MobileRead September 2011 Mobile Read Book Club Vote

[issybird]

Someone still has to explain to me why it's "unfair" to know the vote count and the voters. One person, one vote. Unless you're suggesting bribery is at work? Are votes being bought? That's the only real reason for anonymity at polls. Or unless there are guys out there with truncheons.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

We've wanted a hidden poll for a good while now.

Just who is this "we"? The same "we" who didn't want two months of classics?

[HomeInMyShoes]

^It's the royal we.

I was only observing that allowing people to view who voted for what may bias people to not vote for a book they might have if they haven't liked a members suggestions in the past. I will admit that fairness in an election involving what book we may read next is not on par with fairness in say deciding one's country's next leader, but it may colour people's votes.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

I was only observing that allowing people to view who voted for what may bias people to not vote for a book they might have if they haven't liked a members suggestions in the past.

I think that's a reasonable influence, myself, which is what I was trying to say when I favored an open vote. If someone whose taste is entirely different from mine expects to like a book, then I probably won't like it. Good to know.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

Someone still has to explain to me why it's "unfair" to know the vote count and the voters. One person, one vote. Unless you're suggesting bribery is at work? Are votes being bought? That's the only real reason for anonymity at polls. Or unless there are guys out there with truncheons.



Just who is this "we"? The same "we" who didn't want two months of classics?

The we are the people in other book club voting threads that have wanted a hidden vote.


It might be unfair because if say a book has 10 votes and another has 7 votes and the rest have between 1 and 3. I can easily see people not voting for any of the lower voted books and voting for the one out of the two higher voted books.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The we are the people in other book club voting threads that have wanted a hidden vote.


It might be unfair because if say a book has 10 votes and another has 7 votes and the rest have between 1 and 3. I can easily see people not voting for any of the lower voted books and voting for the one out of the two higher voted books.

So what? That's just smart. Better your second choice than your last choice. Again, why is this "unfair"? This isn't Olympic ice skating, where the objects of judgment have a vested interest in vote by merit. I promise you, the books don't care.

People make second best choices all the time. it's an entirely rational and economic method of decision-making.

[pilotbob]

We can keep the votes not public but can't hide the results at this time.

I figured most people stated what they voted for in the poll... so public votes isn't much different than that.

I respect Tom's time and wouldn't ask him to manually tally the votes. I expect also that voting participation would be much lower if people needed to PM their vote to someone.

BOb

[sun surfer]

There's two separate issues here.

The first is whether the poll should be anonymous, but the vote totals still visible. So long as I've been here we haven't discussed this yet. I think pilotbob did it by mistake one month a few months ago (an anonymous poll) and I didn't care for it. As Tom says, I'm curious, so I like to know who voted for what. Not that it really matters one way or the other.

The second is the whether we should do a hidden poll where no one knows the vote totals until voting is over. As Jon says, this is not possible right now with the polls in this forum, though pilotbob did say he would bring up the possibility of adding hidden polls to mobileread's polling options with someone in charge months ago when this was last discussed, and he said it's not likely to happen anytime soon since whoever is in charge of that stuff is very busy. We discussed this subject in length then and the general consensus seemed to be that most would like to at least try a hidden poll with vote totals hidden, but that it's not possible right now with the software. The only option at this time would be us PMing Tom the votes and Tom manually counting them. Not terribly hard for us voters (though it might detract some from voting) but a lot more unnecessary work for Tom.

I wouldn't mind trying a hidden vote; I think it'd be fun to see what happens if a polling option were available. But the PMing method might lead to less people voting; even though PMing is easy, it requires slightly more effort than voting in a poll and some may not bother.

ETA - I was writing my post while pilotbob posted above me, so I mentioned some things that he also mentioned because I didn't realise he'd already posted similar thoughts.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

We've wanted a hidden poll for a good while now. The forum software does not currently support this. But what we could do is PM you our vote and you can tally them and let us know what the votes come out to be. That would be the most fair. I do think that a lot of people don't vote the way they want because it would be a wasted vote. But if we do not know, then there's no reason to vote for a book that has a lot of votes. There are two books that have a shot and the problem is that none of the others now will get voted upon due to the other two.

I would be interested in trying this for a few votes and see how the spread actually goes. If the spread turns out to be more even, then it's the open vote influencing people. And while the vote is going on, we don't say what we've voted for.

It's hard enough keeping the nominations in the Nominations thread straight without also having to tally the book vote by hand.

[HomeInMyShoes]

^I agree. No extra work should be incurred on the people kind enough to run these things. I run (hmmm, maybe ran) photocontests on another site for a couple of years and it can be a pretty thankless job.

Thanks for taking over the bookclub WT Sharpe and thanks to all those that have run them in the past.

[Asawi]

My impression is that the majority is happy the way things are. I certainly am!

[Ron.]

I think the voting is fine the way it is, I vote for the book I want. The number of votes it has or any other book has does not influence my decision in any way.

I'm one who likes the in progress poll results displayed. Yes, it makes sense to me that if it is obvious that my first choice will not be in contention then I will cast my vote for the book in contention that I would like to read and that does have a chance. Especially if it helps push this book ahead of one I really would not like to see win.

As far as being able to see who voted for what book I like that as well. It is interesting to see how those here who have developed at least a literary personality for me have chosen to vote. I just wish this information did not disappear once I have voted.

[sun surfer]

Hamlet53, who voted for what doesn't disappear once you vote. Just click on any number of votes for any selection and it will take you to the page that shows everyone's votes.

Originally Posted by sun surfer

Hamlet53, who voted for what doesn't disappear once you vote. Just click on any number of votes for any selection and it will take you to the page that shows everyone's votes.

So that works! Thanks and karma for you!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

It's hard enough keeping the nominations in the Nominations thread straight without also having to tally the book vote by hand.

I'll volunteer to give it a go for next month's vote if you like. I don't mind trying it.