Skyhigh 11 ch20 Did Fairlight Cheat

         "did fairlight cheat ?"



         "DID FAIRLIGHT CHEAT ?"


(pri). this is the question i'd like to
ask all you readers - or,to be more pre-
cise, "did fairlight cheat the herning
competitions ?" - now to be able to ans-
wer you of course need some background
information which i will provide in the
following.
  if you read the last issue of skyhigh
i guess you remember my report from "the
party 93" in which i took up the rumour
of fairlight having delivered 40 disks
containing votes for themselves. now i
recently received an interesting letter
on this subject by BACCHUS of FAIRLIGHT,
containing some important feedback which
i feel deserves an extra chapter. now
this is what he wrote:


 howdy pri!

 this is bacchus of fairlight writing
 to comment your text concerning the
 herning party you covered in skyhigh
 #10, which i got today.

 ok; about the "cheating"

 i was the person who collected disks.
 the guys in virtual dream (fairlight
 amiga) and a few pc owners we know
 wanted to vote for us but weren't in-
 terested enough to find out which num-
 bers we had. for this reason they left
 us their disks to fill in the votes in
 these categories. this was the reason
 we had a lot of disks.
   with some other pc users we "swapped
 votes". if they voted for us on the
 c64, we vote for them in say pc music.
   another fact is the number of voters
 in each category. c64 music and the
 categories graphics and music are ra-
 ther small and our votes made quite
 some impact. we evoked some voters who
 wouldn't have voted if it hadn't been
 for us. in all we only got around 40
 disks to vote on (to be seen on the
 background that there were 2500 voters
 at the party).
   calling this cheating is your ex-
 pression. if i fill in the votes for a
 few people when they ask me to fill in
 us for them is not cheating to me. not
 even if i deliver the disks in a bunch
 to the organizers. swapping votes is
 not cheating to me either, even if i
 find this to be closer to the edge of
 cheating than the previous matter;
 still way clear.
   cheating would be producing your own
 votedisks, stealing disks or manipula-
 ting the voteprogram. we did nothing
 like this!
   for this reason i think your accusa-
 tions are false. we stretched the li-
 mits and used available tactics, but
 we did not cheat!
   as you might all know it went well
 (our point of view) on c64 graphics
 and music (also the guy we voted for
 on pc won!), but we voted for the
 wrong number on c64 demo. a good part
 of the votes focus got were "ours",
 intended for legoland 3 (you might say
 we had it coming). the focus demo was
 a good one, but legoland 3 was way
 better.
   the confusion was complete in many
 c64 voting classes, so finding out
 which numbers to vote for was hard.
 also the fact that pc and amiga users
 voted made things weird, as no pc mu-
 sician has any idea of how hard diffe-
 rent things are on the c64. f.ex. the
 oxyron demo was stupid if you want to
 win their votes. calced stuff doesn't
 impress them, and their votes count e-
 qually. for this reason it's so obvi-
 ous why you get good results in c64
 mags, but not on parties. i guess you,
 pri, were also a victim of this. peo-
 ple voted for the wrong number when
 they intended to vote for you! you did
 not deserve 0 points, but this is not
 to blame fairlight for, but the lousy
 organisation on all other competitions
 exept for the amiga related ones!

 there was no cheating, only bad orga-
 nization!

 bacchus of fairlight

 ps. you may quote this letter in a
     "follower up" in skyhigh, but then
     do a full quote, and not unfair
     parts.


well, first of all i'd like to thank
you, dear bacchus, for your illuminating
letter, which i for my part will comment
on in the following.

i of course agree that the organization
of most competitions was rather inconve-
nient for the voters. your example of
voting for focus by mistake also proves
that this had an effect on the results.
furthermore i share your opinion about
the problem of "system-foreign" votes,
which i will discuss in another article.
however, apart from these points there
regrettably is not too much of your let-
ter which finds my agreement.

first off, i'd like to make clear that i
did not accuse you of anything. in one
passage of my report i took up the ru-
mour of you having delivered disks con-
taining votes for yourselves, and in an-
other i assumed things somehow must have
been manipulated, but in no way did i
claim that it were you who cheated.
  however, now that i have got your let-
ter, in which you delivered the proof
yourself, i do claim it.

  you define cheating as producing own
votedisks, stealing disks or manipula-
ting the voteprogram. but i think you
have left out something there, which is
MANIPULATING PEOPLE.
  i guess the majority of the readers
will agree that votes should reflect
one's honest and very own opinion, mo-
tivated just by the quality of the work
a competitor delivers. this objectivity
should not be affected by things such as
the competitor's personality, reputa-
tion, group, or even actions he takes to
influence people.
  a hundred percent objectivity can of
course never be guaranteed as there al-
ways are people who don't think before
voting - but you spoiled it INTENTIONAL-
LY. you say your amiga division and some
pc users wanted to vote for you "but we-
ren't interested enough" to find out
your numbers by themselves. you also
"swapped" votes with other pc users.
now if these people really would have
thought you deserved to be voted for,
they would have done so themselves.
their lack of interest only shows they
did not think you deserved it, and you
only managed to get their votes by in-
fluencing them (this is of course also
to blame on those people, because they
gave you their votes although they did
not really stand to it).

  furthermore, your letter shows some
inconsequence, which becomes obvious in
the last paragraph. there you write,
"also the fact that pc and amiga users
voted made things weird, as no pc musi-
cian has any idea of how hard different
things are on the c64", but on the other
hand you voted for pc competitors your-
selves and also received "swapped" votes
from users of other systems. that does
not go together very well, does it?

anyway, i am not saying you were the on-
ly ones who cheated. e.g. regarding the
c64 music results it is rather improba-
ble that i really received 0 points. i
know several people voted for me, and i
do not believe all of them voted for the
wrong number, so there certainly was so-
mebody else who manipulated things.

anyway, isn't it always a pity when peo-
ple cheat at competitions? it destroys
the good atmosphere because quite a bit
of people feel frustrated, as they have
worked hard but find themselves rather
underrated. the herning results partly
were so fucked up that you couldn't take
them seriously anymore! if it goes on
like this, competitions may become mea-
ningless as everybody cheats anyway...
doesn't it feel much better to get your
votes in a fair and honest way and have
objective results, instead of cheating
and making everybody else angry ecxept
you?

at last, dear bacchus, you see that i
quoted your letter fully, as you reques-
ted. but it was not a very nice move of
you to assume i would be unfair and quo-
te only extracts of it inconvenient for
you (after all, i think the whole letter
will not cast a too positive light on
you). i am one of the last persons to be
unfair; i absolutely hate unfairness,
may it happen to me or to anybody. and
that's probably why i am making such a
big "fuss" about all this.

anyway, the final question of who is un-
fair and who is not i leave open to all
the readers, whom i would appreciate to
get some feedback from.


                   yours,
                             pri.