I am absolutely open to feedback like this for if/when we do something like this again.

Just some ideas -

1. Limiting the options - you could pull the anime’s that have aired in the time frame from one of the Anime databases and limit the users to searchable drop downs.

I do worry now that people know I made these calls based on number of nominations that they could simply fill out the form a bunch of times. There are some steps I can take on my end to prevent or filter that, but it would also mean doing things like attaching browser cookies to the form or recording ip addresses, which I haven’t wanted to do out of respect for the users.

2. I feel it would be less intrusive than cookies or IP addresses to have a confirmation like you do with email signups. You could have an optional input for Lemmy Username and have a script to send the user a message via Lemmy to confirm they made a submission (… reply ‘YES’ to confirm…). Blank or unconfirmed submission could be treated with less importance when taking nominations due to the possibility of multiple submissions.

If you do decide to do it again in the future I am happy to help when possible.