Below is the communications from me about the contest logic to the web development company (interactiveavenues.com) which is behind the Dell Welcome to Your Studio Contest.
Mail 1:
Hi,
I am not sure if this reaches to the team which worked on this contest website. Please ignore if this is not related to you, please accept my apology for the same.
I happened to see the voting logic of the site http://www.welcometoyourstudio.co.in , and I found it’s very raw, as any visitor can vote for the contests. As the prize money is little high you must consider following suggestions at least.
- Each registered user to be activated his account by clicking on a link in his welcome email which will help you to detect the email id is valid or not.
- Include any registered user can vote instead of any visitor can vote – which will help you to track unique votes. As per current system, one visitor can make him/his friend a winner by click on the vote button by opening the link in a new browser window. Please review the example voting happened on this site today For the photo: beautiful nature( http://www.welcometoyourstudio.co.in/view_work.php?id=4147&type=Photo&condition=top_rated&keyword=&page=1) these votes are all bogus votes : 2200+ votes in a day. You can see that all the votes can be from one IP Address only, they are doing it intentionally to be the winner, which fails the purpose of this competition.
- If you keep the registered user can vote option, you will get valid email ids for your marketing purpose as well as unique votes, in this current system there are no such plans.
And I hope you may be in touch with the team, so please forward this to them, I have already send a copy to Dell team to reconsider the contest rules and logic.
Look forward to get your reply on this.
Thanks
Sajeev P
Reply Mail 1 :
From: Aparna Tadikonda
Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 1:52 PM
Cc: ‘Kapil’
Subject: RE: About Contest on http://www.welcometoyourstudio.co.in
Dear Sanjeev
Firstly let me thank you for writing to us .We value your recommendations and consider your feedback. However pl. see my comments in line of your mail on your recommendations.
Best Rgds
Aparna
- Each registered user to be activated his account by clicking on a link in his welcome email which will help you to detect the email id is valid or not. It’s an open contest if someone wants to win he should enter ACTUAL email ID. The rules are mentioned in the terms and conditions
If you keep the registered user can vote option, you will get valid email ids for your marketing purpose as well as unique votes, in this current system there are no such plans.we have purposely kept It open Right now user have to enter Captcha code & we are tracking with cookies.
Mail 2:
From: Sajeev Padmanabhan
Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 4:05 PM
To: ‘Aparna Tadikonda’
Cc: ‘Kapil’
Subject: RE: About Contest on http://www.welcometoyourstudio.co.in
Aparna/Kapil,
Thanks for your email, happy to see your replies.You haven’t replied to the main point which is the second point, which can lead to disputes, which you may be answerable in the later stage.
Please see my inline comments marked as [Sajeev] in violet.
Anyway congratulations for creating such a great site even if there are some flaws.
Thanks
Sajeev
[Sajeev] Yes I already know the terms and conditions, my main question is point below, the user can even make him as the winner (which is happening right now) .. that is what you ppl need to take care of which is missing in the current system. 3500 votes in 2 days. And so many old entries are yet to be reviewed, (that wont be in your hands) they are reviewing in LILO method, eg 500 to 1300, 2000 to 3800 ids are yet to be reviewed. As today is seventh day of the contest even old entries which are posted on 1st and 2nd day are yet to be reviewed,
Mail 3:
From: Sajeev Padmanabhan
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 10:52 PM
To: ‘Aparna Tadikonda’
Cc: ‘Kapil’;
Subject: FW: About Contest on http://www.welcometoyourstudio.co.in
Aparna/Kapil,
Please see the attached screenshot of the site, please see if you have any answer to the marked portions. See the differences in three different screenshots.
Very funny things are happening to the site. Views and votes are very much different. Can you please explain the logic behind this.. I doubt there is an insider job is included in the manipulation.
Thanks
Sajeev

Dell welcome to your studio contest - Screenshot

Dell welcome to your studio contest - Screenshot 2

Dell welcome to your studio contest - Screenshot 3
Mail 4:
Aparna/Kapil,
The things are getting more worse than the earlier.. the entries are getting tampered.
I am going to forwarding this to PRESS now.
Thanks
Sajeev
Reply 4:
From: Aparna Tadikonda
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 12:46 PM
Cc: ‘Kapil’
Subject: RE: About Contest on http://www.welcometoyourstudio.co.in
Hi Sajeev
Can you share your no. so we can have a discussion with you on this than exchange mails
Rgds
Aparna
They were ready to settle me !!! (if i keep mum…off the record)
Even after all these communications, they were not even thinking about to change the logic of the contest, and i have below mail from Dell:
From: Siddharth_Kapoor
Sent: Sunday, October 18, 2009 10:54 PM
To: p.sajeev
Subject: Your feedback on Welcome to your Studio contest
Dear Sajeev,
My apologies for the delay in responding to your feedback.
First of all, thanks for your interest in the contest. I appreciate the feedback that you have provided. We are taking into account all the feedback that we have received and some of the unfair voting that happened in the contest and are updating the contest rules to account for these.
We will be updating the contest rules for selecting the winners. While the number of votes received for any entry will be taken into consideration, the final decision will rest with one or more judges who will be appointed by Dell. We are also making registration mandatory for voting.
We are also keeping an eye on entries where we suspect any unfair participation and will be disqualifying such entries over the next few days.
Thank you again for writing in.
Regards,
Siddharth
See what happened to the contest Next
Related posts