NightCafe has several safeguards to keep voting in the Daily Challenge fair

Spam vote detection and nullification

Our systems automatically detect and nullify spam low votes. If a voter shows a suspicious pattern — for example, consistently rating many entries with only 1s and 2s, or voting too rapidly — their votes may be filtered out before they can meaningfully impact scores. Voters are not notified when their votes are nullified.

Forced delay between votes

There is a forced delay between votes while you are voting. This prevents rapid-fire spam voting, which was a common tactic used to claim challenge credits without genuine engagement.

Score visibility threshold

To reduce the influence of early outlier votes, average scores are not displayed until an entry has received at least 10 votes. You may see "Not Available Yet" while voting is in progress. This helps ensure that displayed scores reflect a broader range of opinions.

How final rankings work

• Each entry's score is the average of all valid ratings it receives.
• While voting is open, entries are shown in an order that gives everyone roughly equal voting opportunities — this order is not the final ranking.
• Final rankings are calculated when the challenge ends, based on the highest average score.

Score fluctuations can look concerning, especially early in voting — but these safeguards are designed to keep results fair. If you believe a specific entry has been unfairly targeted, contact us via the feedback form with the challenge date and entry details.