[SotW] Song of the Week - BATTLE 25 Voting/WEEK 201 Nominating

Quick votings...

3 Points: Machinarium Soundtrack - The Bottom
2 Points: Neotokyo - Annul
1 Point: Lucidity (Game Rip) - Twilight Farm

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Stalky

3 Points: Machinarium Soundtrack - The Bottom
2 Points: Neotokyo - Annul
1 Point: Lucidity (Game Rip) - Twilight Farm

Been wondering, does anyone here think that any of the voters do vote "tactically" to boost their own nominations or favourite? For example if i hadn't given Annul (which i really like a lot; my thanks to nominator) any points and awarded them to tracks that did not have any chance of winning anyway, then The Bottom, my own nomination, would have won. I do not think that this sort of behaviour is acceptable and it could be quite problematic in terms of detecting it. Unlike "normal" nomination bias it does most likely not balance out since not everyone does it consistently.
If everyone gives their own nomination three points, then all eight tracks have three points by default which is not any different from all having none (of course that is not always the case [in fact i just gave Annul more points than Twilight Farm, my other nomination] but it is expected to some degree or another). This tactical voting would also work if everyone did it, since then there are those three meaningless points again and the other three identify the worst tracks, so you basically have a "The Least Horrible Song of the Week" contest.
Has this been discussed prior? Any other thoughts on this?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Muzza

Stalky: I know what you mean, and I've fallen to it a few times (that is, I've given ample points to a rival track that ends up winning; if I hadn't have given it any points then my own nomination would have won). If people tactically distrubuted their points then it would kind of take the fun out of the whole process. Sure it's nice to win every now and then, but if it means scrutinising a video game music contest with a fine tooth comb, then who would really bother. There's no way to police it sadly, but one would think that we wouldn't need to. Hopefully all participants are sound and fair in their weekly SotW involvement.

I do not know how many times i caused my own nomination to place lower than it could have been, in most cases i do not mind either, after all i gave that other tracks many points because i like it as well. When i first joined SotW i expected the nominator to not be allowed to vote in weeks in which their own nomination comes up but this does not matter as long as there is consistency. That tactical voting however is different, i just noticed a logical error in my previous post, if people were to distribute their three spare points to tracks that are unlikely to win, and everyone does that, the three worst tracks would win, or rather everyone would struggle to keep the points on all other tracks even so that only their own nomination is slightly ahead, that could even lead to endless post editing and point rearrangements. So it's not just a impolite and rather sneaky thing to do, it also might screw up the process. As we can see that is not the case, decent tracks come out on top and people don't normally change their votes. Of course a few people could justify tactical voting to themselves with the fallacious conclusion "if only i do it, no one will notice and it's not a problem". Anyway, i also hope that people here are 'mature enough' to refrain from tactical voting even though it might be tempting at times.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.