11:51 AM, December 09, 2006
Ann Althouse said...
I hope people here realize the importance of crushing TMV (which launched an idiotic -- and immoderate! -- attack on me).
All I can say is, what the hell?
When do you vote, make sure to be whimsical about it.
Would it be better or worse if Tom wrote a hack for the voting app and we crushed Althouse nefariously?
Yes, intent is everything. I was pleased to see that Althouse's 7,000 vote lead has shrunk to about 200. I'm so ashamed of myself for finding this amusing.
Ogged, that's an excellent question. Althouse's commenters are bragging about voting from multiple machines, and besides the set-up/vote every day makes the whole thing pretty much meaningless, as does the LGM/EK/FL pile-on. Yet is there something special about the hand-stuffed ballot box, as opposed to the machine-made crap that's so much easier? Hard to say. Thorstein Veblen would tell us, but he's dead.
TMV makes a good point that this is all corruptive to the whole process of the weblog awards.
I have never followed these awards. At all. If one hypothesized that they were alright before, this could be seen as a bad thing.
How can I see the total votes, though? (You mentioned A is no longer 7000 votes ahead, but the total i see is in the 2000s.)
3: they're cleverly using a flash app to handle the voting, I'm afraid, and something other than cookies and IPs to track whether you've voted (some kind of flash value store? I don't know that much about it). Might be possible to sniff the vote-sending request, but if they went to this much trouble they probably secured that, too. So yeah, I'm afraid that hand-stuffing is the way to go.
Of course, we could put some kind of javascript alert on unfogged reminding people to vote every day if they haven't already.
Upon reflection, I'm much too enthusiastic about defrauding online polls.
Right. It's hilarious that all this kerfluffle has resulted in ~4,500 votes total.
Should TMV take the prize, we should make sure that every blog in the world links to the results.
Hmm. It might be specific to your browser, so if you're bored and running both ie and the fox you could try the other. (I think I was able to.)
That's what surprised me, Michael-- AA's been egging her readers on for days. How many people read that thing, anyway?
Blog awards are ridiculous anyway, so I support the anti-Althouse voting drive on the grounds that it further demonstrates the utter ridiculousness of the whole thing.
Did anyone else think that five more days of voting is going to lend itself to either campaign fatigue or someone cracking under the pressure of keeping up something so trivial for so long? (and I don't necessarily mean AA - this could be what drives FL around the bend)
A serious danger, Mike. I was planning on just writing a couple of vote blegs in advance and scheduling them for future posting, but that function doesn't seem to be working. It looks like I'll have to risk madness.
15: I tried it in Safari and it knew I had voted in FF. And it still knew when I sent the Safari traffic through a proxy. Clever!
Looks like Unfogged Legionnaires has put TMV on top. Great vagina, everyone.
Once a year, the Great Vagina comes to the most sincere cock joke emporium in the world...
S-V agreement are not my strong suit, apparantly.
I suppose you could uninstall and reinstall flash to see if you could vote again, but that seems a little drastic.
If, in one day, TMV managed to surpass the results of Althouse's days of heckling, by tomorrow its lead should be unschlagbar.
Alright, I went and voted. TMV is up to 2432, with Althouse trailing at 2298.
12 should not be ashamed of his enthusiasm. Ballot box hacking could not be more American - it combines democracy and invention togehter in one handy activity! Yankee Ingenuity at its finest!
So much fun to vote! I've never even read TMV.
As if one could trust a hedgepig to tell anyone what's American.
TheModVo is ahead by >200 votes as of right now this very moment.
I'm having trouble understanding why anyone would care about winning a weblog award?
I guess it could increase traffic, but do that many people really go read the blogs that win this awards?
The whole thing seems silly.
The whole thing seems silly.
That's, uhm, the point.
Let me see if I understand: TMV doesn't care about winning a meaningless award. Althouse wants to win a meaningless award, just because that's her f'd-up personality. And Labs doesn't want Althouse to win a meaningless award, just because she wants to win it, and he wants to be mean, because he doesn't like her f'd-up personailty? And the only benefit Labs gets from this is the joy of seeing Althouse unhappy?
No thanks.
Christ on a cracker, it's a voting system that allows you to vote as many times as you want as long as you vote only once per day per internet footprint thingamajiggy.
American Idol has higher audience voting standards, Ann. Get the fuck over yourself already.
(It needed to be said. Again.)
The benefit Labs gets isn't seeing Althouse unhappy, it's seeing whatever insanity Althouse spews out as a result of that unhappiness.
The argument from aggregate mirth is one Labs has made before.
Brock, you might not be cut out for this place.
I give a big thumbs up to seeing Althouse types unhappy.
Not quite, Brock. While I do think she has an f'ed up personality, and I don't like her f'ed up personality, this wouldn't be enjoyable if that were all of the explanation. It's more along these lines: she has very clearly and explicitly made this completely meaningless thing into a test of will and gone on about how very important is to crush her opposition because they have the temerity to treat her with less respect than she feels entitled to. I find some amusement in creating a state of affairs that counts as a bad thing only by the odd standards that make her such an unappealing personality.
Plus, as w-lfs-n notes, it's that she always goes with the most petty, least self-aware responses to these provocations. The odds of fun are high.
And to clarify my 37, it's not that I have an inherent desire to see people unhappy. It's because, as Labs said, it's the inherent ridiculousness of the circumstances here.
Atrios just picked this up. I wonder if Insty will do the same.
Ah, the proxy war. How appropriate, this week.
I don't know why I find FL's' dislike of Althouse so endearing. (It's not because she *especially* bugs me--none of the criticisms are wrong, but for whatever reason she gets under my skin less than other people.)
This Blogofascist subversion of democracy brought to you by the People's Republic of Eschaton.
Thorstein Veblen would tell us, but he's dead.
I think this is less Veblen's beat than Gustav Stickley's, but he's dead too.
Anyway, it's Plunkitt of Tammany Hall who exposited the virtues of "honest graft."
I was thinking of Veblen's discussion of the preference for handmade goods over ostensibly more effective mass-produced items as a manifestation of conspicuous consumption.
From the same comment thread:
Just voted again. There are several categories over there where the voting is being played with, and yours is one of them...If they can't fix this, the contest will become meaningless.
My emphasis. Heh-indeed.
Seriously -- is there some kind of justification for the vote-once-a-day scheme? That just seems so weird and wrong-headed.
(Not that internet-voting awards are a particularly meaningful genre to begin with)
21: Unfogged Legionnaires has put TMV on top
23: S-V agreement are not my strong suit
On the contrary -- Unfogged Legionnaires is properly singular -- You were talking about the disease, right?
Upon reflection, I'm somewhat disappointed the title of this post isn't "Vote or Die!"
Pandagon is urging its voters to vote for TMV, too.
Prediction: After she loses, Althouse will claim that all of her posts were merely to provoke "the partisan leftiesphere" (or some such) into mean-spirited insanity. So by losing, she really won...
The only solution is for all of us to become very good friends with her. Years will pass. Then one day, having watched our children grow and our pets slowly die, and our pudgy little grandchildren poke around our rocking chairs, one perfect August afternoon, we will unhook our breathing apparatus and turn to her and say: "We have always detested you. Always." And she will never understand.
Dammit, I wish we could have taken the Karl Rove "Every vote above a 1-vote majority is wasted" approach. Now that Atrios and Majitkhsigska are involved, Althouse has an easy explanation for her failure to achieve maximum prom queen status.
Spot on. Except Fill me up, Labs, good job is ogged's line.
Is this to say someone's made you a mechanical suit, sb? For me, I always appreciate a "good job" whether it be ogged or whoever else. It's hard work sometimes.
Tia, you're a genius.
53: I think this is as good a prediction as any; it would be great if it happens, because while she often seems to claim that her words mean something apart from their meaning, the more obvious this is, the greater the hilarity.
O ears in flight a-flapping, O prehensile snoot,
How can we know the suitor from the suit?
Bionic Dumbo Gentleman Caller. There's your fucking band name.
And the only benefit Labs gets from this is the joy of seeing Althouse unhappy?
No thanks.
Counterpoint:
Yes please!
The blogosphere really does do great things. Althouse will be lucky to get half the votes that TMV does.
I wonder what the odds are that Althouse will recognize that this is one of those things that happens to people who take themselves too seriously? More likely, TMV will publically decline the award and Althouse will be displaying a Weblog Awards Winner banner on her page next week. (But without giving any credit to TMV for basically casting the decisive vote himself.)
By the way:
* Vote totals are subject to periodic correction for identified cheating.
These guys really do like their elections rigged, don't tey?
67: The nightmare continues when she lists "Weblog Awards Winner" on her CV, failing to note that the thing is a farce.
I believe you mean "Weblog Awards Laureate"
She can put it right under the NRCC Lawprof of the Year award.
Wow! There sure are a lot of us in on this! You guys, Ezra, Amanda, Majikthise... all united to make Althouse pay for her torture-cheerleading and boob-mockery.
