Vote Thread for Ack's Omake Corner

[BigaBadaEnda]

[X] slippery slope - 6
[X] Recoil - 5

 

[Ack]

Have a new chapter for A Darker Path.

 

[Neko Tamo]

Have a new chapter for A Darker Path.

Click to shrink...

Again? I'm starting to feel neglected

More seriously how do you decide what these seeming bonus/unvoted chapters are going to be? Just what you feel like writing at the moment or is there some method to the madness I'm not seeing

PS. Maybe it's a good idea to let excess votes for each winner overflow into the next round? Must suck to see dozens of votes potentially going to waste once your fav wins. Or worse people will start to vote strategically, shortchanging their favorite so it doesn't win too much and waste their vote. We don't want this democratic system to be as flawed as First Past The Post do we?

 

[Sleepyfoo]

PS. Maybe it's a good idea to let excess votes for each winner overflow into the next round? Must suck to see dozens of votes potentially going to waste once your fav wins. Or worse people will start to vote strategically, shortchanging their favorite so it doesn't win too much and waste their vote. We don't want this democratic system to be as flawed as First Past The Post do we?

Click to shrink...

This would just result in the most common winners (Recoil, Wyvern) winning more often and everything else falling even further behind.

Why is strategic voting bad?

Also, it would make my spreadsheet slightly more complicated.

 

[Robert Stadler]

I'm happy with most any story that Ack chooses to give us. He doesn't have to, you know?

The vote is a general way for us to signal which stories we want more of, but it's not really binding. Ack can, and should, write what he's interested in.

 

[Dalxein]

More seriously how do you decide what these seeming bonus/unvoted chapters are going to be? Just what you feel like writing at the moment or is there some method to the madness I'm not seeing

Click to shrink...

The votes determine which of the stories that can be voted on will be prioritized over the other stories on the vote list. I don't know their schedule, maybe they set aside a day of the week and say "today, if I write, it's the voted story" or maybe they do just write what they feel like, unless it'd be a voted story. There's stuff that's been taken off the vote list in the past, or added when one of the stories finishes. A couple of stories are definitely in the "I'm going to write more of this despite the votes, so it doesn't go on the list." camp, while I can only assume others need more planning or have limited motivation to be continued at the moment.

Vote stuff is somewhere between, and we get what we get.

 

[Neko Tamo]

Why is strategic voting bad?

Click to shrink...

In short because it feels bad. It means you are more likely to want to vote for what is most practical increase of voting for what you love. Best voting systems are designed so that what you love and what is most practical are one and the same. Vote overflow would achieve that in this small country

 

[Sleepyfoo]

In short because it feels bad. It means you are more likely to want to vote for what is most practical increase of voting for what you love. Best voting systems are designed so that what you love and what is most practical are one and the same. Vote overflow would achieve that in this small country

Click to shrink...

Vote overflow makes the winning stories more winning. This is bad for anyone that wants any other stories to ever update before the winning stories end.

I personally vote a bit strategically because while I really like the stories that win the most, I also want some other stories I really like to update sometime this decade, so I put more votes toward those. This gets me what I want, or close to it, in that a spread of stories I like update, even if I like the stories that win the most more in general.

If I put all my votes toward the stories that win the most, it might update a little more often (or significantly more often with overflow), but in contrast the other stories I like essentially wouldn't update. Hence I vote such that they get a little bit of a boost (as much as any one person doing so can, anyway).

This doesn't feel bad to me, but then I'm don't feel like I'm slighting the popular story either, so maybe it's just an unresolvable difference of perspective or opinion.

 

[Ack]

Have a new chapter for A Darker Path.

(There may be more before next month, but that's up in the air right now).

Again? I'm starting to feel neglected

More seriously how do you decide what these seeming bonus/unvoted chapters are going to be? Just what you feel like writing at the moment or is there some method to the madness I'm not seeing

PS. Maybe it's a good idea to let excess votes for each winner overflow into the next round? Must suck to see dozens of votes potentially going to waste once your fav wins. Or worse people will start to vote strategically, shortchanging their favorite so it doesn't win too much and waste their vote. We don't want this democratic system to be as flawed as First Past The Post do we?

Click to shrink...

<snip>

Click to shrink...

Okay, this is how it works.

I have three different systems for choosing what I'm writing for next.

First is the voting round. (Note that no matter what kind of voting system I use, people will find a way to game it, unless I make it needlessly complex on my end. Thus, I've made it so that if a story gets any votes at all, it will eventually get a chapter. It won't be cut off forever.) I post for one story from the voting round per month, either 1 long (7K+) chapter, or two short (3.5k chapters), depending on the story.

Second is the commissioning system. I have two slots (both full) and I don't intend to open any more up. One of my commissioners has a list of my fics that they rotate through on a monthly basis, one long chapter for any given month. The other has two that I write short chapters for, one for each of the stories (Snek is a Good Boy and Earning Her Stripes).

Third is basically anything else I feel like writing for. Right now, A Darker Path is my go-to, so as soon as I've sorted out the other four, I spend the rest of the month writing that one. I also write chapters each month for (non-fanfic; sci-fi or fantasy) stories I have going on my Reddit page.

So yes, there is madness, but there is also method.

 

[Neko Tamo]

Thank you for the answer @Ack that is more than fair, and thank you for the explanation.

But because I am an argumentative nerd on the internet, what possible gamer move do you see for that system I proposed? And it is simple to boot

 

[mouse]

In terms of simple - needing to subtract the difference to work out the next starting value is always going to be more complex than 'it won, set to 0'.
And then, what do you subtract? The current second place? What do you do if that value is less than the winner started with this round? A whole lot of unnecessary complexity vs just 'won -> set to 0'.

In terms of strategic voting, one unintended consequence I can see is the exact effect you maligned with the 'don't want something as flawed as First Past the Post': a concentration of voting into a single 'most popular' title that can repeatedly use the overflow to win again, rather than the current practice of giving out the lower value points to 'better than nothing, but not my favourite' options. If your favourite can start at 60-80 (based on the last three results), why bother inflating the overall vote pool vs further reducing the cooldown on the best option?
I mean, as a Recoil fan I wouldn't be complaining, but yeah, it would absolutely change the way I vote to the detriment of all the non-Recoil stories I currently vote for (admittedly in a semi-strategic manner for some).

edit: nvm I see you only voted for one thing anyway. In that case, I'd simply say that the current system is better than your proposed system for exactly the same reason that multi-member constituencies are better than first past the post: it's just a much more democratic outcome.

 

[Ack]

Thank you for the answer @Ack that is more than fair, and thank you for the explanation.

But because I am an argumentative nerd on the internet, what possible gamer move do you see for that system I proposed? And it is simple to boot

Click to shrink...

It's very simple.

Political voting systems are designed to get the same person in over and over if they are universally decided to be the best person for the job; that is, a majority will keep voting them back in.

I want all my stories to have a chance. If anyone votes for other than the favourites, they will have a chance to get in eventually.

 

[SlickRCBD]

Vote overflow makes the winning stories more winning. This is bad for anyone that wants any other stories to ever update before the winning stories end.

I personally vote a bit strategically because while I really like the stories that win the most, I also want some other stories I really like to update sometime this decade, so I put more votes toward those. This gets me what I want, or close to it, in that a spread of stories I like update, even if I like the stories that win the most more in general.

If I put all my votes toward the stories that win the most, it might update a little more often (or significantly more often with overflow), but in contrast the other stories I like essentially wouldn't update. Hence I vote such that they get a little bit of a boost (as much as any one person doing so can, anyway).

This doesn't feel bad to me, but then I'm don't feel like I'm slighting the popular story either, so maybe it's just an unresolvable difference of perspective or opinion.

Click to shrink...

Except that the winning stories will eventually reach their endings, and thus make room for another story to fit into a winning slot.