Contest voting schedule

[Bill]

I think it is fine, I know there is a new set every other day but you still have four days to read them.

[Anarquistador]

I already made a promise to myself that I would vote but not comment. I'm too much of a nervous wreck to critique anyone else in this contest.

And yes, it's humbling to see what other people can come up with within the word count constraints. How do they DO that?

[Dem]

I already made a promise to myself that I would vote but not comment. I'm too much of a nervous wreck to critique anyone else in this contest.

And yes, it's humbling to see what other people can come up with within the word count constraints. How do they DO that?

I went so far as to create another account so I could join in with the comments on all the groups and not just the ones I'm not in, then I freaked out about using it!

[eytanz]

I already made a promise to myself that I would vote but not comment. I'm too much of a nervous wreck to critique anyone else in this contest.

And yes, it's humbling to see what other people can come up with within the word count constraints. How do they DO that?

I went so far as to create another account so I could join in with the comments on all the groups and not just the ones I'm not in, then I freaked out about using it!

As long as you're not using both accounts to vote, that's fine

[Dem]

I already made a promise to myself that I would vote but not comment. I'm too much of a nervous wreck to critique anyone else in this contest.

And yes, it's humbling to see what other people can come up with within the word count constraints. How do they DO that?

I went so far as to create another account so I could join in with the comments on all the groups and not just the ones I'm not in, then I freaked out about using it!

As long as you're not using both accounts to vote, that's fine

No. If I did, I regard myself as one person so only one of me would vote in any given round, but it's a potential confusion I don't want to have to grapple with so one account is banned from the polls.

[DoWhileNot]

Is this a general problem? I could start spacing out groups more if people think this is too crowded. I don't want to leave the polls open longer as past experience shows that beyond the third day or so the votes start trickling in and it becomes a rather tedious waiting game, plus it would be unfair to the groups that already started (and finished) voting, but I could increase the gap between groups to 3 days if people prefer.

I think if you did that I'd probably go nuts.  I'm having a hard enough time waiting two days as it is, and if it was up to me, I'd vote for every day.  But then by day 10 I'd probably be pretty worn out.  Two days is a good spacing.

[Unblinking]

I think it's fine the way it is.  I am running a bit to catch up before polls expire yesterday and today, since I don't usually stop by the forum over the weekend, but it'll be fine--it's good that the polls last 4 days, I definitely wouldn't want anything less.

[Umbrageofsnow]

Yeah, I think the four days is okay, but any shorter and I know I wouldn't have time to vote some days, like toward the end of the week. I spend the most time on here on Saturday, Sunday, and maybe Monday or Friday night, but that Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday stretch is tough. I had to make time to vote in Group 3, as I almost missed it, and didn't find time to comment as extensively as I'd have liked to.

Also, the multi account thing makes me worry (I worry about plenty of stupid and trivial things) about the fact that my girlfriend has an account and is voting on the stories. We've been reading them together and discussing them, and while I don't think we've agreed on any set yet, I know there is some overlap, we're arguing about our favorites (and have similar taste) and we have been voting often on the same day, or within a couple hours of each other, often from different laptops on the same internet connection. I've been trying to get her to comment on some of them, but no luck so far. She has commented in the past on stories in the main podcast, just hasn't felt up to critiquing any of the flash stories in any way. Afraid of being mean or something.

Anyway, I hope this isn't a problem, and wanted to point it out before some moderator notices that we are coming from the same house or something. I was thinking about this during the nominations for Best of the Year last year, because once again, we argued about the best stories in private before nominating and voting in the forums, and it made me feel a bit awkward. I swear I come to my own decisions and we don't look at each other's computers for tactical voting or anything.

tl;dr: Justenjoying is my girlfriend, we are two different people, please be aware of this, dear moderators, if you are on the lookout for users posting from the same or similar IP.

[Max e^{i pi}]

Umbrageofsnow: You probably share an internet IP address with most of your neighborhood.
The way DSL connections work, you get an IP address inside a local area network (LAN) that belongs to your ISP, and they then have a single IP address that faces the internet. Just like on your home network you have multiple computers that have different IP addresses inside the network, but share an outside-facing IP address. This way there are many more devices than available IP addresses on the internet.
Pretty clever.
The upshot of this is that if somebody else in your neighborhood on the same DSL service that you are on is also a member of the forum, it may show up to the mods as the same IP address.
This is why it is not a good thing to ban by IP address.

[eytanz]

Umbrageofsnow - thanks for letting me know, but don't worry. I'm pretty well aware of which accounts that share an IP are legitimate - especially if they've both been forum members for longer than the contest has been running - and if I'm not sure, I've contacted the accounts by email to check.

Max - you're right, of course, but the catch is that while banning by username or email is effective for human posters, banning by IP is the only effective way to stop a spambot from returning. But generally these days we try to be quite careful before banning by IP - it's a last resort.

[CryptoMe]

Could I make a request about voting closing times?

If I follow the schedule posted at the top of this thread, I will be sure to miss all of the voting (yes, I tend to wait til the last minute). Having the closing time be at some ungodly hour of the morning on the date listed in the schedule is a bit misleading for those of us at the tail end of the world time zones. I assumed I had most of the day today to read and vote on group 4, so you can imagine my surprise when I logged in at 10 am to find the voting already closed.

So, my request is, could we move the closing time to something a little later in the day? Maybe something like midnight GMT would be a good standard, as that is clear and easy to remember. It's still a bit early for people in eastern pacific time zones, but you can't have everything... 

[eytanz]

The way forum polls work, I have to define the length of a poll in 24 hour increments. In other words, the closing time is always the same as the time I create them. We have forum voters and participants from all around the world (there's a pretty sizeable voting contingent from Australia), though it's true that the US accounts for the majority, and any time I choose will be better for some than others, so I went with the time that's most convenient to me, which so far has been around lunchtime in the UK. Starting next week my schedule at work is shifting, though, so I'll either have to post them earlier to later in the day. I still will probably not do it around midnight, but it won't be quite as early as it has been for some of the earliest groups.

[Leslianne]

If you're keen on waiting until the last minute, in the actual poll, before any of the entries, it'll say exactly what time the poll closes.

[CryptoMe]

Yeah, I'll just have to mentally shift the closing date one day ahead...

Thanks for the explanation, though, eytanz.  I'm surprised the software doesn't let you do anything other than 24 hour increments. Would it let you enter decimals? Like 2.5 days? Just a thought.

[eytanz]

Huh. What do you know. It allows fractions. I never thought to check.

I don't think it's fair at this point in the contest to change the length of the voting for each group, but this is good to know for future rounds.

[DoWhileNot]

Umbrageofsnow: You probably share an internet IP address with most of your neighborhood.
The way DSL connections work, you get an IP address inside a local area network (LAN) that belongs to your ISP, and they then have a single IP address that faces the internet. Just like on your home network you have multiple computers that have different IP addresses inside the network, but share an outside-facing IP address. This way there are many more devices than available IP addresses on the internet.
Pretty clever.
The upshot of this is that if somebody else in your neighborhood on the same DSL service that you are on is also a member of the forum, it may show up to the mods as the same IP address.
This is why it is not a good thing to ban by IP address.

Another good reason not to ban by IP address - if they use something like Tor, then they'll never appear to have the same IP address anyway because they're behind a mass of random proxies.  If you ban the IP then you're only banning one small node in the Tor network and as soon as they refresh they're on a new network.

This, by the way, is a pretty good way to access banned sites if you're in a place that has banned sites.  The Tor Vidalia bundle for Firefox is pretty nice, and while things slow down a little, they're not as slow as they would be if they were blocked by a firewall.

[julius blaze]

What is the schedule going to be like for the second chance round, semi finals, and finals?  Or is it not decided yet?

[eytanz]

It partially depends on whether there will be any tie-breakers - there hasn't been a need for them in the first five groups, but there may be one later. And depending on how many tie-breakers there are, I may post them all at once or space them out. The second chance round will follow the tiebreakers.

After that I haven't quite figured it out yet. I can't quite decide whether to follow the same format for the semi-finals as I have been for the groups, or whether to tweak it. Since most voters will have read the stories in those rounds already, I may post them on a tighter schedule - one a day - but give more time to vote in each.

[julius blaze]

One a day for the stories already read sounds good to me!

[Fenrix]

It partially depends on whether there will be any tie-breakers - there hasn't been a need for them in the first five groups, but there may be one later. And depending on how many tie-breakers there are, I may post them all at once or space them out. The second chance round will follow the tiebreakers.

After that I haven't quite figured it out yet. I can't quite decide whether to follow the same format for the semi-finals as I have been for the groups, or whether to tweak it. Since most voters will have read the stories in those rounds already, I may post them on a tighter schedule - one a day - but give more time to vote in each.

The frequency is less important to me, but the duration is. The later we get into the contest, the more time we have to spend comparing the minor flaws and determining which is less obtrusive. We've got the last chance, the semi-finals, and finals left. I think it's reasonable to post the tie-breakers and last chance tightly together and at a four-day duration. However, having the semi- and final rounds up for a full week may not be a bad idea, so that we can give folks the weekend.

We've got the last chance, the semi-finals, and finals left, right?

[eytanz]

We've got the last chance, the semi-finals, and finals left, right?

Yup.

[Bill]

I would rather keep the timing as duration the same. I think a week is overkill. If my memory serves me correct, commenting dropped off after the preliminary rounds. The majority of people know what they like. Spreading it out longer I think is going to cause some people to drop interest.

[Bill]

A watched pot never boils. So I probably should stop hitting the refresh button in my browser every thirty seconds hoping group 8 will have dropped.

[Max e^{i pi}]

I think a single day to vote on the semi-finals and finals is too little.
I would want to re-read the stories I had already read, and to get a chance to read those that I haven't. (There are too many of those already :| )
Also, if voting is a single day and that one day I have something that prevents me from internet access or the time to go online and can't vote then pfft. Gone. That would be a shame.

[eytanz]

I think a single day to vote on the semi-finals and finals is too little.
I would want to re-read the stories I had already read, and to get a chance to read those that I haven't. (There are too many of those already :| )
Also, if voting is a single day and that one day I have something that prevents me from internet access or the time to go online and can't vote then pfft. Gone. That would be a shame.

No, you misunderstood. The plan isn't to have one day to vote. The plan is to put up one poll per day, then leave that poll open for 5-6 days.