Final 12 Entries WordPress Design Contest – Vote Now!
By Amy Armitage
WOW! We had a load of fantastic submissions for the contest and after removing all the broken or duplicate ones, or themes we weren’t convinced were designed by the author “claiming” them, we now have 95 FREE and beautiful WordPress themes for you all to enjoy. A special thanks to all of the designers who entered.
Maybe we should have another contest soon?
Below are our final 12 – 6 voted by our community and 6 chosen by Lunarpages! Polls closes on February 13th and first prize is $1000 and 5 years of web hosting.
[Round 1 Finalist]
Revival by Mike Nocek
[Round 2 Finalist]
Damai by eches
[Round 3 Finalist]
Winter Styled by Speckyboy
[Round 4 Finalist]
Auric by not (that) ugly
[Round 5 Finalist]
ModernMagic by Lorelei
[Round 6 Finalist]
Spa by Kate!
[Our 6 Picks for the Finals]
X4 by Xeroxaven
Light by Stephen Reinhardt
Ruins by Daniel St. Jules
One Winged Angel by Fath
Daisy dream by Michal Uhrin
DanceQueen by Liza Kliko
Vote now!
Update: Hello, due to some of the claims here in the comments we are pushing back the announcement of the winners for 2 weeks. That should give us enough time to investigate any and all claims of cheating. We will let you know via blog.lunarpages.com once we get things finalized. Thanks!
Update #2: Voting has now been closed. Thanks to all who voted – and we should have a winner for you in about 2 weeks. Thanks!
Related Tips and Tricks:
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:56 am
[...] for my WordPress theme Hello Everyone, I was choosen to lunarpages 12 finalist with my "Daisy dream by Michal Uhrin" WordPress theme. Please vote for my theme Thanks to everyone __________________ *VOTE FOR MY THEME (Daisy [...]
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:00 am
[...] Final 12 Entries WordPress Design Contest – Vote Now! [...]
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:07 am
Hello Everyone,
I though that you will choose a winner, now everyone will have votes from people they have told it, from forums, etc. It’s not objective and will win not the best design.
mikozv
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:18 pm
[...] Try this unique wordpress theme for free DEMO | DOWNLOAD Enjoy __________________ *VOTE FOR MY THEME (Daisy dream by Michal Uhrin) *proffesional WordPress templates [...]
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Micheal,
Allthough I personally think allmost all contenders will ask people to vote for them, its kind of weird to see here in the comments that you say voting is not objective since people will ask for votes.
Did you ever hear of pingback? Already 3 times where you ask for people to vote for you….hehe
So dont say that you DONT or wont, because you are doing the same as most will do..
Anyway, good luck to all of you and may the best one (or the one with most friends)win!!!
I havent made up my mind yet on which to vote…
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Good luck, everybody! There are so many awesome designs, I honestly have no clue who to vote for. Anybody want to bribe me with pretty things? ;)
January 24th, 2008 at 2:09 am
Nice themes. Good luck to the contestants.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:19 am
Actually, there are ways which you can politely ask people to vote for your theme, and yet you are not forcing them. You can say something like this:
“My theme has been chosen to be in the Final 12. Vote for me if you like my theme.”
You are campaigning. You are not forcing. :)
January 24th, 2008 at 5:27 am
guys…we cannot vote….it seems that more than 5 pcs cannot vote….why huh???started to confuse…..
January 24th, 2008 at 7:36 am
All the final 12 entries are spectacular and unique, and whoever will win it will be well deserved, but like the commentor above me said, some people (like myself) prefer to promote the competition itself, indicate which theme is yours and ask to participate in the vote without having to say “VOTE FOR MY THEME”. Of course your buddies will vote for you, but this is their choice.
Otherwise, the designer with the biggest online family will win, and not the best wp design, right?
But, I must say IF person X asks to vote for certain theme, then we see that person X’s theme is leading and then person X complains that others might also start doing the same… THIS is indeed a subjective viewpoint at the contest :)
Anyway, many thanks to LP staff for nominating my design and good luck everybody!
January 24th, 2008 at 8:01 am
You are right, but It was only comment that it would be better, more objective I mean, now when the rules are so, I am trying to get some votes as anyone here could.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:40 am
hehe. All theme looks good and only a few of them really attract me. I hope some of you will win and they prize worth with their works..:D
January 24th, 2008 at 9:31 am
[...] Lunarpages popularity contest finals! I’m really just happy to have engineered my way into the final, all I ask now is that you [...]
January 24th, 2008 at 10:26 am
i’m voted for xero… :D
January 24th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
[...] http://blog.lunarpages.com/2008/01/23/final-12-entries-wordpress-design-contest/ [...]
January 24th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Hey mikozv, how would more objective be better for you? You’re in the lead thanks to your three separate posts begging for votes, it’s certainly not down to the quality of your design. Your sidebar headers are way too dark and heavy compared to the delicate colors of the header and wtf is up with those lemon dots? By the way, ’subscribe’ has two S’s.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. You’re lucky this wasn’t judged by professionals because you wouldn’t stand a chance against classy stuff like Winter Styled and One Winged Angel.
January 24th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Panda, I don’t know what to say. I don’t think that my theme is the best of those 12. I’ve got 2 favorites (in design). But certainly will not win the best design because voting in each round was same as here… I will not repeat what I wrote in previous post. I am glad that lunarpages have chosen my theme, i don’t think this is my best of uploaded themes here. Maybe if you are interested to see my another themes look to my uploaded themes at my site ;)
January 24th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
i’m vote for eches! support Malaysian!
January 25th, 2008 at 3:20 am
hello, good luck to all designer :D
January 25th, 2008 at 8:47 am
I just tried downloading one of these themes (I’m not going to say which one as that’s not the point of my comment) only to discover that it doesn’t work on v2.3.2 but does work on an older version. (It looks for some of the older functions) I have to ask. We’re these themes tested on the latest version of wordpress?
January 25th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Noorizam, Xero and Fath is also from Malaysia. Just to let you know =P
January 25th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
*are also…
January 26th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
[...] please vote for the design you like, it will just be good to see more activity in the poll. Vote Thanks! __________________ Free WordPress Themes Free [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
[...] untuk orang kita yang sedang dalam usaha mendapatkan usd 1000 dan 5 tahun webhosting percuma dari lunar. antaranya adalah dr. xero of xeroxaven, fath of pelangipetang dan eches of er, eches! aku vote [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 2:05 am
[...] Malaysian are in the Final 12 of the Lunarpages WordPress Theme Contest. The first price is $1000 and 5 years of web [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 7:47 am
[...] yang dianjurkan oleh lunarpages ini terbuka kepada sesiapa sahaja dari seluruh [...]
January 27th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
How could anyone vote for Spa? That is the ugliest and most generic template I have ever seen.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:55 am
[...] January 22nd submissions closed for our WordPress Design Contest but it’s not too late to vote! [...]
January 28th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Best of luck to all the contestants, there’s some very good work here!
January 28th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Well, this would be good if those people who go on forums like DP and beg for darn votes!
I would not vote for a theme because of begging!
Oh well, like most polls, only the one with the most friends and family, and begging for votes on forums, will win.
Basically, a rigged poll and not worth it a bit as to which is best.
January 28th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Revival has a bug. When displayed at 1280×800 (viewing on a wide-screen laptop) the text column is jerked to the right hand side of the screen in an ungainly manner, leaving a large empty space in the middle of the screen.
Spa looks nice, but the grey title is unreadable on the purple flowers.
One Winged Angel is neat and has some nice touches like the grass at the top, but I find the overall colour scheme unpleasant.
I rather like Ruins, but it’s too mono-toned to be practical.
The only two that are functional without being boring, ugly or silly are, IMHO, Daisy Dream and ModernMagic. My preferences lean towards darker rather than lighter colours, so I’m choosing Lorelei’s theme.
Besides, I don’t really care for flowers.
January 28th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Where can you down load ruins? perhaps I am missing somthing….
January 29th, 2008 at 5:58 am
[...] guys! I just learnt that the final round of Lunarpages wordpress themes contest has already started and 1 of my themes (Damai) is there. Thanks to Imam and Affuan for the heads [...]
January 29th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Thanks Darin for the comment. I’ll try to improve for my next next next themes… :p
January 29th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I really like Revival, because it is a clean, well colour schemed template.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Nice!!!.. I wonder how can I nominate a theme? I do have nice looking template that almost impossible to code. Please check em out and.. Please don’t think this was just some sort of spamming tactic… I’m really serious about this.. Here is the URL:
http://www.unodesignstudio.com/wordpress1004
January 29th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Good luck Mike/Midnight Pheonix. Hope you win.
Good luck to everyone. Like your Templates.
January 29th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Another example of voting tomfoolery. Sorry that Daisy Dream is more like a Daisy Nightmare! The reflection on the RSS icon is cliche’. The diagonal sub header looks like it was done in MS paint. Step up your game, mikey. This is a competition. You can’t be competing with that putrid thematic rendition of a daisy. You might have well have used the disney character if you were going to put out something so dated and aesthetically simple. It’s primer. It’s completely pants, broseph.
Why are you complaining anyway. You somehow got 300+ myspace friends to vote for your roadkill of a design.
Modern Magic Should win. It’s beauty incarnate. It’s good. I want to marry it.
One Winged Angel is a close second. It loses out because of the image in the header. If i wanted to use that theme, i’d be stuck with “One Winged Angel” in my header. Nice phrase, but hardly the mood I was going for with my lawnmower company. I was thinking something more along the lines of “If it’s green, cut it down!” or something more web2.0. Maybe throw a beta seal in there or something. Not a reflection though. That would be tacky.
January 30th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Big Red Flameseph, don’t behave like you know everything. I’ve included the .PSD in the download file so that users can modify the header to meet their own need. What a jerk.
January 30th, 2008 at 9:49 am
It strikes me very funny that you advertise your own theme so much. So vividly, even to the point of a drop down from visiting your site. It seems blatantly obvious you are really just trying to avoid your winning offer of the $1000 and hosting service.
All in all your theme might be clean. Yet it is disastrously boring. Compared to others who have given their time to your cause yours lacks all forms of originality and aimed intent at something creative. Yet pleasing. Furthermore, the idea of the vote to base the win off of is even more biased. Want to know how? It’s already very obvious to some people. If someone were so inclined they could rig their own vote. Simply by using a rotating IP (dynamic from their ISP) or even programs out there that download proxies and rotate them however you like for your own usage. Voila, extra votes.
I honestly hope someone who put time into their design, to namely aesthetically please the viewers while having want to show their work and win too. I have a very bad feeling that such an ideal will not come to fruition and the creator of this site, Mike, will use their scapegoat.
January 30th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Big Red Flameseph, modern magic isn’t so pretty, view it in 1440×900 resolution and you can see the border, and the background colour so dull.. don’t blind user with just pretty wallpaper image..
January 30th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
[...] would like to show her your support or you want to check out the contest and vote for your favorte, check it out HERE! You can see by the votes that obviously other folks are posting for votes, so I figured I’d [...]
January 30th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
@ Big Red Flameseph, I am glad to see you still have serious intentions about Modern Magic and your feelings did not vanish. It told me, it wants to marry it too ;)
@ One Winged Angel, I think what Big Red meant is that not everyone has Photoshop at hand, so even if you enclose PSD file — an average blogger would not know what to do with it. By the way, if I would not be participating, your theme would have got my vote, I think it’s the neatest layout here.
@ emptyspace, you say that Modern Magic is just a pretty wallpaper, and I agree with you, yes, design (including web design) is primarily about graphics and graphics are always a matter of taste and personal preference. Before I started with web design, I was working with digital art for 3 years, and before I had a computer — with hand drawing, so I am really not trying to beat anyone’s coding skills here, rather implement what I do best into web design. That’s all. There is always someone who hates it, and there is always someone who loves it.
I didn’t have a chance to view it at 1440×900 resolution, I only tested it on 1280*1074 (which I use) so thank you for pointing out at it and I hope I’ll be able to fix it.
Thank you Darin, and everyone else, who chose to vote for Modern Magic. I really think casting a vote for anyone here is a tough choice, because like I previously said, all the entries here are great and it’s obvious that every designer had put a lot of effort into his layout and would love to see his/her skills rewarded.
Once again, good luck peeps!
January 30th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
wow! modern magic from 175 reach up to 240 for just 5 hours! that is fake!
January 31st, 2008 at 12:34 am
Very nice themes, very good idea how to support & reward designers. Keep up good work Lunarpages! :)
January 31st, 2008 at 12:55 am
Big Red Flameseph, I think your “cute” critics wasn’t on place. I can’t agree with you even though it’s not from my best designs. Do you even know what is the nightmare? Because if it is so as you wrote it should be in dark colors…But is is in light and header shows daisy in some fog as a dream. About my RSS icon, it is simple with a small reflection and not very intruding. Btw if you could do diagonal gradiented stripes in MS paint I will appreciate it.
But anyway thanks for comment at least. One Winged Angel wrote it in a right way.
January 31st, 2008 at 8:26 am
@Lorelei: Thanks for your comment… It’s just that… I can’t stand his way of giving opinions. I mean, not only to me, but to others too. I’ve read his previous comments and he keeps using harsh words on and on… Why can’t he be more polite in addressing his opinions? What is with this attitude?
February 1st, 2008 at 7:58 am
After reading all comments and critics here, I want to say that all designs are good to some and bad to others.
As with everything what has to do with design, it is and remains a matter of personal taste.
Designers should accept the critics on their works, even when its said in a cold way, just like you accept the compliments when they are given in a direct way.
For me, my vote went to Modernmagic by Lorelei, its just because I like that design more then all others which made it to the final, its unique among all the final entries, NOT saying that the others are bad.
Good luck to everyone, and may the best design win
February 1st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
@gonjol: dan richard published the contest in his blog, so he send lots of traffic to it.
So if you dont know about, just shut up.
I voted for ModernMagic, it’s color and graphics are amazing… but there are also other nice entries :p
February 2nd, 2008 at 9:56 am
My vote would have to go with Lorelei’s design. :)
February 2nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
ModernMagic is THE best design in my HONEST opinion! I havent a clue how many people voted for Daisy Dream. I think ModernMagic deserves the win completely!! good luck!! :)
February 5th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
I’m back.
@One Winged Angel: Touche’. What font are you using? And is that splatter supposed to be there?
@emptyspace: “modern magic isn’t so pretty” contradicts “pretty wallpaper image”. Proofread your comment.
@lorelei: So, how does one go about asking for a template’s hand in marriage. Are you like… it’s parent? Can i marry it? Can i join the family? Do we (modernmagic and i) need to elope? Is modernmagic it’s first name, or first and last name. Would it be “Modern Flameseph” or “Modernmagic Flameseph” The template is hot. I bet it “Got it from it’s mama”.
@uhrin: “But is is in light and header shows daisy in some fog as a dream.” Thanks for letting us in on your thought process. It’s so much clearer now. It really changes my opinion of the template. Good work……….NOT.
February 6th, 2008 at 4:24 am
I voted for DanceQueen by Liza Kliko but only because I like the red :)
February 6th, 2008 at 5:25 am
[...] chosen 12 best designs in last months, now until feb.13 is it open for voting. So please you can vote here. My theme is Daisy Dream by Michal Uhrin, so if you like it you can vote for my template, but you [...]
February 6th, 2008 at 5:29 am
[...] chosen 12 best designs in last months, now until feb.13 is it open for voting. So please you can vote here. My theme is Daisy Dream by Michal Uhrin, so if you like it you can vote for my template, but you [...]
February 6th, 2008 at 5:58 am
[...] chosen 12 best designs in last months, now until feb.13 is it open for voting. So please you can vote here. My theme is Daisy Dream by Michal Uhrin, so if you like it you can vote for my template, but you [...]
February 7th, 2008 at 2:58 am
“gonjol Says:
January 30th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
wow! modern magic from 175 reach up to 240 for just 5 hours! that is fake!”
—————-my reply—————
thats 65 votes, about 11 votes an hour, are you really trying to say that a well made theme and one that really has appeal to the eye, cant get 11 votes an hour?
what planet are you from again?
the only thing fake here is your IQ level. do the math.
February 7th, 2008 at 4:48 am
I chose Modernmagic by Lorelei, nice design you got there ^_^
February 7th, 2008 at 6:12 am
ModernMagic is truly a great piece of work and does deserve to win. There are a lot of great works here or obviously they wouldn’t have gotten this far. To assume that her votes are fake is ridiculous. I side with Sammie on that note, well put!
Gook luck to everyone but my vote is with Loreli.
February 7th, 2008 at 9:13 am
I agree with BigRed here, ModernMagic is the best theme with this contest and deserves to win, fortunatly that theme is actually leading now!
Good luck Uhrin with your campaigns, I see you have started a lot of them, basically asking to vote for YOU and not promoting the contest itself which would be much fair……
Feeling the heat rising under your feet?
Good luck to all other contenders who are in the contest as well, but Lorelei got my vote!!
February 7th, 2008 at 11:42 am
am i vote for ModernMagic. because it is look is very nice!!!
February 7th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Thanks everyone for the support! I really appreciate not only your votes but also your kind comments, I don’t think I will win even though I am leading now, but it’s great to know so many people actually really support my design without even being my friends / knowing me. *Thank You!*
Why I have little hope? Googling for “vote uhrin daisy” gives 800+ results. It’s hopeless.
To be honest though, I really feel sorry for those who gathered only 1-2 percents of votes so far. Its not like their themes are ANY worse than the leading ones. It’s really a shame, but then again, we still have one week to go and anything can change :)
Oh and btw… Using tinyurl on forums where one openly ask to vote for certain theme, and then direct url (that pings) on forums where one asks to vote in a more “general” manner was a wise move. Even if I am not particularly impressed with the concrete design, the… how to say?.. “sneaky creativity” is definitely quite impressive. Well, who cares, there is a big reward coming up. Good luck Uhrin :)
@ Big Red Flameseph… hmmm… i think I will be the “mommy” then. Do I need to take care of a bridal dress and stockings for ModernMagic? You wouldn’t need to elope as I am not against, and the theme has no father (well, none that bothered to stick around) so we can live as one big happy family and maybe start a blog together. And just to clarify, Modern is the first name, Magic is last. I am more concerned, however, about where will the ring go… maybe on the search box? It is all so sudden, we (me and my little MM) weren’t prepared :D
February 7th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Judging by what i see and what i saw after some Googling, I think Mr. Uhrin and his theme should be disqualified. I really don’t consider begging for votes across whole internet as fair play. Anyway, keep up good work everyone! All themes are great.
February 7th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Lorelei, you are right, but I have made posts to vote themes that people can decide, not to vote certainly mine ( only a few – 5 are regarding to my theme, even though many people from those voted for another themes as well and they have their own opinions ). So many people from my campaigns came here to vote another themes except of mine – yours as well. BTW I am not standing above the people with a gun to vote for Daisy Dream.
I dont know what exactly you mean with tinyurl, because I have used it only in my signature because of limited space of letters. You have very huge internet family so I am not confused that you are leading now.
And some people expect of me gained votes here from forums as well, I mean in previous rounds and here as well.
I think what am I donig is only regarding to this competition, I am not pushing to people, everyone has his own mind.
Lorelei, I have noticed that you have come to the first place with about 50 votes lead in a few hours, I dont know how you did it, I dont care about it, if you will have so much people in the next few days you will be a few hundreds of votes in the lead… But anyway I wish you all the best, you have a really nice theme, its a shade that I dont have here my best design that I think it is.
Btw here are I think 2 or 3 other templates (under 100 votes) that should deserve to succeed but unfortunately they havent made any bigger campaign yet, maybe they will.
So, as I said all of you that voted for themes are personalities that can decide alone and can choose theme they like, doesnt matter if I am looking for more voting communities (not only for my theme) i think.
Maybe not the best theme will win but the theme with more friends as Lars said.
Thank you all for votes and good luck to everyone!
February 7th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Michal, I am not saying asking people to vote for yourself is “bad”, nor I say your theme is any “bad”, however, you obviously have far more interesting designs in your portfolio, I think it’s just unfortunate that you had this one chosen for the final vote. Of course I asked my friends to vote, though 2 of my very good friends voted for someone else’s theme. I might have a big online family, but I leave the choice to their taste and wouldn’t want to lose my dignity in their eyes over night.
I believe *everyone* here either asked friends to vote for them or promoted the contest in a slightly suggestive manner, and that is fine, but since you were the first and ONLY ONE here to raise the awareness of people who might start asking in forums to vote for their theme (which is according to you — unfair), stuff like this pretaktovanie.sk/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=31865 where you register in a forum just to ask people to vote for YOU (and yes, I understand Slovak perfect) make your attitude to the contest a bit inadequate. That’s all. I hope I didn’t offend you in any way because this really wasn’t my intention …and yes, I see some voted for me too in that slovak forum, but naturally, not everyone from “my campaigns” voted for me as well (and I know not everyone did). So what, do I complain? My personal opinion is that One Winged Angel design is the best here, not mine, and I really wish it will gather more votes.
Oh and.. You are the second to mention those famous 5 hours when my theme got 100 votes. I have no idea when exactly has this happened, i probably slept over the event, but if I wanted to vote for myself (or whatever u suggest that i did), wouldn’t I cast MORE votes? You are only 16 points away after all.
Cheers
February 7th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
all the top 3 theme here is unbelievable.. good luck for your prizes.. not all of it even got into cssmania or some css galleries..
February 8th, 2008 at 1:32 am
The only entries that should of gone into the finals were ones that follow web standards and validate, this is 2008 not 1998.
Lorelei and Michal Uhrin your designs are nice but both have coding errors.
February 8th, 2008 at 5:47 am
I agree with that. That should have been in the rules from the start.
February 9th, 2008 at 7:03 am
“designer”, what do I miss?
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.toptut.com%2Fmodernmagic%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0
February 9th, 2008 at 10:08 am
To complain about asking people to vote for you is just plain dumb. Does a politician ask people to vote for them? Yes, of course. This is a contest won by votes from the public. Of course people are going to be asking for votes and trying to get as many votes as possible. It’s not bad. It’s smart.
To complain about people asking for votes just shows that you really don’t understand what a vote is and it shows your personality in a bad light. The contest is decided by votes. If you don’t like the idea, don’t enter the contest.
February 9th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Warning: Selector expected. Ruleset ignored due to bad selector.
Source File: http://blog.lunarpages.com/contest/wp-content/themes/ModernMagic/style.css
Line: 494
February 9th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Mike and designer, both themes Loreleis and mine are valid, but when you put to http://validator.w3.org lunarpages demo page, it will show some errors. I dont know why…
Lorelei, about the sites that I have asked people to vote in general or in direct way : doesnt matter because as I said before everyone has his own mind , and you were complaining that this what I am doing is unfair, than why are you doing this?(not saying you that you are doing bad thing) When you post here – http://www.webtalkforums.com/showthread.php?t=11316 that “Lorelei needs community help” and than “I am not asking to vote for me” what kind of help will you gain if someone vote for another?
Yes it is not written in a direct way but it is the same as my posts.(in that slovak forum as well)
And what you wrote in that thread about me : “that guy is really funny if u read (all!) the comments in the contest page, when he is suggesting if i will win — it will be unfair.” – where I wrote this, that it will be unfair if you will win? I am still standing behind that you have very nice theme and have still chance to win, youre on the 1st place and it wont be unfair.
And I know that I wrote in my first comment (it was only note to this, not complain) that this, in my opinion, would be better in other way, lets say if there would be some certainly (f.e.50) people, that would be more objective, because now it is up to communities they voted and still are voting from forums…and even though I have made some campaigns because in first rounds it was so as well.
And for me it doesnt matter that you understand slovak perfect. I dont shame from those posts.
Moreover I was not suggesting that you have voted for yourself, but you havent understand me, because I meant it that you had so many posts from your campaigns (or mine :)), friends, etc.
Regards
February 10th, 2008 at 6:55 am
I do so a BIG difference on how this contest is promoted, the way YOU do it, Michal, and the way Lorelei does it.
After some googling and just checking some of the result, I come to this conclusion.
Lorelei indeed does also promote this contest, but SHE only does it on her OWN sites and in forums where she actually DOES participate.
I could not find ANY forum where she just signed up to make ONE post and to never return there anymore, even the url you gave above is a forum in where she DOES actually participate.
What you say about your fist comment, that people will start begging for votes, I guess you made that AFTER you read the comments here (pingbacks) from the sites where you asked people to vote.
I see no other reason for that, dont play the innocent person here.
Grow up and lets stop complaining here, I think we are dealing with adults here.
February 10th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Captain, I think I am innocent. I can use all forums that I have registered not only for this, and moreover I gained much more votes from forums that I have been registered for long time… And as well as I gained (many) votes from my friends.
And I would like to ensure you that I have all these forums in my ff favourites so I have already returned there more times, you can check it out, and in the future you can check it that to know about those forums is a big advantage…
What is bad on it? Although I am letting people know that this contest exist and they have their own mind. On the most forums that I registered, nobody voted for me, but for lorelei, because they think what you say as well about my 1st post… So yes it was bad idea for me, because I gained a lot of votes for others .
And about my first post again, I meant it in general.(i have to repeat it was only note to this, not complain) , and tell me please what is bad on it that i tell you my opinion.
On the other hand I had to do some campaigns because everyone made it as well (before, in first rounds) – so knowing this I wrote my right opinion on this and tell me again what is bad on that I am telling you my opinion…
So I dont see any difference between how this contest is promoted by me or by lorelei or anybody. ( I only found more votes for another themes except of mine ;) )
And moreover where is it in the rules that it is bad , incorrect or so? Youve said that I am playing for innocent. So did you think about it, maybe I am innocent? Why these all comments?
Promoting this contest ( what I have done I think the most effective ) will raise traffic for lunarpages as well ;) but its shame for me that I gained only a few votes from new forums for me…
I have already growed up I am 21, and I am not complaining again, I am telling you truth what has lorelei wrote as well : “that guy is really funny if u read (all!) the comments in the contest page, when he is suggesting if i will win — it will be unfair.” Again you wrote nothing on that she has lied… Why? Because she has a big internet family… And everyone is standing behind her…
In general, my best friend told me that it is worth of energy to reply on that all, but I dont think…
February 10th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Let me go over your comment and respond from what i read there with my comments about it attached.
Ofcourse you can use all sources you want to gain votes, you are not the only one who is doing that I think, but no-one else complaint about it.
About your first post,
You did participate with your design in the first round (but didnt make it to the final but got selected by the lunar-team itself)
You could have seen back then already that voting would be like this, WHY didnt you make a comment about the ünfair” voting it back then?
About what you said about Lorelei, sure she promotes it also, and mostlikly so do others, but I never seen them complain about the voting-system because they knew (just like you) it would be like this way, straight from day one.
(ps. So did you, because you made your first comment about it, on the first day of voting, again I keep with my conclusion that you didnt know about the pingback)
Your comment about campaigning and with that raising Lunars popularity is nice for them to read, but we all know that ALL designers do not promote for Lunar but ofcourse to get votes (only some do it in a different style).
I dont blame you for promting the contest (or even asking people to vote for you, or promoting lunar itself…hehe)), but simply with what you said about the voting-system you made yourself look: Like aaaaaaw, look what other contenders are doing, while you knew it would be like this from the start, why else such a comment on the first day of voting, while no-one else even posted anything about it, or got a pingback from where they promoted.
Concerning Lorelei, may I ask where she lied?She did never say she wouldnt promote or that the voting-system is unfair, and if everyone is standing behind her and her family is that big why isnt she leading by 100s of votes then, it can be just because of the simple reason I mentioned in my previous comment about where she promotes herself or the contest (or maybe even Lunar…hehe).
Also she did never sign up in a forum to make a comment on posts you made just to as in that forum you mentioned earlier, btw did you know that by bumping that thread while you posted there you actually might have given her some votes because YOU brought it under attention again and not she?
Ok, like you said, enough energy wasted.
Funny, I hope that Dancing Queen will make a sparkling come back and win this contest
February 10th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Captain, I didnt complaint and didnt write that it is unfair ;) so I dont know why these things…
Again I wasnt complaining about the voting system ;) it was only note and my opinion… that it would be better so :)))) but didnt know before that nowadays almost all contests are like this. I was just wondering to make a WordPress contest as well, but with people that I know good and are proffesionals in WordPress… Its only an idea to the future ;)
And I didnt say somethink like “look what other contenders are doing” ;) so why this ?
And look on my post on February 9th, 2008 at 12:39 pm, there i am writing where exactly wasnt true what she wrote… You can find a posts in that thread.
So than she can try to sign up at some interesting forum, greet the people and make her campaign as well ;)
Lorelei, I am sorry but I didnt expect what you have written about me…
February 10th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I think asking for votes and posting on multiple forums really is what Lunarpages wanted this contest to be like. It is a perfect link bait for their blog and maybe they also get some new sign ups for their hosting. So $1,000 will be awarded to the finalist with the highest number of votes (most likely the one who has built the highest number of backlinks for this blog).
Considering how the winners are determined in this competition, I wouldn’t even call it a WordPress “Design” Contest. Design contests are held by people who know what is design and the winners are selected by professional designers. I would say this is a link building contest, not a design contest.
So may the best link builder win this contest! :D
February 11th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I have some thing to say.
You know how we know Michel Uhrin is requesting people to vote for him? His theme is not all that great, its actually nothing special. Iv seen a million like it. If anyone deserves to win it is either Lorelei or Kate.
So yeah.
Michel, You Suck!
February 12th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I really start to wonder about this contest now…Noticed something very weird this noon, and NOW I am noticing the same thing again…….over 70 votes in less then 15 minutes….CAN SOMEONE FROM LUNAR PLEASE COMFIRM, that the votes will be checked, looks likes a proxies are in use…..
February 12th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
I have been refreshing the page and watching the votes, the votes for “Daisy dream by Michal Uhrin” are rapidly increasing by the second, please look into this.
There’s definite cheating going on here.
February 12th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Kalina,
Thats what I noticed this noon also, coming from 10-15 votes behind to 50 in the lead in abt 20-30 minutes.
Now he felt the heat again, because Lorelei closed in, upto 9 votes behind, and now within half an hour he is almost 100 in the lead again.
I CANNOT conclude anything else.
400 votes since the start of the contest, and now almost 300 in one day extra…hmmmm
February 12th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Hello, due to some of the claims here in the comments we are pushing back the announcement of the winners for 2 weeks. That should give us enough time to investigate any and all claims of cheating. We will let you know via blog.lunarpages.com once we get things finalized. Thanks!
February 12th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I tested with proxies, proxies do allow more votes, someone is cheating, doesn’t mean it’s a contender, it could just be his friends, etc…. really doing him a disfavor here…. I left and just came back minutes later and there’s 30 more votes on that entry… perhaps more steps need to be put in place to help secure this more, such as registration to vote… nothing’s foolproof but it might help.
February 12th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Mitch,
Thank you so much, again we might be wrong, but I have my serious doubts about if we are.
Allthough there is a possibility to get so much votes in a short period of time, but reflecting to the total ammount of votes this contest, and the sudden boosts of votes in such a short time-span.
I hope I am wrong and blame someone for nothing, and if I did I will full-hearted leave a big apology to that person.
February 12th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Captain, it’s being quite generous to say we might be wrong, we are right, I guarandamntee it! lol…. no sense blaming the contenders, no way to know if it’s actually him or friends, associates, etc… doing him a huge disservice, yes that’s the word I meant earlier,I knew I got it wrong. :)
February 12th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
It’s sad how dirty this had to get though, it just went up another 20 votes!!! Is there a bot that can do this? I surely would rather win because my theme IS the best, not because I cheated… this is why I don’t enter contests or even like to hold them anymore, too many unscrupulous people out there.
February 12th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
My suggestion for the Lunar-team is to deduct ALL doubtfull votes, like Kalina said also someone else can be supporting the contender without his/hers knowledge.
In this way the contender has nothing to be blamed of, and the result would be a fair result
February 12th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I really think Michael Urhin is cheating!! That design is NO WHERE NEAR as good as the other designs, ModernMagic should win! Unless you want to give away $1000 to a cheater, thats up to you, I really suggest you think about disqualifying Michel Uhrin.
Think about who you give the prize to… WISELY.
All I have to say.
February 12th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Geez, now it’s 717 votes from 680 minutes ago? I better just leave, constantly seeing this is just peeving me off, lol. I hate when people do this.
SOLDIER, I definitely agree about the design being nowhere near ModernMagic, there’s actually I think 4 that are quite a bit better.
Voting should be closed right now to be honest, this is INSANITY. Kudos to Mitch for keeping a level head, he has a lot to deal with ahead of him, my head would be spinning.
February 12th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Oh sorry, it’s 724, it took me a few seconds to write that :rollseyes: this is unreal
February 12th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I already seen a lot of threads on different forums, where it is noticed too by a lot of different people.
No-one thinks this can be achieved in a fair and normal way.
Its becoming a hot topic world-wide…good for lunar….bad for the contest
Anyway, last post here for now, and hopefully at the end justice is served.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
It’s one thing to cheat, another to do it so obviously, like, that fast climb is real obvious and pathetic.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
We are definitely looking at this and from the time the poll closes tomorrow to the announcement on February 24th we will be looking at unusual trends in voting and removing any votes we believe to be cheating the system :)
February 12th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
hmmm….exactly 200 votes ahead and it stopped voting for some time now, can be coinsendence or a good programmer….lol
I am sorry Lunar, for spamming in the comments, but it really does my head in…
Tell me to stop refreshing and close the browser!!!
Thanks Amy, I always say who laughs last, laughs the loudest
February 12th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Daisy dream by Michal Uhrin should be disqualified the guy is using proxies to give FALSE vote results in this competition and stopped using it when everyone noticed.
February 12th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Hello guys, after I have read all the post, I’d like to ensure you that I am not cheating and using any proxies as well.
February 12th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I must say, as I voted for ModernMagic, I saw that it was a 10 vote difference. I thought to myself how it was going to be a race down to the wire. Then I refreshed the page, and Uhrin was suddenly15 votes ahead. I was like, damn. Then I checked again and again over the following minutes, and saw Uhrins numbers rising and no one else’s. Now, I’m sure there are a lot of people that frequent this site, but I highly doubt they are all coming to vote for Uhrin’s design. I’m not saying it is bad, but you can tell who put forth more effort into their submissions.
When I saw his votes up 100 within a half hour, that is when I called Lunar directly to voice my concerns. We are all designers that are trying to keep the edge over the competition, but when you have someone that is questionable. It looks bad on all of us. In the future, I think Uhrin needs to think about his actions before he acts upon them.
Great designs to all. Good luck in the final review of everything.
February 13th, 2008 at 12:08 am
You know, as it is possible that what you’re saying is correct uhrin, I seriously doubt that everyone is coming here to vote for yours (as stated by mike). Your numbers have increased so quickly it’s beyond a fair game. Infact, it was beyond a fair game from the moment you became in the lead. It’s a terrible design, and there is no way any designer or human with at least some taste would vote for it. I will be outraged if you end up winning.
February 13th, 2008 at 12:12 am
Michal Uhrin it took you 3 weeks to gather 400 votes and then 3 hours to get additional 350 votes
Very suspicious and assuring us? Wake up this is the internet everyone knows polls can be tampered and cheated on, your a great example. You’ll be known all over as a cheater and poor sportsman.
February 13th, 2008 at 2:32 am
I would not normallypost here, but having voted for one of the designs entered in your competition I have been following the progress of the competion with interest.
As in most similar polls there has, since the start, been a clear pattern of favoured and not so favoured sites, but the pattern in the voting has been stable throughout, and following an easily descernable pattern.
However, the last two days have been completely of the scale for one site, and for anyone who has watched the voting from day one, it is blatantly obvious thatthere isan attempt going on the fix the result. Shame on the competitor, and shame on the organisers that being placed in such a position. Regretably he guilty entry should be banned, irrespective of who is placing the votes.
February 13th, 2008 at 4:22 am
Hello,
I am Michal Uhrin manager and I must tell to you that all his votes are clear. We place some ad on site http://www.football-wallpapers.com/ yesterday and he get big number of votes from visitors of that site. Please check stats of that site: http://t.extreme-dm.com/?login=lbcfootw. How you can see football-wallpapers.com have about 15000 unique visitors and about 60000 page views.
Thanks,
Milos
February 13th, 2008 at 5:23 am
Yes, designer , it is possible in 3 hours, I’ve got many votes in this last time because of banner on a big site that own my friends… As well as on my site and another friends site. Lorelei made a banner on her site as well… So I am NOT a cheater, and anyway, how can you people mark me as a cheater without any prooves?
February 13th, 2008 at 6:07 am
Will just post my findings from yesterday without blaming anyone here:
Yesterday,
Around 15:00 CET ModernMagic was leading with about 10 votes.
Around 16:00 CET Daisy Dream was leading with about 50-60 votes
Around 21:00 CET Daisy Dream was leading with about 10 votes
Around 23:30 CET Daisy Dream was leading with exactly 200 votes, precise number of votes 751
Around 03:00 CET today Daisy Dream was stil on 751, ModernMagic had maybe gained 10 votes over that time.
What I wonder about, if you started such a huge final campaign for promoting your theme, how come your votes STOPPED at 751 exactly (ModernMagic was at 551) at that time, so exactly 200 votes ahead.
Normally when people start a final campaign you would expect a natural outflow of votes.
A lot of votes when you launch it, and slowly the vote-income should decrease.
Daisy Dream went as a rocket to 751, after that NO vote for about 3-4 hours (after that I went to sleep…lol), now 8-9 hours later it only gained 7 votes more.
You would expect after you launch a campaign, that incoming votes just NOT stop as if someone closed the poll, but that slowly the vote-icome should decrease.
I didnt blame you directly, but I thought considering what I seen happening (and I was not the only one), we had the right to bring it under the attention of the Lunar-staff.
If you did it fair, you did very good, and deserve to win based on your campaigning.
But I will have my doubts forever, because it does not look natural at all.
Also, why do you have to mention Lorelei again?Where did she comment?
300 votes in 200 minutes, thats 1,5 vote a minute, then you and your friend must have some HIGH traffic sites, can we get the urls and maybe some traffic statistics over that period of time?
Luckly Lunar is going to investigate this issue, and if they cant find any suspicious, sad, but so be it.
But when they do find something, lets hope we have a fair winner, let it be the one with the BEST design or the one with the biggest online family or campaign
February 13th, 2008 at 6:17 am
No cheating here, no proxies. I also placed a banner on my own Wordpress themes site wpMix.com to support Michal, as he is my firend. And we placed the banners on our websites just yesterday, one day before the voting ends. Our websites receive over 300 unique visitors daily who are looking for Wordpress themes, so it seems like the banners have worked. It was the intention to try the banners on last minute.
I think the winner should be Michal, as it was stated at the beginning of this contest that the winner will be the one who gets the highest number of votes and it may even not be the best theme.
February 13th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Our websites receive over 300 unique visitors daily who are looking for Wordpress themes, so it seems like the banners have worked. It was the intention to try the banners on last minute.
so about every visitor single visitor has voted?and visited your site in that amazing outburst of votes
Great, support….hehe
I know Lorelei has a banner on her own forum which has over 10k members, and she didnt manage to get even close to get 300 votes from it I think.
Stil doesnt explain why the incoming votes came to such an abrupt stop 1-2-300——-0, or did all thoose sites all go down due to server-issues?Just before central european midnight, allthough Lunar is in the USA and I think they have a “other” midnight then we have in Europe.
February 13th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Captain, I have made a campaign with my another friend as well ( big site that I have said before )
But I could have the banner there for only a few hours.
So, many people from there supported my theme.
February 13th, 2008 at 6:33 am
That page has around 20 000 unique visitors / day…
extremetracking.com/open?login=lbcfootw
February 13th, 2008 at 6:40 am
You mean that wpmix[dot]com? Or can you give the url to that other “big site”? would that have been wpthemes.myartsonline[dot]com (seen it there also) allthough now its down.
I stil really wonder, how voting stopped so sudden, you would at least expect when thoose banners gave such an huge ammount of votes, and they kept coming and coming and coming, why to remove it when it was such a big succes, why not to leave them on?or felt a pitty towards the other contenders here and said: awwwww, lets remove them all, from all the sites we have the banner on at exactly the same time?
February 13th, 2008 at 6:50 am
I have already wrote that you can check that big site here:
extremetracking.com/open?login=lbcfootw
It’s my friend’s football related website. The status of visitors you have on the link I wrote you.
I could have my banner there on the top where now adsense is only for a few hours, because if I had it all the time I would have more thousands votes… As well another themes would have many more votes than. And this site was also the last intension, the idea that I have seen at first on Lorelei’s site, than my friend offered me his help.
February 13th, 2008 at 6:56 am
I could have my banner there on the top where now adsense is only for a few hours, because if I had it all the time I would have more thousands votes… As well another themes would have many more votes than
Ok, if you say so….I only wonder how come the OTHER themes didnt get any votes then.
And the reason for the banner-removal shows your gratitude to the other contenders that they wouldnt have to suffer from such a huge defeat, very noble of you.
Anyway, I hope you are right with what you say, but together with me a lot of people will have their doubts
February 13th, 2008 at 7:07 am
On the banner was : “Please support Daisy dream WordPress theme by Michal Uhrin. Thanks!” I think it was written in certain way, not as on my site wptemplates(dot)org… But doesn’t matter. My friend has managed it all.
February 13th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Whatever was on it, or if in fact it has been there, is not an issue.
My MAIN concern is and remains WHY after you reached 200 votes lead (and you were on 751)
NOT any vote was casted to you in over 4 hours, while in the 3 hours before you managed to get 300 or so, shortly before it became febrauri the 13th (closing day of the poll) in CET (you are from Slovakia, so you have CET) not any votes where casted to you anymore.
It doesnt look normal or natural.
It can have several reasons:
1. All banners you have placed were removed, because you felt pitty towards the other contenders.
2. The option to vote on you got blocked…lol
3. All the sites youi launched your final campaigns on suffered major downtime (all on the same server?)
4. Other……as some people besides me already stated
And now excuse me, I have other things to do, and I said more then enough.
February 13th, 2008 at 7:31 am
It seems that there are votes that have been casted after my friend has removed the banner. If you had a site with so many uniques and the adsense banner there , it would be better for you to make on my advertisement (instead of adsense) thousands of votes, or to earn on adsense a lot of money in 1 day? So therefore I had there my advertisement only a few hours… Everyone would make it so, if he could earn so much on adsense and would help me with votes as well…
February 13th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Its a shame to see that in fact you never ANSWER anything, or counter-react on the things which people are mentioning about whats suspicious, and only keep blabbering about your friends site.
If it doesnt look suspicious to you on how it voting went and stopped, I dont know anymore.
Nothing speaks in your favour, but then again we all can be wrong.
I am going to end this discussion from my side at least, all the time i have spent typing here, i could have earned 1k in a fair way also.
February 13th, 2008 at 7:49 am
I have answered it but unfortunately you havent understand it in that question, which was my 2nd sentence.
February 13th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Howdy all, voting has now been closed – and we will have a result and answer for you in about 2 weeks. Make sure you stay tuned into the blog here and remember to try to keep discussion as civil as possible please. Any and all claims of cheat will be investigated to the fullest so we can be sure we have a real winner.
February 13th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Hi all, seems like the comments section is overheating, so allow me to have a say as well.
I had seen the rather unusual blast of votes last night, it was hard not to notice, but I didn’t want to comment because others would have said I just want to push a “competitor” out of my way. That’s not true, I feel really really bad about the better designs in this contest that was left behind and didn’t gather enough votes for any prize, such as ‘Spa’, ‘One Winged Angel’ and ‘Light’. I believe ModernMagic is not bad, but these 3 had to be in (on?) the lead. These are the themes you’d see widely used by tons of bloggers.
“Lorelei made a banner as well”.
May I comment on this, Michal?
Yes, on the last I made blog posts calling people to vote on most of my highest traffic blogs, and I have a network of them, some receive up to 2,000 visitors a day (+ pinged it to 50 servers and friends helped me with social bookmarks). I also put a banner up on my own forum, which receives over 3,000 uniques daily. Moreover I bumped it in all the high-traffic forums and the result is, over 8 hours I managed to gather about 100 votes or so. So out of thousandSSS of people who viewed my banners, only very small percentage actually did go and vote (for me). And this is, IMHO, a natural percentage, pretty much equivalent to Adsense or any other advertising CTR.
You got about 200 votes (not only visits!) in less than an 1 hour, so I can only assume you put your banner on one of the highest traffic sites on the internet to get such a “CTR”. While this is possible, reasonable and understandable, judging by the tendency, that would mean if you left the banner up for 24 hours there, you’d have got almost 4800 votes more? If this is the case, I guess we all will seriously consider advertising our sites there. I see on Andrej’s and your own site the banner is still up so probably this was not the main source of votes. Don’t get me wrong I am not blaming or accusing anyone, there is a big chance that, additionally to the fantastic exposure opportunity, one of your fiends just wanted to “help” you with the voting, and believe me, I am not protected from it either, I can’t guarantee that all my votes are authentic, because a lot of people wholeheartedly wished I’d win and there is no guarantee any of them didn’t “help” out of best intentions. That’s why I am really happy to see that LP staff will look into it, believe me, I’d not want to win in a dirty way and compromise my reputation. 1k + 5 years of hosting is a very generous prize, but I am not going to rip anyone’s throat for it. period.
Anyway, let’s not forget that LP is a *hosting* company and there are countless ways of checking things through. If like you say the blast of votes came though this football site, means at these hours there was min. 200+ unique visitors to this page from that site. Proxies or scripts, as far as I know, have no “referring” URL.
Thanks once again to everyone who supported me and chose to give their vote for ModernMagic, and thanks to LP staff for going into so much hassle and checking things for the sake of the contenders.
Liza
February 13th, 2008 at 8:46 am
The amusing part of all this is how obvious it is that the ModernMagic theme completely kicks the ass out of Daisy Dream that it’s not even plausible they are a winning design. In fact, Daisy Dream is pretty much the worst design of the entire lot. This should have been a contest that was judged by an internal panel of judges, not the general public.
I haven’t read the comments/drama so I don’t know what’s been said, but it’s fairly obvious that Michal has completely cheated on this contest. Lorelei’s entry has been getting consistent votes since this contest was posted and Michal’s would only go up in spurts, especially when his entry started falling back.
In fact, Lunar should completely disregard the votes and bring in some judges and tally up the votes of the judges.
February 13th, 2008 at 8:57 am
I don’t know, maybe it was luck that I received so much votes and probably at that time I had banner there when there was the highest traffic. But anyway let the LP staff to investigate this.
And I have votes from some forums with loyal members that want to help to other people ( onlajneri(dot)com, etc).
I would like to thank to all people they have give me their votes and they helped me.
February 13th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Wouldn’t an ad on a high-profile site cause an increase in votes on ALL the designs? After all, people are unlikely to support someone they don’t know personally, just because he asks them to.
I’m not an expert on web-design/coding, so please correct me if what I am about to suggest is not technically possible:
If a banner was created in such a manner that a click on it automatically voted on a given design, all the random strangers who happened to press it out of curiosity would end up having their vote stolen. They could then be redirected to some other site, so as to prevent them commenting here and complaining about not being able to vote. It would be simple to make the banner disappear/deactivate after a certain number of hits, or a difference in voting scores between the two lead designs.
Not saying this is necessarily what happened, but it explains the oddities of what was observed to a degree that, IMHO, merits serious consideration.
February 13th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Okay, what I am going to add is based on dry marketing analysis, anyone who has advertised before in their life will know what I mean, others can just try to follow and I hope I can explain my point it well.
There is such a term as “relevant traffic” and “irrelevant traffic” — and visitors from soccer/freebies site to wordpress oriented site is definitely irrelevant traffic. While an advert for free soccer wallpapers COULD work on a wp themes page, because that leads from narrow webmasters niche to wide entertainment / freebies niche (and entertainment niches cover a bigger percentage of online surfers), when it’s the other way around, it’s quite surprising. If you are interested in downloading free football wallpapers, how fat is the chance you are also interested in web design >> blogging, wordpress in particular? So potential % of visitors from so to speak “irrelevant” site can’t possibly be huge unless they all suffer from unhealthy curiosity. (Again, Adsense will get clicks, because it displays relevant-to-the-content ads.)
But we are assuming one *did* click on the wp banner, and went to the Lunar Pages blog. Okay, so you are there. You need to scroll down about 5 pages until you see the poll and there are pictures and written content on the way that can distract. You might not even know where the poll is and close the tab. But you are patient and did search for the poll. By the time you located it, do you remember who the banner ordered you to vote for..? And if you do remember, but liked someone else’s design, you still completely disregard your own will..?
Well… evidently 350 people last night followed exactly this path. And that means (dividing the traffic by the hours ), every 7th visitor came here to *vote* for only one theme.
People might be “loyal” in forums but Like Darin say, why would they vote for someone following an advert just because they were told? It could be a mere spam after all, they cannot know it.
I am not saying it couldn’t potentially bring votes, of course it could, but considering that at some point when I was only 9 votes away, there was a real a shower of them, I think to justify such a percentage of votes you had to advertise on a much higher traffic site, and slightly more relevant to the niche.
Moreover, if you say a lot of people supported you on webmasters boards, those your posts, I guess, were posted earlier and weren’t removed suddenly, so it remains an enigma why after you reached 751 votes (precisely 200 ahead of me) the votes for your theme stopped for more than 4 hours completely.
While many things can have a reasonable explanation, just like others, THIS is what I totally fail to understand.
February 13th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Lorelei – It’s pretty simple.. it’s called getting busted red-handed.
February 14th, 2008 at 2:00 am
Lorelei, I think you cant understand it because you lose. Who lose have rights to be angry. But you have rights to complain as well. You have gained more than 100 votes in that single day as well, I maybe 3 times more than you in that same day.
It doesnt matter what kind of site it is, if someone want to vote (support me, not other themes) he will click on it and vote for my theme. Maybe they clicked on your theme as well thats because you gained more than 100 votes in that day ;) Other themes had not many votes so very few votes were going to them.(it was only “fight” between your and my theme).
But all the votes that I had in exactly that day I had from (too) many sources. You write it as I had all votes from 1 site…
And the votes havent suddenly stopped after advertisement was removed. I gained votes after than as well as you. I think noone saw it because everyone was surprised of my inceasement of votes…
This is I think reasonable explanation.
And if you dont believe me, I can make it 2nd time , everyone can look on that site and again on increasing number of votes… ;) But let the LP team to investigate this.
And Lorelei, on that football site was 15-20k UNIQUE visitors/day so many much page views, just count how many unique visits in that 4 or how many hours, 4 hours make 5k unique visits + votes from another sites which makes also many votes and as I said before vote wasnt only from that site.
Youre right if I had it on the biggest WordPress site I would definetely gain maybe 1000 votes in that few hours… But this was a football related site so I gained not so much votes.
Anyway , Lorelei , why are you still looking for some reason? I know why… I would maybe do it also with my friends if I was in another position.
Dan I can say you that everyone likes something else. Not everyone think that the Modern Magic is the best, not everyone think that Daisy Dream is the best.
Dan please at first read all the comments, how can you say again I’m a cheater? Than I can blame Lorelei as a cheater aas well ;) think about it ( more than 100 votes for lorelei in single day and more than 300 in a few weeks )
btw my entry didnt started to fall back as you said. I dont know where you saw it but everytime I was in the lead or Lorelei ( both with max.20 votes lead ).
Why should LP staff do it as you said? Because you dont like my theme I know… Never mind at the start again it was stated that maybe not the best design will win, and now this is here.
Darin, maybe some people from that football site voted for another themes ( for lorelei’s, only because there was a competition between us , if will someone vote for another theme he will be maybe stupid ).
Darin you’ve got various people, someone is glad to support and someone is not. Maybe footbal fans like to support my theme more than Lorelei’s because its more oriented on something what has with football in common than ModernMagic…
Darin, that I think was in this case not possible to vote direct for my theme from banner.
I wouldn’t make any posts here anymore, because as I said before it is a waste of time… Let the LP staff investigate all votes. ;)
February 14th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Michal Uhrin Says:
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:07 am
Hello Everyone,
I though that you will choose a winner, now everyone will have votes from people they have told it, from forums, etc. It’s not objective and will win not the best design.
mikozv
Yes, in case your theme will win then for sure ‘not the best design’ will win lol
February 14th, 2008 at 6:16 am
And the votes havent suddenly stopped after advertisement was removed. I gained votes after than as well as you. I think noone saw it because everyone was surprised of my inceasement of votes…
This is I think reasonable explanation.
They did, and a lot of people seen that, at 751 your incoming votes stopped for a few hours.
I hope Lunar will take a extra good look what happend 3 hours before you reached that ammount until a few hours after you reached that ammount, they will see also that you didnt gain any votes over that time
What I also dont understand is why in your first defense after their were several complaints made here, you didnt directly say about your friends site and came with that a few comments later, you just said no cheating, no proxies, if I had to defend myself when I am falsly (?) blamed I would directly tell it all and especially not forget to mention a huge traffic site I had a banner on.
On that evening your voting looked like a bucket of water, you fill it and turn it around, all water falls out, and not a single drop afterwards.
Natural is, turn the bucket around, water falls out and it will stay dripping drops for some time to come.
Also remember that during the day you got at least 3-4 votes each hour mostlikli form other sites/forums where it was promoted, after 751 nothing anymore, can be because of the threads on several forums dropped from view, but the main issue remains big boost of votes, and it just stopped as if the poll was closed, there was no flow.
It is well known that in the final hours of every single open voting contest, someone will try and pull a trick and hope it doesnt get noticed.
Because which fool would actually sit behind a computer and watch how the final stages of a voting contest evolve, well….sometimes I am one of them.
Again Lunar, please have a good look at votes received from about 3-4 hours the 751 count was reached, until 3-4 hours after, and notice the oddness in the situation comparing it with the whole voting-cycle.
February 14th, 2008 at 6:41 am
Ok, I dont tend to post here, but it seems people are being attacked from all sides so I thought I would add my 2 cents and comment from a coding background (PHP/MYSQL) to Darins post about AutoVoting.
Unless the voting system here on LP was so slack it relied on a $_GET post to allow a vote to be given and no validity on the referring site that this site is at fault for have a system open to abuse. But I doubt it would. They could also tell from there access logs where votes had been counted from. The votes would also have the IP of the referring server as the user would not see the voting system.
But as this is built on the WP platform there would have to be a certain amount of error checking before a vote would be counted (maybe LP could provide the name of the plugin they have used to have the voting system).
If people have not voted yet a vote for them has been counted, then they need to step up and make themselves known and this is not good practice. The only way to do this is to send a user from a duplicated form to this site, which again can be tracked from the server access logs and any such votes could be nulled out.
As LP is looking into the vote count, I am sure they will be rooting through the access logs as well to see what has been going on overtime.
—————-
On a side note to common voting and posting of “vote for me” this shouldnt really be allowed as it will always be the winner of who has more friends or who can advertise on the most sites to get the votes they want, so the “crapest” design could win in theory and not the one that “should” win.
I hate it when people tend to comment just to point fingers and saying x,y,z is doing bad practise without ANY proof. This is just speculation and NOT proof.
February 14th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Why has lorelei lied in her thread btw?Why has Lorelei gained more than 100 votes in single day(before cca300 votes in 2 weeks)? Nobody has replied on it. When I was blamed for cheating I had’nt clue that it was my friends site. Than he wrote it, his name is Milos, so read his post please. I wasnt here that time after this big voting stopped, but than in about a few hours I saw that I gained a lot of votes as well as you. And why should I always now 2 weeks defend me? I have said everything what is true, now let the other people investigate all votes ;) I know I havent obtain votes by cheating or by other black way, so I am calm ;)
And btw , who are you Captain? Lorelei’s friend, manager, or even Lorelei personally? ;)
February 14th, 2008 at 7:35 am
And btw , who are you Captain? Lorelei’s friend, manager, or even Lorelei personally?
As you can see in one of my previous post, you will mostlikly read that i know that Lorelei has a forum, and I am a member there.
Don think its hard to conclude from my posts, that I “know” her, everyone can see that.
Why the little winks behind your question?dont you think I would have been “caught” by Lunar because our IP-adresses match and I was Lorelei herself?
Look, Michal, I know you think I am attacking you, I am just stating every single time what I have seen happening.
If any other theme would have had the same, lets say coming from 4th place going to 1st, and thus you ending as 2nd as Lorelei as 3rd I would have done the same thing.
In fact that would have meaned with what I seen happening would maybe have helped you also.
February 14th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Michal, this is why I said in my first comment after the poll was closed, that I did NOT want to respond on this at all, assuming you’d come and say “hahaha you were defeated and just envious!”.
So first of all, I don’t think I “lost” because: A. I will probably get the 2nd prize and it’s also very honorable. B. I got unbelievable support from people allover the world helping and encouraging me, leaving positive feedback and commenting on my designs and that means more to me than cash. C. Unfortunately, I didn’t lose to a “better theme” so it won’t shake my confidence. ;)
Not to mention that regardless the outcome, this contest gave my designs an enormous exposure and weather I will get ANY prize or not, I am really grateful to LP for this opportunity. And you should be too.
I remember over a week ago, when Modern Magic went from 175 to 240 in 5 hours (and that was the same day after it went up on Digg.com!) – you directly brought this issue up, because 11 votes per hour seemed abnormal and fake to you. So why are you surprised that to me, and many others, 200 votes per hour seemed like an atypical blast?
And where, if I may ask, “Lorelei lied in her thread”? Or are you going to say that I asked for votes in my own forum, and that is oh so unethical, what if others did it too? How unfair, Michal eh. Good thing you moaned about it right from the start.
And again, you contradict yourself. You said you had banners on “too” many sources which explains the voting fever, however, only on one (if I understood correct – football site) it was removed after a few hours, so how come ALL votes for your theme stopped? That would be a real conspiracy if people from all the other multiple sources would stop voting for you for over 4,5 hours after seeing you reached exactly 200 above me? It doesn’t make sense that visitors were casting a vote every few seconds and then all of a sudden discontinued.
If you know for sure that all your votes are 100% real (although I think none of the contenders can’t give that guarantee, we all have supporters who can give us an unwanted “favour”), why do you feel attacked upon every post? You don’t have to defend yourself Michal, LP said they will investigate, and logs are better witnesses than words so I am sure you can remain calm. Besides, you keep reading wrong into my words. I DIDN’T say you cheat, how can I say that? Based on what? …all I said was: you tried to come up with an *explanation* of your votes’ storm and I *personally* don’t think it clarifies the votes’ pattern. I could be wrong, I am not God almighty.
Oh and, well spotted btw. Captain, Lorelei, Kalina, Soldier, Dan, Ben, Rescuer, Mike, Master are all my aliases. I just tend to post from different nicks sometimes. In fact, this is my blog and contest, so I’m more inclined to give the prize to myself and not to you. Hope that clears it all.
Now, I will appreciate if the flood of insults in my address will stop, I don’t think I gave you a reason for that.
February 14th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Lorelei I have to defend mostly against you and your community because thats not true what you writes.
At first “Lorelei lied in her thread” , this I have mentioned more times, but with no answer… Just read my posts ;)and you dont know what you writes????, here : “that guy is really funny if u read (all!) the comments in the contest page, when he is suggesting if i will win — it will be unfair.” you wrote it about me , thanks…
And if you write it in this way so who wouldnt be angry about it ? Therefore I am defending me…
btw when I am writing about it , how am I funny to you ???
Second, I didnt say that I ve got better theme than you, noone knows, maybe you like more your theme another like more my theme… Its true that I havent here my best design, Daisy Dream I have made almost 1 year ago :) so for me are my positive comments in forums very valuable because this theme is one of my first WP themes and generally start in graphic design.
I am very thankful to LP that they have chosen one of my themes thats naturally ;)
Lorelei, nothing seemed to me abnormal and fake… Just read that I was only defending against you with posts from others ;)
I am not surprised that you complain about my vote increasment, that is normal… But why all those comments around it ? Certainly you are disappointed. And now complaining on everything what is possible…So please dont write things like “I don’t think I “lost” because…”, etc…
Lorelei if I will win that money I would give you a half because I like your theme more than mine, but you were saying lies so now If I will win I will share with my friends certainly… I am not that man who you think maybe I am ;) only therefore that I gained a lot of votes…( or your contender think )
And the banners yes, you have mentioned that I used only 1 banner, but if you looked before on wpmix(dot)com or wptemplates(dot)org you will see them there as well;) but this all is woth of my energy because if you Lorelei read all comments , you would read there these things…
So I dont contradict myself, please dont blame me, thanks.
And many other sources for voting, they have already been mentioned.(like forums,friends,family,etc.)
I have noticed that for your theme also weren’t votes raising more than 4,5 hours but some days ago… So I wasnt here in that time I didnt see it in my theme… But I trust you , yes it can be true that for 4,5 hours I gained no votes. But why are you writing this? Maybe almost americans gave me votes and at that time exactly all americans were sleeping ;) Who knows…
Again about votes: I have written that let the LP staff investigate so how could I give you some confirment when I dont own this server? I dont understand what you exactly want from me… Maybe to admit that I have cheated… But I haven’t, maybe some of my contenders as you write, but I don’t think so… If they were cheating, than not in too many votes I think ;) and they will delete cheated votes and after than will be the winner announced.
And in a situation when everybody is blaming you as a cheater, and writing you that it wasnt correct and you know it was correct (almost from my side, and football site because he’s my good friend and I trust him), wouldnt you be defending yourself as well?
Maybe you didnt blame me as a cheater but when I read your post is looks like it… But your contenders did…
wow I didnt know that you own this site :O , but it can be real when someone read all those posts ;)
Ok I think I said everything, now only to admit it :))))
February 14th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Hmmmm, ok..since we decide to go full of sarcasm and cynism, and winks incinerating enough.
I want to add something to my last response as well, where YOU brought the personal factor in…
**checks first if I indeed are logged in as Captain now and not as Lorelei or any other**
What does a personal relation with a contender has to do with the comments which are made?
Everyone knows it, a stranger to someone would not even bother to go into it, but just say: ok, that theme won, allthough i gave my vote to another.
If I know Lorelei personally, or just from online, or even if she was my girlfriend or wife, it does not make sense why that should be an issue.
But for sure, if I wouldnt have told you, I bet a link to some threads in Lorelei’s forum would have been brought up, because you are a member there to, wow…the “truth” revealed, shocking news: Captain knows Lorelei.
Happy it got revealed now?
What does it say? who does it a favour? What was your purpose for asking me that?
Oh, and I am not Lorelei’s manager, because if I was for sure she would have known as soon as i advertized for her on any other site, may it be high or low traffic, and not having to find out “later” ;)
Friends help friends when they THINK unjustice is done, now you are the “winner” and you dont need defense but wanna bet when Lorelei or someone else would have such a vote-increase pattern in the last hours of the battle (in OUR europen time that is) YOUR friends would have complaint also? Even when they dont have “proof” just like no-one has here, but simply by stating their findings and raising a SUSPICION.
ps. you calculated with 20k visitors from that soccer, while in fact it was 14759, I could do some math-calculation now and compare it with ctr from any other sites and say something about it, but lets not.
Whats next? Saying that Lorelei’s “team” or community,as you call it,has been doing some major vote-increase on your theme to get you disqualified?
In case you do, read first the previous comments I gave the solution already for in case that happend and on what Lunar should do with that.
Been watching the movie “conspiracy theory” lately, or investigated the “complot” against JFK?
PS. Lunar, I know I maybe got a bit personal too with this comment, and will have no problems with it when you decide to remove it.
But when a person asks me a personal question, I think I can reply in a personal way as well and i thought/hope have that right
It might be wisefull as well, to close the auto-approving commenting on this topic, and only manual approve comments, because I am stil behaving now…..lol
We brought up SUSPICIONS, nowhere did i say that you have CHEATED.
You are sure you have won fair, we arent, so why are you pushing yourself to look like a victim now?
February 14th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Hello to all!
I would like to say to everyone that all Michal Uhrin’s votes are clear. They come from one site and one forum. I call Lunarpages to be honest and investigate all votes and show results to everyone! I just can assure everyone that Michal Uhrin is honest person all his votes are clear.
Thank you for your time!
February 14th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Okay Michal, it’s mindless, you just keep attacking me and I think unjustly. Either you are too sensitive, or just don’t fully understand what I say. I never said you cheated, if what I suggested sounded like a direct accusation in your address, then that’s a good sign if paranoia ;)
Btw, for the 3rd time: the “funny” part, just like my one and only initial comment targeted at YOU personally, refer to the fact that you first asked for votes everywhere, then got to lead, and THEN complained that others will do the same, suggesting that it won’t be fair. Yes, I find it funny; we all asked for votes but somehow managed to live with the fact that others did the same. It’s like to come and participate in a sport competition yet complain that your competitor is better trained… Anyway, didn’t we mill over this subject enough by now..?
If LP didn’t gain enough publicity with this contest, they sure got plenty of unique written content here :P
February 14th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I am sorry Lorelei, but here is that post :
“Hello Everyone,
I though that you will choose a winner, now everyone will have votes from people they have told it, from forums, etc. It’s not objective and will win not the best design.
mikozv”
I wasn’t suggesting here it will not be fair, but it is not objective, I have made those posts on forums before because I wanted to make some campaigns as well as was it before in first rounds.
NOT complaining about the others do it also and it would be unfair…
It was only note to this contest not complain, if I would complain about it than I would like maybe before not to make campaigns. The rules was so that will win not the best design but the one who will gain more votes. I knew it so I decided to post this, already I knew that nothing will change… But in last time I saw many contests on the web that are made in this way so it is not unfair, but not objective to the best design. If would decide some certain people from LP with people doing in this but not from dp or some forum, some graphic designers ( panel I mean ) it would be more objective, and maybe would win theme with the fewer votes now.
And this part I was regarding to : “when he is suggesting if i will win — it will be unfair.”
I have never wrote that so therefore I was writting you it wasn’t true. Nothing else…
And if you are signing me as a paranoic, so who is attacking who? And the previous posts as well…
But I have nothing against you, only that you shouldn’t write what is not true… I dont like it and my personality is that I defend than myself from other attacks not only from you. Maybe you have not understand my post very well, so if it is so, big apologize to you. Than all those comments are a big misunderstandig and I am sorry Lorelei for it if I injured you.
Thats all, I will accord with you that we have talk here about it too much and it is unwise to talk about it more as well as about another themes here… I hope noone will blame me for something again so I wouldn’t have to defend myself, so I would like to write here only about some good things… :)
February 15th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Michal might win but having looked at all of these forums, his is no better than what I can do with a Tabulis forum. If my wife, a graphics Designer, produced that design, as a professional, she would loose her job.
February 15th, 2008 at 7:50 am
after a long debate.. who’s will win?? :D good luck to everyone..
February 16th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Im a member of an off topic forum and saw a post left by a member regarding this contest…
as a keen and at times freelance web designer/programmer i was interested and read the post…
the post made me aware of the contetest and the person was honest saying a friends work (Lorelei) is up for being voted on…
i was not told to specifically vote for her work and the link provided was for the main page and not a direct vote…
apon looking at the designs i did vote for Modern Magic as the “design” i felt was the best…
now having been part of both the design and programming parts of the web world i feel there have been grave mis-judgements to the works in hand
as the contest title says… this is a “Design” contest… my interpritation is then that i am judging the looks and feel of the blogs
i have worked freelance at over 90 different companies many of which being blue chip each have had a design department and web department.
the functionality and the coding of these sites is not in question, as like the companies i have visted and worked for the design teams knowledge of constructing a website/blog/cms is usually very basic if at all exsistant as its not part of or required for there job…
anyways im now rambling on i apologise! lol
if cheating has and most likely taking place (and sed suggestions regarding links to direct voting and proxys being used is all very easy also its easy to use anonymous website forwarding thus different/fake ips given) is very sad and should inherit a ban/disqualification!
i apologise for my lack of grammer, poor punctuation, most probably shorthand/txt talk and spelling mistake but im in a rush although felt i had to comment!
thanks for reading.. and good luck to all entries!
February 16th, 2008 at 9:30 am
p.s. funny how these 200 people didnt leave a comment…. pitty hehe!
February 18th, 2008 at 4:29 am
Looking forward to seeing Lorelei $2000 richer in 2 weeks! :)
Cheaters eh? :D
February 18th, 2008 at 7:27 am
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