At Best, Inappropriately Expressed Enthusiasm
Thursday February 4, 2010 • Howard Tayler

I blogged about the final round of the easily-spoofed Washington Post poll, and I made a mistake. I mentioned that it was easily spoofed.

This was not meant as encouragement to spoof, but apparently it was taken as such. For this I am sorry.

You see, when I blogged at 9:15pm local time, <i>Schlock Mercenary</i> had around 120 votes. Three hours later Schlock had 211,000. That, for those who are interested in this sort of thing, is more unique IP addresses than hit my own website in the course of an entire month. I don't for one minute believe that more than 1,000 of those votes are legitimate. And by curious coincidence, during the one minute for which I'm not believing, about another 1,000 votes arrived.

I'm embarrassed and saddened. It's much more fun to mock an easy-to-rig popularity contest when it's not one of your own fans doing the rigging. You see, now if tens of thousands of Penny Arcade fans visit the poll (and they will,) they will associate "Schlock Mercenary" with dishonesty.

Whoever you are, mister or missus Inappropriate Expressor of Enthusiasm, you are damaging my name with your antics. Worse still, you are making all of the smart, discerning, tastefully dressed, and bewitchingly attractive <i>Schlock Mercenary</i> fans look dingy and disreputable.

Shame on you.

I blogged about the final round of the easily-spoofed Washington Post poll, and I made a mistake. I mentioned that it was easily spoofed.

This was not meant as encouragement to spoof, but apparently it was taken as such. For this I am sorry.

You see, when I blogged at 9:15pm local time, Schlock Mercenary had around 120 votes. Three hours later Schlock had 211,000. That, for those who are interested in this sort of thing, is more unique IP addresses than hit my own website in the course of an entire month. I don't for one minute believe that more than 1,000 of those votes are legitimate. And by curious coincidence, during the one minute for which I'm not believing, about another 1,000 votes arrived.

I'm embarrassed and saddened. It's much more fun to mock an easy-to-rig popularity contest when it's not one of your own fans doing the rigging. You see, now if tens of thousands of Penny Arcade fans visit the poll (and they will) they will associate "Schlock Mercenary" with dishonesty.

See what you did?

Whoever you are, mister or missus Inappropriate Expressor of Enthusiasm, you are damaging my name with your antics. Worse still, you are making all of the smart, discerning, tastefully dressed, and bewitchingly attractive Schlock Mercenary fans look dingy and disreputable.

Shame on you.