Mindset on Polls

[vereine]

I was looking back at my previous entries and rearranging my awards page when I finally realized just how many awards I had accumulated in one month (I started icon-making mid Dec). Another thing I realized was that I had placed in every single icontest I've been in so far. This made me look through the voting polls for all these icontests (at

Comments

[seanachais]

Yes, I know what you mean! I've always been so frustrated with people who just can't get a clue. Instead of going to all the trouble of being sneaky and backhanded, why can't they just focus on improving their graphical skills? I've only been dabbling in icontests since Nov/Dec of last year, and I'm already sick of all the drama that happens in the background. I've heard of irresponsible mods who abuse their own icontest communities all for the sake of ego, I've heard of people creating fake journals to get an extra vote, I've heard of others browbeating a horde of their friends to vote for them. It disgusts me, just how far they're willing to go for a banner - it's just pixels. Yes, it gives you a sense of accomplishment, but you should put in the sweat and effort to earn it, you know?

Sorry for the mini-rant-in-a-comment, but I just had to let it all out.

[vereine]

*pats on the back* It's okay, sometimes we all just have to let go of our inner demon.

For some people, winning is everything. Losing means that they lose their dignity and more importantly, their pride, so they become desperate people. Say if you are always winning, then somebody comes along and wins first place, you would probably be infuriated and want to win at all costs.

In a way, I actually pity them, because their mindset has become so demented that they forget the entire point of taking part in a competition: the absolute joy that winning something honestly brings.

[seanachais]

I think you take it pretty well. If anything, you want to submit something even better for the next challenge, right? That's how it should be.

Well, I'd pity them if I wasn't so busy cursing their heads. :P And yeah, it's a shame that they won't get to experience some honest accomplishment. And the trendwhores! Don't even get me started on them. *considers posting a rant in her own journal instead of spamming yours*

[g_shadowslayer]

I started poking around your LJ after seeing your app post (which I thought was supposed to be screened, but the mods there have been quite lax recently...) to goodnarnianart, and came across this.

I never thought about this being the cause behind some of the icons I've seen placing or getting high number of votes before, but oh my gods, it makes far too much sense now. It seems ridiculous to me that people would do that, but it must be true, because I have seen time and again icons that I'd never vote for placing far above those I would.

The only times I vote for substandard icons at all are when there are too few entries to not vote for them, and the rules have that old 'any less than 3 votes will be discounted' rule. I've been in icontests where I posted three entries, and the other three entries were all poor, but they ended up winning while none of mine even placed. I even posted a rant in my own LJ at that point because I was wondering what on earth people were looking at when they voted for icons. I always look for a combination of the

[vereine]

It was because I was so frustrated and disappointed that I posted this. Whenever I see a poll go up, after I vote for my favourites, I go back to view all the selections, and try to look at the icons as an observer instead of a participant. In this way, I often can predict which icons were most likely to win. And when the results come out, I am utterly gobsmacked that people will actually vote for a plain, unattractive and oversharpened icon.

I participate in narnia_lims, and when the Challenge 3(Susan) results were announced, I went back to look at all the icons submitted. To my surprise, I had thought that the people who had been eliminated this round had submitted brillant, clear, perfect icons. Whereas those icons that were horribly pixelated and whitish hardly had any votes for elimination. I don't know if this applies, but I have a suspicion that some people had voted the good icons out to give them a better chance at winning.

There was this incident a week ago, when dramione had put up their poll for the header contest. What happened was that