Voting for CoolROM [Archive] - CoolROM.com Forums

Iconoclast

08-05-2006, 07:56 PM

Thanks to a bit of general site hacking I've studied, I've found a hopeful way to really boost the number of votes for CoolROM.com. For those of you who think ROM World is playing unfair, cheating, that CoolROM should be in first, keep reading!

To sum it up right now, I was able to boost the number of votes for CoolROM.com by not a number between 1 and 9, the usual voting options, but 100 votes. Now, if multiple users used the method I used to do this once everyday, CoolROM would be at the top of the list in no time.

So, here's how I did it.

I went to http://www.top100gaming.com (http://www.top100gaming.com/) to experiment with their voting system. I clicked on the vote link for CoolROM.com, right-click, Properties, copied the URL text and pasted it in the URL bar of my first browser, went there, and then.... In Internet Explorer, I used the View/Source command to view the HTML source of the web page. I saved it to disk so I could edit the web page. I know it sounds like this isn't going to work, but keep reading.

When I went to edit the webpage, I looked at this HTML code:

<html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><title>Rate this Site</title><form method=post action="http://www.top100gaming.com/cgi-bin/vote/vote.cgi?vote">
<input type=hidden name="data_file" value="coolrom">
<font face=arial size=2>Please honestly rate this site.<P>Rating: </font>
<select name="rating" size="1" onchange="submit(this.form)" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11px; color: #000000; border: 1px solid rgb(0089ff)">
<option value="#">Rate It</option>
<option name="rating" value="9999999999999">9999999999999 (Best)</option>
<option name="rating" value="9">9</option>
<option name="rating" value="8">8</option>
<option name="rating" value="7">7</option>
<option name="rating" value="6">6</option>
<option name="rating" value="5">5</option>
<option name="rating" value="4">4</option>
<option name="rating" value="3">3</option>
<option name="rating" value="2">2</option>
<option name="rating" value="1">1 (Worst)</option>
</select>
</form></body></html>

Now, as little as I know about HTML, I know enough. See that line I highlighted in red? The value="x" paramater is how many hits CoolROM gets when you select the drop-down option 9. I changed it to 999 with glee, and I waited 30 minutes for the vote to come in. I saw this difference in CoolROM.com's vote status:

Before: user: 8.5 in: 692 out: 1016
After: user: 8.5 in: 692 out: 1116

I guess 100's the limit here, but right now, CoolROM is at 1,116 votes, and ROM World is at 1,564 votes. I just increased it by 100. With cooperation from other users on this site, if you guys think it's right to cheat, to not play fair, to get back at ROM World, if you used this message, we'd be at the top of the list. No doubt about it.

If any of you guys think that it's wrong to cheat, even if ROM World cheated, I can understand that. That's a very noble thought. I'd respect that. But for those of you who think otherwise, now's the chance for a comeback!

Now, it told me that I can't vote again. You can only vote once, so this may need several other users to do this, no more than 5.

So, for those who want to participate, download this TXT text document I've attached to disk. It's actually a web page, so rename it with an HTM/HTML file extension, and open it. Pick the option that says "100". The vote WILL take effect!

Crazed Dragon

08-05-2006, 08:06 PM

the parts i understaned sound great. if evil is the way for good to win, so be it.
sadly I can't help in theis oplan becuase I fully understand how your doing what your doing, plus I can't burn disk right now...

but Icono, I know we aren't the only ones out there who would resort to this for the sake of a fav site, so just hang in there and you'll get more than your 5 needed

DarthBrady

08-05-2006, 09:07 PM

ok, but....

Do you really think admin will approve of this though? What if this breaks some sort of agreement of something? Or am I just paranoid?

Crazed Dragon

08-05-2006, 09:32 PM

The deed is done. Enough Said. ;)

Do you really think admin will approve of this though? What if this breaks some sort of agreement of something? Or am I just paranoid?no you got a piont, Icono should of kept this a bet more quite...after all he did hack to do this and it is technicly cheating. so I don't think admin would want to know this what we are doing...though I can do it, but like i said before I would if i could

admin

08-05-2006, 11:01 PM

pizzaman

08-05-2006, 11:46 PM

That sounds great admin! Will it effect CoolROM in any way? Will CoolROM have to cut down on bandwith?

Fierce Deity

08-06-2006, 12:01 AM

Ah, you got that idea from the SQL hacking page, didn't you?

admin

08-06-2006, 01:45 AM

Crazed Dragon

08-06-2006, 01:51 AM

I have recently made some "major" optimizations on our servers, which should reduce the load by a great margin. CoolROM will never need to shut down, especially with the kind of support we are receiving now :). (Unless by authorities, hope not!)are beloved site get shut down? NEVER!!! I wouldn't let it happen! but I highly don't think CoolROM will be shut down, there are far worse sites then ares out there. so we'll be fine :D

Iconoclast

08-06-2006, 10:38 AM

Well, as of today, me Rom Hustler and ROMNation have all agreed to drop top sites on all of our sites - I don't think voting will be necessary anymore :). We feel that if one of us leaves, there is too much of a traffic change for remaining members to benefit from. Also, the adult images on a few of the top sites give our users a negative impression, and we would like to stay as clean and user friendly as possible. Please let me know if you guys have any questions on this change :).I was wondering why when I checked Top100Gaming this morning, CoolROM.com was near the bottom, and I'm like...uh, did I screw up here? Thank God that was just...well, this is another noble outcome. I did say that you shouldn't worry about competing with the other sites, and I never doubted about this. The reason I started this thread was something other than doubting that.

crazed_dragon, I understand your point. I really wanted to PM admin about this first before hacking it myself, as I knew it might be possible that he might not want this, though I didn't see how. Then I realized that I was afraid that if admin said, "Go ahead, hack it," and I tried and failed, it would be hard to reply! Besides, logically, I figured after covering the details, I wouldn't see how everyone would not want to cheat via this method, after considering everything.

Actually, FD, I learned this trick by completing Realistic Mission Challenge 1. The second challenge requires SQL knowledge, and they said that was easy. Yeah, once you learn a whole 'nother language.

For this change, yes, I have two questions:

When you agreed with ROM(edit)Hustler and ROMNation to drop the voting system, did they do it out of a simple agreement, or did they by small chance agree to just because you might have used my hacking the voting system as a reason for them to do it (told them)?
If these above-mentioned sites are dropped from the voting system, why does CoolROM have a good rank of 9? Did the votes merely just reset, and people are still voting for this site? More yet, why does ROM World have a rank of 2nd? Oh, ROMHUSTLER and ROMNation. But not ROM World? If you don't find the voting system necessary, then what happens to ROM World's rank obviously doesn't matter, then.Well, I can say this. It may already be too late to try this, but if it isn't and there's a way to, you might want to if it affects the users choosing CoolROM for downloading ROMs. You might then want to, if I am wrong, and if you notice a decrease in the average users online at CoolROM.com, and if you still care about that, consider it being because you dropped the voting system, and then consider reversing that somehow. Though I see why that's hard to do, and probably very strange to try. I probably didn't have to bring that up. If I am right, for what I said before, then what you have done probably won't affect the number of users using CoolROM.com.

"We feel that if one of us leaves, there is too much of a traffic change for remaining members to benefit from."

I couldn't understand what that meant. I don't know if 'traffic' is the number of users online or something else that's a negative thing. Did you mean one of 'us', as in the emulation site webmasters, or the users of CoolROM?

"Also, the adult images on a few of the top sites give our users a negative impression, and we would like to stay as clean and user friendly as possible."

I see what you mean; I guess that makes sense.

admin

08-06-2006, 06:48 PM

Hey Icono, thanks again for your long yet thoughful post :). Well, I have been thinking about dropping all top sites for a while now, and mentioned this to them (Rom Hustler and ROMNAtion), and they said if I dropped them, they would too.

Our decision to drop all top sites has nothing to do with the hack you discovered (I was not really sure how it works, if it really works, and didn't find out until reading this thread, heh).

Well, top100gaming.com is one of the smaller top sites, so ranking high in it won't make that much of a difference - only top50emu.com is really worth it. I think that ROM-World owns top100gaming.com, and is only trying to promote their own top site (they are not using top50emu.com anymore).

The reason why CoolROM may be still receiving votes, even after removing all links, is caching might have not been updated yet on other sites. A search engine, let's say, Google, has CoolROM indexed, which can be a version 20 days old. Users who use their cache function will see the old version of the site, and be able to click on the links to vote for us.

"We feel that if one of us leaves, there is too much of a traffic change for remaining members to benefit from."

Sorry, I should've been clearer on this statement - when I said members, I meant members of the top sites, like CoolROM, ROMNation, and Rom Hustler. Basically, top50emu.com is a traffic exchange between the large sites, and if one of the larger sites drop their links, this will affect the entire system.

Overall, we have built a quality site/community for our visitors to use, and removing the top site links only reflects that. I believe CoolROM can do very well, even without them :).

Iconoclast

08-06-2006, 07:00 PM

Do you know why when sometimes I try to post a reply, my browser goes back and cancels my post? You know, as if I clicked the Back button on my browser interrupting a post? It just randomly seems to happen...the only keyboard shortcut I know for going Back is Alt+Left, I think it was, and I know I'm not pressing that while typing.

That was it. I thought I was looking for Top50Gaming, it was really called Top50EMU.com.

Yes, I don't think this site isn't any less successful even with the site listed near the bottom of Top100Gaming. I just thought I'd bring users the opportunity to have this site listed at the top if it made them feel happy about it.

admin

08-07-2006, 02:40 AM

chaos master

08-07-2006, 11:28 AM

I noticed it would conk out, but only for a second or two.

Iconoclast

08-07-2006, 11:41 AM

Hmm.. how often does that problem occur for you? Has anyone also experienced the same problem? In my own experience, I noticed that our site would occassionally become inaccessible for 1-2 minutes, and then come online again. Has anyone noticed this as well?Um, I'm not sure how often. Very seldom, but noticeable.

I think I remember what you said happening once. The other closest thing to that that's ever happened to me was randomly, I got a Page Cannot Be Displayed DNS error that won't ever stop until I switch to something else like emulator-zone.com and then instantly back to coolrom.com/forums, and then it works again.

admin

08-07-2006, 04:34 PM

Hmm I see.. so I am not the only one experiencing this problem. I have to figure out what the source of the problem is, because everything is looking normal on our end.

Mjshl2

08-07-2006, 06:08 PM

admin

08-08-2006, 12:33 PM

Ok, I will find an end to this!

DarthBrady

08-09-2006, 05:22 PM

That actually happens to me quite often.

yeah, me too. Glad to know I am not alone here ;)
and I was thinking it was firefox.

Crazed Dragon

08-09-2006, 05:24 PM

yeah, me too. Glad to know I am not alone here ;)
and I was thinking it was firefox.just what is this problem you guys are talking about? maybe it happening to me too, but I don't know what your talking about. In lighten me