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I realize training camp is getting underway, and there is plenty of important stuff to discuss, but this is kind of making me laugh. The folks at NFL.com put together a bracket to determine the "Greatest Uniform in NFL History", and our 49ers are in the finals against the Carolina Panthers 2012 alternate. Voting runs until 6:00 p.m. PT, Wednesday evening.
If it sounds a little fishy that the Panthers 2012 alternate is in the finals, the current vote tabulation is even more fishy. Here is a screen shot of the recent total
The Panthers '12 alternate is thoroughly blowing away the 49ers. I suppose it is possible Panthers fans are much more mobilized, but then I got this series of tweets:
@NinersNation You have no idea how sophisticated the voting manipulation at http://t.co/HW5R9o1DLt is. There is a network of ppl doing this.
— Sam Girard (@hwkbgr) July 23, 2013
@NinersNation A single person with an 8-line bot and a macro script on a laptop can generate 5000 votes overnight. Now multiply by 50.
— Sam Girard (@hwkbgr) July 23, 2013
@NinersNation I've emailed multiple people at http://t.co/HW5R9o1DLt about this, to no avail.
— Sam Girard (@hwkbgr) July 23, 2013
Our Panthers blog chimed in on the controversy as well with a particularly serious take:
@ninersnation My unofficial stance: I agree, there's something fishy with the uniform vote. My official stance: Nah nah, nanny boo-boo.
— Cat Scratch Reader (@CatScratchReadr) July 23, 2013
I get the general idea of how this kind of coding works, but I don't know enough about computers to know how it is implemented. If anybody out there feels like stuffing the ballot box for the 49ers uniform, head over and go to town.
I realize this is not remotely important. But damn if it isn't amusing. I think we'll all survive if the 49ers do not win the Greatest Uniform bracket, but seeing NFL.com get manipulated like this is pretty funny.