Monday, January 31, 2011

Why I'm not campaigning any more for a Shorty Award cc @shortyvotes @shortyawards

(Originally written Jan. 21, 2011)
I've decided that it's a waste of my time and my friends' time for me to campaign for the Shorty Awards.

I don't think it's a legitimate contest.

Here are my reasons.

1. Last year the award in politics went to an account which (a) had less votes than all the other candidates, and (b) was a basically noninteractive account, consisting primarily of tweets spit out from an RSS feed. What possible basis there can have been for granting the award to that account is a mystery.

2. Last year one of the accounts which did have a lot of "votes" received most of them from transparently fake dormant accounts, each of which had 10 or 15 tweets over the account's entire lifetime, and had clearly been kept on "the shelf" for the purpose of being used in just such a ruse some day. The Shorty Award's so called "audits" -- if they ever occurred -- never disallowed those fake votes.

3. This year, after a week of voting, the Shorty Awards began "suggesting" accounts to nominate. It is completely absurd and corrupt for an organization running a "vote" to "suggest" which names you should nominate. It would be like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences suggesting to its members who should be nominated for an academy award.

4. This past night, although I had 20 more votes than the person in 1st place, I was listed as being in 2nd place. While I know the Shorty Awards claims it discounts votes from illegitimate accounts, my votes were from legitimate accounts: I'd read all of the votes that came in, and all but 2 or 3 were from regular twitter accounts that were familiar to me. All, or almost all, of my votes deserved full credit. I can no longer continue asking my friends to take the time to vote for me, knowing that their votes are not being counted honestly.

5. This year, the account which is in 1st place, even though I have more votes, has acquired about half of its votes by a form of "vote buying". The account holder offered to give #followfriday recommendations in exchange for Shorty Award votes. So far he's bought and paid for approximately 200 votes that way. The Shorty Awards is doing nothing to stop the practice.

Bottom line, the Shorty Awards "election" and "selection process" are without credibility. An election with no integrity is not an election, it's a scam. I'm through campaigning, because in doing so, I'm just giving publicity to a dishonest event, and wasting my friends' time.

I apologize to my friends and followers for having wasted your time.

(A shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/frGkXe)
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14 comments:

  1. Ray, I don't think I wasted my time. We all really believed they were legit. We have to try, you know! But so disappointed that even in this 'realm' voting is not taken seriously and votes don't count. grrr! :/

    You are still a gift to us all on Twitter and I really appreciate your efforts for social justice and a progressive United States and human rights and news that I really can't get elsewhere.

    Gratitude,

    ~annie

    p.s.
    I think you won, as far as I am concerned.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, Annie. You are very kind.

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  3. Like most everything else that relies on voting, it will be manipulated and dishonest. Sorry to hear about this but am glad you are revealing this truth to others. Your followers don't need you to win awards, anyway. We love the work you do on twitter. You are stellar, in my mind.

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  4. Ray, you're a winner already :) at least in my book.

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  5. Sometimes the system isn't broken, and those deserving recognition get it. If we give up without even trying, it's all over before we begin. It was worth the run.

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  6. I had no idea how corrupt these awards are. WOW. Thank you for BEING YOU, for sharing all that you do. You rock my twitter world in so many ways. NOW the truth is out about shorty awards. It is a shame really as there are people like YOU who deserve such an award. Twitter is a world upon itself. It spreads great information. To find out these awards are corrupt are beyond disappointing. Shame on twitter. Like others have said before me, you won as far as I am concerned. I have no account open so I go with Anonymous, YET my name is
    Jodi Raven Hawk
    aka
    Raven Hawk

    FOR THE RECORD.

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  7. Thanks, Raven Hawk.

    Much appreciated.

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  8. I am glad you did this research and let us know. I'm disappointed since I nominated several people, and voted for you. I honestly had hoped my votes would lead to fair recognition got some microbloggers, like yourself, who truly deserve it. Mary Kosta

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  9. Thanks very much Mary.

    Yes, I was very disappointed too.

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  10. Hi Ray, I see my previous message got a bit mangled. I sent it by typing on my teeny weeny IPod keypad. Anyway, glad you deciphered it, and again, I really think you deserve an award. You are so supportive to other Twitter bloggers, and set the bar high for us all. Mary Kosta

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  11. Ray

    Thanks for getting this information out there. You deserve an award for this ;)

    Gwylym

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  12. You are a winner for me Ray. Will be interesting to see how I go in #Green this year. I have around 2 times as many genuine votes as any other candidate I think

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  13. Well, good luck Mike, but IMHO the whole thing is a scam.

    ReplyDelete

I have a few simple comment rules:

(a) No

1. rudeness
2. falsehood
3. deception
4. unfair tactics
5. comment spam
6. shilling or trolling

(b) stay on topic, and

(c) if you're anonymous, use a handle so we can distinguish you from other anonymous commenters.

Thanks for commenting.

Ray