What is the Improvisation Top 50?
The Improvisation Top 50 is a dynamic system for improv websites to cross promote their sites. Anyone who has a improv themed website is invited to submit their site. Each member adds a link to the Improvisation Top 50 on their site.
How are sites ranked?
The sites are ranked by their weekly "Hits In". Every Saturday night at midnight (EST), the weekly "Hits In" and "Hits Out" are reset to zero. Sites get "Hits In" from clickthroughs from their site and from votes cast here at the Improvisation Top 50.
It said that I voted in the last 24 hours and I didn't, what's up?
If you share a computer with someone or share an IP address via a network at an office or school, you may get this message even when you have not voted in the last 24 hours. Someone with your IP address did however. You might even get this message in a rare situation if you use AOL or Earthlink or some other large ISP. This is to prevent people from stuffing the ballot box and is a necessary evil. It's not perfect, but it is better than not doing this check and letting people just click over and over again to vote for the same site.
I got a message about stuffing the ballot box, what's up?
If you share a computer with someone or share an IP address via a network at an office or school, you may get this message even when you have not voted in the last 24 hours. This happens when several people with SIMILAR IP addresses tries to vote within a short time frame. This is to prevent people from stuffing the ballot box and is a necessary evil. Before I instituted checks for similar IP addresses, it was quite obvious that some people were logging on via a dial-up connection, voting, logging off and logging in again with a new IP address and voting again and a again for the same site every few minutes. If you get this message and you still want to vote, try again later in the day, it should work eventually.
How come it's the same sites always in the top few slots? Obviously its rigged.
Believe me, I periodically go through the voting data and look for irregularities. When a new site surges to the top spot, I look to see where those votes are coming from. When I find problems, I change the code to make sure that ballot stuffing is difficult and inconvenient. I'm confident that no site has an unfair advantage currently. It's very simple if you want lots of votes, encourage people you know to vote for your site. That's what the "top" sites are.
Why was the voting column eliminated?
The column for voting was intended to be a stop gap solution in the early days of the site when webmasters were having trouble adding links at their home pages. Those issues have now been cleared up. Plus the voting column was recently abused by someone to skew the vote totals, so it has now been eliminated.
Why are sites ranked by click-throughs?
The idea with a site ranking system is that the site which generates the most click-throughs deserves the highest rank. Afterall the site generating the most "Hits In", tends to create more "Hits Out" to other sites, thus benefiting everyone on the list.
Why must users confirm their vote when they are linked to the site?
There are several reasons. There were occasional complaints that people didn't know they were voting when they clicked on a link. Also, there were misleading links being posted in various improv forums which tricked users into coming here and voting for a particular site. It also has the effect of preventing people from skewing the voting using an anonymizer web site.
I just registered my site. Why isn't it showing up on the list?
There are now more than 50 sites registered with the Improvisation Top 50. This means that for now, only the top 50 sites will show up on the list. Place the link on your site, and once you start getting votes from your users, your site will be displayed, provided it lands in the top 50. Eventually a second page will be added for sites 51-100.
How do I get a better rank for my site?
The key to having a good rank for your site is to have a link prominently placed on your website so that your regular users can vote for you. The more prominent your link and the more visitors you already have, the higher your rank will likely be.
Who runs the Improvisation Top 50?
The Improvisation Top 50 is run by Kevin Mullaney, the webmaster of the Improv Resource Center and www.cage-match.com.
What is a reason that my site might be taken off of the list?
Sites which are not related to improvisational comedy or theater will be removed. Sites which are exclusively commercial will be taken off the list, i.e. offer nothing to the improviser except for merchandise. Sites which glean email addresses off of websites and add them to their spam email list without the consent of the addressee will be removed.
What's to prevent someone from simply voting for themselves over and over again?
Certainly, people can vote for a site more than once. Anyone who knows a bit about how the internet works can probably find a way to cheat. I hope that webmasters show some restraint and don't go crazy trying to vote for themselves over and over again. That seems quite lame to me and I have put in some safeguards to make it inconvenient to do so. Under normal conditions you should be able to vote for your site once a day. If I notice irregularities, where it appears that someone has found a way to easily thwart the system, I will create further safeguards against cheating.
I signed up for the Improvisation Top 50, why doesn't my banner show up?
The banner only shows up for the top 10 sites. This is to make the page faster to load. If you want your banner to show, find ways to generate more click-throughs to the site.
I can't figure out how to add a link from my site.
Add this code to your webpage and then people can vote for you, black logo version:
MAKE SURE YOU CHANGE THE XX TO YOUR SITE'S ID NUMBER.
What is the ID number of my site?
Take a look at the list of sites. Put the mouse over the name of your site. An internet address for that link shows up on the bottom left part of your screen. Your ID number will be at the end of that address.
I'm having trouble adding my site to the list or I have forgotten my password. What do I do?
Send me an e-mail at mullaney@improvisation.ws and I will fix it in the database for you. If you are trying to add your site, include all the information in your e-mail that the form asks you to enter.