Something something something... Goat... Something something something... Nomination Thread November 2016...

@PlacidPenguin you can elect me if it will make you happy but November is going to be a really bad month for me in terms of my free time so don’t expect much. Sorry in advance!

@jbartus

I won’t be here anyways in all likelihood. My nominating you is more of a statement than anything else.

@PlacidPenguin that’s A-Okay.

@jbartus

Must we try this again? This was tried two times already, both times ending in failure.

@PlacidPenguin

There may have been a 3rd time. I’m just not in the mood of checking.

@jbartus
@PlacidPenguin
@Shrdlu
@Shrdiu
Hasn’t @PlacidPenguin already been a goat under another “non de plume”?

PS the Bobby Riggs voting has begun.

I am sorry to have noticed that both “@shrdlu” (with a lowercase “L”) and “@shrdiu”(with i capital “I” of course) have voted for @PlacidPenguin.

Shrdlu
ShrdIu
(That’s how they look. The first one has an “L”, lowercase. The second one has an “i”, uppercase.)

@PlacidPenguin
/image try try again paws?

I’m not voting for you, though … at least not this time.

@f00l @jbartus

There’s also @looseneck and @Iooseneck

And earlier I saw @conandlibrarian and @conandIibrarian.

@PlacidPenguin @f00l @jbartus

Not to mention @therealjrn and @thereaIjrn

@PlacidPenguin That wasn’t me! Who’s playing tricks? Someone is in the holiday spirit.

@PlacidPenguin someone tried to steal my name??

/giphy blasphemy

@f00l I just took my vote off the two candidates I’d voted for. I really hate cheating. It shows a lack of character, and a certain cowardice as well. Really, what kind of thug picks on a sweet little old lady?

I’ll stab them with my hairpins, or perhaps pull out all the stops, and call on my two friends, Smith and Wesson.

/image smith wesson 9m

There can be only one… Barney.

@Barney
/giphy purple triumph

@Shrdlu
@PlacidPenguin

Someone clever (aka likes to hide under a rock) is “funnin’ us”. Ha ha.

Would be cute, except that instead of being a funny joke, it messes up the vote. Now if anyone with a uid that contains capital o, or i, perhaps some other letters decides to vote, that vote has to be decoded to find out if it’s a real vote or one from some would-be prankster with too many accounts. Same with a vote from someone whose uid contains 0(zero), or lowercase L and there are perhaps some other letters that can be confused.

Someone 'fessed up somewhere, tho perhaps that was a pretend confession and should be ignored.

@PlacidPenguin: you know who does what on staff. Who on staff do we contact to see if the “hover font” that’s used when we check on who voted for a comment can be changed to something more clear to the eye re confusing letters?
Having this fixed would be loverly.

@f00l @galmaegi

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I just have names, I don’t have positions.

@PlacidPenguin
You have any idea who on staff might have influence to advocate for staff to come up w a tech solution to this (even if not a coder themself)?

@f00l

If I did, I’d have contacted that person by now.

Especially since @mikibell just got “copied”.

@f00l

I’d bug @shawn, but he’s “preoccupied” with something else at the moment.

@jbartus
If I remember the media record of the last 40 years or so, neither the Republican nor the Democratic candidate needed any help from any person or from any known phenomena in convincing themselves to run.

“Candidates who lack personal ambition” is not an election issue this year.

@PlacidPenguin @jbartus

@lrk
Hello, fake one.

@PlacidPenguin having been tried before means nothing.

That said, in light of the fraud going on, I am officially boycotting the scapegoat ‘program’ and will not participate in any form, be it nominator, nominee, or scapegoat elect until this issue is rectified to my satisfaction.

My nomination is hereby retracted and let it be known that you may elect me but you can’t force me to play along. Fix the fraud or leave me out.

To whatever fucking asshole has decided to ruin a fun thing by corrupting it, fuck you. This would have been the kind of joke that’s funny once if you fessed up last month when you pulled this bullshit but having failed to do so it has been rendered into a twice warmed over pile of shit.

Whoever you are you really need to get a clue and retract all of the illegitimate votes. If you have any self-respect you’d do week to make a public apology as well but I won’t bank on that one.

@jbartus

According to @Ignorant, it’s 2 different people. Last month was him, this month isn’t.

@PlacidPenguin ok then good on @Ignorant for fessing up. Whoever is doing it this time is apparently too dense to recognize a “funny once” type of joke.

@jbartus :’(

@Ignorant what’s wrong? I am praising you for taking responsibility.

@jbartus yes but also taking voting someone a scapegoat on meh way too serious.

@f00l @PlacidPenguin
https://meh.com/forum/topics/fuck-cheaters---star-voting-anti-cheat-mod-for-meh-com

@Ignorant that’s your opinion. To me it’s not about taking it seriously, it’s about people ruining something that was always innocent fun.

@Ignorant
Respect your opinion, would disagree.

@jbartus eh? Someone even made a fake account of my name with an L for my i. Which is silly because my i is lowercase.

@RiotDemon I found that one to be especially pathetic

@PlacidPenguin that sucks, considering I almost never vote for goat…it deeply saddens me that people are cheating on something which is intended to be fun…

@f00l So can we blame @shawn for using a font where it is possible to mistake l with I ?? Seems to me this is a big goat worthy trangression

@Kidsandliz
That’s a worthy thought.

@MrMark Are you saying November should be Goat free? Is the spirit of Thanksgiving completely opposite of goat blaming?!? Is this the start of a whole new tradition?!?!

@ELUNO I’ve been regularly unblaming the scapegoat since @Pavlov’s month.

@carl669 Or the opposite. Everyone is the scapegoat!

@narfcake that seems counterproductive. then everyone would blame everyone else and we’d be just like Congress.

@carl669 Ooo! Can we vote to give ourselves a raise then?

@carl669 I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but given that pro and con are opposites, it should be clear that the opposite of progress is…

@baqui63 congress?

@Kidsandliz @baqui63 @carl669

I’d say bureaucracy.

@PlacidPenguin what “fraud” is happening?

@thismyusername

Read the responses to this post, then look at what names voted for me.

@PlacidPenguin I still think the term fraud is not correct… if those people want to take the time to create email addresses, then create usernames just to vote for someone… is that fraud? it is pretty funny though

@thismyusername

So what would you call it?

And technically, they wouldn’t need to create email addresses.
From what I understand, one can just go to the sign up page, create a username while entering a random email address, and then just use the new account without having to verify anything.

@PlacidPenguin humor? wait wait let me guess… you have never had a humor before?

just giving ya crap froody one

@thismyusername @therealjrn

I have never had a humor before. What does it taste like?

@thismyusername
This masterpiece "stage-ready stand-up joke"means that we kinda can’t have a goat vote that’s fun for the rest of us.

So I’d call it more of a “spoiler”.

@thismyusername

No you aren’t, you’re not the one sending me a box for the Meh Exchange.

@f00l it’s fun for me.

@Ignorant
Are you the vote spoiler this time? Were you the vote spoiler last time?

I might forgive you, what with you having to smell like a goat all the time.

/giphy goat smell

@PlacidPenguin
Our fun friend faker seems to be in the process of changing all the uid’s to be bit more obviously not a normal meh forum poster.

@f00l

Tbh, winning/losing wouldn’t be so bad; I’d finally get @narfcake off of my back where he’s been clinging for the last year.

Besides, I can always pull a @Pavlov or @Lotsofgoats.

@f00l
Am I this time? No
Was I last time? Of course, except the fake eluno account.

PS: was all the fun removed from last month’s thread?

@Ignorant
Why torment @Eluno? Are you a tarantula?

@f00l @Ignorant Who is defaming my name?!?

@ELUNO not sure. There was a fake eluno account last month in the voting thread, I just said that wasn’t me.

@Ignorant
You know, that goat smell might just cling even harder to those who mess with the goat-vote.

/giphy goat evil

@PlacidPenguin

Besides, I can always pull a @Pavlov or @Lotsofgoats.

I’m really quite curious to know what you believe that to be.

?

@Pavlov

Hopefully it won’t have to come to that.

@Pavlov me too!

@PlacidPenguin if the fake votes go away I’m reinstating my nomination… not that retracting it really nullified the valid votes anyhow.

@Pavlov Hey! Didn’t know you were back, finally coming up for air. Missed your snark : )

@Ignorant re: your question 'was all the fun removed from last month’s thread?'
I didn’t enjoy being blamed for fucking with the October goat votes. The piece of pigshit who has the hours to spend being malicious should have a public unveiling, and a permanent poop pile image attached to their multiple IDs.

@OldCatLady I’m not sure why that person ever thought to blame you in the first place, that’s their bad for making large jumps to conclusions.
It’s been revealed who it was (last month) and was never really a secret.

I still find it strange that this seems to be taken as serious as actual voter fraud, but to each their own.

@Ignorant I missed the reveal; do you have a link?

@OldCatLady
From this thread, just scroll up.

@Ignorant
Are you the vote spoiler this time? >Were you the vote spoiler last time?

I might forgive you, what with you having to smell like a goat all the time.

(/giphy goat smell)

f00l said 14 hours ago

@f00l
Am I this time? No
Was I last time? Of course, except the fake eluno account.

PS: was all the fun removed from last month’s thread?

Ignorant said 14 hours ago

@Ignorant
I don’t think this is taken seriously IRL, at all. No one compares to potential US election manipulation.

It does affect those of us here, in this forum. In our light-hearted way, we want to elect a goat. The vote-gaming could have been played as a witty joke (to me, still a very poor choice, and furthermore, the wit has been done poorly if at all.). Instead it just messes up with vote. And then what?

(“Could have been”, above, does not equate to “should have been”.)

Also there is a sense of community trust being played as a game. And some people feel quite violated when someone plays games with their uid. And still, given how the joke has been initiated and left to lie there and rot as an inert object afterwards both times, where, one might wonder, is the wit?. Perhaps in the eye of the trickster?

Ok, yes, people can work out the actual votes. And I’m sure we so very want to do that. Not.

But now some people don’t wish to vote if a I-won’t-step-forward type messes with them. Or if they can, in the future, be messed with by that person or other persons unknown. In the tiny way it matters to some of us, the Goat vote is no longer innocent and fun in the way it was. And we all have to install extensions or do some sniffing in order to figure out what’s as it appears.

Perhaps some of us like the goat vote precisely because it’s silly and not consequential in our larger world - and because it’s a fun item in a community of trust where we take time off from the bg bad world.

Except that now, it’s not so much fun in a community of not so much trust.

Inconsequential, yes, in the big bad world. That’s one reason people like having private areas of refuge where not every minute must be precautionary. And now this refuge feels a little precarious. If people have to decode the vote every time, I doubt whether many of us will mess with it at all. Should we say thanks to the perp?

Perhaps to see the “fun” in it, you have to be on the manipulator side. Perhaps, to feel the small but meaningful downside, you have to be one of the ones manipulated, who didn’t want this playground to be one where we had to look over our shoulders ever so slightly.

Do you think it was fun for most of us? Do you think it was fun for those who withdrew from participation?

Those of us who played it straight were, i guess, an irresistible opportunity for someone who wanted to tweak. Hey out there! You’re so clever! Good going!

@f00l way tl:dr

@Ignorant
Obviously too long for anyone to read. A congenital prob for @f00l.

I beg you, don’t read it. No one should.

@OldCatLady

You were an incredible goat.

Take 5 if you want. Minutes, months, decades, whatever.

@f00l I read it. I agree with you.

@Ignorant and that is why I doubt you will ever truly understand why this is an issue for some people. You simply don’t care enough to find out.

Very well said @f00l.

@jbartus that is correct.

@Ignorant I didn’t read it either.

@sammydog01 you don’t care either!!! You’re a monster /s

@Ignorant
/giphy we’re monsters

@sammydog01
@ignorant
Read. Or Read Not.

Whateveah.

/giphy whatever

@f00l This goes deeper and deeper!

@f00l I don’t recall besides I turned over all pertinent emails so it must have been the Russians that deleted the rest. Shit, I blacked out there for a second. What was the question?

@Mehrocco_Mole
Q’s: are you the uid-trickster and goat-vote prank-person, and if so, do you wanna confess, and if so, can you make a great confession?

(See prev few posts for the justification in asking)

Whatever you decide, however you answer, don’t blame the Russians. If they messed with Meh, I’m sure we’ll soon read it on Wikileaks.

@f00l Honestly, I have not a clue what you’re talking about. I tried to get you elected as goat. That is all.

[edit] What is a uid-trickster?

@Mehrocco_Mole user id trickster…s/he who is creating fake userids to rig goat-vote.

Doesn’t resonate as your style…

@mikibell
@Mehrocco_Mole

That’s why I never believed @Mehrocco_Mole’s remark back then was intended to be read as any kind of confession. It just didn’t fit the style and there were plenty other ways to read the remark.

@Mehrocco_Mole, I apologize if you felt on-the-spot here. the vote stiffing happened again, wanted clarity. But I never thought you were doing it.

As for what’s going on: normally, I guess, the goat-vote is done by members starring the post that nominates the person they want to vote for.

Last month, we started to see what appeared to be people voting twice or perhaps more.

For example
f00l. (Contains a lowercase “L”)
f00I. (contains a capital “i”)
f001 ((contains the number “one”)

My username has zeros in the middle
But could also be done with capital o’s like this:
fOOl

In the tiny pop up type that appears when you hover to see who starred something, it’s difficult or impossible to tell apart what’s real it spoofed.

@ignorant, who won the voting last time, has confessed to being the spoofer then. Someone is doing it this time, @ignorant assets innocence.

Apart from it messing with the vote, some people really don’t like it when their uid’s are messed with (quite an understandable reaction, to me), so they withdrew their votes altogether and won’t participate.

Most of the spoofed uid votes have been changed to some variation in “stuffed ballot” as a uid now, but there apoears to be at least 1 spoofed uid still voting.

Sorry if this explanation was a bore.

@f00l the BallotStuffer, BaIIotStuffer, BalIotStuffer, have been there for days. RlotDemon is still there.

@RiotDemon
Yeah a lot of the ballot stuff variations were originally spoofed uid’s. They starting getting changed to the ballot stuffer variations pretty quickly, but not all at once. The spoofed shrdIu (capital “i”) was there for a few days.

I noticed yours was still being spoofed. I would guess that would be annoying to you.

@f00l I just find it stupid because Wtf is a RLOT?

@RiotDemon
Yeah. Or a f00i. Or a shridiu? Or a tickiediizard?

@f00l @mikibell
Not a problem. I’ve got it covered…

@f00l

If those votes get removed, then @Snapster will be in the lead. Unless Mehmployees start voting for someone wise, and neither current candidate would help them.

Heh, it’s almost like the upcoming presidential election.

Whoops…

*else

@sammydog01 Awe…thanks. You’re fun too!

@Stallion

@PlacidPenguin

@PlacidPenguin 11 hours? That’d only be noon time Halloween, not midnight.

@narfcake

My internal clock is 12 hours ahead of me.

I blame @Ignorant for that, although in 12 hours I’ll probably blame @snapster

@PlacidPenguin But what if @snapster bribes some more mehployees before then? Or what if @ignorant’s term gets extended, on account that the month of October was pawsed?

@narfcake

Meh employees are in a tight spot right now, and they’d do best to stay out of the voting for October 2016.

Since there were passed, but no pause, I don’t think we have to be concerned for that.

@narfcake
@PlacidPenguin

@ignorant could go live as Goat for VMP’s only at midnight ET at the start of Nov 1.

/giphy Día de Muertos

@f00l What’s this “VMPs only” business?

@narfcake
Of, it would be the 8am paws.

The paws for everyone.

Sorry, my clock is awry.

/giphy 8am paws

@PlacidPenguin who says meh employees can’t vote? I mean technically they can do whatever the heck they want… it’s their experiment.

@thismyusername

I’m not stopping them from voting. If I cared, I’d fly to Texas (and wherever @kylethephotoguy is. I forget.) and swat their hands away from their laptops/mice/phones.

It’s just that if they vote for @Snapster they’ll be responsible for a goatapus, and if they vote for me, well… let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

@PlacidPenguin AFAIK, most of the mehployees are in Texas with only a handful of exceptions. @Dave and @Shawn are in St. Louis, @Matthew is in Seattle, and there’s the Californian, of which I forget her(?) username here.

@narfcake

Was it @jasontoon then that I was thinking of?

Last I checked, he was in Seattle.

This reminds me of the California tax thread, along with the video about time zones.

Speaking of which, as of last year you didn’t understand how time zones work. I hope you understand them now.

@PlacidPenguin @jasontoon is in Seattle but he’s not officially an employee and also he talks about himself on the Internet in third person

@JasonToon should know that sometimes @PlacidPenguin does the same thing, although it makes it harder to not mention gender.
@f00l does the same.

That being said, @PlacidPenguin figured that @JasonToon was still in Seattle for various reasons.

@JasonToon

@PlacidPenguin wants to know if @JasonToon wants to remain committed to the fact that he (@JasonToon) is not a Mediocre employee in the official sense.
(Toon & Friends seems to stand by those words)