Vote - Week 16 Run Off

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

A few words from clauderainsrm:

What a crazy week!! How better to cap it off with a run off that involves even more curve balls!

Before the poll, battle_kitten did decide to drop to allow others to go further in the competition. She did let me know that she was planning on sticking around, so it's not "goodbye" so much as it is "Hello Home Game!"

We are still going forward with the poll though, and there will be an elimination since it was a "pre-poll drop".

Which means that the two individuals who missed the deadline will also be leaving us. Farewell to az_starshine and daughterofodhin.

It just goes to show that anything can happen, and often does.

We will still be losing one of the contestants who submitted "Making Fire" entries. It's still a quite a large run off.

So read the entries and cast vote for your favorites. Their fate is in your hands. The contestant with the fewest votes will be eliminated.

The poll will close tomorrow, Monday March 8th at 8pm EST.

Good luck to everyone.

[Poll #1535059]

Comments

Re: Why I Would Remove a Vote

[theafaye.livejournal.com]

See, I won't take away a vote once given, which is why I'm interested in hearing from people who do. There have been a couple of times when I've given someone the benefit of the doubt and awarded a vote and then thought that I would have preferred not to, but I've let it stand, since whatever made me give it in the first place wouldn't have changed.

I'm very much a voting *for* mindset, which means that if someone was in danger of going out, I'll pimp them on my f-list and in the GR rather than be tactical with my votes. I'd still prefer to leave it up to the voting public at large to make up their minds whether they agree with me or not. Particularly now when the chances of someone I like leaving are very high in any given week. I'd rather vote for everyone I want to stay and let someone else agree with me. Or not.

Re: Why I Would Remove a Vote

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Why won't you take a vote away?

I simply see no reason not to. My entire influence on the polls is limited to giving every entry either 0 or +1 points, the whole point of the poll is for each of us individually to influence our opinion to that extent, and so I do. I don't see any ethical difference between retracting a givin vote, never having voted for a person in the first place, or giving them a vote.

Retracting votes is practically desirable for a few reasons, as mentioned by myself and a few others. To elaborate on my own above example, one is bound to like some entries more than others. The differences in one's opinion between some may be slight, but there is likely to be a significant difference between your very favourite and the one you just barely decided qualified for your vote. If elimination were to say come to a question between these two, you voted for both, and they are tied for last, I think it would absolutely make sense to retract the vote for the one you barely decided to vote for. Again this is because the purpose of the poll is to allow everyone to input their 0/+1 influence in an effort to distill the collective sum opinion of which entry is the least favourite, and that's what you're doing here, doing what's in your ethical power to keep the entry you think is better in.

Now, I'm NOT saying rec lists are unethical, but just to put this all into an interesting perspective, consider the alternative to this, telling lots of people to vote for the one you prefer instead of the above vote retraction. One is absolutely living in a fantastic fantasy land if one honestly thinks those people you recommend that entry to are going to give a fair shake to the one you didn't recommend. Unless you recommend people read both of them and give no hints to lead people lean towards the one you favour, you are throwing a big ole pile of bias into the system. Rec lists may SEEM nicer, but I submit they are actually less ethically clean than simply quiety retracting one vote when two you voted for are at the bottom. Which again, I am absolutely not saying I think people shouldn't do rec lists, I'm just saying that I don't see how one can knock tie breaking vote retraction while upholding such.

Re: Why I Would Remove a Vote

[theafaye.livejournal.com]

The difference is that in a rec list, not everyone follows through. People may or may not read your recs, they may or may not agree with you that they were worth reading and they may or may not follow through with a vote. Have you potentially influenced the poll? Yes, but not in such a way that incorporates strategical voting and since people tend to post recs with plenty of time to spare, others can counter it if they so choose (which is likely to be what happened in last week's main poll).

Whereas when you have voted for someone, you have allowed them to think that they can count on x support. To remove that support, even if it's only one vote (and we've seen recently how important that one vote can be), can actively remove someone from the competition, especially if you remove that vote minutes before the poll closes, giving the person who you've just put down little or no chance to attempt to rally support. If you think an entry is borderline, don't vote for it in the first place (which is what I do) because you can always go back and give them a nice little boost later if they seem in danger of going out and you think you'd prefer to see them in the game than gone.

So if you want to argue which one of the two is more ethical, I humbly posit that rec lists are much more ephemeral and open to the individual freedom of choice to follow through on what you say. They rely on people not only bothering to read the entries you list, but then following through to the poll and putting a check in that box. That's too much like hard work for some people. I've seen plenty of rec lists, both on my f-list and elsewhere. None of them have agreed with each other and in terms of influence, in all likelihood counter each other out.

Whereas people have been knocked out by someone removing their one vote at that crucial moment in time. I think that's a lot more shady than simply saying "I think this entry deserves attention" or adding a vote later. There might be a subtle difference between voting *for* someone as opposed to against, but I think it's an important one and it's always how I've voted.

Re: Why I Would Remove a Vote

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I follow.

I put forth that the intended purpose of rec lists is that people will go vote for the entries recommended and vote for them. These people will not give fair consideration to those entries not on the rec list, that is the purpose of the rec list really. It is to recommend people read and vote for a particular entry.

That people do not always follow the recommendations is not a logical counter-argument to this. The assumption is that some do, or else the rec list is utterly pointless. What is the purpose of a rec list if not to urge some people into going over and voting for those entries?

Personally all this "rallying support" sounds more like strategery and tactical behaviour to me than me by myself sitting alone in my cold damp tower seeing a choice between two shiny apples and choosing the shinier one.

I don't think one should hold voters responsible for keeping in mind what support candidates are liable to "rally" while they cast their individual votes.

Re: Why I Would Remove a Vote

[theafaye.livejournal.com]

Of course no one can be held responsible for what support someone can muster. It isn't a factor that I take into consideration when I vote and I don't think it is for many.

The point is, you make a rec list because you think "these entries are worth reading and maybe voting if you're so inclined." Most of the lists I've read have all said "and check out the other entries to."

The simple reality is, you can't track the influence of a rec list, especially since different people rec different entries and there's some overlap but a lot of entries get rec'd by different people. Maybe they'll get some extra votes and maybe they won't. But that's down to individual voters to decide. It's not like anyone's holding a gun to their head to force them to vote.

Whereas when you have voted for someone that person, quite justly thinks "Oooh. I've got x votes. That's good. I can rely on having at least that amount." Take even one vote away from that number and you can see them go out of the contest.

People can, and have, been removed from the contest because someone has taken votes away. Whilst rec lists may well have seen someone get more votes, everyone still has the opportunity to see what the current totals are and add more votes if they so choose.

Taking votes away? Highly tactical. That's not chosing a shinier apple, that's going "oh, you mean I can't have these two apples that I thought I could? My bad. Sorry for the inconvenience and the upset I've caused the apple seller thinking they could count on my support."

When you have an action that has a direct and obvious effect (someone suddenly doing a lot worse in the polls than everyone thought), that's much more easily trackable than people taking time to read and vote.

And I'll say it again, in case you missed it the first time. People have been voted out because votes were taken away at the last minute so other voters didn't realise that person was in danger before it was too late. There was a big scandal about that in season 4 and I applaud your bravery in admitting to taking away votes because of those that do, most people do it without telling anyone. If you can't see what could be dodgy about that, then there's not much I can do to explain it better.

Re: Why I Would Remove a Vote

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Well to address this first since you emphasized it the most: "And I'll say it again, in case you missed it the first time. People have been voted out because votes were taken away at the last minute so other voters didn't realise that person was in danger before it was too late."

People have also, a lot more people in fact, been voted out because they thought they were safe but the person below them heavily pimped and "rallied" votes from whichever dark corners they could and surpassed them.

The fact is, counting on how many votes you have never makes you safe precisely because people can really surge from behind. People surging from behind has the exact same effect on one's position than a vote being taken away, except it happens more often and to a much larger scale.

If I pick up two apples and realize I can only afford one, I'm sorry or getting the apple seller's hopes up but I'm going to feel no obligation to go ahead and buy both.

As to rec lists, it doesn't matter that people have complete free will to follow them, and that there might be opposing rec lists balancing them out. The purpose of a rec list is still to funnel new voters into the poll in a distinctly biased state. It is utterly nonrelevent that people have the freedom not to go along with them, that is still what they are attempting to do and I'm certain the reason they are posted at all is because of a belief that they do have some kind of effect in this manner. It is also non-relevant that other people are balancing it out, to simplify why that doesn't make sense we can simplify that argument to "it doesn't matter that Practice X is shady because it is balanced out by other people doing it in the opposite direction" and one can readily see that that is silly.

And how trackable the effects of the rec list are doesn't matter either. It is done with the intention of having an effect, and that is all that matters.

But yeah, people are no safer knowing how many votes they have from being overtaken by surges from behind than from the odd retracted vote.

Re: Why I Would Remove a Vote

[theafaye.livejournal.com]

Thing is, pimp lists aren't anonymous. If I pimp out someone, whether on my f-list or in the GR, I do it as me and everyone knows who I'm supporting in any given week, so it's pretty easy to see if I'm supporting the same people time and time again or mixing it up. Personally, the only time I've pimped myself is during the intersection when someone else's fate was linked to mine, so it's a pretty daft strategy on my part really to be supporting others' work before my own.

Voting is anonymous. The only reason we know that you're predisposed to removing votes is because you've told us. You may never do it and someone else may and it's assumed you've done it. Since no one will have any proof (except Gary), that in itself leads to much shadier practices. You could be saying to someone's face how great you think their work is, but setting them up for a fall during a poll.

And as far as pimping yourself to rally the troops is concerned, that's all part of marketing, which is an important skill if you want to write professionally. Many people choose not to or don't vote for themselves because they feel that their writing should stand or fall on its own merits, which is a perfectly valid viewpoint. However, the best book in the world won't get bought by anyone if no one knows it's sitting in the book shop. Promoting a product isn't unethical because people still have the choice whether or not to buy it.

And to reiterate, when a vote can be taken away at the last minute which has been done before, that's highly dodgy. Everyone has the chance to promote themselves over the course of the poll and how much they do that is up to the individual. When someone says "well I'm going to take my vote away at the last minute and don't see a problem with the fact that it'll get someone else voted out because I can manipulate the polls any way I like" and thinks that this is more ethical than putting up a post that says "I really like this entry and if you agree with me, please vote", then that's someone who has a very different world view to me.

Re: Why I Would Remove a Vote

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Votes are always anonymous, and as I said, I see no difference between the vote I do cast or the vote I didn't cast.

ANYone could be saying to someone's face how great they are and waiting to vote for their competitor at the last minute. It's not the vote that I think is bothering you here but the thought behind it. Evil motives behind voting or behaving in any way is.. evil.

I only have one vote, I can't really "manipulate" the polls any more than anyone else can. As many people have theorized this last week, manipulation can more effectively be done by voting for everyone BUT someone. That's a positive vote with a similarly "sinister" effect. I have never done this.

I'd also like to reiterate again that I'm not saying rec lists are unethical, just that they by their nature have a biased effect on the poll and aim to subvert the "one person one vote" theory of the poll by getting additional votes out of people's friends. Yes that is marketting and as no one ever said it's not part of the contest, it's therefore not not part of the contest. I am merely saying that because of that tendency to subvert the basic fairness of the system, it could be argued that it is less ethical than retracting votes. And I'm not saying retracting votes is unethical either so I don't have to argue either is unethical ... but one WOULD have to argue it is unethical to say retracting votes is unethical, which is why I bring it up, which brings me to my final point:

I don't think anyone other than Gary is in actual fact in a position to be going around moralizing about what people can and cannot do here. Some people think pimping for votes is unfair, some people don't. You bring up both sides of that argument in your previous comment and that's kind of exactly my point. Other than things that are outright malicious or violate the few rules Gary has laid out (or are otherwise identifiable as applicable laws of LJ TOS), no one is in any position to be lecturing anyone else on what they should or should not be doing. And so we arc back full circle to my thesis: there's nothing wrong with unmaliciously retracting one's own vote if one sees that doing so will save an entry one thinks is better.