For those of you still following the First Chapters contest, I went through around 10:45 on the last night of the second round and simply recorded the average rating and number of votes for the 20 entries. I have no idea if the ranks listed are the ones Gather will use. I have no idea, for example, how they will be weighting number of ratings versus average rating.
The colors in the left column are of no significance to the ranking. The scores in red indicate that the entry lost a larger than average number of rankings in the two anti-fraud sweeps and their average ranking actually went down in one or both of those sweeps. I want to emphasize that I have no information about why those rankings were tossed out. I have no way of knowing whether or not they should have been. I have no way of knowing whether or not there was fraud involved in those 3 cases rather than some kind of misunderstanding.
Gather may well do additional anti-fraud work on these results. They gave themselves four working days between the end of voting and announcement of the winners. With only 20 entries they should be able to give these entries a much more thorough going over than they did at the end of the first round. I suspect that the entries that lost in the average rankings after the anti-fraud sweeps will get an extra-thorough look.
Remember also that while 10 people go on, only 7 of those are chosen by the voting. The rest are chosen by Gather. That means that at least in theory a rank of 8 is in the same boat as one of 20. They only get in if Gather chooses them. I doubt that Gather would choose something from the bottom five unless they know something about the rest of the story that we don't. A rank of 8 could mean that the entry would benefit from one or more of the higher ranking entries losing rankings or being disqualified in any fraud sweep that Gather did after the viewing period ended.
Name |
| 10:45 PM | # of votes | Rank |
Theodore's Choosing |
| 7.6 | 154 | 12 |
Spyglass Account |
| 8 | 194 | 10 |
Home to The Mountains |
| 7.2 | 101 | 17 |
Fire Bell in the Night |
| 8.5 | 192 | 2 |
Beauty & the Best |
| 7.5 | 228 | 13 |
Tracks |
| 7.2 | 247 | 15 |
Beyond Abraham |
| 6.6 | 76 | 20 |
The Rise of Isiah Black |
| 6.7 | 95 | 19 |
Wendy & Alice |
| 7.8 | 154 | 11 |
Sea of Movement |
| 6.9 | 133 | 18 |
The Wave Organ |
| 8.1 | 157 | 8 |
Speechless |
| 8.2 | 407 | 6 |
Name Drop Zone |
| 9.1 | 462 | 1 |
Junction Blvd |
| 8.3 | 329 | 4 |
Dream War |
| 8.2 | 261 | 7 |
Big, Hairy, Bloodless |
| 8.4 | 302 | 3 |
Forty-Two Blue |
| 7.5 | 93 | 14 |
The Way Life Should Be |
| 8.3 | 260 | 5 |
The Whole Dark Earth |
| 8 | 199 | 9 |
Earth Islands |
| 7.2 | 193 | 16 |
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Comments: 26
Just my little two cents...almost all my votes/comments were from people on Gather--people I didn't know. And I suspect it was the same with most of the other contestants. So don't judge us too harshly. :-)
I'm interested to see where it moves from here.
What did I find? Try at least 136 comments from fan club members, versus 39 comments from people who actually did something on Gather other than comment on this person's chapter. I stopped at 175, but the fan club stuff was actually getting worse as the contest went on. The last three days I checked had 72 fan club comments and 4 from people who rated other chapters or did anything else on Gather that showed up on their homepage.
The entry I looked at was probably one of the worst, but if Gather lets that kind of thing get an entry into the top ten---
Hopefully the worst of the fan club and sock puppet operators will get eliminated this round and the next round will be cleaner.
Anyway, I hope as much as you do that deserving people make it to the next round.
(I will anyway)
Who won the $10,000 in Borders cards? There was one woman who said she won (some?) but for the life of her, couldn't even remember the 'insightful comment she left' nor what submission.
Is there a list any where?
thanks....whoever..
:-)
A couple of people apparently got high school or middle school classes to vote for them, which is kind of tacky--fifty or seventy-five 13 to 15 year olds coming in to get a little extra credit and decide who goes on and gets a chance at a book contract.
None of that should take away from the efforts and accomplishments of the rest of the 20. Anyone who played it straight and gets into the top 10 deserves and gets my respect.
I won't even give you my critique of the chapter itself, because I'm trying to adopt a more positive attitude for Round 3.
I suppose I could see a would be author doing that: Buy a couple of dozen old Pentium II computers at scrap prices, set up a LAN in a spare room, and go to work creating Gather names. Gather has safeguards against that, but I'm guessing that a good IT guy could work around them. Of course actually doing something like that would be incredibly pathetic. You would be admitting that you can't win without cheating. Also, you would almost certainly get caught once the field narrowed down enough that people focus on you. Even if you did get to the final five that way the S&S people would probably just have a good laugh at your chapters then pick somebody else.
And Patrick....honestly....enough is enough.....if this contest was as messed up as you say it was then why would you have even wanted to win?????????
there would be no need for 2nd guessing, these kind of threads, etc if:
1) All votes were made visible like comments are....on all articles....Screen Name and # . With that Transparency, all questions would evaporate. Like Dale said, weird things are self evident....whatever their source. People should stand beside their votes & comments; or don't make them, eh?
2) No more contests until #1 achieved....so no more wondering...
3) No content management ( a huge issue with old Gather members..i.e. feature articles rise on their own merit, flagging to keep off front pages, etc.)
Is that clearer guys? I'm going to have a glass of wine and watch a movie.....jeezz, so touchy ;-)
Geoffrey Edwards, Fire Bell in the Night
Candida Korman, Wendy and Alice
J.M. LeTurk, The Wave Organ
Geeta Menon, Speechless
Scott Middlemist, Name Drop Zone
Robert Moscoso, Junction Boulevard
Stephen Prosapio, Dream War
Rebeccah Ruby, Big, Hairy & Bloodless...
Rachel Schipul, Forty-Two Blue
Terry Shaw, The Way Life Should Be
For details go to:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976970836
I'll miss a couple of the entries that didn't advance. Theodore's Crossing looked like it had potential. So did The Whole Dark Earth. Yes, I like science fiction and history, so I'm biased.
I read and commented, or at least voted, on all of the top ten except Name Drop List, which I just didn't get to. Will definitely have to check it out though!
What was that I said about trying to maintain a positive attitude again?
Ugh. I dunno.
Yeah, I am very sorry about Theodore's Choosing. It struck me as the most tightly plotted of any of the entries I'd read.
Is that diplomatic enough?
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976972430