By now if you are hooked into the internet and have someone who is into shameless self promotion in honor of receiving a $25,000 grant you have probably heard about the UJC Jewish Community Heroes project, in which you can nominate a community hero and if they receive enough votes they will win a $25,000 grant towards their project. Sounds great right?
I have received countless emails from people asking me to vote for them, and quite frankly I can’t vote for everyone so I just put it on the back burner. Then I learned the shocking truth, the truth is that the entire process is rigged.
In a normal contest you would be able to vote once, but in this case, you can legally vote (and the nominees can vote for themselves as well) once every 12 hours. I am trying to figure out why it was done this way, why on earth would they let the same people vote over and over again? Shouldn’t it be one vote per person – furthermore – someone can just create a program to fill in the voting form automatically.
So basically you get someone to nominate you, you should see the people who have been nominated – its quite pathetic – I would say maybe 10% of the people nominated would be considered heroes. How come you think I didn’t go and nominate myself and try to take the 25 grand, I am sure I could have rallied up the troops and gotten a bunch of you to vote for me – but I would rather see my friends Mendel and Raizy Rubin who run shabbos house at the University of Albany get the money, I tried to vote and they made it such a pain in my rear that I am not sure my vote went through.
It all seems fishy to me…
The multiple-votes-per-person is bizarre in 2009. Haven’t seen that in years.
Benji
Also the fact anyone can nominate themselves and get use a proxy to change their IP addresses and enter a diff email to vote for themselves
It could be just a move to boost their page loads . . .
Agreed. One vote per person ever. If not that then one vote per day not 2X. That’s a little weird to me. “Hero” is a strong word to use in my opinion, but I know more than half of the nominees personally through my work and they are each exceptional. One nominee is partly responsible for me now being frum. Too many Jews sit on the sidelines and let the few who give their time to the Jewish community pick up the slack. More Jews need to give more. I found my nomination humbling. Hell, its not like I’m in the business of kiruv for the money. But a thank you like this still makes me feel a little warm and fuzzy. Heres my profile: http://budurl.com/susqhbhero. Vote or not I don’t care. But the more eyes that see it bring the possibility of donations. And win or lose the UJC’s prize money, exposure for my worthy projects is what I’m happy to gain.
Mottel that’s exactly what my friends and I think, what better way to show you have more page views?
Maybe I should get someone to nominate me and see where I end up?
Heshy! Dude! The winner of the $25k will be chosen from amongst the top 10 vote getters by a panel of UJC appointed judges.
Right now Rabbi Yonah Bookstein who is the Director of the Jewlicious Festivals and heads JConnectLA is at #1 by a large margin. Every day his supporters from LA to Jerusalem get together and blast their email contacts, tweet and do everything possible to get him votes. People have donated their facebook and Gmail statuses as well.
And we’re not doing it for the money. Judging by our fund raising efforts thus far, the organized Jewish community values us a little, but not that much. We’re doing it to get Rabbi Yonah and his wife Rachel the publicity and recognition that we feel they deserve.
And the voting method is genius! I know I keep revisiting the site, and seeing the profiles of other nominees, some more impressive than others I admit, but still, overall it’s a great collection of awesome people doing interesting things.
So you’re calling scam? Really Heshmeister?? 5 people will be chosen from the top 10. The decisions of the judges will have very little to do with how many votes anyone gets. How is this a scam? How does the UJC benefit from this except that they get an expanded email list delineated by zip code and get to promote their organization and the notion of a vibrant Jewish community fueled by amazing individuals most of whom are outside of the organized Jewish communal structure?
How ya doin otherwise?
I am not calling it a scam, I said it sounds like a scam, and yes the multiple voting system can be rigged and you as a programmer know it – I myself didn’t push to be nominated because I do think the top ten people on the list are worthy contenders.
But whats the deal with all the re-voting. It is a good collection, but you and I both know I have to play devils advocate once in a while and ask the question on everyone’s mind.
I’m selling an automatic voter for $100.
This reminds me of the mtv awards when 4chan nominated Rick Astly yimach shemoh because they used a firefox addon programed to vote 100*second.
HESHY: You’re my hero!
I’m a web designer, not a programmer. I couldn’t program my way out of a paper bag. I assume there are systems in place to prevent fraud. I seriously doubt Devora Benjamin, a little old Chabad lady, is using proxy server switching automated voting systems to the tune of 10,000 votes so far! And what does it help anyhow? The final decision is made by a panel of judges and is not based on votes but rather on their perception of merit! Your fellow ROI120 alum Ari Teman feeds 1000s of hungry people! Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz fights missionaries! etc etc
By all means continue to ask the uncomfortable questions though!
I had no idea the final decision was made by judges, I’m looking at it at face value without doing any research – as I stated before I think all the leader board folks are worthy – especially Ari Teman since he was my ROI roommate, and I hold no grudge at him for taking the bed and leaving me with the couch.
You are mamish a tsaddik Heshy. I would have kicked his ass. Oh wait… we are in fact kicking his ass! Now go vote for Rabbi Yonah who would have given you the bed.
http://www.jewishcommunityheroes.org/vote/vote/84/1/
The whole thing seems weird to me also. How is it that commercial organizations can be in it and win the $25K?