Green Room - Week 30 - Day 16

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Sorry that yesterday’s Green Room was so “down”. I know it’s difficult to have a battle over who will get “first” when faced with a wall of text about suicide!

Today I’m linking the voting: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/577661.html and reminding you that you have until tomorrow night to send me those votes!

Anyone who has been a contestant this season (Which, there are A LOT of them out there!) is eligible to vote.

I’ve had a couple questions pop up, so I’ll go ahead and answer them here!

- Can we vote for ourselves? Of course you can, if you honestly feel that you had one of the 5 best entries in that category

- Can we vote for the same people? Sure. But see above, and I’m going to be frank here, if you do, I’m going to think you are delusional and/or just voting for your friends. Because I can guarantee that the same 5 people, or even 4 of them, probably didn’t have the BEST entries under each and every category. If you want to waste my time with that sort of thing though, I won’t stop you. But seriously, *something inside of you*, some sense of dignity, probably should.
If you really, really believe that they are the best though – and have honestly read everything else, and still came up with that conclusion, maybe it’s just your thing and not an attempt to play the system and throw a finger in the face of everyone who has worked to get to this point… I’m going to disagree with you, but if it’s your thing, then it is…

- What about the Jury? They are voting for immunity this week, and every week until I announce that they have been dismissed. It adds a potential wrinkle to the proceedings, depending on which way they go.

- “Can I vote this week?” Did you sign up this season? If yes, then Yes. If no, then no.

Comments

[noodledays.livejournal.com]

I love your frankness. in case I haven't said that, I wanted to.

[n3m3sis42.livejournal.com]

Wow, I completely forgot about the Jury.

Hmmmm, I don't know. While I agree that the same people were not the best in every single category, I do think there were people who far and away performed better than most. And I read everysingledamnword.

Could just be me, though. ;-)

Oh yeah... as far as the Jury goes, if they give someone immunity and that person would have been eliminated, does that mean someone else is eliminated in their place? Or does one fewer person leave that week? Just curious.

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Different people have different tastes, and it's true that the people you enjoy are probably going to be the folks you end up interacting more than the people you don't.

If you've read every word, and came to the conclusions you came to, then I'm obviously not talking to you.

We might disagree - because we have different tastes!

I'm more thinking about those folks out there who might not have read every word, or not planning on reading every word - and just going for their favorites.

I think this is an extremely talented group of people, and I hope that we continue to see that level increase in the weeks between now and the finale!

As for your question - immunity saves the person who receives it . If they were in danger - then the person with the next in line would go instead. For those who know Survivor, think of it as playing a hidden immunity idol.

[pixiebelle.livejournal.com]

I'm seriously trying to read everything... But with however many entries there are, I'm struggling. This is a lot of reading for a few days, and I'll be honest (as someone who has a bye this week and who's neck isn't on the line), this pretty much makes it prime to just pick your favorites because there's a lot of reading and I'm not sure how many people can read everything. Judging by the number of comments I'm seeing (very, very few), I'm going to take a guess that a lot of people aren't reading and just voting for their favorites.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that exactly. I know I usually prefer my favorites for a reason and from what I have read, many of those came through this week once more. I know of at least two of my favorites are ending up on my lists as I read and I am basing that on the quality of their work. They are good, that's why they're a favorite. I've already established that I like their style, I like their genre.... So it comes naturally.

There are a few surprises though too. That's why I think everyone should read everything if they can. I've had a few folks I might have ignored reading if I was just reading certain people, and I'd have missed some worthy stuff.

So I see both sides of the coin. I'm trying to read everything, I'm trying to spread the comment love around since there's very little of that this week. But I'm likely not going to be able to do it all and that makes me sad :/

[n3m3sis42.livejournal.com]

Thiiiiis. Also, in a situation where I'm forced to choose a limited number of people, things besides quality do come into play. If I have a list of 10 posts that I all think are equally good and can only vote for 5, I'm going to narrow it based on other factors.

[copyright1983.livejournal.com]

Re: commenting, I'm deliberately not leaving any because (1) there's 180 entries to read (I'm about halfway through, for the record; I should finish tonight), and (2) as a Jury member, I don't want to tip my hand just yet.

(That said, I do have a few entries flagged as "go back and comment on this when I'm done", and I will.)

[frecklestars.livejournal.com]

I admit to skimming rather than reading everything. With some data that needs to get analyzed and papers due and a class to plan, I've got other things. But I solemnly swear that I am up to no good have skimmed every single entry for this week.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Silly Gary -- if you do not honestly believe that your piece IS one of the best and worthy of your vote -- then you could not, should not have entered it in good conscience at this stage of the game.

[pixiebelle.livejournal.com]

This. I agree with this.

[sharya.livejournal.com]

Except that at the time that it is entered, you wouldn't have had the chance to compare it to everyone else. You could put forth your best effort, and then in comparison to everyone else, still feel like you came up short.

Having said that, I would still probably vote for myself, whether I thought I deserved the vote or not. It's still a strategic competition! :P

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

You all suck and I'm not voting for any of you because of that one time six years ago when your friend's mother's boyfriend's dog flamed my facebook. I'm still pissed about that.

Also, I'm invoking my immunity this week, so pleeeease nobody waste votes on me. Still check out my stuff though, because I'm a huge attention whore.

♥

(Okay, I was kidding about the not voting part. I really am invoking immunity. The attention whore part is for you to decide.)

[n3m3sis42.livejournal.com]

Definitely check out her stuff, because it's fucking amazing.

I suspected you were going to use that immunity! ;-)

[pixiebelle.livejournal.com]

I second checking out her stuff regardless!

I figured you'd invoke immunity, but that's really awesome for you to tell people to vote for others because of it. That's really freaking cool of you.

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

Just curious about the voting here - do you want the Top 5 in order of our favorites, or does that matter at all?

Also, can we send you multiple emails if needed, like if I send you one email to vote for my top 5 in a particular category, then a second email for a second category, in case I don't get all the categories read, as long as I tell you which category the votes are for? I know that's probably more trouble on your end, but I just wanted to double-check. :)

[pixiebelle.livejournal.com]

I've wondered about multiple emails.... My sheet is getting confused as I go on :P

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

I've read 90ish entries so far, so i'm about halfway through the voting. Here are some thoughts.

- I have a seriously bad name/proper noun retention problem. Online, offline, it's always been an issue for me, remembering coworkers' names, etc. so when reading and voting from week to week, I've only been voting for the entry, not the person, and by the next week I have little idea if I liked last week's from that person. This week with the groupings as they are, I've been able to notice people's styles, and I can more easily see that I generally do or don't like the entries by this or that person.

- That said, so far there's one person I've voted for four of their six entries, but the other people I've only voted for one or two. (To be fair I know I haven't gotten to some of my fav writers so far.)

- Of the approx 90 entries I've read, I've "voted" for twelve(in quotes because if I pick more than five in a category I'm going to have to re-read to eliminate some). The twelve posts represent seven different writers.

- So far, my favorite entry is from a person not on my friends list. I voted for one other of their entries.

- I'm not reading every word. I'm reading every entry, to a point. At this point in the competition and with 179 entries to read, if you don't grab me with the first paragraph or two I am moving on. I don't think there's anything wrong with that reading strategy.

- As far as voting for friends goes, at the beginning of the season, I only had a few old-timers on my friends list, all of whom I'd met in Idol seasons past and friended because I liked them or their writing. Throughout this season I've added a few people to my friends list as I've connected with them or read something I really liked. So I'm predisposed to liking their stuff, so they're likely to be on my voting list more times than people who aren't on my friends list. I don't see anything wrong with that either.

- As far as comments go, i've probably only left a half dozen. I only comment if I have something to say. If I commented something like "I liked this." it means I liked it a lot. I don't comment on everything I like or everything i vote for. I should comment more, but LJ issues pop up randomly and really piss me off when they happen, so I find I comment less and less.

- But apparently not shorter. :)

[pixiebelle.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on a lot of this. Especially the part about catching my attention right away. With how little time I have, I'm not going to stick around if I'm not snagged in within the first couple of paragraphs. A good intro says a lot about a piece to me. It's something people should focus more energy on.

[ellakite.livejournal.com]

I'm going through each category/prompt, reading every piece in full, and then assembling my Top Five list for that prompt. So far, about half my votes are for folks that have regularly held my interest in the past... but at least one vote is going to someone that I'm fairly sure I've *NEVER* voted for before. Yet one of their pieces this week absolutely enthralled me, so I'm giving them their due... and I actually felt *GOOD* about casting that vote!

It's nice to be pleasantly surprised. It happens so rarely to me...


More reading, more voting tonight.

[notodette.livejournal.com]

I also voted for someone I've not voted for before (at least not since I started paying attention to who was whom.) There were a lot of great entries this round. I'm really glad I read, time-consuming as it was.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to pop over and read this to make sure I didn't miss out on anything important. Now it's back to reading entries!

[theafaye.livejournal.com]

You can think I'm delusional or just voting for my friends all you like, Gary. If I choose to vote for the same people in each topic, it's because those are the people that I genuinely believe deserve to move forward and from what I've seen, that's more than possible, what with "good" being a question of personal taste. And it's naive of you to say that people should only be voting solely based on the quality of an individual entry - at this stage, all sorts of factors come into play. Sure, a good entry is going to be essential to win my vote, but there are other factors like whether that person is someone I want to see take the trophy. Idol is much more than *just* a writing contest. That's what I love about it.

[pixiebelle.livejournal.com]

Pretty much a good summary of what I've said above. So I agree :)

[whipchick.livejournal.com]

I'm so freaking thankful I'm on a plane for 8 hours tonight. It's the only way I'm going to get all the reading done! I'm so excited - it's been really cool so far to see what people are pulling out that's really ambitious!

[lilycobalt.livejournal.com]

I have about 45 entries left to read. It's been a while since I did this kind of speed reading, but it's worth it. It's also something to do while I listen to my contracts lecture. :P

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

I've got myself a spreadsheet, and I'm reading reading reading every single thing. It's so neat to see the different perspectives on the prompts, the many different ways we wrote for them (and the similarities, too. There are some interesting themes emerging).

I've only managed to comment on a few entries (and I just barely got caught up on comments on my own) - I hope I'll have time to go back through and leave some love for all the awesome stuff. We'll see.

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

DONE!

Oddly enough, the hardest part wasn't getting through the entries. It was paring my votes down to five in three of the categories.

Now I must focus my attention. SYTYCD is doing Vegas round one tonight. :)

[mstrobel.livejournal.com]

Gobsmacked was the hardest one for me... I think I listed every second entry I read! And appropriation was running it a close second :/

[ashgaelsonaria.livejournal.com]

Wrote a story from a dogs perspective
Very serious subject mater tho
http://ashgaelsonaria.livejournal.com/235373.html

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

and have honestly read everything else

This is the hardest part, though. I just can't fit in enough reading without cheating my employer, especially for 180 entries.

Has there been any thought about extending the voting deadline, given the volume of stuff to read?

Because I hate to short-change people on reading, especially knowing that they've worked hard on these stories. But I don't see an alternative, other than reading all the stories for just some of the prompts. :(

[mstrobel.livejournal.com]

I feel guilty because in order to get through them all, I had to forbid myself from commenting at all :/ and then of course I broke that rule a whole bunch of times, which just slowed me down even further. But yeah, I really wish the deadline had been longer as well. I only had a bit of this morning and now this evening to read - having a few hours tomorrow morning as well (deadline is 9am my time) would have helped SO much.

[imafarmgirl.livejournal.com]

Has anyone generated a list of who wrote in which category or anything? This is so crazy going through every entry and then remembering who was in what category. I have been out of town for the last two days and I have a test later for my summer class I need to study for. Honestly I don't think Gary has given us enough time to read all the entries, yet I hate to be one of those people voting for the same top five. I know who I want in the top five though. Maybe I just shouldn't vote.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

Yes-- I did. It's on this post, near the bottom:

http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/577661.html

My only hope was to read all the stories in a given category, and then try to finish as many categories as I could.