First results from absolute dollar voting; new contestant

I just finished tallying the votes from the Vancouver contest’s first week of “absolute dollar” voting, where you type in an award for each contestant. See results on the current ballot, and details of the tallying on this spreadsheet. There were some dramatic moves: Newcomer Vancity Buzz shot up to #1, and Miss 604 jumped from #13 to #3 – congrats to both!

I think it’s too early to draw conclusions on whether absolute dollar voting is a good system. Let’s see how it goes for the next week or two, then discuss.

One issue worth noting is how we should treat blank entries. Many voters fill in positive numbers for one or a few contestants, and leave the others blank. Some voters fill in all blanks with positive numbers or zeroes. A few voters fill in a zero or two, a positive number or two, and leave the rest blank. Overall statistics are 60% blanks, 12% zeroes and 28% positive numbers.

So far I have been ignoring blanks, not counting them at all. One can argue for counting blanks as votes for $0. Or a compromise could be to count a blank as half a vote (or some other fraction) for $0.

Reasons for ignoring blanks:
1. It empowers voters by giving them more options – blank = “don’t know”, $0 = “don’t like”.
2. If blanks are counted as $0, that could make it very hard for neglected competitors to work their way up the rankings.
3. Competitors that move up too high into awards will then appear on the radar of more voters, who will have the opportunity of voting them back down the next week if they want to. One week of “too high” is not a big deal.

BTW we welcome another new contestant this week – “Left eye on Vancouver” – see ballot.