LJ Idol Presents:

I've only started mentioning the polls over the past couple of weeks because I know that the vast majority of my f-list are members of the Idol community, so could see for themselves what was going on without my needing to point it out to them. What was interesting is that I did a poll a couple of weeks ago to see whether people wanted me to mention when it was time to vote and the response was overwhelmingly yes because people said they'd forget otherwise. So it just went to show that my assumption that people know what was happening was wrong. I'm still not going to spam my f-list with "ZOMG PLEASE VOTE FOR ME" but I am linking to it now because people have actually asked me to.

I think the thing is with the "wanting to let your entry speak for itself" attitude is that it's the same as any product. If people don't know it's there, they can't read it and see how amazing it is. And people on your f-list won't automatically know there's a poll (or that you had a reason to write that amazing entry) unless you actively tell them it's there. They're not mind readers. I think it's possible to let people know what's going on without turning into the so-called "vote whore." Obviously by posting an entry you want people to vote for it or you'd just drop out. But I don't think it's a bad thing by saying to people "and if you liked what you read and you want to read more and see other great entries as well, go here and click on the boxes you like."