You are missing the fact that non-contestants also promote their friends (vote for X over here), and players promote in communities. Both are harder to track; both can have a much larger impact on the contestant's standing than posting a vote request in their own journal.
True. Fortunately, since I map out at least the half dozen people I've chosen to track, if they make a sudden jump I can be like hrmm wait a minute and work backwards to see what happened. So far no one I've tracked has done anything really unexplainable, though admittedly I'm a bit mystified by RMs data (she's not even someone I officially tracked but she shows up as "top vote" the overwhelming amount of time, which is tracked). She showed the usual highest increase and percent in the beginning, but that preceded her post linking back to the entry, and was sustained at a relatively high rate for long afterr. There were also little bursts in hers along the way. It just leaves me kind of mystified.
Well, RM simply has a fanbase over 600 who read her in spurts for starters. They are loyal and I bet they love to see her win every week.
Since I do not know (exactly) who your case studies are, I can not tell you which ones I have confirmed used other resources... but so far as I am aware there are no methods of self-promotion that are "against the rules."
well idolist B could be me, I don't recall hat my final finish was. And having witnessed first hand the effect of posting a vote for me post sunday morning and watching myself shoot up from almost being eliminated to close to the top
( ... )
Yeah, that is true that this is pretty much billed as "part writing contest, part reality show, part popularity contest" (well I think the third part is hotly debated and usually said cynically but the first two I think are more or less official), and the hijinks Gary throw in are part of that. So its my personal opinion that I don't like them (I intentionally didn't use my original bye either) but I suppose I can't complain too much, its part of the game I signed up for (=
No you weren't one of examples, but I can easily go back and recreate your data because whenever I took the data I cut pasted the poll standings into a notepad document. And recreating a track for someone is just a matter of [search] [name] cut/past to excel (x50), and voila your data is mapped out. (=
You don't need to recreate my data, just noting that I did that same thing, post on sunday morning and watch myself go from like 7th position to 12th or something.
But thank you for offering.
Nobody wants to talk about the popularity aspect but it certainly is there. The thing is there are a lot of ways to be popular, and different contestants are better at different parts of it. Some are popular among their own friends, others are very popular among the community members, and others are popular for their writing, as in they have created a following for themselves.
In this contest i think you can get farther by being popular, but ultimately you are not going to win unless you can really write and people really have been enjoying you all season long.
Oh and I didn't use my bye either, but it was more of a pride thing, I knew ultimately it wouldn't really matter in the game.
For what it's worth, I'm not interested in gaining immunity, and my sister knows that. She is also more than capable of being fair either way, and she is like me - she would sooner err on the side of caution (and give me less consideration) than go the other way.
Call it foolish, but when I no longer get enough votes to stay, I'm ready to go. I don't want a magic wand to tap me on the head and carry me safely to the next round.
I really get a kick out of this data, and I think you're giving a very well-thought-out analysis of the things we *can* know. And again, I think the science of it is much like economics - we can learn from trends and factors that we've seen in the past, but we can never know all the details and we can never predict what will happen, although we can make a few educated guesses.
It's a bit like a game of musical chairs. While people are running around rustling up votes, and their entry itself is garnering votes as readers get to them, you'll see a lot of sweeping upsets across the board. For the average contestatn, it's just a matter of who's on top when the poll closes.
if it's like last season, as the end gets closer, you will see a lot of weird patterns as the "that person is winning...I fucking hate her" votes emerge.
a 60 vote swing between 3 and 8 am put me out last season. (an "i fucking hate him" vote).
what's funny is that I suspect your circle has that sort of hatred for one contestant with a big ass friend list...yet they were agreeing with her biggest supporter when she quit this week because she didn't like the voting.
All idolists are on my friends list for convenience sake. I also opened up the filter to my "People I know are following Idol" filter. Basically the only reason its filtered is because I thought it would be inordinately boring to my friends who are not following idol. d=
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You are missing the fact that non-contestants also promote their friends (vote for X over here), and players promote in communities. Both are harder to track; both can have a much larger impact on the contestant's standing than posting a vote request in their own journal.
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Since I do not know (exactly) who your case studies are, I can not tell you which ones I have confirmed used other resources... but so far as I am aware there are no methods of self-promotion that are "against the rules."
Gary would have to confirm that, of course.
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No you weren't one of examples, but I can easily go back and recreate your data because whenever I took the data I cut pasted the poll standings into a notepad document. And recreating a track for someone is just a matter of [search] [name] cut/past to excel (x50), and voila your data is mapped out. (=
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But thank you for offering.
Nobody wants to talk about the popularity aspect but it certainly is there. The thing is there are a lot of ways to be popular, and different contestants are better at different parts of it. Some are popular among their own friends, others are very popular among the community members, and others are popular for their writing, as in they have created a following for themselves.
In this contest i think you can get farther by being popular, but ultimately you are not going to win unless you can really write and people really have been enjoying you all season long.
Oh and I didn't use my bye either, but it was more of a pride thing, I knew ultimately it wouldn't really matter in the game.
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Call it foolish, but when I no longer get enough votes to stay, I'm ready to go. I don't want a magic wand to tap me on the head and carry me safely to the next round.
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Actually, I'd probably do it in the green room and try to stir some shit up. And neutralize all that newbie scheming ;)
And then Gary would delete it...not that the exact scenario I just mentioned happened or anything ;)
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;D
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It's a bit like a game of musical chairs. While people are running around rustling up votes, and their entry itself is garnering votes as readers get to them, you'll see a lot of sweeping upsets across the board. For the average contestatn, it's just a matter of who's on top when the poll closes.
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a 60 vote swing between 3 and 8 am put me out last season. (an "i fucking hate him" vote).
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this post is friends only, and since you open it as a letter to ljidolists, you might want to make it public, just a thought.
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