The Cutest Kitten Contest Polls are CLOSED effective 8/31/10 at midnight E.T. The votes have been tallied and any votes cast after this time will not be valid. The winners will be announced sometime early Wednesday morning. Original post:
Your votes have narrowed down the Cutest Kittens contestants down to the 9 finalists. The semi-finals voting was very close in all three polls - sometimes by a margin of two or three votes, and in the third poll, two contestants tied for the second place.
This poll will remain open from now until midnight ET on August 31, 2010. Thanks to ALL the contestants, and our readers' support for this contest, and good luck to the remaining nine finalists.
Comments
I think there should be a new way of voting, I don’t want to seem like a cry baby or something, but in my opinion there are alot of kittens much cuter with more interesting stories than the one leading now. That little Chibi and Andy Miles are adorable and so are there stories. Sometime I think the ballot box is stuffed. Voting should be limited to 1 vote per email address. I am sorry if I stepped on someones toes, but it is just my humble opinion.
I agree with cw, it seems the same way to me. While all the kittens submitted are adorably cute, the ones selected aren’t near as cute or as interesting ‘stories’. I agree completely that it should be limited to 1 vote per email address to ensure fairness. Sorry if I’ve offended anyone but I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels the unfairness involved.
cw and ab:
Thank you for voicing your concerns. Votes ARE limited to 1 vote per ISP address, however this can be circumvented by any who care to go to the time and trouble to do so, and their consciences are not bothered by it.
However, one way contestants can improve their odds is to post “vote for my cat” requests to message boards or email lists they belong to, or groups (such as on Facebook) which they are part of.
That method is neither prohibited nor encouraged by me.
An aside to “ab”: You wrote: “While all the kittens submitted are adorably cute, the ones selected aren’t near as cute or as interesting ’stories’.”
I personally selected the first 30 semi-finalists out of an initial pool of 47 submittals. The criteria I used was an objective analysis based 50-50 on the photo and the story. If you have a problem with those selections, I’m the one at “fault.”
My two cents, for whatever its worth. First off, this contest is now “darkened” for the current leading kitten contestant. Shame on you. This is supposed to be fun, after all, there are no prizes to be gained here. I feel these comments are unfair to any or all contestants and allegations unfounded. While we all have the right to comment, we should also consider feelings of the owners of these adorable kittens when doing so. Each and every one of us feel our cat, kitten, dog, puppy, bird, gecko,etc is the cutest and best. How would any of you feel if you read these comments and it was your kitten targeted? While we are all entitled, these are simply JUST your unsubstantiated opinions and to suggest unfairness without proof is very unfair unless you can prove otherwise. In order to spare hurt feelings, and in all fairness, i don’t feel these comments should remain here, for all to see. Did you ever consider a contestants circumstances? Do they have a large pool of family and friends that are voting and rooting them on like they would in any competitive event? I know i would be “guilty” of that. May be this means that i should never enter into a contest like this because it would be unfair to the chances of other contestants with a smaller voting pool? Come on people lets all play nice in the sandbox…
Lastly, Franny, I would like to commend you on your constant state of cool and fairness in such situations.
Thank you, Jo Ann. It is “darkened” for me, too, to the point that it may be a long time before I hold another contest, if ever.
I’m sorry to hear that Franny, I for one will miss the contests. They’re fun and give us all a chance to show off our cats! I am new to the contests on About.com Cats and looked forward to seeing and possibly participating in future contests. It’s a shame that for a few “sore losers” have to ruin it for everyone else. Let’s hope with some time, you will have a change of heart. May be there is a way to ensure only one vote per computer, per day? I know on the Petcentric site Photo Challenge of the week, will only register one vote per day per voter computer. Cat Channel also implements the same. Any ways, I am not very tech savvy so not sure how easy or difficult this might be, just my thoughts on the subject.
Jo Ann, it’s unfathomable to me why anyone would bother to cheat for a contest with no prizes except “bragging rights.”
Our tech staff is far too busy to spend the time and $$ necessary to overhaul our poll software. (Take a look at post #9 in this blog, as an example of the time and cost.)
However, I think we may have worked out a possible solution, which would involve a judges panel to make the final decision *after* the poll. Also, the next contest will involve one of the show & tell galleries on my site that is not billed as a contest. So stay tuned.
Happy to hear this Franny! I will be on the lookout for this and hope i can participate! After reading post #9, I now understand the cost involved to make any changes to the poll software and the time constraints of your tech staff. I am happy to hear of your possible solution and truly hope it works to everyone’s advantage. As for the “alleged cheating” in this case, no one who commented has any solid proof of this and should still remain as “ignorant suspicion” based simply on who they think should be winning and why. People are funny, that’s why I love animals more! They are so innocent and pure, except, of course, when our cats “use” us to get what they want! =-) Or, is this merely called the use of their survival instincts? Whatever it is, they are so darned cute at it! Thanks again, Franny!
Franny, I too feel badly about the first couple of comments. All kittens are adorable (well, none are as adorable as U was, but I digress), but honestly! This is not something where anyone is going to win money for a shelter, or for themselves. It’s a fun little poll. Period.
Franny…’it’s a fun little poll’…bravo to you for doing it and be glad that some of us get such enjoyment from your efforts. Thank you.
Wow…..I am really surprised by the comments made by the two individuals who’s thoughts on which kitten may be cuter, or who’s story may be more interesting and as a result, deserve more votes. Those are your thoughts. THIS IS THE INTERNET, millions of folks have access to Franny’s site and every other site out there. We out here on the internet have our own thoughts, these free thoughts apparently do not fall in line what Ab and CW feel people should be thinking. Sorry to have to say that but that is how their comments read, that people need to fall in line and think about their kitten’s entries the way they think. If people do not conform and vote for other entries, automatically this means shenannigans are going on rather than people simply exercising free choice.
PS : I may have been mistaken when I concluded that AB and CW had kittens as entries and that we should be thinking along the same lines as they. I have no way of knowing whether or not they actually have kittens entered in the contest so I retract that statement. The remainder of my comments stand regarding suspicions of foul play when things do not go our way.
My only problem with the contest is that it was called ‘Cutest Kitten Contest’, when infact the story attached to the kitten played such a huge part. It should have been called ‘Cutest Kitten with most tragic tale Contest’…to be truly fair.
Anybody else care to reply to heath? FWIW, the rules called for voters to try to use 50/50 consideration for photo/story. That’s the criteria I always use for my Cat Pictures of the Week.
And I guarantee that will ALWAYS be the criteria for any future contests.
GMAB
Franny, If the story attached to the cat/kitten counts for 50% of the vote then that is fine of course…and this works when you have ‘Cat of the Week’ entries. However, once you attach words like ‘Cutest’ then it becomes confusing. Perhaps this contest should have just been called ‘Kitten Contest’.
It’s a little late for that debate now, isn’t it? The rules/guidelines were clearly announced both at time of entry and when the voting first started.
I’m sorry you have a problem with the name.
Jiminy crickets!! Are you people bored or something? Leave it alone already. Why all the nit picking here? First with voting inaccuracies, now with the contest names! Come on people, it sounds like you have nothing better to do then to bash something completely fun. My cat was in one of these contests and didn’ t win and you don’t hear me bashing the contests/contest names/voting problems, etc. I’m actually looking forward to participate in another. These are Franny’s contests and the rules are the rules and the contests are named what they are. Live with it! Put your misplaced energy somewhere else. Really….relax!
Oy.
Just… oy.
There’s no such thing as a not-cute kitten. So, I don’t think anyone should feel slighted if their furbaby didn’t win. People tend to vote for whichever photo/story speaks to them personally for whatever reason – maybe a particular photo reminds them of their own cat, or a story just strikes them as funny or sweet. “Cute” is an arbitrary designation, unlike cat shows where judging is done based on how well the animal conforms to specific breed standards. To me, entering one of my cats in a photo contest is just an excuse for me to show off how adorable I think he/she is. That won’t change, no matter how many people do or don’t vote for my cats. They’ll always be the cutest and best in my eyes, and that’s all that counts (and it’s all the cats care about, anyway)!
Well said Sue!