Methodology · last generated 6 September 2026 at 14:43 UTC

How we keep this honest

The number on the front page is only worth something if the rules behind it are public. This page is those rules. It is written to be read by someone whose job is to find a reason to dismiss the data.

01What counts as one response

There are two ways to verify: an emailed single-use link, or signing in with Discord. The link expires after 30 minutes and is invalidated the moment it is used. Discord sign-in requires an account with a verified email address; accounts without one are refused rather than accepted on weaker evidence.

Both routes produce the same thing: a salted HMAC-SHA256 digest of the email address, carrying a unique constraint in Postgres. A second submission is rejected by the database itself, not by anything in the browser.

Because both methods derive that digest from the email address, they are one identity space rather than two. Verifying by link and then again through a Discord account carrying the same address produces the same digest, and the second attempt is refused. Discord sign-ins additionally store a digest of the account id under its own unique constraint, so one Discord account remains one response even if the address on it is changed between attempts.

02What counts as a duplicate

Same verified identity: rejected outright — one identity, one response, no exceptions, and switching sign-in method does not create a second identity.

Same device: a maximum of 2 responses share a device signature. This allows for a shared family PC while stopping someone cycling through addresses on one machine.

Same network: a maximum of 6 responses share an IP digest, which accommodates shared or carrier-grade NAT connections without leaving the door open.

Rate limits sit on top of all of this: 8 sign-in links per network per 15 minutes, 4 per address per hour, and 10 submissions per network per hour.

03Bot protection

Cloudflare Turnstile guards both the sign-in request and the submission itself, verified server-side against Cloudflare before anything is written.

Every write goes through an authenticated server endpoint with CSRF protection. There is no client-side path to the database, so a scripted submission has to clear the same checks a person does.

04What is stored, and what is not

Stored: country, current platform, interest level, preferred solution, wanted features, optional CPU and GPU text, a timestamp, and salted digests of the email address, IP address and a random device id. Discord sign-ins add a digest of the account id.

Not stored: your email address, your IP address, your name, your Discord username, avatar or server memberships, or anything that identifies your game account. The digests are keyed with a server-side salt, so they cannot be reversed with a public lookup table.

The optional CPU and GPU fields are free text. Before publication, anything resembling contact details is stripped and the remainder is reduced to a conservative character set.

05Known limitations

This is a self-selected sample, not a random one. People who want PC access are far likelier to find and complete it, so the percentages describe the people who responded — not all CODM players. We publish it that way deliberately rather than implying otherwise.

Email verification proves an address was reachable, not that a person is a unique human. It raises the cost of faking responses substantially; it does not make it impossible.

One person controlling two unrelated email addresses can still submit twice, whichever sign-in method they use. Linking the two methods closes the easy loophole — reusing one address across both — but no email-based scheme can detect that two different addresses belong to the same person.

Device and network limits will occasionally block a legitimate response — several players in one internet café, or a whole carrier behind the same NAT. Those responses are lost rather than recoverable. The thresholds sit where they do as a deliberate trade: a handful of genuine responses turned away is a smaller problem for the data than one person submitting twenty.