One Vote Per Person: How versus4.fun Keeps Counts Honest
No sign-up and an honest count sound like they conflict. This post explains how versus4.fun gets both: a bot check before every vote, one vote per person on each poll, no profile kept, and what that means for how much you can trust a result.
A result on versus4.fun is a count, and a count is only worth anything if each person in it counts once. The site also has no accounts, because sign-up forms are where most would-be voters leave. Those two facts look like they conflict. This post explains how the site gets both, and what the arrangement means for how far you can trust a number.
No account, by design
There is nothing to sign up for. You open a poll, tap an answer, and the vote is cast. The reasoning is simple: far more people answer a question that takes seconds than one that starts with a form, and a verdict from many people is better than one from the few who bothered to register. Our post on what versus4.fun is and is not covers the rest of the design.
The bot check
In front of every vote sits a short automated check that a person, not a script, is casting it. It takes a moment and it is the only gate. It is the same kind of check that sits in front of the suggest form, and it is there for the same reason: to keep the queue and the counts made of people.
One vote per person per poll
Each person votes once on each poll. You can vote on as many different polls as you like, across as many games as you like, but a second vote on the same poll is not counted. There is no profile behind this; the site records that a vote was cast on a poll on a patch, and that is enough to enforce the rule without knowing who you are.
What is recorded
A vote is recorded as an answer on a poll on a patch. The patch is written with the vote so that counts never mix across versions of the game, which is explained in why every vote is tied to a patch. The site does not keep an account, a username or a history you can look up, because there is nothing to attach it to.
The trade, stated plainly
Frictionless voting and a perfectly unforgeable count cannot both be had. versus4.fun chooses low friction with a bot check and a one-vote rule as the defences. That is enough to keep a count honest in the ordinary case and to make gaming a result tedious rather than trivial. It is not a claim that no result can ever be distorted, and the site does not make that claim.
The practical consequence for a reader is the one every post on this site repeats: look at the count as well as the split. A large count is hard to distort; a small one is easy. How to read a verdict goes through this in detail.
What this means for suggesting
The same rules apply to the suggest page. A bot check, then a person reads the suggestion. There is no way to push a suggestion up the queue except for more people to suggest the same thing, because duplicates are merged and counted as support. That is the same principle as one vote per person, applied to questions instead of answers.
Why this is better than the alternatives
The usual ways to keep a poll honest are accounts, which cost most of the voters, or no protection at all, which costs the count. A bot check with a one-vote rule sits between those: it costs a moment per vote and nothing else, and it keeps the ordinary case honest. For a site whose entire value is in the count, that is the right trade, and it is the same trade the suggest queue makes.
What you give and what you get
You give a moment for the bot check. You get a vote that is counted once, a result that reflects people rather than scripts, and no account, profile or history to manage afterwards. The site gets a count it can show with a straight face. Every post on this site ends the same way, so this one does too: the count and the patch matter as much as the split, and now you know why the count can be trusted as far as it can.
Voting across patches
The one-vote rule is per poll on the current patch. When a new patch ships and a poll starts a fresh count, you can vote again on it, because the question is being asked about a new version of the game. Your earlier vote stays with the earlier patch. That is not a loophole; it is the point of tying votes to patches, and the four poll formats all work this way.
What the site does not collect
Because there is no account, there is nothing to fill in and nothing the site asks about you. It does not want an email address, a username or a link to any other service, and it does not build a picture of you across polls. The bot check and the one-vote rule are the whole of it.
Where to vote
The home page shows the active polls across games. Find yours, tap an answer, and you are counted once.
Questions
Do I need an account to vote?
No. There is nothing to sign up for. A vote is a tap with a bot check in front of it.
Can I vote more than once on a poll?
No. One vote per person on each poll. You can vote on as many different polls as you like.
What is the bot check?
A short automated check that a person, not a script, is casting the vote. It takes a moment and is the only gate in front of voting.
Does the site keep a profile of my votes?
No. It records that a vote was cast on a poll on a patch. There is no account and no profile to look up.
Can a result be gamed?
The bot check and the one-vote rule are the defences. No system is perfect, which is one more reason the count matters as much as the split when reading a result.