The Whining And The Whinging
Hi. I made the BBC Contest #46 prelim polls. I'd like to talk to you for a second.
If it were up to me, there would be a program that could take a posted entry list and turn it into perfectly random polls with but a press of a button. This would be simply marvellous. I even know all the things it would have to do: I'm just not a codemonkey in the least. Until then, it's all gotta be done by hand. And believe me, it's all hands. Copying, cutting, pasting, creating thumbnail URLs... There's not a lot of room for higher thought in there. Just about all the thinking involved is 'wait wait wait the URL didn't copy' or 'no, no, numbers are too close, numbers are too close...'. Coming up with a group of poll names is difficult because I have to switch my brain from repetitive task mode to higher thought mode.
Also, you heard correctly in that last paragraph. Numbers. It's the entry numbers that affect what poll you go in, and nothing more. It's a matter of spacing entries out best as I can get them (though the fact that the entries never divide up evenly always makes for fun at the end of this stage). I remember when polls were 'the first ten entries, then the next ten entries, then the next ten...'. People would purposely avoid entering near entries they feared. This system was changed long before I ever became a host, and if it should ever come to that, I will rise from my grave to kill the host of the future who brings that system back.
I make them as random as a human who wants to get the polls up within the month can make them. And you know what? There's always people who deem them 'rigged'.
Not that the 'r' word itself has come up this contest, mind you, but the accompanying attitudes are still there. 'Random' apparently means 'not sharing a poll with an entry other people might think is better than yours'. Guess what? That mindless program would still wind up creating polls people think are 'rigged'. It doesn't know who's popular or who's really good or what have you. It just sees data.
You know what would be rigging the polls? Arranging them so that no two 'good' (as deemed by the loudest crowd, of course) entries are in the same poll, so that they all go on to the semis. That would be rigging. And, sadly, that seems to be what some would rather have.
Hey, folks? Sometimes life just ain't fair. It's a contest for building with children's toys, for god's sake. Stop acting like I killed your puppy.
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