Build a better contest

I was pondering (as I often do) what would be the best voting procedure for the various high profile contests that happen in Second Life. I figured it would be nice if we could come up with a few solutions and put them through some hypothetical rigor so that each new contest holder need not invent a new way to handle voting. Here is what I came up with…

(For the sake of argument, let’s say we are talking about a hat-making contest.)

1. Creators submit their hats to the contest administrators.

2. When the deadline is reached at the end of the contest all the entries are placed on display in a private location with a NUMBER but no creator information.

3. A sample of random users (say…30) are selected by the contest administrators as follows:
a. A script generates a random first letter to be entered into SL’s FIND field.
b. A script generates a random number that corresponds to a user that comes up in the find results.
c. That random user is then contacted by the contest administrators and asked if they would be willing to participate in judging the contest (maybe a gift package is offered to participants).

4. Willing participants are teleported to the exhibit one at a time, and after reviewing the entries, they cast a number vote.

When all votes are in, the exhibition can go public for everybody to ooh and awe at hats. Later on the winner(s) are announced.


It’s not a perfect system, but I think this COULD alleviate some problems with ballot box stuffing, and "popularity contests". Is this a nice start? Anybody have any refinements or alternative ideas? I would love to hear your input!