I can understand the benefit of allowing people to troll for votes on other social media, but in the end stages, it can taint the process. It's an open question as to how many Facebook or Twitter friends responding to "I'm participating in Idol -- here's a ballot" read any stories or decide to participate in the future, but when it is early in the voting process and some writers have 8 or 9 votes and everyone else has far fewer, it gives the impression of an unfair advantage. Idol should not be decided by how many Facebook or Twitter people vote for their friends. Participant-only votes and gatekeeper votes at this stage do help.
It was the same when livejournal was popular. Plenty of people posted to their lj friends to “vote for me” and lots of those people just voted for their friends. It felt unfair to be playing against someone who has 4x as many friends as you did.
and yet, season after season, it was never the person with the most LJ friends who ended up winning.
It's a fear that *I* have. But fortunately the people who do come out to vote over the course of a season tend to have other ideas. (and there are enough contestant only votes packed in that if the other contestants thought someone was coasting on their friends list, they wouldn't vote to keep them in.) I've found that it tends to balance out.
(I almost said "balance itself out", as if I wasn't the one putting those things in place. Idol is a mysterious creature, even to me! :D)
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It's a fear that *I* have. But fortunately the people who do come out to vote over the course of a season tend to have other ideas. (and there are enough contestant only votes packed in that if the other contestants thought someone was coasting on their friends list, they wouldn't vote to keep them in.) I've found that it tends to balance out.
(I almost said "balance itself out", as if I wasn't the one putting those things in place. Idol is a mysterious creature, even to me! :D)
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To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a Gatekeeper round after the Top 15 in the history of Idol.
He says ominously.
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