My Blatent Plea and Something Silly to do

First - Something silly:

Geocities-izer - Make Any Webpage Look Like It Was Made By A 13 Year-Old In 1996

Put your site here and see what an old version might look like.

Now for the Plea:

This is the cliff notes - *click this link and click on vote: Documenting global coral reef restoration

Here is the longer version:

Dear Friends and Family,

I am writing to ask for your help with an online video contest. Perhaps I have asked before... if so, I just ask that you keep reading.

Back in late April, I entered the PADI "Sea the Change" conservation video competition. PADI, the sponsoring organization, is the Professional Association of Dive Instructors, and was the first to teach recreational diving in the U.S. I received my Divemaster certification from them. The goal of the competition is for people to showcase either their own marine conservation efforts, or efforts they support. The contest started in March and continues through December 15.

For the competition, I created a video that explains my mission and discusses my documentary: my mission is to give smaller NPO's involved with actionable maritime wildlife conservation a voice by donating my video production expertise; "Putting the Pieces Together" is a documentary exploration of the perilous state of hard coral reefs worldwide, and efforts to keep them from extinction.

I was pleased to share the competition with videos that showcased efforts to preserve endangered species, stop blue fin tuna overfishing, end shark finning, and a variety of other important maritime issues from habitat degradation to pollution. After a month in competition, my video reached first place; I was truly honored to be in that spot in such a broad field of causes.

There is a cash prize of $5,000, as well as a donation of $5,000 to Project Aware, a marine education organization. The cash prize will help replace my aging edit system. At seven years old, it is unsupported and on the brink of failure. Replacing the system means I will be able to finish the documentary, and also continue my mission of providing free video production to worthy maritime causes for several years to come.

However, there is an unfortunate development in the contest. Because the rules are very lax, someone with an opportunistic mind and the capability to generate a high number of votes through questionable methods has entered the contest. The video, "Doing my Part" is a one-minute cell phone-video of a man talking about how he loves the beach and when he goes to the beach, he makes sure his family picks up the garbage around their patch of sand and deposits it in the correct receptacle.

This video is getting several hundred votes per day. In less than a week,, entering four months after it began, this slap in the face to the spirit of the competition has gone from an entry with no votes to number eight in a field of 50 entrants. By my estimation, this person is somehow generating more than 300 votes a day to get to that position after four months of voting - perhaps more. This can be accomplished by 100 people voting every day on every browser and web-enabled device they can find, or by one person with enough programming knowledge to write a program to automatically vote. With a nearly irrelevant video, this person, who is certainly not a diver or PADI member, has been able to cheat his way into the top ten after only five days in the competition.

I am asking all my friends and family to help support me and keep me in first place, as I fight against a person who is obviously just trying to make a quick buck. As many of you know, I have devoted several years of my life to these causes that I feel are truly important for the future of our planet. I am, of course, outraged by such a flagrant abuse of lax context rules by what is essentially a cash leech.
So I am asking a favor of my friends and family that will only take moments a day, and ask that they help recruit friends for this effort as well. I am asking for your support and your votes.

Please bookmark the link that below, (or the one on my FB wall) which should take you to my video, called "documenting global coral reef restoration", and try to vote for it every day. You are allowed to vote for it every 24 hours per computer browser and web-enabled device. If you have a computer at work with two browsers, you get two votes there; a computer at home with three browsers, three votes; an iphone or ipad - a vote each, or two together. If you could do that until December 15, it would be hugely appreciated.

The second request is that you re-post the link through facebook. When you get to the voting page, there is blue facebook share button, which will auto-generate a posting for you with a thumbnail. Just cppying and pasting the link on Facebook will not always post the correct link, so its best to use the button.

Friends and family will be able to get a signed copy of the finished documentary on DVD just by asking. If you have friends who you think are willing to support my cause and vote for my video on a regular basis (after all, it takes 30 seconds to bookmark the page on all browsers, and a minute a day to vote on each browser), as well as repost it to Facebook, please have them email me with their pledge. If I win the competition, I will gladly send them a signed version of the finished documentary on DVD as my way of saying thanks (to a max of 150 DVDs).

I also encourage everyone to view the questionable video by follow the link, and after voting for my entry, click "see all entries", and look at the one titled "Doing my Part." This is the "quick buck" entry in question. If you click on the thumbnail, you'll be taken to a page where you can view it - just don't vote for it! If you really think it deserves to win, after comparing it to mine, don't bother to vote for me again - he'll win enough votes by cheating. But if you see this like I do, as just a lame grab for contest cash that has no place in a legit conservation competition, please take the effort to keep me in first place, and share this effort with others.

The link to my video is here:
Leaving Facebook... | Facebook

If that doesn't work, go to padi.com, click events/news in the menu at the top, go to the "next" page (page 2 - link at the bottom), choose the link for "start a viral campaign", click the sea the change banner, click the "vote now" banner, and vote for my "Documenting Global Coral Reef Restoration".

I thank all of you for not only your continued support and votes, but also any efforts to get friends and family to vote as well. With luck, and a lot of help from you, I will get my new edit platform in December. Please use this opportunity to show people that they can't just win a competition by cheating - heart and soul wins.

Thanks for your support,

Seth