Very good point. Thank you for your feedback.
I hadn't thought about community detractors in that way (how naive of me). I once read a book by David Silver called Smart Startups.
He mentioned that all 'communiteers' had to expect that challenge of community detractors and folks who live to game the system. That book also has some ideas around it, but I don't readily see how they would apply.
One thought may be that since the prizes were based on the popularity of the site, possibly from google ads themselves, sure, those two might get themselves entered to win, but it wouldn't guarantee it. It would only make it a possibility. Because of that, and maybe with a little captcha to stop bots, or perhaps some marshalling based on IP addresses, phone number or text message validation, that could slow down players that are gaming the program.
Maybe you are right though, maybe it wouldn't be all that popular.
If you have some ideas though, on how it might work nice, I'd love to hear them. I was working on an AWS lambda this evening to manage one of the tables on found discs. I'll think about whether it is worth it and about detractors a little bit more.