Should We Discontinue our "Cat of--" Polls?
Just for drill: Our About.com polls are set up so that only one vote can be recorded per IP address, which can be problematical for people in an office sharing a server. E.G., if one person votes, no one else in the office can vote (at work.) Depending on the type of Internet connection, IP addresses can be static (with some broadband ISPs) or subject to change (most commonly with dial-up ISPs). On most dial-up connections, a new IP address is assigned each time the user logs on. As posted in the comments, yes, someone could cheat if they wanted to, by voting, shutting down the computer, then starting it up and voting again...and again...and again. Personally, I don't think that would be very practical, and I imagine it would be pretty time-consuming if one wanted to garner more than a negligible number of votes. Also, personally, I don't think it's really happened.
But the decision is not up to me, dear readers. I'm putting the vote-canceling option to a vote. (And yes, you can cheat if you're so inclined.) If the "ayes" have it, I'll discontinue the monthly and annual polls for Cat of the Month and Cat of the Year. I'll still personally select a Cat of the Week each week. If the "nays" win, I'll continue these polls and don my flame-retardant underwear.
It's your decision.
Comments
Honestly, I enjoy seeing the cat of the week/month/year so much that I don’t really care if people cheat. If this were a perfect world… but it’s not. Even when my favorite doesn’t win, I have never seen a cat that doesn’t deserve recognition.
But won’t it hurt the felines of the cats who loose?
Your comment regarding cheating, “Also,personally, I don’t think it’s really happened.” reminds me of the children’s story “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” This emperor appears before all of his subjects stark naked. His subjects all ooo and ahh over his beautiful new clothes which do not exist. Ignore the obvious and maybe it will go away. All of his subjects except one-a child who is brave enough to state the truth that the emperor is not wearing any clothes at all!
I’m not sure that you should discontinue these polls. It gives many so much happiness. The polls have gone on for quite awhile without this current cloud of nastiness. Could you come up with a new way of casting votes? Maybe something could be arranged where the only way a vote could be cast would be by sending in an email.
Best to you-
Antonio
As someone who has had a kitty in one of the polls, I can say it feels a little different to be in the midst of it than those who are just voters. Can you imagine what it feels like to know that your much beloved kitty is right at the bottom and getting very few votes?
Perhaps the voting could take place secretly. By that I mean disallowing the option to see the current standings. It is human nature to decide where to cast your vote if you know who’s the underdog or who’s the leader. There would be less impetus to cheat if you can’t immediately see the results of your cheating. …And to be able to calculate how many times you need to change your IP in order to win.
I’m not saying the owners of the winners are the cheats, but it’s probably time wasters who just like to stir it up.
Also the reader’s comments I’ve witnessed recently are pretty much trash-talk. I’m sure controversy is popular to read, but it’s just undignified. Isn’t this supposed to be a nice place to share our cats and their stories with others? The commentor who said “What’s so great about so-and-so?” had not the slightest clue that would be read by a devoted owner and seem hurtful.
It is up to Franny. If she feels that polls are more headache than fun, it is her right to discontinue it or to make changes to the way it’s carried out.
My cat and I were delighted to be in Cat Photo of the Week, but the poll for Cat of the Month was an eye-opener.
my cat Maggie should NOT get cat of the month…she ate one of our goldfish!
Antonio: Yes, I agree that might seem like a disingenuous remark, but not for the same reason as “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” which is a great story. I simply prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt. Also, the email vote is not new. I used it years ago for a different kind of poll, and it was SO time-consuming that I barely had time to do anything else but count votes. Also, if people are inclined to cheat, what’s to stop them from signing up for dozens of free email accounts? As I’ve stated before, Internet polls are imperfect at best.
MyMallandNews: What do you think about the feelings of the winners, with all these comments about cheating? Although no one has come right out and accused the owners and their friends, the implication is there.
Name Withheld: I definitely should have deleted that comment, and I apologize to the owner of that cat. Your comment about the hurtfulness of being at the bottom will be the sole reason I’ll stop these polls, if I so decide.(There really is not any current way of making them more fair than they are.)
I always feel a pang too for those who aren’t getting many votes.
I have been looking at the pictures & the cats of the month for some time now. I love it. People need to get a grip & stop the boo hooing. The last vote turned nasty because people started to post personal nasty comments instead of just voting & enjoying. To me all the kitties are winners. Can’t we all just act adult & enjoy this site?!
Sandie people have a right to speak up when they feel a wrong has been committed. It is not your job to try and stifle opinions.You wrote about nasty comments being posted by others but your comments here are quite nasty about people “getting a grip.” When you said “Can’t we all just act adult & enjoy this site?!” did you mean we should all just dummy up and accept that the contestants that did not win were cheated?
I think the “cat of the…” is one of the more delightful portions of this site. I also think that it’s a game, and it’s something fun for us to watch and participate in. Even if people do cheat, I personally don’t think it’s worth getting very mad about – even if your kitty comes in last place. In the end, you still have your kitty and you know (whether or not anyone agrees) that he/she deserves all the love and honor that you give them. Sure, notoriety on a website is enjoyable, but it’s certainly not worth ending something so wonderful for all of us who aren’t having a problem with it.
I think it’s wonderful to be selected as “cat of the week”, and an honor to participate in the “cat of the month” poll. My cat doesn’t seem to care about ranking, so it doesn’t bother me, either. Keep the polls, and those who choose to cheat must live with their decision. It won’t discourage me from coming to the cat forum!
Every night I give thanks for my pets because of the love that they share and the fun that give me. Shouldn’t all things connected to our pets be fun? No matter if it’s reading an informative column, looking at photos, voting in a poll, or trading information/opinions in a forum. So let’s just have fun and enjoy Franny’s Cats Blog.
Ted: You have very thin skin my friend. Maybe some years will mature you. My comments were not nasty. I was trying to make a point that the last poll for cat of the month had people making very immature comments-but then maybe I’m just a little too old for this..I’ve seen much to much in my 57 years to get myself in a knot over comments. Have a wonderful day my dear friend Ted. May the world not stand still for you at some unforeseen slight that was never there.
Sandie: obviously your nasty judgmental passive aggressive comments about me do have you “in a knot” LOL how amusing.
hey Ted I got a chuckle out of that too. Thanks for the support!
I apologize for my comment (”What’s so great about…?”) For some reason it didn’t occur to me that it would hurt the owner of the cat. It should have occurred to me, but I’m sorry to say that all of the comments were bothering me so much that I just didn’t think. What I really meant was why the particular cat was so much better than some of the other cats and that the other cats also had many merits. I was mostly just trying to express how those comments annoyed me, and I admit that the way I did it was rather immature. I’m sorry, and I didn’t mean to seem cruel. Ferdie was actually very adorable and was my second choice next to another cat. I apologize.
First of all, a disclaimer: I have a cat, Abby, in the current Cat of the Year semifinalist poll. Since I don’t have a computer at home and the on-off method doesn’t work at my job (we were really hoping it would, so all the people who wanted to could vote from here, but no dice), I don’t have much of a chance to vote repeatedly. I don’t know if any of Abby’s other supporters are, though, so I’m not saying every vote she has is a different person.
With that in mind, here’s my opinion: I’m not sure we can call repeated voting “cheating” if there has been no rule posted against it, but it does make me wonder how different all the opinion polls, not just “Cat of the Month,” would look if repeats were impossible. I also like to give people the benefit of the doubt, so, maybe, if each future opinion poll contains a statement saying participants are on their honor not to vote more than once, we’d see a change without causing Franny a lot of extra work. I enjoy the polls, but as long as we still get to see Cats of the Week and their stories (and post friendly comments about each others’ cats – also fun), whatever the majority decides is fine with me.
Abby is so lovely. As long as cat of the week continues I don’t care about the polls. The December poll seemed to cause so much discord. Just ditch it.
Thanks, Doris – I think so, too (of course)! My cats are my babies, and I got a huge kick out of seeing Abby on Cat of the Week back in July, especially when I started getting calls from friends I hadn’t heard from in a while, saying, “Did I just see your cat online?” Which is another benefit of the Cat of the Week – one I bet Franny hadn’t thought about when she started it.
Just to clarify – my “I think so too (of course)!” was referring to Doris’ compliment to Abby. I didn’t realize how it might sound until I saw it posted.
INTEGRITY! You need to utilize it when voting people! It’s national election time in the country, let’s not turn this into another stolen election via voter fraud. Vote for liberal cats, not conservative ones!
All cats are liberal regarding what they want to do, and conservative regarding what they will allow others to do.
Are you people serious? This vote is glorifying the OWNER of the cat, NOT the cat. I’m pretty sure the cats are too out there to care one way or the other. Get a life folks! VOTE “NO” to further voting.
Now that the “cat’s out of the bag” and everyone knows about the possibility of cheating, I think the shine has been taken off the Cat of the Month voting forever. If there is nothing technically possible to improve the integrity of the polling, the bad feelings this generates will only continue.
The basic problem is that everyone is allowed to see the vote count. If you can’t see the current count, you don’t know if you need to vote 5 times or 5000 times. Cheaters wouldn’t even begin if they couldn’t see those results, simple as that.
The downright nastiness I’ve seen in this comment box speaks for itself. All the “get a life!” and the “No, you are too thin-skinned!” just doesn’t belong here. Not helpful suggestions, frankly. This is bringing out the worst in people, and I don’t think any of us have the right to turn Franny’s blog into a slanging match.
I firmly believe it is Franny’s decision despite the results of this opinion poll whether to continue the monthly voting.
Cat of the Week is wonderful, it’s great to see a beloved kitty and read their story. But there’s not a lot of value in separating those kitties into groups of winners and losers when it generates so much ill will. That’s my feeling anyway.
I am disabled and have a service animal cat that assists me and I am appreciative of that help. So beauty is in the eye of each individual beholder. I have never submitted a photo of her to be judged but it doesn’t mean my cat is not a super winner every day in my eyes.
When a nice cat site like this has a poll that allows comments (and comments in a poll were apparently not a good idea in a poll competition here), things got personal and words went back and forth (and still are in this Comments section). But to have feelings getting hurt too, then I deeply feel as though the poll did not succeed as intended and the true purpose of the poll was lost. Its time to abolish the poll and to have all photos submitted as winners.
Good grief….I love my cat, too, but if she lost a beauty contest on the ‘Net, I wouldn’t get all bent out of shape about it & start yelling about cheaters. It’s just a little cat contest, people–get a little perspective!
I enjoy the polls and hate the cheaters.
A person who knows how to use a proxy server software like Vidalia can vote virtually forever without shutting down the computer or even closing the browser. Vidalia connects to servers around the world, and would show a different IP address on your end. A simple click on “Change identity” will route through a different server, and then the person can vote again.
Perhaps to “discourage” this — it’s an imperfect world, and people have their “issues — on the poll you could say something like, “Ya know, if you *cheat*, you really haven’t *won*.”
I don’t know about others, but I always vote for the cat with the fewest votes. They are all so sweet and wonderful I can never choose which is the “best.” It might be good to remove the competition and just have Franny choose Cat of the Week. OR not show the tally…just announce the winner after the voting is concluded. My own cat won Cat of the Month because my friends conducted a mini-campaign asking others to vote for him. I feel sure no one would have taken the trouble to “cheat,” and frankly I didn’t know it was possible until Franny’s explanation. Now I suppose all voting will become suspect.
All the cats are winners and the ones that aren’t picked won’t care. Only the silly owners care. Both of my cats are winners but most likely would not get picked because they are, in truth, just cats. Keep the contest going, it’s fun.
Casey
Dear Hooray,
I have to ask – I’ve never heard of a service cat and it sounds really intriguing. If you don’t mind sharing the information: What does your cat do? Who trained her, and how do you communicate your requests? Do you have links to any groups who deal with this, where I could see details? Thanks in advance for any information you can provide!
There is an online group called Wheel Me on at http://www.wheelmeon.org/serviceanimals.html and although the animals featured right there that you see as you scroll down are dogs, cats can and do help too. My cat trained herself on so much and was very receptive to other training by me. After becoming physically disabled in an accident, I was stalked and attacked. So PTSD with panic attacks, social phobia set in. My cat helps with putting paws on me when she senses a panic attack, and rides in my scooter basket in stores and such to help me fight social phobia. She also tells me when someone is at the front door and she comes to a dog clicker. I made the mistake recently when the phone would ring to keep telling her “hey, why don’t you get that” and now she is bumping against the phone when it rings. With systemic lupus, she senses when I am too tired and pesters me to go to bed. I carry a certified service animal card so I have no problem with her riding in my scooter basket in stores and she is harnessed and attached to my scooter basket. She is continuously learning and she responds to love and attention. Also, she doesn’t use a litter box and uses the puppy “training pads” instead (really easy to use when out).
What about the cat supporters who were asked to vote and the category is not even posted on the main page.
Rather the question posted is
To Vote or Not to Vote. Ironic that
the very vehicle for debate is the one in a race now.
I say there is something rotten in Denmark if you cannot have this debate when a poll is not in session
Hooray-
What a wonderful companion you have to help you. I wish you would submit a photo of her. I would love to know her name and see her picture and know more about you and her.
Lisa
Susan the poll is still in session. Scroll down the main page here and click on “Read Archives”. On that page click on January 2008. The poll to vote for “Cat of the Year” is in there.
This is Franny’s site and she should decide what is good for her and her site. If it were my site, I would choose not to deal with the negatives and make the site as positive as possible. I personally enjoy all the information I get from her as I acquired two kitties last July, and since this is the first time in my 60 years I have ever had cats, I turn to her site for much needed information about cats.
If there is going to be a ruckus over voting for the best cat, I suggest Franny do the choosing. If there are tons of cats to choose from, she could have a gallery page with small pictures so she could show lots more cats.
What a shame! We have allowed a friendly little poll that showcases all these pretty kitties to become a such a mockery. Why couldn’t we just enjoy the beauty and cunning of the cats, and feel the love of the owner(s) in the stories? No, some people just had to cheat. So maybe Franny SHOULD do the choosing, because she seems to be the only responsible, objective one here. But wait, didn’t she already decide to banish the polls?
I’d like to say I agree with Dorothy’s post from beginning to end (’What a shame…’ etc. ) and if Franny doesn’t mind, perhaps she ought to select the ‘winner’. I find it truly heartbreaking, that I can finally say, I have never found a message board where a mud-throwing squirmish has not broken out, or threatened to, despite how innocent the board might be. There’s always someone who likes to spark a fight, and there’s always a slew of people with hair-trigger sensitivities that insist in taking personal offense to a general comment, making an issue out of it, and keeping the war going. I suppose I have been niave to believe that any message board is safe from the adolescent behavior that seems to engulf the net, even one which at its very essence perpetuates the love and celebration of something other than oneself.
Hooray,
That is amazing and wonderful. I can believe a cat would be a great choice to ward off panic attacks – sometimes it feels like they can stare right into your heart and mind, doesn’t it?
I had to laugh about the phone. I can see Abby doing the same thing, considering she keeps trying to let people in the front door of my building with the buzzer! (Don’t worry, it’s either my parents, my best friend or one of the neighbors she likes.) The best to you and thanks for the information, I look forward to learning more about it.
Hisssssssssss:)
Now I understand the meaning of “cat fight”. How immature it is to try to cheat. And how immature it is to be so concerned about cheating. Our little kittys are precious to each and everyone of us. If they don’t win this month, so be it. You love your kitty and your kitty knows that. How insecure it is to have to be the “winner”
Mommy Cat I don’t understand how it is immature to be concerned about ethics.
Dear Franny,
PLEASE don’t shut down the”Cat of the Month”column!!!I enjoy this column with a passion!From now on,if there is a cheat vote,delete it,and send the cheater a reprimand,because if you shut down this column,it will ruin the enjoyment of the rest of those who do NOT cheat.;0