And the cheating gets worse, at least that is the take from Tales from the Ballot Box. I don’t agree. I mean don’t get me wrong rabid fangirls are bad news but fangirls… well we all have a lil fangirl in us don’t we?
And really, raise your hand if you are expecting ANY best of [name your year here] poll about romance novels (or hell anything) to be the hard truth. The cold facts. The what the hell ever.
I love the year end shit. I use them for rec’s. They are fun to mock. They can even be fun to do. But personally I haven’t voted yet in the AAR poll. For two reasons really, the whole voting process is set up to take 100 years and oddly I think something would be wrong with my ballot… and it would end up where ever Jimmy Hoffa is.
So what about you? What do you think? Is it bad for an author to post – yo poll here. And those nasty fangirls come out to play? Are you gonna vote? Do you care? Do you think too much fucking thought has gone into it sucking the fun out of it?
My thoughts on the whole cheater, cheater, fangirl beater would be here. Or you can’t be arsed to go there, you can see it behind the cut.
Same thoughts as last year…
Posted by Sybil on January 29, 2007 at 13:38:25:
How can you judge what ‘the general romance readership’ does or doesn’t like? And a large part of that ‘general romance readership’ doesn’t come to AAR, so if they hear about the poll and come vote, what right do you have to throw out the vote?
That fangirl could honestly believe that book is IT. They could think it is the bestest evah that year. So what? You trash their vote cuz… It might not be so much about OMG lets make our author win, win, win as much as oh cool lets vote. Don’t get me wrong, I think rabid fangirls are the evol but if you are going to have an open vote, why treat them as a lower life form?
No online poll means anything. This one won’t anymore than the others did but it is fun to talk about, helps people find rec’s and whatever. But you are invalidating your own results by throwing out votes from people you deem fangirls or have an adgenda.
I know I am in the minority but to me cheating is 1 person voting more than once. If five different people come in and vote for the same books, throwing out those votes is cheating.
Wouldn’t it be simple enough to have ‘true’ AAR readers sign up for a super secret message board or something and only let the smart readers of AAR who don’t vote for the same book twice and spend a few hours filing out the ballot.
Of course I have no idea how in the world Ask For It is anyones favorite funny, so what do I know. And seriously think this is being over thought but hey such is the life of fandom.
I think showing interim results every several days probably skews the results more than ballot stuffing. By providing that list, those books get stuck in the head, and it’s almost more about voting for your favorite listed than your own favorite. I think there would be more diversity if there wasn’t a posted “short list”.
As for fangirls…Putting aside all those icky feelings about not having my OWN fangirls *g*, I think if you’ve got the juice to summon an army of voting fangirls, then more power to you. They don’t randomly draw an author’s name out of the hat—they’re a fangirl of that particular author for a reason.
A fangirl’s fandom starts, with my understanding of the word, with a love for the book. If I feel JR Ward’s Lover Revealed was the Best Romance, I’m probably also going to think it had the best hero, the best heroine, the most romantic couple, the most hankies, etcetera etcetera etcetera. So discounting a straight ticket smacks to me of “Well, I didn’t think the book that was good, so therefore this many votes claiming it was can’t possibly ALL be valid.” Although, it would depend on how often that title (using JR as an example) was put into fields. I wouldn’t consider Lover Revealed to be the funniest, for sure. Nor does it have the best villain. If it’s the only book listed anywhere, it’s probably a fangirl.
If a reader put Lover Revealed in every applicable category and filled out none of the other blanks, it’s obvious she’s only voting to vote for JR.
So? Does that make that vote invalid? Not to me. The only thing I could see being an obvious would be multiple votes proven to have come from one computer. That’s wrong.
All I know is someday I’m going to have to find me some fangirls, dammit, so I can be on the list. 🙂
I didnt care for how AAR listed all the books that got a B+ or higher on the top of their poll page. Way to be subtle, AAR. At that time, THE RAVEN PRINCE had yet to be reviewed so there is the potential that that might have hurt TPR’s chances. Altho I say that any year that has a new Loretta Chase release (even if its just an average effort from her like LORD PERFECT), there is no way that any other book is gonna get “Best Romance”.
I also noticed that ASK FOR IT was nominated for Favorite Funny. What I want to know is why is there a category called “Most Tortured Hero” and no corresponding one for Heroine? What? Heroines cant be tortured?
I’m really hurt *sniffle* I think I qualify as a Shannon Stacey fangirl.
I think you’re the ORIGINAL Shannon Stacey fangirl (well, outside of my morning coffee buds because they WILL email me and call me really bad names if leave them out). 🙂
I should make you a shirt. *giggles*
Speaking of fangirls, consider this my plug for a Seducing Simon sequel. You keep saying no, but you’d be surprised how often people eventually do things they don’t want to just to shut me up. (Or maybe you wouldn’t be surprised. *g*)
There is a sequel? I want!
IMO, just because author A has a lot of fans who’ll go to a site to vote for her, doesn’t make it cheating. It means she’s got more fans who’re reading the loops and blogs and see the polls or see her talking about the polls and go vote. (BTW, that’s different IMO than the rabid fangirl issue)
I will say – “Hey, X is having an end of year poll” and I may say, “hey, X book of mine is up for” whatever poll choice because I think it’s cool people nominate my books and hey, if folks want to vote for me, that’s wonderful. I do encourage people to go and vote in different polls across the web, I do and not for myself – I vote in categories I don’t write in all the time, hell, I vote in categories I do write in as well and not for myself all the time either. I love books, I love to share books that ring my bell.
A “reader” poll is a reader poll. You’ll see some differences across different sites because different types of readers will hang out at different boards. But I don’t think JR Ward or Sherrilyn Kenyon need to send their readers out to load the ballot boxes – I think a lot of people like them (for example, there are other fan favorites)
Course, I don’t have legions of fangirls, rabid or not, damn it, so what do I know?
Interesting topic. I’m not sure where I stand on it, but I’m thinking. (Ow.)
I looked over the first page of the poll where all the DIK’s are listed. Didn’t. Read. One. (Started Lord Perfect, but then my daughter stole it from me.) I’m thinking that my vote this year would be totally worthless.
I can see why a discussion baord runs a poll — to inspire discussion about the results. And I can see why an author would run a poll or contest — to inspire hits and to create buzz about the website. Maybe the issue here is that AAR has outgrown its need for a reader’s poll. If every review includes an opportunity for discussion about the book (and the review and how accurately it reflects the reader’s opinions), then maybe the poll istelf at the end of the year is just redundant.
“Just because” propositions tend to have a hard time staying on topic.
Browncoats and Joss Whedon fans do this all the time, and I’ve never considered it a bad thing. So I think if a reader has fallen in love with an author’s writing enough to spend the time to fill in the form then I can’t see the harm. Even if you invalidate some of those votes because the book clearly doesn’t fit a particular category, I don’t think all the votes should be cast aside.
It is hard to see how one fan’s vote can be summarily dismissed if that truly is the only one that they loved this year. Part of the AAR ballot problem is that it requires you to remember all the books you read. Sometimes only one or two stick out.
I’m awfully confused how “Ask for It” by Sylvia Day is a favorite funny.
Hmmm…veddy, veddy interesting. I could see how it would bug the folks at AAR. I think what’s really most frustrating (to those it would frustrate) is the idea that an author’s fangirls could actually skew the results. Like the rabid fangirls actually outnumber the thoughtful AAR regular readers. Am I making sense?
Although I find some fangirl behavior rather…disturbing, I could give a rat’s ass in this case. If whichever author inspires such devotion in her fans, it means they truly love her work. It’s not like she’s getting her nephews and former first grade teacher and coworkers who’ve never a read a romance in their life to vote. Although I’m sure that happens too. Probably wouldn’t skew the results. Unless she’s got a big family.
I spend too much time thinking about the AAR polls. It’s silly, really. Did I leave someone out? What if it wasn’t really my favorite? But I adore voting. For anything. It’s because I’m a a product of that whole Tabitha Soren, MTV, “Choose or Lose” stuff back in the day.
I’m awfully confused how “Ask for It†by Sylvia Day is a favorite funny.
Jane hunny, I was thinking the exact same thing.
Having at one point run a poll that involved ballots and ballot box stuffing, a lot of times what the oversight person looks for is authors creating multiple accounts to vote over and over for themselves. It’s not just the fangirls! Often the ballot box stuffing is a straight ticket with the same typos, over and over, all from the same IP address and in a short timeframe, albeit from different hotmail and yahoo accounts…. Yep. Good times.
Oh Ellie I completely and totally agree! Same IP? throw all the votes out and block the fucker… cheating is cheating
But different people? Open voting? Don’t whine oh woe is me people say we are not a reflection of the general reader then say well if you don’t take enough time or vote for the right people I am throwing your vote out.
eh whatever… they can call it however they want it but why lie… just say it is what it is… not open, not all inclusive but an AAR Reader Poll period