[i:Vibes] DJ Mag Discover Voting Irregularities

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DJ Mag Discover Voting Irregularities

23:14 - August 25, 2010

by davehart

It's the biggest DJ Poll in the world and one every top line artist wants to be featured in. It's good for gigs, record sales and does your profile as an international DJ no harm at all with the promoters around the world. The voting began at the end of last month and with the suspicion of cheating in the air every year DJ Mag are very keep to publicise any dodgy goings on they find to deter it. I remember the controversy of the 2007 poll which saw Christopher Lawrence and DJ Dan excluded from the poll for voting irregularities. Both DJ’s were later cleared of any wrong doing as it was their manager at the time who was guilty of trying to bump up the pair’s poll counts. Cheating is something the magazine takes a hard stance on and so they should to retain the integrity of the poll.

So far this year they have not discovered any hard line cheating but an investigation is underway for voting irregularities found in this year’s entries.

DJmag has uncovered a number of voting irregularities in this year’s DJmag Top 100 DJs. Several DJs are currently being investigated and the magazine is taking any attempts to garner more votes by cheating very seriously. For the last 4 years DJmag have been aware of advancing attempts to score fake votes and subsequently tightened all computer systems and guidelines to ensure this cannot be attempted successfully. Rest assured, every year thousands of votes are discounted that we deem suspicious and 2010 will be no different.

Since the poll began, almost 300,000 votes have been received via Top100DJs.net for a wide range of DJs. At the back end of the online poll, the IP addresses and emails of all votes have been monitored for any dubious practices and already many of these have been removed.

In addition to this, on Monday 9th August, we were alerted to a video detailing how a DJ could cheat using a well-known international jobs site. As a result of investigations into this site and others, it was found that a number of DJs or their representatives were allegedly trying to pay coder companies in India and elsewhere to obtain thousands of votes for them illegally.

As the magazine went to press, we were in the process of confronting these DJs and their teams with the evidence. The first two DJs confronted flatly denied any improper methods, as did their agency, so as yet no DJ has been disqualified. Instead, the focus has now been turned to the Indian coders and whether their mysterious job offers had not been created by DJmag Top 100 DJs denigrator’s intent on causing mischief, or fellow DJs trying to tarnish the names of some of their bigger competition.

DJmag is determined to ensure that the poll is as fair and representative to the current worldwide DJ scene as possible, and to this end we have now decided to set up an amnesty to highlight illegal voting practices. Please note, investigations are continuing in earnest and will not cease to do so until voting ends on September 23rd, giving you over a month in which to pursue all genuine votes. There is still everything to play for…

**Anybody with any evidence or suspicions about a DJ receiving illegal votes is invited to email us at amnesty@djmag.com in complete confidence**

Also, any DJ or their representative who has already been using illegal voting methods can email DJmag in full confidence detailing how they obtained illegal votes. If they do so, these votes will be immediately discounted but they themselves won’t be disqualified. Again, please note, if a DJ doesn’t own up to acting illegally and they are found to have cheated, they will be immediately disqualified and publicly named and shamed.

DJ's beware then, is it really worth your reputation by attempting to cheat your way into the Top 100 poll? I don’t think it is as those found guilty will be named and shamed and have to find work on the wedding circuit for the rest of their disc jockeying days.