Rainbow Awards Cover Contest

[reviews_and_ramblings]

This is a warning and a request to play fair: I closed the poll for Round 14. For the last two months, and exactly from October 17, an internal fight started during the polls, week after week. I don't know if you realized it, but I think there were at least 2 opposite sides, and they continued to vote to have "their cover" ahead of the other one. Now if the votes were coming for all the covers, maybe more on one cover, a little less on other covers, that would be normal. But ALL the votes for only one cover and then ALL the vote for the other cover? No sorry, I see something that is not right here. Plus sincerely, I don't like that many of the accounts voting were opened right at the moment to vote for a cover and let it go through the elimination poll.

I kindly warned people and introduced the Jury to help me rebalancing the situation and those people got even more angrier... When I investigated on the reason, the only explanation I got was, "we want to support the author we like". Guys, this is a wrong answer for all kinf of reasons, first of all this is a COVER contest, not an AUTHOR contest, and you haven't to vote a cover for the author but for the artist. By the way I have the evidence, no questionable, that at least 4 accounts belonged to the same IP address, many cover didn't pass the rounds for less than 4 votes.

So sorry, but I'm really tired, and almost harrassed, and I decided to give it a stop. I closed the poll, the final 10 covers will be decided on the total amount of votes at yesterday night on ALL the 14 polls plus the votes of the Jury for the last 5 rounds. I will not invalidate votes, not even the ones from the same IP addresses since actually, I cannot determine if they maybe weren't using the same internet point. But please don't consider me a fool and if you are not right on your complaints, DON'T make them.

I ask you to play fair on the next poll: 10 covers, you can vote 3, but please vote the ARTIST, please help me in making this contest a serious thing, otherwise next year I will not host it. I will open the poll on Sunday, meanwhile, if you have question, comment here.

Comments

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

Sure, spreading the word about the contest is fine. [nod] But stuffing the ballot box is, as you said, cheating. And voting based on the author rather than the artist is perverting the whole point of the competition. [sigh]

Angie

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Next year, and I think also for this last round, I will use a system that allows me to log the IP address of ALL people voting.

[mondhellnacht.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good idea. *hugs*

[kirby-crow.livejournal.com]

I second that idea. Good policy! :) And I'm sorry people are being such enormous jerks. *Hugs*

[valkovalin.livejournal.com]

Elisa, I'm so sorry you had to put up with this. The internet culture just gets weirder and weirder with each passing day.This has been happening on Amazon as well. Apparently, there are firms that a publishing company can hire to plant a huge number of votes on Amazon that support their book and denigrate the new releases coming out from their rivals. It really makes you wonder what's wrong with people sometimes ...

[thequietalpha.livejournal.com]

This is a real shame. Many of the covers I voted for were for books I'd never read and I ended up actually buying many books based on this contest. And sadly along the way there were some books that I loved but hated the covers and they didn't get voted for. It's sad when the short-sited single-mindedness of some people ruin the fun for others. I do hope you can run it again next year and I hope that next time it runs smoother!

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

I think here is a smaller thing, not so organized or well-thought, but for sure it ruined part of the fun of this contest.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Thank you, your was the right attitude and the reason why I like having this contest, giving people the chance to look again to some books that maybe they missed.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

This is what always happens with polls. People canvas their friends to vote for them - and of course friends do - you can never have a fair competition with a poll, I'm afraid.

Recently there was a competition, over at ARE I believe and the person who won was PAYING for votes by promising short stories in return. She won, and the prize was a monetary one, it was disgusting.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

I was hoping here to be different since there is no monetary prize, and truly, no authors I knew about behaved in a wrong way, since for me posting a link and asking to vote it's fine. Here it was really something done even behind the back of the same authors, and they were the first to ask people to behave, but it was not enough.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Thank you Kirby, I think that with only 10 covers I will manage to have people voting through comments

[edenwinters.livejournal.com]

Hugs to you, Elisa. Love your site, and love your contests.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Eden, thank you. You were one of the authors promoting the contest and believe me, this post was not for you or the other authors doing that. The people I'm speaking to well know who they are since they were also the first to complain when I decided to make their action more difficult.

[clarelondon.livejournal.com]

Well what a bloody shame and how stupid of people to let themselves get carried away unfairly like that. And well done for you, for speaking out. I always saw it as a completely different competition from the fiction one, and therefore it doesn't depend on the author.

Please believe that most of us have really enjoyed this, and admired the lovely covers at each stage.
*hugs*

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

I know that many of you liked the contest since it was fun, and that was the reason why I got even more upset in seeing people ruining it like that.

[lusiology.livejournal.com]

Ah. I did notice 1 cover seemed to garner a lot of comments and wondered if it was because the cover was always 1st in the lists.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

I don't know if we are speaking of the same cover. Most of the complaints I received were PMs.

[lusiology.livejournal.com]

Possibly not.

I agree with an earlier commenter that this competition has resulted in me buying books I had missed or didn't know about, e.g. Fall of a State and Why Ninneas Loved the Sea.

[lucifuge-5.livejournal.com]

This is such a lame situation. It's so full of logic!fail that it becomes perplexing (voting for covers because of the authors instead of the artists?).

I remember being mesmerized and/or curious about certain books because of their covers.

Obviously, it's a shame that some people have ruined this part of the contest (whether intentional or not), but here's hoping that your new measures work. It would be really bad if we didn't have the cover contest for next year's awards. :-/

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I thought some of those covers had an unreasonable number of votes. And like others, I'd have discounted any questionable votes.

Cheating has become epidemic in the US. A few weeks ago a writer "won" the ARe contest by buying votes -- literally sending free stories to anyone who voted for her. And, much to my chagrin, she actually WON that way because there apparently wasn't any rule against buying votes--I suppose ARe's management didn't realize they had to tell people cheating wasn't fair.

It's got to the point where I seldom enter anything online that involves a popular vote. There are some promo hustlers whos ability to coax people into voting--or stuff the ballot box--is far keener than their ability to win on quality alone.

[clmiles.livejournal.com]

Oh darn, I'm so sorry this happened. I've really been enjoying this poll and it's a shame that it's been tampered with. You're right, it should be votes meant for artists, not authors.

*hugs*

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

of course tracking the IP address is still not completely safe, but at least it makes difficult for people to vote more than once

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

I'm sure this post, and the final 10 (that actually are 12) covers will make these people even agrier; but they don't have basis to complaint. I have no problem to talk for myself, and since there is no monetary prize (or commodity), I can decide to invalidate all the contest anytime. I don't like to have to be like that, but I will if necessary.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I hope the last round will go better.

[evila-elf.livejournal.com]

Uugh :-/

And as far as people voting for the authors and not the covers, is there a way to blur out the author names? People could always look up the book by title if they wanted to, but that might help a little.

Glad to see this isn't discouraging you from thinking of doing this next year. I have found many good books from the cover contest because I really can't help byt judge a book by its cover ;)