Well I've managed to get my home internet working again and so at long last I can present the entries for Round 2!!

Round 2 Entries

Enjoy! I think that we will do the popular voting a little different this round. People have until 12:01 GMT October 5th to submit what they think are the top 3 entries.

Good idea, I've added the character names to the links to the entries. The reason that some of the page titles and entry numbers where out of synch was because I thought there where 2 more entries then there where.

I deleted my original post after seeing TechnoGoth changed it.

Entry 4.Shin is disqualified for having no tattoo.

Hey, here's an idea. Not very many people voted last time, so this time let's have a voting check-in, perhaps the social pressure will encourage people to vote. I will personally make fun of anyone who doesn't vote but is revealed later to have entered - if you went to all the trouble to write an entry the least you can do is read and vote on everyone else's efforts! [wink]

So... Sunandshadow voted! Did you? If not, there are only 2 days left...

The voting system is flawed if you cannot vote for your entry, and equally flawed if you partially vote for your own to be the best. The way the votes are counted is based on the geometric mean. The only way around this is to require every contestant to vote the remaining entries, but that breaks down if you submitted more than one entry.

If you understand how the geometric mean works you will understand what I mean. You shouldn't vote unless you can rank the full set. The effect of these partial votes depends on the overall vote count of complete votes to dilute the skew.

Contests like this aren't about winning. Contests like this (where there is a comparable number of contestants and viewers) favor also feature votings. The host of the contest, can define a set of features beforehand, and have the viewers (and the contestants) cast single votes on entries that best manifest the feature. For example, the host can declare the following features to be contested:

1) Best Tattoo
2) Best Character
3) Best Format (Clarity)
4) Best Audience Engagement (External Audience)
5) Best Description of Appearances
6) Best Description of Purpose/Goal
...

In order to do this, the host needs to have a strong foresight about the contest and the expected entries, such that these features can be declared in the beginning of the contest. It is not like TechnoGoth is getting money from running the contest so we can't expect this. But they can set the focuses of the discussion right after the entries were posted.

I think it should be evident that the voting has minimal effect compared to this alternative system. You don't learn from judging. You learn from verbalizing why something is better. That is the important part, not the voting. It is obvious that this type of contest is not about winning.

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Original post by Estok The voting system is flawed if you cannot vote for your entry, and equally flawed if you partially vote for your own to be the best. The way the votes are counted is based on the geometric mean. The only way around this is to require every contestant to vote the remaining entries, but that breaks down if you submitted more than one entry.

Couldn't you just assume that everyone would vote for their own entries anyway (if they could), and give them a bonus in the popular vote if they submit their votes? That way if every contestant votes they will cancel each other out, and if a contestant does not vote they are penalised (which can be deemed fair, in my opinion).

I'll read through all the entries later today to make up my vote.

In a small set of votes, people allow to vote for their own entry just makes a stupid system. The actual way to do it would be to allow everyone to score every entries with respect to some defined rules. But that is too time consuming for everyone.

I don't see the responsibility for a contesting to vote. They are already responsible for the discussions. The point of the vote is to see how people rate the entries. The whole point is to see the Outside opinions. So it doesn't make sense to let the contestants rate themselves or to give them a bonus.

I agreed with the method of making it mandatory that all contestants vote the other entries. But that is only possible it every contestant submitted only one entry. It won't work otherwise.

This still doesn't work as good as if every one has to rank all entries. The votes shouldn't be anonymous, so that we can see whether we have guts to be fair.

Whether people are allowed to vote for their own entries or not (I was assuming not, same as last round) not voting anonymously would give away who wrote what. I agree that this voting system is flawed, I already PMed TechnoGoth about it yesterday, but I don't think that there's time to change it for the second round. Unless you want to throw out the voting so far and start over? Personally I thought the voting system of the first round was fine except for counting errors. I think that entrants should be required to vote, and any entrant who doesn't vote can be penalized slightly to even out the statistical advantage of not voting. I think that having submitted two entries is not statistically significantly different from haaving submitted one entry, so that can be ignored.

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Whether people are allowed to vote for their own entries or not (I was assuming not, same as last round) not voting anonymously would give away who wrote what.

Misunderstanding.

When you vote, you PM, like usually. But when TechnoGoth reveal the votes, each vote is revealed with the name of the voter. So the voting is not anonymous [at the end]. This makes more sense, because now you can discuss your votes without fear that your ranking is missing one entry, thus revealing which entry you wrote.

For geometric means, it makes quite a lot of difference if some votes are based on a different scale.

I still don't get the argument about bonus and penalties. The point of the popular vote is to gather the public opinion. The system should be designed such that the popular opinion is expressed. When we allow the entrants to vote with a different scale, it skews the votes, thus making it reflect public opinion less. The principles behind has nothing to do with winning or losing. Just common sense. It is not about the victory condition.

Sorry, my post wasn't really that clear. What I meant was to keep the ban against people voting for themselves (I'd feel very uncomfortable voting for myself). However, as Estok wrote, if that's the case there's an slight bonus for those who don't vote (as their vote will be raising the score of other entries only). What TechnoGoth can do is add a bonus for everyone who votes to counter that, plus to act as an incentive for everyone who enters to vote. Or as sunandshadow suggested, to include a penalty for not voting.

But I don't particularly care if the voting system is a bit skewed anyway, since who actually wins doesn't really matter than much. And I agree that by default we should just go with whatever we currently have.