Getting more people to vote during demoparties
category: parties [glöplog]
Wall of text warning. Short version is:
Let's establish a few things. Either you are taking notes during compos, or you a) say that you have a brain capable of memorizing every entry and how good you thought it was, for later. Or, b) that you vote passively for only a few prods in each compo, the ones you remember, and fuck the rest, who cares if they were abysmal or 6/10?
Now, you could take notes on paper, or type notes on your phone or computer. Perhaps later you must leave, or you have a great discussion with a friend and forget the time, or anything. They are left as notes, unless you use the browser based system to feed them all in, and perhaps if there are 40 entries in a music compo, you won't feel to bother to feed them all in.
In whatever way you submit your votes, you of course do it between compos, simply because you haven't seen or heard all the entries until then. Or, on some parties, you do it after all the compos, because the schedule is tight or the voting system isn't open yet.
Naturally, the definition of “voting during compos” is identical to “taking notes during compos”, and they are not mutually exclusive. You would hit Send or Submit after you are happy with your votes and the system is open for voting, just as you would click or type in your votes into the voting system after you are happy with your votes and the system is open for voting.
The reason I think allowing a reliable method of “digital note-taking” would yield more and better votes is that a) those who have a device that can Send/Submit can just do so and not have to copy their votes from phone/notepad.exe/paper to the voting system (i.e. distractions can't convince them to not be bothered with that), and b) don't have to sit in the dark with a piece of paper and a pencil. Usually you want to sit in front of the bigscreen for the demo compos, so that your laptop with notepad.exe must be left behind.
(Again, if you don't take notes during compos you're admitting that you're voting for just a few in a compo with many entries, and that you could forget how good an entry was.)
If we then use digital vote forms, what is expected to work best in the minute after the last entry is shown and the voters all hit Send/Submit?
For browser based forms, I would welcome voting systems that can handle disallowed cookies, unread HTTP headers, 500 and 501 errors without losing the votes. I dunno. Do they? And for hopefully 100% stable internal network voting, the voter with “a computer or mobile device with a stupid OS that can't see the network, let alone connect to it” would know that he must spend the night taking notes and then copying them into the voting system at some working terminal.
Are these systems already in place on all parties? That's not my experience.
What option is left? My suggestion for a more reliable submission of votes is email. All that is needed is a device that can get Internet access sometime during the evening before voting closes, and off the email goes.
Regardless of whether you use a webmail service on your computer or the built-in email client in your mobile device, your know your votes will reach the voting system.
Those who are unable to use webmail, don't trust any-email web services, or are unable to set their SMTP to Google's to send their email have to take notes on their laptop, that's true.
And, as mentioned, if there are voting systems in place at all parties that are open for voters to note their votes directly during compos with 0% chance of losing a single vote when they hit Submit, then all that is needed is a CSS theme that works great for those who don't want to lug their laptop to the bigscreen seats.
I just think paper-and-pencil note-taking belongs in a distant age and not at demoparties in 2013. Go digital?
Quote:
Make it easy to note votes in a form during compos that can be submitted at any time after compo end with 100% reliability, or you risk losing votes by "oh, do I have to type in the notes into the voting system...and there's a guy before me who hasn't finished yet.. hey, there's that guy, I always wanted to talk to him" and "fuck this, I'll just vote for a few, the ones I happen to remember. Unless I get too tired."
Let's establish a few things. Either you are taking notes during compos, or you a) say that you have a brain capable of memorizing every entry and how good you thought it was, for later. Or, b) that you vote passively for only a few prods in each compo, the ones you remember, and fuck the rest, who cares if they were abysmal or 6/10?
Now, you could take notes on paper, or type notes on your phone or computer. Perhaps later you must leave, or you have a great discussion with a friend and forget the time, or anything. They are left as notes, unless you use the browser based system to feed them all in, and perhaps if there are 40 entries in a music compo, you won't feel to bother to feed them all in.
In whatever way you submit your votes, you of course do it between compos, simply because you haven't seen or heard all the entries until then. Or, on some parties, you do it after all the compos, because the schedule is tight or the voting system isn't open yet.
Naturally, the definition of “voting during compos” is identical to “taking notes during compos”, and they are not mutually exclusive. You would hit Send or Submit after you are happy with your votes and the system is open for voting, just as you would click or type in your votes into the voting system after you are happy with your votes and the system is open for voting.
The reason I think allowing a reliable method of “digital note-taking” would yield more and better votes is that a) those who have a device that can Send/Submit can just do so and not have to copy their votes from phone/notepad.exe/paper to the voting system (i.e. distractions can't convince them to not be bothered with that), and b) don't have to sit in the dark with a piece of paper and a pencil. Usually you want to sit in front of the bigscreen for the demo compos, so that your laptop with notepad.exe must be left behind.
(Again, if you don't take notes during compos you're admitting that you're voting for just a few in a compo with many entries, and that you could forget how good an entry was.)
If we then use digital vote forms, what is expected to work best in the minute after the last entry is shown and the voters all hit Send/Submit?
For browser based forms, I would welcome voting systems that can handle disallowed cookies, unread HTTP headers, 500 and 501 errors without losing the votes. I dunno. Do they? And for hopefully 100% stable internal network voting, the voter with “a computer or mobile device with a stupid OS that can't see the network, let alone connect to it” would know that he must spend the night taking notes and then copying them into the voting system at some working terminal.
Are these systems already in place on all parties? That's not my experience.
What option is left? My suggestion for a more reliable submission of votes is email. All that is needed is a device that can get Internet access sometime during the evening before voting closes, and off the email goes.
Regardless of whether you use a webmail service on your computer or the built-in email client in your mobile device, your know your votes will reach the voting system.
Those who are unable to use webmail, don't trust any-email web services, or are unable to set their SMTP to Google's to send their email have to take notes on their laptop, that's true.
And, as mentioned, if there are voting systems in place at all parties that are open for voters to note their votes directly during compos with 0% chance of losing a single vote when they hit Submit, then all that is needed is a CSS theme that works great for those who don't want to lug their laptop to the bigscreen seats.
I just think paper-and-pencil note-taking belongs in a distant age and not at demoparties in 2013. Go digital?
Just to stave off the ones who will accuse me of suggesting such paper-and-pencil note-taking before, what I mean in my last detailing (as if it shouldn't spell it out clearly enough) is what the ones who want to hand in good votes have to do now: Sit in the bigscreen seats with some scrap of paper and a pencil they found (unless they bring a pad and tested pencil as I do) and write down prodname/groups/vote (before knowing if the scale is 1..10 or some other scale).
Proper paper vote forms are superior even to some email or browser form, because the prodnames are pre-filled, the scale is there and you put an x in a box, and they're physical, so there are zero votes potentially getting lost on the way to the voting system; the only way they can get lost is by physically throwing them away.
Again, I recognize orgas would have to do more work, as I've done in all my posts, but as I wrote in my blog post, it's irrelevant when the only concern is making sure voting is dead easy and votes arrive without fail.
In other words, the only process I focus and that is relevant to raising the quality and quantity is the one from the moment the voter decides his vote to when it's successfully received for counting.
Preparations, the actual counting, and which systems to use outside this process is completely disregarded, since they don't affect the quality or quantity of the votes.
Proper paper vote forms are superior even to some email or browser form, because the prodnames are pre-filled, the scale is there and you put an x in a box, and they're physical, so there are zero votes potentially getting lost on the way to the voting system; the only way they can get lost is by physically throwing them away.
Again, I recognize orgas would have to do more work, as I've done in all my posts, but as I wrote in my blog post, it's irrelevant when the only concern is making sure voting is dead easy and votes arrive without fail.
In other words, the only process I focus and that is relevant to raising the quality and quantity is the one from the moment the voter decides his vote to when it's successfully received for counting.
Preparations, the actual counting, and which systems to use outside this process is completely disregarded, since they don't affect the quality or quantity of the votes.
pen-and-pencil note-taking belongs in the distant age of two pages ago?
ha, should always refresh.
Photon: let me ask you two questions:
1) How many parties have you attended?
2) How many parties have you organized?
Answer both, honestly. And feel free to to answer in length.
I will help you by answering myself:
1) 42
2) 5
I will ellaborate: First party Assembly 1995, latest Assembly 2013. Symmetry, I know. Two weeks earlier my latest would have been Solskogen 2013.
Now, we have established that I am a minorleague player here, and even still I feel that you have utterly lost contact with how demoparties _actually_ work.
No no, feel free to post whatever whitepaper at the scoopex site, no one takes it seriously. We have had a good laugh at it in here and irc.
But dont let it pull you down. Just do your thing, organize a party. It shouldnt be too hard in Sweden. Do your thing. But please: let us know how it worked out. We want to know!
As for myself - I have voted and I have not voted. It is because I chose to do or not do. It was never a technical obstacle. It was more like a choice "I choose to vote/unvote here". And I know for a fact that some people who dont vote, never vote. Period. Not a technical issue, but more of a mindset one.
I will take the "pencil and paper" as a joke, as I am sure you meant it as such.
Email is so 90's, grow up. Take it from a guy who does NOT code for a living.
1) How many parties have you attended?
2) How many parties have you organized?
Answer both, honestly. And feel free to to answer in length.
I will help you by answering myself:
1) 42
2) 5
I will ellaborate: First party Assembly 1995, latest Assembly 2013. Symmetry, I know. Two weeks earlier my latest would have been Solskogen 2013.
Now, we have established that I am a minorleague player here, and even still I feel that you have utterly lost contact with how demoparties _actually_ work.
No no, feel free to post whatever whitepaper at the scoopex site, no one takes it seriously. We have had a good laugh at it in here and irc.
But dont let it pull you down. Just do your thing, organize a party. It shouldnt be too hard in Sweden. Do your thing. But please: let us know how it worked out. We want to know!
As for myself - I have voted and I have not voted. It is because I chose to do or not do. It was never a technical obstacle. It was more like a choice "I choose to vote/unvote here". And I know for a fact that some people who dont vote, never vote. Period. Not a technical issue, but more of a mindset one.
I will take the "pencil and paper" as a joke, as I am sure you meant it as such.
Email is so 90's, grow up. Take it from a guy who does NOT code for a living.
Guys, I've just done a count, and according to the rules of Arguing On The Internet, if Photon claims "email is more reliable" three more times, it will become a true fact. After that, all your arguments are invalid. Sorry.
Time to whip out ye olde hitler-card, soon!
*intalls godwin filter*
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