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  I have only participated once and didn't even make it into the top 100 and with reading the rules as well as all of the various comments here in the forums I wonder if it is really worth the effort with the exception of completing the task.

  From what I am reading does one have to buy a new tank each time one enters? Does one need to completely purchase new fish/background/decor each time as well?

  What about the sea urchins? I read somewhere that players were cheating by placing them in tanks?

  I do know that when it comes down to winning a premium currency in a contest then people will stop at nothing to cheat just to earn that currency. With that in mind and knowing that most facebook games have players with many accounts playing games to gain benefits and overall this does not seem to be against any rules, so that means that if a person has say 500 facebook accounts and they vote for their tank with the other 499 accounts this will definitely have influence on their position in the contest. Sadly rules regarding IP addresses will hurt families that happen to be playing fairly. There is no easy fix in a situation like that other than the techs/admins of the game tracking top players to see how many different IP addresses were responsible for the votes received. You also have true "friends" that players can solicit votes from by private messages etc.

While the contest is a nice concept it seems that there is so much stress involved with the whole thing that perhaps some serious changes should be considered.

  Some ideas: Any player that places in the top 10 can not enter again for six months to a year.  Same IP address votes limited to 3 or 5 per tank to help in honest families not being penalized. Limiting reentry of players that have placed even in the top 100 for a certain amount of time to give others a chance to place.

  There are a few thoughts for now, hopefully others will have good ideas to add.

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One of the main reasons many of the same players are making it into the top 100 so often is due to something far worse than simply soliciting votes from friends in private messages, etc. Facebook is home to many groups now that are devoted to nothing other than soliciting votes from all their members. They show each other their tank entries and give the tank #. They then all vote for each others tanks having nothing to do with the content or quality of the entry but having one prerequisite, that being membership in that particular group. I have been added to many of these groups and have seen them in action and find this to be the case first hand. Some groups even go as far as to attempt to all enter as close to the same time as possible so as to make it easier to vote for all the members quickly since they show up in the list one right after the other. The developers could do two things right away that would make it more difficult for this type of voting. They could stop displaying the tank # of the entry. If you tell a friend you entered tank #5 in the contest and they know what the tank looks like they can skip looking at any other entries that are not displaying the number 5 and find their friend much easier and quicker than if they were forced to look at each entry one at a time. Also they could make it so the entries do not show up in the contest in the order in which they were entered. This would put an end to this "enter at the same time" technique. Other than that I personally feel that the developers can not be held responsible for adults acting like spoiled children. These players find nothing wrong with what they are doing and will defend their actions without shame.