Green Room - Week 12 Weekend Edition

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Good afternoon.

How are you guys doing?

I got to actually hang out with WEEN after the show last night, so I'm doing pretty good.

So what's on your mind?

Comments

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

See, this is exactly why I don't understand all this kerfluffle over the 'alliance' that is sheepstations.

I think it boils down to whether you see this as a contest that's about the writing, or a contest that's about the people.

When I first started hanging out in LJIdol Land, I only had one person on my friends list who was competing. Now I have several. I vote for the post, not the person, so it's not a given that I'll vote for my friends' posts. In fact there have been weeks when I haven't (sorry, friends).

The sheepstations community info page says, "...it's very simple. by accepting the invitation you agree to vote for every participating member of this community each week until the top twenty..." So here, the focus is voting for the person, regardless of the content of the post.

This puts the people who are mid-to-lower in the polls who don't get invited to the allliance, or who get invited but do not join, at a disadvantage, particularly in a week where the four lowest scores across the board, without tribe divisions, are "going home."

Add to that the fact people generally don't like to be left out of a private clique, even if they wouldn't have joined it in the first place. Sheepstations is invitation-only, and, though its membership is publicly known, there are friends-locked posts to which the larger community is not privy. That is neither warm nor fuzzy.

[jennieknits.livejournal.com]

Not that it really matters, but the only f-locked entry in the community so far has been a list of people to vote for. I'm not saying that it won't change, but so far, there has been nothing nasty hidden from public view (and nothing nasty in public view).

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

I wasn't implying any nastiness. Just the fact that it's exclusive and there is private communication as a subset of the larger group is going to cause bad feelings, regardless of the actual content of the exclusive, private communication.

[laurelian.livejournal.com]

I guess my point of view is that, while the main focus of this competition is indeed the writing, that's not the whole of the competition. After all, this is a game. That's been mentioned over and over again. Were this simply a writing competition, and not at least *part* popularity contest, then the post and posters would be evaluated by a panel of impartial judges using consistent and fair measures to determine whose writing is really better.

Since this is an open community wherein most votes are open to the entirety of the LJ community, I feel that this game can't possibly be strictly about the writing. I wish it were, honestly, cause I think I'd be higher up in the polls if it were.

The bottom line, though, is that we all have different tastes, which means there's not consistency, there's not impartiality. We judge each week according to the writing we prefer and, whether we like to admit it, the people we prefer. I see, over and over again, people getting huge numbers of votes for posts that didn't fit my particular tastes. Posts that I didn't vote for because I didn't care for the writing. I admit that my tastes may not be mainstream, but when I see people whose posts really touch me falling low or out of the competition altogether while posts that I consider unworthy gain critical acclaim, it makes me wonder just how much of the voting is really done based solely on the writing.

And I really don't believe it *is* all about the writing. For that reason, I don't see the problem with alliances. Alliances are really no different than asking your friendslist to vote for you and I don't see people throwing up such a stink about that when many folks have been doing that every single week since the beginning of the competition.

I understand that many consider it be exclusive or elitist, but there's a lot of that floating around in the competition, if you care to look for it. As a new player, someone who only had experience with this game through the posts of friends last season, I have felt on the outside the entire I've been here. There are informal alliances on all kinds of levels already in play. People who met each other through previous competitions, people who have won or come close to winning in the past, people who have relationships outside of Idol and outside of LJ who help each other through the competition.

Alliances are inevitable and, I'm sorry but you have to give this alliance points for being out in the open about it, at least. The word dishonesty is being thrown around like a scarlet letter but I haven't seen any dishonesty put in play here. It's just another way of playing the game and, at the end of that day, that's all LJ Idol is.

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

It is a game. Alliances are legal. The alliance is exclusive, but has been honest about its exclusivity.

You asked what the kerfuffle was about. I was just summing up what I've read and felt the objections are/have been. Sociology major - group kerfuffles are interesting.

FWIW, I think there is a difference between inviting your friendslist to vote, and voting for a pre-determined slate, but neither is "illegal" or "dishonest," and clearly neither is going to be fully embraced by everyone.

[laurelian.livejournal.com]

Sorry, just explaining my POV. The kerfluffle question was meant to be rhetorical so I thought I might need to explain myself a little better.

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

It's cool. I have a habit of answering questions whether they were meant to be rhetorical or not. I never considered that it might be annoying until someone (I forget who) wrote about it this week.