased) votes reflects that.

**Jose Amaral Rego** · Sun 9 Dec '07, 9:17am

I already voted and do see why other vote for other, even if the board looks just badly coded and full of ads.

Why not just have vote for judges and we can nominate them, then let them follow some guidelines and they will have to post why they selected that site and vote.

This will complicate things, as you would have to create a forum and those who are jugdes will have acces to vote within that thread, then merge the poll thread.

**Ozscot** · Sun 9 Dec '07, 2:48pm

Originally posted by s.molinari

Hello Ozscot,

Please read my post again. I said I COULD imply anti-arab feelings in some of the posts. But, I didn't and I don't. Just as I cannot imply that what I am reading in those online translations on the arab site is anti-semitism or rallying. It is only an implication. I cannot make a judgement on implications. That is my point. If you don't want to understand that, that is your choice. If you want to judge that thread for showing anti-semitism or rallying you can do that too. I'm not and I am not going to discuss it anymore.

Other boards have won this contest because of its fan base. This is the same situation in my opinion. If being a fan is the reason for voting, then so be it. The guide lines say, you can vote for a board for ANY reason you like.

Again, Aljawariss may be telling the truth or he could be completely lying. I can't prove he is guilty of rallying, so he is innocent in my book.

It always blows my mind how seriously people take this contest sometimes. It is a "board of the month" contest. Jeez!

Scott

Ok let's get a few things straight here Mr Molinari - You said you can't find anti-arab sentiment in the posts here - so why did you raise the issue? Why are you creating problems where previously there were none? You have just about everyone who has looked at the matter objectively saying there is a clear violation of the rules? So why have you not acted? You have two boards requesting their removal from the poll - one at least has done so for four or five days now - why haven't you acted? There have been calls based on the EVIDENCE to suspend this months poll - why haven't you acted? If Aljawariss had 'broken no rules' then why did they find it necessary to delete the thread where they were discovered 'rallying'? And why haven't you acted upon that? Essentially Mr Molinari you appear incapable of making decisions, even though the people who put their boards forward in good faith are having the integirty of their operations undermined...it would appear that your 'Board of the Month' means more to you than the goodwill and integrity of those participating.

Personally I'm disgusted that you have allowed us to continue to appear in it after repeated requests for our removal....AND AFTER YOU SAID YOU WOULD DO SO....but then your administration of this contest appears to be typified by inactivity doesn't it?

I would suggest that you can't see the bigger 'moral and ethical' picture when you describe it as just a 'board of the month' - and maybe that's why you have done so little to right the obvious wrongs?

Ozscot

I would suggest that in the same way Aljawariss has been tarnished

**Jose Amaral Rego** · Sun 9 Dec '07, 3:07pm

Ozscot, you do realize that s.molinari just comes here to start Board of The Month and does not need to be criticize for his action/inactions. It just basic guidelines for a badge of honor and nothing really can stop ballot stuffing (florida), as it is not easy to prove. Many of the Staff already mentions in this forum and other threads that they may revamp how one may win this honor or they will just scrap it.

**simsim** · Mon 10 Dec '07, 9:00am

Regarding DEC '07 BOTM contest

[This post was originally submitted here, however, this thread was re-opened by someone so here it belongs again.]

Hello,

I'm an Arabic vBulletin user. However, I may confidently claim that I'm quite acquainted, in general, with both the Arabic vBulletin-related network of sites & the corresponding English-based one. I will try to spell out some constructive explanations & criticism about what have been raised here by both users & staff members.

It has become in a while clearly apparent that the kind of conflict of interest we're dealing with here only happens when an Arabic-language board is being nominated for BOTM contest. This has always resulted in a mass voting (& commenting) process for that board, causing an inflated vote count in the eyes of other contestants, which would then outnumber those of any other nominated board, leading the Arabic board to winning the BOTM contest at the end of the poll period.

Also the sudden emergence of non-frequent vbulletin.com visitors (albeit formerly registered & verified) has been raising questions and/or accusations of calling for vote & rallying campaigns led by the nominated boards' admins on their own sites or on other Arabic vB-related sites, which is, of course, not allowed according to the BOTM guidelines.

I just want to remind everyone that there is NOT a bullet-proof judgment that one could make every time such conflict arises. It could be possibly rallying (and it did happen in the past), & it could be a perfectly legal & normal voting process. Therefore, every case should be investigated independently, regardless of any other reason.

One thing that many people here aren't aware of, is how hugely popular vBulletin is, in the Arab region. Actually the phenomenon of online communities itself is very much praised & celebrated due to many socio-political reasons. There, online forums play greater roles in encouraging people to practice freedom of expression & civic dialogue wherein it's almost impossible outside cyberspace, to the extent that to many of these people, a website is, by definition, a forum, which is in most cases is powered by vBulletin. While there may not be any accurate statistics of the number and capacity of vBulletin Arabic-based forums, it would suffice – for the purpose of this discussion, to take the site TRAIDNT as an example, which is the one on which a post about Aljawariss nomination had been posted before its deletion. That forum has over 6 million posts & between 5,000 - 10,000 concurrent online users at any given time in the day; an activity that exceeds that of all the vB-related original network of sites combined together.

So, even if a nominee abides by the rules, and posted a topic announcing their entrance of the competition without any attempt to fire up a rallying campaign (according to the guidelines), the traffic that such a thread would generate is huge, and taking into account that other similar threads may have been posted in other Arabic vB-related websites just adds to the sum, meaning in simple math that tens or even hundreds of registered & verified customers would chime in to vote for their favourite board. In the above explained process, everything is legal and abides by the rules because:

A board owner is allowed to post about his or her board nomination; provided he or she does not involve in any from of rallying.
A voter may vote for whatever reason he or she thinks the nominated board is worth voting for. From the guidelines:

The person voting may judge a board on his or her own personal criteria. So what makes a board worth voting for is up to each individual voter. Comments as to why or why not a person votes for a board are welcome as long as the comments are constructive in nature

Now, I would like to explain some of the underlying criteria about those who come here to vote for an Arabic vB-related board:

First thing to be known is that this kind of conflict always only happens when a board about vBulletin software or equally a well-known member on such forums nominate their vB-related (or unrelated) forum for the competition, regardless of whether it's an Arabic forum or not. Back in September's BOTM of this year, the online forums of Qatar University, a well-established Arabic forum, entered the competition and got only 3 votes (including mine). No rallying accusations or racial suspicions were thought of, although it's remarkable to notice that it was a board about vBulletin software that won the competition. IMO, it's the tech-savvy & vB-interested characteristics of those people that play an important role in driving them in here, not any other imaginary Anti-Jewish or anti-Christian Islamic crusade.
People who come to vote in here do not visit this forum, do not lurk around it and do not even care about it; they're mostly energetic & talented chaps who have their own vBulletin support worlds. And it is quite obvious from their comments that English language isn't one of their strong points. They have very low post count but they're longtime registrants at the forums, contrary to what have been mentioned earlier in the original thread. It's just the language factor (alongside cultural factors of course) that prevent many of them who are extremely enthusiastic & excited about vBulletin from regularly participating in these forums in order to be recognized by the whole community here, & hence, deduce their innocence of any rallying attempts. And if someone here is asking why do they register in the first place then? The answer is just to legalize their licenses' status & guarantee the minimal level of support from Jelsoft. In fact, most of them have acquired their licenses through a fairly complicated reselling form of business which Jelsoft is quite aware of as it helps the company reduce & the high volumes of pirated copies of vBulletin that are spread among the extended Arabic vBulletin community.

We also have to admit that there is some cultural motivation going behind. However, I assure everyone here it never has anything to do with any form of racial discrimination or extreme religious beliefs whatsoever. The only & true motive has always been the ability to prove the Arabs' expertise of vBulletin & technological advancement in general. Topics that hold the news of an Arabic vB forum being nominated for BOTM, have always been carried under the motto of "Let's prove them our skills" or "Let's vote to have our beloved forum emplaced amongst the top international vBulletins", even in cases where rallying had actually taken place. While some people here might even argue (rightfully) against such motives, I think it's a cultural difference that is far beyond the ability to control, neither by operators of this contest nor by admins of those nominated boards. I guess it's something similar to those motives driving people to private message staff members here asking for support or more notoriously begging for an ETA for the next vBulletin release despite all the rules, warnings, signature notices & announcements made against such behaviors! To me personally, I don't see it affecting the fairness of BOTM contest nor does it break any guideline.

With all that being said, there happened to be, regretfully, rallying campaigns led by admins of Arabic boards before. These admins should learn to adhere to fair play and not rely on others' ignorance of Arabic language to exploit votes for their own favors. They also need to constantly educate themselves & their userbase about respecting rules & abiding by them.

Just before concluding this massive post with some suggestions, and for the sake of this particular contest, I would like to state, from my own point of view & after claiming full responsibility of what I'm saying, that a rallying attempt did take place during the contest of this month. From what I've understood from various posts on several boards, the owner & admin of Aljawariss forums was extremely offended by Scott's comment on post #2 on the voting thread:

Hmmm.

Aljawariss just killed my Explorer.

It was interpreted by him as an innuendo made by Scott to derogate his forum & promote Floris's by asking him to post the poll of nominated boards, and hence, he decided to run a rallying campaign to counterbalance the damage Scott has made to his board's perception in the eyes of voters.

While I personally wouldn't question Scott's intentions based on that type of commentary, others might not, especially when they belong to a different cultural atmosphere and don't participate on these forums to have better judgment on people's intentions. Moreover, and with all due respect to Scott, I do believe that it was rather unprofessional of him to address a small problem on his side (his Explorer) by blaming it publicly on someone else's website which they run all the time using that same Explorer, let alone that the website was actually on the list of nominated boards.

Irrespectively, that does not justify at all breaking the rules. A simple PM to Scott asking for removal of that comment would have sufficed. One could even go wild (again rightfully) & request discontinuation of the contest, but correcting a surmised mistake with another is as worse as committing it in the first place.

I would have PMed Alwafi, Aljawariss forum's owner, asking him friendly to step back & let other boards compete for this month's BOTM; however I strongly believe he has put himself in a situation where he would turn deaf ears to me if I did so. I don't know him in personal, and definitely I've nothing against him. I just want to force integrity for this contest, as I've seen every contestant here showing higher degrees of respectfulness & goodwill toward each other & firmly denying any racial or religious motives behind their stance. The staff members has also shown a great deal of responsibility & refused to make any further decisions based on doubtful machinery translations or pure speculations.

Now, I have some suggestions that I hope staff would consider:

Scott has suggested the contest to be held among boards of official distributors' languages. I don't think this is a well-thought of suggestion. It would put bad taste in mouths of hundreds of thousands of vBulletin users across the world, and may lead to serious damage for Jelsoft's image & reputation. I suggest that you do quite the opposite: spreading the word about BOTM contest to a wider audience, inviting them to take an active role in the nomination & voting processes. Since vbulletin.com is now running 3.7, you could make a use of the new "Navbar Notices" feature to invite people on the official communities of vb.com, vb.org & distributors to take part in the contest.
Adjusting the rules as follows:
1. A board owner may post about his nomination only on the nominated board itself, not on any other board he owns or participates in.
2. Restricting initial nominations to only owners of boards or personnel directly involved with their boards (e.g. admins, moderators, etc.), provided they do so under prior knowledge & agreement of owners.
3. Requesting a mandatory brief review of the nominated board, based on ready-made list of criteria. Something like:

Board name:

(Write what does it mean? And why you chose that name?)

Board theme:
(Write a brief description of what your board is all about)

Board stats:
(When the board was started? How many members, threads, posts & concurrent users at any given time does it have?)

Graphical Design:
(Describe the various aspects of your board's visual design)

Board content:
(Describe the perceived value of your board's content)

Nomination:
(Describe why you think your board is worth nominating for this month's BOTM)

Such simple review, once provided by nominees should greatly improve nominators & voters awareness of elements of strength & weakness in every board, which would lead to a better decision making process & would rise up the value of the contest in general. Reviews should be reposted in the voting thread or at least linked to from the nomination thread.

Some other considerations here & there should be also taken care of. For example, the list of nominated boards should be posted in alphabetical or other neutral order in the voting thread. "Why wetalk.tv is being put before aljawariss.net?" type of questions may very simply get asked. The guidelines should be posted in both nomination & voting threads. And so on..

I hope that for the goodwill of this contest, every involved party takes their responsibility & act respectively in a way as to come for a better & fair competition.

**Ohiosweetheart** · Mon 10 Dec '07, 9:56am

I thought this was the voting thread... this isn't really the place for a big long post such as the one above, nor for all this fighting. Do it on another thread.

**simsim** · Mon 10 Dec '07, 10:37am

I don't think you've read the whole post, which I didn't write out of making fun. There's a violation of rules dispute going on this contest and there is no reason in continuing it if the dispute is not resolved. Two of the contestants have already withdrawn their boards out of the competition. We're waiting for other involved parties to react respectively, or otherwise the staff will force a final decision.