topmudsites voter script

[Tillmen]

I wrote a little Ruby script to tell me when I can vote for Gemstone on topmudsites.com. You can download it from:

http://www.lichproject.org/download/gsvote.rbw

You'll probably have to right-click the link and select "Save As".

This is not a Lich script. You start it by double-clicking on it in Windows Explorer or something. It puts an icon in your system tray that tells you how long until the next time you can vote (once every 12 hours). After 12 hours from your last vote, the icon changes and it starts blinking. Just click on it and it will launch your web browser with the vote URL, then one more click and you've voted.

To be of any use, you should probably copy the script to your startup folder.

If you use the script on Ubuntu, it will also give you a notification message when you can vote if you install ruby-libnotify. To do that, you probably need something like this:
sudo apt-get install libnotify-dev
sudo gem install ruby-libnotify

[phantasm]

Umm

[Silvanostar]

its still listed as gs3 heh

[Alorn15]

Shouldn't it also use WWW::Mechanize to automate the vote?

[crb]

they probably detect that sort of thing alorn.

You'd need to write a fake frontend that spoofed browser user agent, and could accept and store cookies. Then of course, follow a normal path through the site for voting.... and I don't know if they have any captchas.

It isn't impossible, but it isn't as simple as fetching a url.

[BigWorm]

they probably detect that sort of thing alorn.

You'd need to write a fake frontend that spoofed browser user agent, and could accept and store cookies. Then of course, follow a normal path through the site for voting.... and I don't know if they have any captchas.

It isn't impossible, but it isn't as simple as fetching a url.

WWW::Mechanize does exactly that. It has "click" methods that let you navigate though a site. Don't know what you mean by fake frontend, but spoofing browser user agents is trivial.

[crb]

It does? Nice. I may have to look into that thing.

There are a variety of methods used to detect fraudulent voting on a web script.

1. 1 vote per IP
2. User agent detection
3. Cookie writing, then reading.
4. Path tracking to make sure the browser entered the website normally and browsed normally.
5. Javascript detecting, put the cookie writing in javascript for instance, then read it on a subsequent page with a server side application, if your browser doesn't execute js, it'll fail.
6. Image detecting, make sure the browser is loading images, if it isn't, deny.

I'm not sure what all topmudsites uses, but those are the typical methods.

[pabstblueribbon]

I wrote a little Ruby script to tell me when I can vote for Gemstone on topmudsites.com. You can download it from:

http://www.lichproject.org/download/gsvote.rbw

You'll probably have to right-click the link and select "Save As".

This is not a Lich script. You start it by double-clicking on it in Windows Explorer or something. It puts an icon in your system tray that tells you how long until the next time you can vote (once every 12 hours). After 12 hours from your last vote, the icon changes and it starts blinking. Just click on it and it will launch your web browser with the vote URL, then one more click and you've voted.

To be of any use, you should probably copy the script to your startup folder.

If you use the script on Ubuntu, it will also give you a notification message when you can vote if you install ruby-libnotify. To do that, you probably need something like this:
sudo apt-get install libnotify-dev
sudo gem install ruby-libnotify

Why you gotta steal all my good ideas?

[DCSL]

Why you gotta steal all my good ideas?

'cause the bad ones are bad. =\

Seriously, though, I'll use this. I like the new blood so far.

[Tillmen]

We've slid down to rank 12. You slackers!

[Lumi]

Installed. We've been slipping, we're no longer in the top ten. Get those votes in, people!

[WRoss]

So weird, I had a dream last night and I forgot about it until this bump. The dream was that we were stuck in third and I tried Aardwolf and it was the shiznitz. You might be a nerd if.....

[Tillmen]

Gemstone is no longer in the top 20, which means it's not even on the front page of topmudsites. The sad thing is, with the current numbers it would only take 7 people voting twice per day to be at rank 20 and on the front page. 20 people voting and we would be in the top 5.

There's over 400 players (not characters) connecting to lnet every day. If all those people voted twice per day, only on days that they connect to lnet, that would be 8000 votes now at 10 days into the month. The number one mud on topmudsites only has 1418 votes. This isn't an impossible feat we're talking about here.

I think it's worth staying on the front page of this site. Last month it said over 500 people had clicked the link to visit play.net/gs4. Maybe none of them joined GS, but since that's 500 people who are interested in muds, maybe some of them did.

Use the damn script from the first post in this thread. You don't have to remember to vote. Just anytime you see the icon blinking, click the icon, click the link in the web browser, and close the browser. That's all it takes.

[FNLN]

Somehow I missed this thread. I'll use this.

[Lumi]

Gemstone is no longer in the top 20, which means it's not even on the front page of topmudsites. The sad thing is, with the current numbers it would only take 7 people voting twice per day to be at rank 20 and on the front page. 20 people voting and we would be in the top 5.

There's over 400 players (not characters) connecting to lnet every day. If all those people voted twice per day, only on days that they connect to lnet, that would be 8000 votes now at 10 days into the month. The number one mud on topmudsites only has 1418 votes. This isn't an impossible feat we're talking about here.

I think it's worth staying on the front page of this site. Last month it said over 500 people had clicked the link to visit play.net/gs4. Maybe none of them joined GS, but since that's 500 people who are interested in muds, maybe some of them did.

Use the damn script from the first post in this thread. You don't have to remember to vote. Just anytime you see the icon blinking, click the icon, click the link in the web browser, and close the browser. That's all it takes.

I have been voting religiously since you posted this thing. I too have been saddened by the slacking off :(

C'mon people!

[pabstblueribbon]

This script stole my bank account info. No thanks.

[Tillmen]

This script stole my bank account info. No thanks.

You know, some people will actually believe that.

[Tgo01]

This script stole my bank account info. No thanks.

Thanks for the heads up, deleting this script now.

[Tillmen]

Thanks for the heads up, deleting this script now.

See what I mean?

Except for the imbeded icons, the script is very short and anyone should be able to read it and see it isn't doing anything like that.

[Tgo01]

I was just teasing, I use this script everyday.

[SpiffyJr]

I teh vot3d todays!