Austin Improv

I think of "gaming" as monkeying with otherwise straightforward and honest systems. If someone sets up a system to let people vote as often as they want as long as they return to the site every hour, then they're not remotely interested in an accurate vote count or actual popularity. They're interested in site traffic, which they are drawing by creating a reason for people to visit the site more often.

They don't want their servers slammed with a botvoter attack AND they don't want the results to look so ridiculous that nobody could possiblly take them seriously. But if it were really about fairness, you could vote only once and that would be it.

So does that make ballot-stuffing okay? I think that's up to the individual. Two wrongs don't make a right, but neither does respecting the dishonest premises of a system that's representing itself as serving one function when actually it's serving another.

A moral dilemma for the tender collective conscience of OoB.

Jesus, Ratliff...

That's heavy...

NOW VOTE!

yeeyuh. 211 now.

It's 2pm. Vote!

nice one, ratliff, i am touched by your words.

ratliff wrote:I think of "gaming" as monkeying with otherwise straightforward and honest systems. If someone sets up a system to let people vote as often as they want as long as they return to the site every hour, then they're not remotely interested in an accurate vote count or actual popularity. They're interested in site traffic, which they are drawing by creating a reason for people to visit the site more often.

They don't want their servers slammed with a botvoter attack AND they don't want the results to look so ridiculous that nobody could possiblly take them seriously. But if it were really about fairness, you could vote only once and that would be it.

So does that make ballot-stuffing okay? I think that's up to the individual. Two wrongs don't make a right, but neither does respecting the dishonest premises of a system that's representing itself as serving one function when actually it's serving another.

A moral dilemma for the tender collective conscience of OoB.

Do you think the book festival enthusiasts are playing with those ethical questions?
In a cut and dry world would either festival really beat out Pecan Street or Austin Film Festival?

You just wait til Best Improv Troupe, Come late January...then we'll see the ethics hit the fan.

I just now started voting, but we have 6 computers on our network... that's 144 votes per day. Suck on that, ethics.

ok. since last count:

TBF: from 621 to 666 (increase of 45)
OOB: from 136 to 288 (increase of 152)

gotta keep gaining on em!

300, m'fers!

GO! GO! GO!

update:

666 to 685 (increase of 19)
288 to 352 (increase of 64)

333 votes to close the gap as it stands. voting closes tomorrow.

holy crap, i just saw your avatar, mikey. haha! yes!

I just got privy to this thing just now, and the polls are closed.