It’s official. I’m out!
THANK YOU THANK YOU to all of my family & friends that took time out of their busy lives to vote for me in the Sam-e Good Mood Blogger contest. I APPRECIATE YOU ALL so much and am blessed to have you in my life! Sadly, I decided to pull out of the contest today. Below is the email trail that explains what happened.
THANK YOU AGAIN FOR YOUR INCREDIBLE SUPPORT!
xo Jacq
*FYI – “Josie” is another contestant that is also a friend. She writes the fabulous blog YumYucky.
On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 9:02 AM, Josie wrote:
Hi L:
myself and a friend (who I copied on this email) are involved in the Sam-e blog contest.
Not sure if this is your department, but we think there might be a glitch in the voting. There’s feedback from friends who are trying to vote for the 1st time that a message tells them they already voted. AND, some people are able to vote twice while others cannot.
Can you pass this on and maybe have your the tech people look into it?
Thanks,
Josie
L- Ignite Social Media wrote:
Hi Josie,
Thanks so much for pointing this out about the voting situation for the SAM-e Good Mood Gig. I have passed that along to the team that is handling everything for that. What I’ve been told this morning is that the voting is restricted to one vote per IP address, so it’s possible that if your friends are voting from an office or something, if one person has voted, the voting for that IP address as a whole will be cut off, even if different individuals are trying to vote. As far as some people being able to vote twice, if they are on home networks, home network IP addresses do not always stay the same so it’s possible that if someone voted Friday morning from home, they may have been able to vote again Saturday morning. Our tech team is looking into this though and will explore alternative voting restriction methods in order to hopefully fix this problem!
Thanks again,
L
On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 10:30 AM, Jacqueline wrote:
Hi L
Thanks so much for getting back to us. Just to clarify so that you can pass the information on (please 
:
-a friend tried to vote from her personal laptop (never having voted before, or anyone else on that computer) and it told her
no because she already voted.
-a friend voted twice from the same laptop using two different days from a work laptop.
-when my husband tried to vote today on firefox it said he voted already (he hadn’t), when he went to explorer it worked
-more than one person from my office has voted, it did not block the office IP.
Thanks,
Jacqueline
Tue, 6 Oct 2009 16:36:39 -0400, G- Ignite Social Media wrote:
Hi Jacqueline,
Thank you for your entry in the Good Mood Gig. We’re glad you’re interested in the job. In reviewing your entry, however, we found 3 votes that violate our terms and conditions, specifically those allowing one vote per person and IP address per day. See: http://www.sam-e.com/job/terms for more information and the complete terms.
As a result, we are removing those 3 votes from your vote tally. The terms allow us to disqualify the votes or disqualify the entry. At this point, however, it seems fairest to disqualify only the votes. You do still have 242 votes, which is an excellent start. There’s lots of time left in the contest for you to build upon that.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Happy to chat about them. Otherwise, good luck with your entry.
~G
Director of Technology
Ignite Social Media
Tue, October 06, 2009 4:34 pm, G – Ignite Social Media wrote:
Hi Josie,
Thank you for your entry in the Good Mood Gig. We’re glad you’re interested in the job. In reviewing your entry, however, we found 64 votes that violate our terms and conditions, specifically those allowing one
vote per person and IP address per day. See: http://www.sam-e.com/job/terms for more information and the complete terms.
As a result, we are removing those 64 votes rom your vote tally. The terms allow us to disqualify the votes or disqualify the entry. At this point, however, it seems fairest to disqualify only the votes. You do still have 184 votes, which is a good start. There’s lots of time left in the contest for you to build upon that.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Happy to chat about them. Otherwise, good luck with your entry.
~G
Director of Technology
Tue, October 06, 2009 4:41 pm, Josie wrote:
Hi G:
I’m still in. Thank you! I got feedback from voters that some are voting twice, three times even, and some couldn’t vote at all. It’s been confusing. To clarify. A person can vote once daily from their computer (IP address)? If another computer user has the same IP address (like in an office), the vote does not count? I read the official rules and this is what I gather based on what your telling me, but please correct me if not.
Thanks so much,
Josie
*So of course I picked up the phone an called G to discuss this email and go over the technical issues with the voting system. Also, there was a new contestant that had over 500 votes within minutes, and then 1024 in a few hours which seemed rather odd. He assured me that they were being looked in to all of it.
Wed, 7 Oct 2009 16:56:05 -0400, C- Ignite Social Media wrote:
Hi Jacqueline,
Thank you for your email and concerns. Unfortunately, the short answer is this is not an issue we can fix. G and the rest of the technical team have done everything they can possibly do to ensure that what’s happening is not due to error on our part.
The talent search allows one vote per IP address per day. A mechanism has been put into place to ensure users with a shared IP address can still cast one vote each day; however, certain security and firewall settings may prevent multiple users with a shared IP address from casting individual votes. Since we can’t control firewall settings, we can only suggest voting from another location.
Regards,
C
Ignite Social Media
Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:05:03 -0400, Jacqueline wrote:
Hi C
Thank you for your email. However, I do not share an IP address with anybody and even I can’t vote and I know for sure it is not any of my firewall settings. Also, I know two other people in the contest and all of their friends & family are experiencing the same thing. While I understand there is only so much you can do, it is frustrating because it poses an unfair advantage to the contestants getting votes from “unblocked” computers. I know for a fact that I lost 17 votes today from people that contact me that they could not vote because it would not let them, and some of these people never voted before at all.
I truly appreciate you getting back to me and looking in to this, but having people getting blocked from voting continuously over the next 5 weeks will surely cause a lot of frustration.
Thank you for your time.
Jacqueline
And I got no response…
So…
Thu, October 08, 2009 11:19 am, Jacqueline wrote:
Hi G
As of today I would like my entry to be removed from the Good Mood Gig contest. As per my previous emails & our phone conversation, I know you are well aware of the technical glitches in the voting system. From the last correspondence (see below) with Christian, his only suggestion was to “get people to vote from another location”, and to me this is not acceptable. Friends and family have been contacting me on a daily basis because they have been blocked from voting, some have never even voted but still are blocked. How is it a fair contest when contestants are missing out on votes because of technical glitches? Its is disrespectful of me to continue asking people to take time out of their day to vote for me, when they will only be blocked anyway.
So again, please remove my entry from the contest effective immediately.
Thank you for your time,
Jacqueline
Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Josie wrote:
G:
I also share Jacqueline’s views on the situation, as I have encountered repeated frustration from friends and family attempting to vote for me. It has become an embarrassment.
I also request that my entry be removed.
This contest has been handled in a poor fashion and it is a poor reflection on the Nature Made brand that I have patronized for years and personally promoted on my blog when your company approached ME to get the word out on vitaminID.
I am disappointed to say the least.
Josie
*I then tweeted the President of Ignite Social Media, J, and got this response:
Thu, 8 Oct 2009 12:09:23 -0400, J – Ignite Social Media wrote:
Hi Josie, Hi Jacqueline:
I totally understand your frustration. When you do a contest like this with voting, there has to be some way to keep someone from voting over and over and over. Most contests block by IP. I see this all the time when someone in my company asks me to vote for something and I can’t, because they already have. We’ve gone further than that simple, sort of blunt way of doing it, so that multiple computers within IPs can vote, but only once a day.
I just voted for both of you with no problem. Then went back to vote again, and it blocked me from doing so. So on my machine at least, it’s working exactly as intended.
None of that solves your issue, though. Here’s where we stand right now. For most people, everything is working fine. Clearly it’s not for either of you, and I’ve been talking to one other who’s had some sporadic issues. So we’ve got people digging further into log files and the like to look for a pattern.
We can do one of two things, just let me know which you’d like:
1. Delete your profile now. We’ll keep looking into things, but you won’t have to worry about it anymore either way; or
2. Give us to the end of the day to dig a little deeper. If by the end of the day we can’t find anything, we can delete your profile then knowing we did all we could.
Make sense? Just let me know which way you want to go. Either way, we’re going to see if we can replicate the issue your friends seem to be having.
~J
On 10/8/09 12:22 PM, Jacqueline wrote:
Hi J,
Thank you for the prompt response, I really appreciate you getting back to us. However, I would like my profile deleted. The people I have voting for me span the globe, and most of them do not share IP addresses, and some haven’t even been able to vote for a first time. I understand this is something out of your control at the moment, but it is not adequate for me to take part of a contest where the voting is working fine for “most”, as you stated below, but not all. Aside from Josie I know two other contestants in the contest that are also having the same issue, so it could be that it appears fine for most, but the others just haven’t contacted you yet.
Thank you again for your time.
Regards,
Jacqueline
Thu, 8 Oct 2009 12:32:18 -0400, J – Ignite Social Media wrote:
No problem Jacqueline. We’ll delete your profile immediately.
I appreciate your open communication.
~J
On 10/8/09 12:33 PM, Josie wrote:
J:
Please remove my profile as well. Thank you.
Josie
Thu, October 08, 2009 12:37 pm, josie wrote:
Josie,
Will do. Sorry for any confusion.
~J
THE END.
Oct 08, 2009
HOLY
MOLY.
Oct 08, 2009
You would have rocked this position! Looks like you gave it your best shot and then some.
Joanna Sutter´s last blog ..I’m a light weight
Oct 08, 2009
Well, all-in-all, that totally blows!
Oct 08, 2009
Wow, what a shame they couldn’t get it together. Seemed like a very sweet gig, too. I know you both would’ve done well with it.
Oct 08, 2009
Hi Jacqueline,
Jim (J) again.
Thanks for the faithful re-creation of the thread.
Wanted to say again that we’re sorry some of your friends had difficulty. I do want to point out that in less than a week, we’ve received well over 14,000 votes, and heard about issues with roughly 20 people. Even assuming that the number we hear about is understated 10-fold, that’s a 0.013 fail rate.
Given the billions of computer configurations out there (Mac/PC, browser type, browser version, security software, firewall configurations, etc.), there is no way to ensure 100% success with any system, including those that require registration (which is a pain in the neck for everyone).
We’re sorry that you’ve dropped out, particularly since people successfully voted for you hundreds of times (putting you in the leaderboard), but I totally understand and respect your decision.
All the best.
~Jim
Oct 08, 2009
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Fitarella and Fitarella. Fitarella said: Why I jumped ship from the Sam-e Good Mood Blogger contest http://bit.ly/xQpYW [...]
Oct 08, 2009
Wowza, that was bogus, huh?! A shame you guys had to go through all that baloney.
Major props for pulling out of the contest. That took a lot of guts and I’m sure was extremely disappointing.
Marisa (Trim The Fat)´s last blog ..Productive + Unique
Oct 08, 2009
Let me add to that the 64 votes that ware taken from me, Josie.
G said:
“In reviewing your entry, however, we found 64 votes that violate our terms and conditions…..As a result, we are removing those 64 votes from your vote tally……Otherwise, good luck with your entry.”
Oh G, THANKS!!
Yum Yucky´s last blog ..Foodie Fax Virtual Bash!
Oct 08, 2009
Thank you for commenting Jim. I understand your side and point of view, nothing is perfect, especially when it comes to technology. For me however, I don’t think its fair to waste my family & friend’s time for 5 weeks if they aren’t able to actually vote. It frustrating for me and them.
Thanks again,
Jacq
Fitarella´s last blog ..It’s official. I’m out!
Oct 08, 2009
Josie, I had forgotten that part, but have since added it into the thread
Fitarella´s last blog ..It’s official. I’m out!
Oct 08, 2009
Hi, Jacqueline (hey, Josie!)! I’m sorry about all of the hassle. At any rate, I’m glad to have “met” you and Josie through the Good Mood Gig.
I’m still in the race, and still get text messages, phone calls, emails, direct messages, and Facebook wall posts from friends who say they cannot vote.
I will continue to read your blog and wish you luck!
Chandra
Oct 08, 2009
How frikin’ frustrating for you and Josie …
Oct 08, 2009
You can add me to your list of friends who’ve had trouble. I also applied for the job and have been corresponding over the very same things. I’ve had no less than 20 of my friends and family who can’t vote from their home computers. I can’t even vote for myself. It’s completely bogus.
And interestingly, I received the very same form emails from the company.
Very frustrating and embarrassing. I feel your pain!
Oct 08, 2009
Ladies,
Whew. I have been experiencing the same phenomenon of weird voting that you have, as you know. Everyday I get Twitter, Facebook, and email messages from friends and fans saying that they have voted, and yet the tally simply doesn’t reflect their contribution seemingly. I have not contacted the company as you both did so professionally. I appreciate your efforts on behalf of all of us. It is clear that this contest is a little off. The fact that it is set to continue on through the month does not bode well in its’ favor. A true pity as the job sounded perfect for so many of us, like yourselves, who are dedicated to improving the overall health and well being of people in general. I am a huge fan of SAM-e. We use it regularly in my household. But most importantly I am a fan of spreading good moods. So in the interest of that I want o tell you both how much I appreciate your warmth and good humor. I also want to tell you how proud I am of how you have handled this situation thus far. I hope that that provides a little consolation, and leaves you in a somewhat of a good mood.
SMILE On!
ML
http://www.misslori.tv
Oct 08, 2009
@Chandra – It’s a pleasure to “meet” you too! Good luck with the contest! Stay strong!!
@Alice – Thank you for stopping by and your comment. I will be cheering you & Chandra on! Best of luck!
Fitarella´s last blog ..It’s official. I’m out!
Oct 08, 2009
WOW.
Mary :: A Merry Life´s last blog ..Adventures of a Pretend Foodie
Oct 08, 2009
Wow, that is a shame that the votes got messed up! I think you would have been great in the role!
Kat´s last blog ..trying to get caught up
Oct 08, 2009
Bummer!
Oct 08, 2009
Oh my aching head…sadly for them a fail rate with decimal points anywhere in it is still a fail rate. I’d hate to be working for them right now because I bet heads are rolling! Hmm, might not be a bad idea, actually. Could lose a few pounds without a head.
Balcony Gal´s last blog ..Well Hello There, Stranger
Oct 08, 2009
WOW!! I know I tried a million times!
But anybody who works in a corporate environment knows that they are lying through their teeth when they say they have not had many other complaints. That’s the shame of corporate America. Save face at all cost. There’s probably memos flying everywhere about this one and the web guy is getting a tongue lashing but they still will not admit that b/c they will have to end the entire promo and that will cost them too much. Right now someone is saying, “Why didn’t we just go with the story writing contest Bob suggested?”:o)
Jodi Jones´s last blog ..[Perform Beautifully] Is Your Program Best Suited for Your Sport?
Oct 08, 2009
Ditto Jodi exactly. There’s absolutely NO WAY they haven’t had any other complaints. That’s too bad, too, because I am sure you (and/or Josie) would have rocked the position. But if there was so much trouble with JUST the voting, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to think that the gig would have had “glitches” too.
Oct 08, 2009
It’s sad to hear you pulled out from the contest because of that.. I think you would have been great for that role.. Anyways, I believe better things will come.. Stay wonderful!!
Jewell´s last blog ..Corporate Gifting Can Promote Your Products
Oct 09, 2009
Holy Sh** what a mess.
Fit Mommy´s last blog ..Sheryl Crow. You Inspire Me.
Oct 09, 2009
[...] Serious drama regarding voting issues for Fitarella. [...]
Oct 09, 2009
Hi Jackie,
It looks very frustrating, but at least they tried to address the issue. You got a response rather than a brush off. That’s something these days!
- Cynthia
Oct 09, 2009
Thank you so much for sharing these emails! I’ve had the exact same troubles (so I’m sorry, but I don’t believe they’ve only had 20 complaints), but never received a response to my email. Nearly everyone I know who’s talked to me about trying to vote has had some sort of trouble – I only know of one person out of all my friends who has been able to vote once per day for me. This is a real problem and I wish they would stop ignoring it. I frankly find it unacceptable as well.
Stephanie PTY´s last blog ..Lending Club: One of My Loans Defaulted
Oct 09, 2009
[...] trouble voting? You’re not the only one! If you can’t vote once per day as per the contest rules, there’s a contact email address in [...]
Oct 10, 2009
Jac — Their lost! They’ll be another opportunity for everyone to know what a rockstar you are!!! I’m still waiting for my shot at being the next skinny oprah
Kim´s last blog ..Go ahead a call me a COUGAR!