How do they tally the vote winners?

I think people are very positive and psyched almost uniformly (at least the posts are)...

http://www.publicradioquest.com/node/1153

http://www.publicradioquest.com/node/1153

20-40-60-80-100

you can see this when the html doesn't display correctly.

However, there could be many different formulas involved in how they value it as a whole. I really have no idea how much they are going to weigh the frequency of rating vs the overall average of the rating, but it appears likely that both would be taken into account.

I think that 11 pointers, etc, will be valued as highly as any other vote. They would have to collect and input a LOT of data otherwise. which would be an absolute pain for anyone that worked there.

I would imagine that they have some sort of formula worked out that those two variables would just plug into.

Elizabeth

My entry at Public Radio Quest:
http://www.publicradioquest.com/audio/user/7572

My College Radio Myspace (feel free to friend me!):
http://www.myspace.com/girlsongprimerradio

Oh, I think the folks at PRX are more clever than that, and they've *got* all the data--they just need a vote-counting routine that takes advantage of all they have in the database.

For sure they'll want to deal with 11-pointers somehow, or else this would just be a contest in getting as many people as possible to register, vote for your entry, and leave. Ideally, they'd also find a way to filter out folks who give one entry a high rating and give a bunch of others low ratings (a more sophisticated version of the "11-pointer," who not only rates his/her friend but also some of the competition). And of course they need to control for the facts that (1) some entries will have a *lot* more votes--good and bad--than others, and shouldn't necessarily benefit from that alone and (2) some voters are just naturally more or less critical than others, and you'd hate to penalize an entrant that happened to be heard mostly by critical listeners. If there were gazillions of votes by gazillions of voters, you could expect some of these things to wash out statistically, but I think there probably aren't enough votes or voters to make that work.

The problem--and, I expect, the reason the actual tallying method is being kept secret--is that any voting system in a contest like this can be "gamed." That is, if you know the system you can give your candidate an advantage by voting insincerely in some way, rather than voting your true feelings. And that does make me a bit uneasy about the portions of the contest that depend more strongly on the popular vote. Ideally this would be about something inherent in the entry or entrant--hostiness, or (in later rounds) attractiveness of show concept, or quality of presentation, or some such. But as we've all seen in other such contests, it can often happen that other factors dominate.

Still, I'm sure the PRX folks are aware of all the above, and for now I'm going to assume that they've developed the holy grail of popular-vote-counting software, or anyway something pretty close. Wouldn't surprise me if they had.

Ari Epstein
http://www.publicradioquest.com/audio/user/84

My thoughts:
I think the 20-40-60-80-100 Elizabeth is speaking of represent percentiles. We will all have an average vote, translated to a percent. An entry with a ton of 5 star votes and a few so-so votes, could wind up with a total of 82.3 percent. Then, they'll look at the entries that ranked roughly between 85-100 percent and pick the top 200 of those, before the judges pick their favorite 9 based on their gut feelings and personal preferences. I wonder if they'll even take the time to rank the rest. It seems like a lot of work, but I bet I'm not alone in wanting to know where I ranked in the mix.
ez

The formula, that is. I agree they probably do have something that takes both into account. I wonder if anyone official could respond to this post. It seems like some people who are on the boards constantly will get a ton of people voting for their entries, which is great, but does that mean you have to run a marketing campaign to win the popular slot? Or can you win it just with a great entry that people like? It's an interesting dilemma. I confess I would prefer it be the latter, but I suppose that's what the judges are for. People who are very active on the boards are a positive part of this campaign, but I don't think people should be penalized for not being so.

Ah, the endless speculation :-) Helps take the mind off of the actual wait, doesn't it?

While I don't think number of people who voted for the person is the ONLY criteria, I think it's in the formula. I don't think a straight percentage is the only criteria either because statistically one person with one 5-star vote could be the ONLY 100% entry ;-p

Here's my take on number of votes: This is partially about finding new voices for public radio. People with existing podcasts with very loyal and large followings deserve to be paid attention to. Back in the day, Click and Clack were almost ignored and Ira Glass's TAL was turned down by NPR. This is a case for the public to weigh in. Even if large amounts of the public are their own fans, there's usually a reason why the person has fans.

************************************************
Life is a matinee. BroadwayMatinee.com
Judge my hostiness in the PRTQ

First you have the total votes that you received and Second you have the votes that you cast. The more you participated the more chance of winning the popular vote, at least that is in my opinion.

It will be interesting to see the final breakdown, we know some people were both popular getting comments and certainly votes, while others did a great job of participating and casting votes.

There could also be a third catagory for those that brought others to the site to vote.

If we started at page 1 and couldn't get through to page 146 then those people that entered late get penalized because the majority of voters never got to hear their entries.

There was an entry about the fairness of life, it suddenly comes to mind, not everything in life is fair; and of this I know all too well...

Peace and Blessings,

Sincerely,

Gary

http://www.publicradioquest.com/node/1188

Excellent feedback and outside discussions can be found here;

http://www.publicradioquest.com/node/1987

I think they will only factor in the votes that were given to us, both in amount and in terms of quality (5 stars, etc).

That is, i believe that the votes you personally CAST are not included-- just the ones you earned.

I am 99.9% certain that affiliate points and user points have nothing to do with the selection of any of the winners, although they might correlate with the winner of the people's choice just because of the amount of activity it takes to get people to vote for you.

Elizabeth

My entry at Public Radio Quest:
http://www.publicradioquest.com/audio/user/7572

My College Radio Myspace (feel free to friend me!):
http://www.myspace.com/girlsongprimerradio

i agree here

bee jellyfish
http://www.publicradioquest.com/node/866
http://www.beejellyfish.com
http://www.myspace.com/beejellyfish

I am sure the formula takes everything into account and all 1452 end up in some kind of rank order. I think we should all be told what our rank is privately. I do hope someone who knows does answer this question. The people want to know!

i am curious as well.

bee jellyfish
http://www.publicradioquest.com/node/866
http://www.beejellyfish.com
http://www.myspace.com/beejellyfish

I doubt very much that your points will count at all directly, but naturally the more comments you leave, the more people are likely to listen to your entry and vote for you. I think that is a great idea for them to let us know our rank, even if it is privately. I also think they should tell us the formula, even if it is after the fact. It is kind of an indirect part of the rules. The other way they could make it extremely fair (too late for round one) is to restrict who you vote on to the random "vote here" button generator. That way they can distribute the votes evenly among all competitors. I'm still hoping someone official will chime in here!

Yes, Monday AM people, welcome back and please give us some guideance.

The Top secret instructions for picking the popular vote is ....

The remaining names after alternates and winners are put into a hat and they shake it three times and pick one.

You have to admire the creativity of such a simplistic plan. It elimenates outliers for 11-pointers, professionals, and everyone with a crummy mic. An excellent solution if you ask me ;)

Monday .... is it here yet?

http://www.publicradioquest.com/audio/user/8769

Oh! Is there somewhere which actually has the formulae?