Voting Questions

[kithan.livejournal.com]

There were some questions brought up in the Green Room with regard to voting that I'd like to address.

Most people know this, but just to be clear - even though the "View Answers" part of the poll is defaulted to "None", I can still view the answers because I posted the poll.  I think Gary might be able to as well as a moderator of the community but I haven't had him check.  Anyway - I can check the voters and who they are voting for.

For community only votes:

1. Once you join the community and vote, your vote stays in place even if you leave the community.
2. If you leave and re-join, you do not get to vote again.  You can edit your previous vote, but you don't get to vote twice.

For voting in general:

If you've ever viewed the answers to a poll, you know they are listed in the order they voted.  When you change your vote, your name is moved to the bottom of the list because you are the most recent voter (even if all you did was take a vote away from someone).

Can we tell who changed their votes?  Not to any degree of absolute certainty, no.  We do monitor the voting to make sure things are on the up and up as much as we can.  Unfortunately, some things are out of our hands as far as controls, but we do the best we can.

If you have any questions about voting, please ask them here.

(Also, if anyone noticed the votes from the most recent polls changing a bit tonight, that was me doing some experiments.)

Comments

[spydielives.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that, Kithan.

I wasn't sure if community polls were the same as personal polls.

Since un-friending someone does not nullify their earlier comments and votes at the personal level, it makes sense that it would work similarly in a community.

[n-decisive.livejournal.com]

I'm just going to say this out loud: one of those votes that changed was mine. Here's how things work for me:

spydielives gave us a great spreadsheet. Only trouble is that I can't use it because of the constant interruptions in my household for medical and familial reasons.

I now go to each poll and vote for ONE person on each so that I can see the entries WITHOUT the checkbox automatically checking or unchecking when I haven't actually cast my vote yet. If you weren't aware of it, when you go to fill out the poll and click on an entry link to read the post, the box for that person gets checked. If you do the same thing on the same person again, the box UNchecks. Be aware of that. It doesn't happen if you follow entry links from the poll when looking at it in the "totals" view.

Now, how I decide to vote from then on is not something I feel like explaining. I shouldn't have to. If this week I want to only give ten votes per tribe and I see that I've given 11, then I take one back. I've done that. I've also unchecked a box in the past when I realized I voted for the wrong person because their names were similar. I change my methods of voting to suit my whims because that's the type of person I am. One week- at the very beginning, I voted for all the people I liked personally to begin with and then read all the entries. Once I finished, I added votes for people who wrote well.

Voting is personal. Methods are individual. I've seen my vote totals go back and forth and I just blew it off. I'm sure that would have been harder to do if it had happened so close to the end, but I managed to do it last week or the week before when it happened within a few hours of the polls closing.

Additionally- as long as I'm setting myself up to be utterly hated- my family talks about Idol. The spouse and I read and compare notes. My kids have journals and they vote. One got one last week so she could vote for me, the other has had his for years and just hadn't used it lately. If that's wrong, then I'm a sinner with a capital 'S.'

I've seen a lot of comments that seemed to imply things were fixed. I'm telling you right now that one of those changed votes was mine, and no one asked me to do anything. They never have, and frankly, if they did, I wouldn't.

When it comes right down to it, how I vote- providing it's legal- is up to me and I don't want that to change.

Please commence flaming- I'm steeling myself as you read.

EDITED TO ADD: What I forgot to say here is that changing my vote was not done out of malice, either.

EDITED AGAIN because I realized someone's liable to ask: No, all four votes that changed were not from my family. I'm speaking for myself and my own voting style here.

[lacombe.livejournal.com]

I think that's completely different than what I was talking about. I just said deliberately scheming to raise someone's cotes and drop them back down is unapprovabale. What you did seems all right, although I'm not sure what you're talking about in the beginning. If you click on "vote" when the polls are empty, you still get to see the results, go back and change them, etc.

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

Once you've voted, if you open the poll back up, and click on that person's name to highlight it (to copy/paste into a spreadsheet or document) or click on their entry link, it unchecks if it was previously checked, and it checks if it was previously unchecked. In other words, the check box reacts to clicking anywhere on the line, not just if you click the box itself.

[lacombe.livejournal.com]

::: nods :::

Guess I've just not come across that scenario yet.

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying it explains the voting thing. There's a lot of timing and coincidence there. Just answering the question. (I'm a trainer, it's a habit.) :)

[lacombe.livejournal.com]

What kind of """"training"""" do you do?

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

(Not wanting to drift too far off topic here, because I think kithan set this up for discussion of the vote, but again, answering the question--)

I teach Customer Service skills to adults in a phone center. I teach people to answer the phones. :)

[twirlandswirl.livejournal.com]

I read that "in an adult phone center" and was like... whoa....

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

HEH!

[n-decisive.livejournal.com]

I had a hard time making that part clear. Very tired. Let me try again. :)

When you just go and vote and then hit "submit," you see the totals/graphs. If you go back in to the poll itself to change your answers and click on the link to someone's entry, the box next to their name will check itself off. If it was someone that you had already voted for, it will uncheck. If you don't notice this and manually correct it, your votes will be affected when you hit submit.

I don't know if that's LJ-wide, or if it has something to do with the way the LJ Idol polls are built.

[kithan.livejournal.com]

I think it's LJ-wide. The polls are set up the same way a regular poll is that you would use in your own LJ.

That's a good point though. People could be changing their votes without realizing it.

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

If you're going back in just to look at things, and you accidentally change some votes, if you just exit without saving, your original choices will still be there.

My final?? word on this

[spydielives.livejournal.com]

True

The problem is if are going back in to deliberately change votes, you can accidentally change other votes. You wouldn't know unless you double or triple check. Thus the spreadsheet that I use to help me keep track of who I have, or have not, voted for.

There are several of us who, over the course of a season or two, have seen the vote totals go up and down in a given round. I got really upset about it once. It was suggested to me that I stop watching the polls until they were "official." That has helped a great deal.

It is possible to take something which happens, especially when it was completely out of your control, very personally. I know had done so, many...many times in this competition.

I did, when I read a few comments that "seemed to imply" I either had something to do with the changing or encouraged it someway. After some calming discussion, and a lovely phone call, I realized that I was viewing the comments through my own obsessive filter - and that no one was actually accusing me at all.

To those who have written "LJ Idol isn't for me" or "If people can take away votes then I don't want to play" I am sorry to hear that, and I hope that you will reconsider.

Re: My final?? word on this

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

Just to be clear (because this was written as a reply to my comment), I'm not one of the people who have said I don't want to play. I also never said (or implied for that matter) that you were involved in the voting changes. It's entirely possible that some people really wanted you to win, and changed their votes without your knowledge or influence. It's also possible that it was a big coincidence. I'm a puzzle person. It's in my nature to try to figure it out.

The unfortunate part was that person/people had hurt/bad feelings about it. And it looked like a step against the person for whom votes were subtracted.

As for not watching the vote count, that's a little like going to a horse race and not watching the finish. It's not as much fun to yell "C'mon Dover!..." when you can't see the horses.

Re: My final?? word on this

[jennieknits.livejournal.com]

MOVE YOUR BLOOMIN' ARSE!

Sorry, totally off topic of your actual comment (which had some nice points), but I couldn't resist. :)

Re: My final?? word on this

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

I hoped someone would get it. :)

[n-decisive.livejournal.com]

Yes. That's right. It's only if you click on one of the links while there that things change.

[jennieknits.livejournal.com]

Yikes. I didn't know that happened, but I just tested it and sure enough. I think that you should open a support request and let them know about the bug. That is definitely not intended behavior.

[lacombe.livejournal.com]

It's not cool.

[lacombe.livejournal.com]

Crud. I hope I didn't lose anyone I was supporting that way.

Just my 2 cents

[wyrdwriter.livejournal.com]

I have read entries in the poll section, had them checked because I linked from there, and gone back and unchecked them.

It's usually when I see a post getting tons of votes and think, "huh...maybe I should reread that one, perhaps I missed something or forgot to write that name down..." If it was a good entry I somehow missed (which doesn't happen as often as it did at the beginning because I now keep a list of who I want to vote for) I leave it checked. If it's not something I want to vote for, I uncheck it.

Although not as "important" (for want of a better word that my tired brain won't spit out) as government elections, the individual process for voting is just as personal and private. If somebody wants to share who they voted for and/or why that's up to them. If they don't want to share, that should be respected.

[lilmissmagic71.livejournal.com]

I noticed the check/uncheck problem pretty much on the first voting round. Granted, I thought it was because I was unused to using polls and not a bug, as it were... but I devised an immediate 'fix' that works for me.

As soon as the new topic post is available, I track it. The new entries appear in my inbox as they are posted. I read them from there and use the old school method of jotting down the names of those I want to vote for in a notebook kept next to my 'puter. When the voting polls open, I make sure I have read all the entries from my inbox and have written down each vote I want to give. Then I simply go to the poll and go down the list, double checking before I hit submit. In this way, I have completely avoided the wonky check/uncheck thing.

Of course, I could use a cool spreadsheet like spydie's, but am woefully unable to maintain that level of organization. *shrug* So I just take notes and vote all at once.

I may be a bit gullible/naive but I really don't want to entertain the thought that there is some sort of voting conspiracy. There isn't really anything at stake here, win or lose. It's just a great way to challenge yourself, make friends and have something to do that at least FEELS productive.

I do admit that the gain and then loss of votes is disturbing... I will watch closely from here on out in the hopes that it was an anomaly and not an actual strategy. After all, if there is a winning strategy, I would hope it would be to write your best and encourage others to read your stuff.

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

That's always been the way to win. People have different stratgies to get them further in the game, but just like any other reality show, people get exposed for who they are in the greater context and those who play at the "short cuts" tend to piss people off enough that they stop having the good will and support... and ultimately it means that they go out of the game sooner than they would have otherwise...

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

How many rounds of the game have there been?

[jennieknits.livejournal.com]

I wasn't a part of any season other than this one, but I do have a list of all of the topics.

Season 1: 6 rounds
Season 2: 17 rounds
Season 3: 25 rounds
Season 4: A whole lot more than that. :)

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

I just realized, I said "rounds" and meant "seasons," which is silly, because all the green room posts are labeled Season 4.

I'm blaming the medication. In two days I'll be off of it, and I'll have to fall back on blaming my brain.

Thanks!

[jennieknits.livejournal.com]

Ah. I thought you were trying to get a gauge of how long this season would take. :) No worries.

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

That is also interesting to see. I'm getting a sense that it may take longer to get to Season 5 than I imagined.

[welfy.livejournal.com]

"After all, if there is a winning strategy, I would hope it would be to write your best and encourage others to read your stuff."

I like to think that's how I won last season. I didn't have any games or strategies. Mostly just trying to focus on writing the entry and getting it posted!