Voting Problems

I have run four or five contests now and I would appreciate advice from seasoned event hosters as to how to have better votes.

1. If you have IM votes, the host can become overhwhelmed, some people can get huffy and leave your property, and the process isn't transparent -- no one knows what you've received, and you might just pick your friend as the winner because you like them.

2. If you put out Vote Machines well, first of all, be careful, they can suddenly freeze and break on you, even after you recompiled the script to open it up again, and your vote can be invalidated and all those people who came to vote on an exhibit have to be re-contacted.

3. The Vote Machine leaves a public record at least, you can see how many votes went to each contestant. But clearly people with alts who are not honourable about never voting with them (as I am) can come and spam up the vote with their alts to ensure their win.

4. People can also flash-mob a voting machine by IM'ing all their friends and telling them to get on down to the contest and vote. That means the vote isn't really a democratic process, let's say, among the population interested in that particular theme you've held a contest on, but whoever happens to have friends online and a good buddy list of cards.
I suppose nothing can be done about it.

5. One could also take IMs more slowly, over an hour period, to ensure no one gets missed and to discourage the flash-mobbers, and then announce the results, or keep a running board in game somehow with prims with numbers put out on them, but then people get antsy about whether or not they won and they might leave your lot.

To run a voting board like that manually would mean uploading textures and paying $10 every few minutes to change the numbers, at first, but then you could keep that set of numbers and deploy them in future contests. OK, that's what I'll do unless somebody can help me get a better idea.

hmm, I have been contemplating this as well, trying to figure out the best way. I am going to be hosting a photography contest in January and have been trying to think of the best way to have people vote. I really do not want to have to deal with a million IMs, that just scares me because i was going to have people vote over a couple of days and my not catch all of them I was also thinking that you could host the vote on the forums with a poll, but that has limitations as well, i.e. you can only have 10 choices and not everyone will vote if you have to go to your web browers. Anyhow, if anyone else has any suggestions, I too would love to hear them

I know one of my friends built a new voting mechanism that is doing very well. IM Karizon Hatfield. He'll tell you about it

You might try having them drop notecards, espcially if you give them a day or more to vote.

I have been running events on Phantasie Isle for 10 months, and I will tell you what I do. First when the event starts weather you are on the radio or typing the event (what you want voted on), people generally don't vote, in fact you almost have to beat them over the head to vote, so don't be affraid of massive im's they do not come that way.

When it's time to vote at an event you clear your im's and have them start voting. I usually play like 6 songs b4 I tell who the winners are, and in between songs I tell them to hurry and vote, poeple are lazy they do not vote. Trust me on this I have been giving daily events for 10 months. On a piece of paper you mark the contestants down then as you read your ims, they vote you mark it on paper then clear that im. Move on to the next when they are all cleared you are done. Tally it up and there is your winners.

It's really simple and not overwhelming, as I said you almost have to beat them to vote.

I will say that I DO NOT rig events, people win by pure votes, if they have friends there to vote for them, well noone can help that.

Also another thing I have done in the past is have a secret judge, I choose someone I know to be new, thats not in the contest, to avoid favortism and voting for friends. To pick the winners depending on the event, I help them learn to pan around, make a choice, this also makes them feel apart of SL being new is very hard. This has worked very well for us.

Also another thing I do is keep a notecard for each and every event with the date, name and winners of each. In a monthly folder, that way when anyone says, that so and so won this many times it has to be rigged blah blah... I can pull up the info and pass it to them. I have needed to use this. It Works.

Hope this helps you:

Hugs Fel,

I've seen lots of people voting for partners and don't know what to do about it. With a small number of votes this means that they can come joint third.

I've entered competitions where the person who won wasn't even in the theme costume. I haven't been back to that venue. It wasn't dodgy hosting (she was fine) - it was dodgy voting.

I'd like to concur that nobody gets overrun by IMs. You almost have to prise votes out of people.

I use the KariVote system (IM Karizon Hatfield) for general contests.

I use a Snapshot Voting system for my Snapshot contests. Each person may vote on a single snapshot from 1 (poor) to 4 (best) and then after a minute the average is spit out. Highest averages win.

I've been thinking this through myself. I'm about to launch what I hope will be a monthly build contest on Montmartre, and for the first month, I think we're going to try public voting.

The voting period will be a couple of days long, so I think I'll probably have a kiosk where folks can either touch-record or voice-record their favorite among the numbered displays.

As to credibility, I hadn't planned to make the tally public, since that could be humiliating to the low scorers. Maybe I should re-think that, or look at hiring Merwan Marker or someone to provide an independent audit.

As far as records go, my thought is to have a remote in-game server with a capacity for a few hundred records, and to transmit each vote via email (with an outworld mailbox getting cc'd for backup). On multiple votes by the same avie, last vote wins.

As for the alt-voting and related gaming, I guess that's just a fact of life. If it's fairly obvious that we've been gamed after the first month, we'll try something else...a Mystery Judge, or Distinguished Panel, or something similar...for the next run.

== danny d.

For a non-instant build competition I strongly recommend juried voting. Bhodi Silverman used to do this for art competitions and the winners were really the best entrants. For large scale builds votable over a period, I think this the "fairest".

i'm inclined to agree here. lumiere requires a properly formatted notecard from ediface rex members to vote in his building comps. he also only accepts votes from group members. that solves a lot of problems but, as felecia said, he has to beat us over the head abit when the votes are due.

attendance votes generally turn into popularity contests. even dwell voting ends up being gamed. so when i host the next one (bridge building contest!), the voting points will be itemized and well defined; and the voting will be juried.

Malachi, Kamon,

I greatly appreciate that advice. I think you've saved me a headache or two.

== danny d.