Another voting question

[ronde]

Twice in the last couple of weeks, I have clicked on the voting button for a story, only to get a screen that says I've already voted. I asked my wife if she had been voting, and she said no.

I just got an email from another author who said this has happened to her several times lately, and that she has had the same feedback from some of her readers. Is it us, or have some of you had the same problem?

 

[Coolville]

yeah, tried it.
try logging out, then logging in again. sometimes that helps.

 

[TheHermit]

Possible Answer

I have been asking Author's for specific ideas/suggestions/horror stories related to voting. Based upon some email feedback and personal observations, here is a guess related to the problem you raised.

When a vote is registered, the site records an ISP related address. If you use a dial in modem, the address can change each time you dial in based upon what port your connection grabs that time.

Being a "public" pool of dial in ports, it is possible for you to be dealt an address that some other person has used to vote in the past. You didn't say whether you were signed in or not. It appears the rules for registering a vote is different for those signed in versus unregisted users. Signed in can only vote once, not signed in can vote an unlimited number of times as long as they get a different ISP address.

There is a good chance that if you go back to that story the next time you're visiting the site that your vote will register.

Laura's Vineyard was a fantastic piece of writing, my 5 vote did register.

 

[PetaTenna]

I suspect it's an actual error. I got it a few days ago (never have before), and I know another author who did and was surprised.

On another big site, I can see all the ISP addresses used if I want. Some of them are constantly reused by all sorts of different people, many times a day, so they're maybe AOL. But the ISP I'm on is small: typically the address I'm allocated has never been used on that site in the last six months. From which I conclude it's vanishingly unlikely that someone has already (a) been allocated that address and (b) voted on the very same story that I've just tried to.

Also, have you noticed "out of memory" script errors down near the bottom of pages sometimes? Just in the last few days.

 

[ronde]

Thanks

Thanks for everyone's help, and special thanks to TheHermit for the plug for "Laura's Vineyard". I'm glad you enjoyed the story. I guess I now have one more reason to abandon AOL and go to cable.

I haven't gotten any script error, but maybe my time is coming.

Thanks again, everybody.

(Blind PS to TheHermit. The $10.00 is in the mail, and should arrive in a couple of days.)