Green Room - Week 11 - Day 1

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

After seeing a couple people mention votes vanishing, I took a screen shot of the actual votes (not the numbers, but the votes themselves.) to see if I could see a pattern.

Obviously, I missed the ones that had already happened, but at least I could take a look at the ones that were to come… and some did. The two “big ones” (by my standards) were someone who had voted for 5 people, who changed their vote to vote for 2. What is the “tell” in this particular case is that those two *weren’t* originally on their list.

Which means that they either decided “Heck with those guys!!” and deleted votes from 5 entries that they had previously enjoyed, OR they found two more that they liked, and went to edit their vote – forgetting that LJ makes you “recheck” everything. Which meant that several folks lost votes.

This is one of LJ’s “improvements”. Honestly, in your average poll, it makes sense. You want to a cast a vote for which Harry Potter extended universe character is your favorite, and a day or so into it, you change your mind – then you should be able to go in and change it to reflect that. When it comes to retaining previous votes, so that people can read along, and cast votes as they go – that’s when it becomes annoying.

So – again, I implore you, and your favorite writers echo me on this, if you DO “vote as you go”, please remember to check to make sure that your votes are ALL THERE. I’d hate to see someone eliminated over one vote that someone cast, and then forgot to re-check!

The second case was a vote for 3 entries that became a vote for 2. Two of those votes (including the one lost) were for folks “in the bottom”. My theory is that they felt they had to make a decision over who they wanted to keep (otherwise the votes might “cancel each other out”, or help create a tie, under some circumstances.

I can’t say for sure that this was their motivation. I simply can’t know that – any more than I know the motivation for any one, casting a ballot, ever. But it seems to be the most logical explanation.

We tend to have a *lot* more of the former situation than the latter. Both are legit. (the first is a shame, because it’s a technical glitch, but part of the playing field of LJ that we have to remember and take note to avoid)

The latter is more of a “strategic” reason. We’ve seen more strategy in the past than we have in recent history. I’m of mixed reaction to that sort of thing. I love strategy, but on the other hand, there’s a reason why I made it so that people are voting *to support* their favorites rather than “cast a vote for who you want to see eliminated”.

I certainly don’t see any inherent malice in changing your mind – and again, LJ allows for it. Just be careful when you cast those votes in the first place. No one likes to see their numbers go down.

***

In some “better” news: Everyone still alive in the game at this point, is eligible to receive something from THE COMMUNITY CHEST! http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/676576.html

So, take a look over there and start thinking about what you want!

***

Oh, and of course there were eliminations: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/680358.html
And new topics: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/680460.html

Comments

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

having them take place at different times helps some people (in various time zones and hurts others -

I totally get that. And if you're going to do that it's reasonable to make the varied time the original plan, rather than to change it in the tenth hour because "a couple of people have requested it." Because it screws with everyone else.

There was no "plan" for my modem to break again, but if we'd gotten the topics on the original schedule, I would have been online and wouldn't have had to ask people to read me a metric fuckton of topics over the phone and hurry to make a decision because I'm tying up someone else's day.

And honestly, You KNEW you were going to give us the list from hell and have us claim two topics when you changed the new time to wtf-o'clock, whether it's "old school" Idol or not, if you had to think about it that wasn't the reason, and there's A LOT of things that are different from "old school Idol" these days.

That to say, PTW's request is reasonable. If you change the voting deadline at the last minute, it'd be awfully nice of you if you'd keep the new topic time when it would have been. There "a couple of people have asked" you.

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your help! I'm BACK!

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

::kick::