The time I hate the Internet

[apocalypsos]

Okay, so. Kristin at E! Online has her Save Our Show poll every year, and for some reason the networks actually listen to her and use that as a gauge to help them decide to keep some shows with questionable ratings. Interesting, since most TV show fans don't trust her far enough to throw her, although some would certainly be willing to try. (*cough*)

Anyway, her Save Our Show poll, which this year is an online poll. Oh, that won't get hacked by bots at ALL.

The current standings.

I remember seeing standings that disparate before, waaaaay back when I was in Highlander fandom and People magazine was having some sort of Sexiest Men poll or something. If I remember correctly the results were going to make it into the magazine, so someone in the fandom made a bot and Adrian Paul, Peter Wingfield, and Stan Kirsch made the top ten, and I'm pretty sure we got another few people in there. A bunch of people that nearly no one knows just because of a goddamn bot. Fabulous.

I don't know if Gilmore Girls fandom has a bot, but considering Veronica Mars fandom does it doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility. (They're just smart enough not to mention links to such bots in public posts, apparently. And ... heh.)

This kind of crap is why I can't stand Kristin. I expect fandom to do this sort of crap. But even if she IS a gossip columnist, she's still some form of journalist and you'd think she'd have something vaguely resembling ethics.

But a show of hands for anyone who actually expects her to say word one about cheating. Anyone? Anyone at all? No? Didn't think so.

Comments

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

*lower lip trembles*

Not even one percent for HIMYM? NOT EVEN ONE?

*sniffles*

I am disgusted.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I imagine it would be bigger if there weren't ginormous amounts of cheating going on. *growls*

[trishalynn.livejournal.com]

Damn shame I don't know how to program a voting bot. Do you?

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

Man, I wish.

I realize cheating is bad, not to mention kind of pointless, but... man, if everyone else is doing it, we just look like we don't CARE.

[trishalynn.livejournal.com]

As long as I get to own the entire run of "How I Met Your Mother" on DVD, I'll be happy and content. Why does no one love that show but me? NPK deserves lots of love for playing the gayest, most mercenary straight man ever.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

See, THIS is what I'm talking about. The smaller shows that might not win but still might show an impressive amounts of votes otherwise look like they're not getting votes at all because of this. It's disgusting and selfish.

[foenix.livejournal.com]

You're not alone! I love the show! Had to watch an episode or two earlier this year and was instantly hooked.

Amazon selling the s1 set for less than 20 bucks at the exact same time sealed the deal. ;)

[trishalynn.livejournal.com]

Yep, yep, yep! I got the first set a while ago and marathoned them, one disc a night. It was... well, legendary! ^_^

[foenix.livejournal.com]

And *awesome*!

Honestly think this season hasn't been quite as good, but there's been some of the best single episodes this year, too.

[opportunemoment.livejournal.com]

Scrubs needs to get itself a bot. The rest I don't have much feeling for but it's Scrubs and it's got 0% at the moment. That's very sad.

[chaneen.livejournal.com]

Well, according to Zach Braff, it looks like Scrubs is pretty much a go for renewal. He talks about it in his blog, here (about halfway down; if that link doesn't work, it's the most recent entry on zachbraff.com). It'll be the final season, but if NBC cancels it, ABC (who owns the show) has said they'll pick it up. So they'll be able to wrap it up, which will be awesome.

[amalthia]

okay there is no way! Gilmore Girls has more online fans than Supernatural!

[photo-confused.livejournal.com]

for some reason i get a sick sense of happiness of the fact that even though they had a bot, VM got trampled by Gilmore Girls hehe..

[besquared.livejournal.com]

what I don't get is how GG is winning here. they have to have a bot, because no one on the internet cares about it that much.

oh vmars! I think the shenannagins are cute. now those are fans that care a little too much.

[laurelin-kit.livejournal.com]

Oh, this has been pissing me off a LOT lately. I hate VM fandom. It's so petty and nasty and shortsighted. Cheating on an online poll to save your favorite show, yeah, THAT'S going to curry good favor.

And yeah, I bet Kristin won't do anything about it or mention it or redo the poll.

[amalthia]

okay i"ve been trying to figure out how to revote for Supernatural using the same method as that one website. :( but i'd already voted from my home computer. It never occurred to me that anyone would cheat this badly. I mean i did vote from two computers,work and home...but dude this is just crazy!!! 9999???

basically, I feel like if they are going to cheat we should too.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I don't think we should cheat at all. It makes it a hell of a lot harder to claim the results are bogus due to cheating when you did too and/or the result of your cheating has led to your shows being about even.

If this whole thing is over and only one or two fandoms have nearly all of the votes, it makes it a LOT easier for the rest of us to turn around and call foul.

[amalthia]

well it looks like voting actually is over and it looks like the cheaters are going to get away with it. But really before this it didn't even occur to me to cheat beyond using my work and home computer to vote. It's just some people take things overboard. I can't help it GG had 8 years already and VM isn't the show it used to be why are they so hung up on keeping them? to the point that they'd be willing to cheat.

[newredshoes]

The thing about GG "winning" is it's completely meaningless if it can't persuade Alexis Bledel to come back -- and hell, after seven seasons, I'd probably be bored of being pigeonholed too.

But -- yeah. We were all made to believe that this was an extremely close race. Not to mention that the shows on that list that have been renewed are, I think, all in the 0% category.

Just... yeah.

[svmadelyn.livejournal.com]

When she announces the "winner", I'm personally hoping a bunch of people will get in her face in the comments. *cough*

[winterweathered.livejournal.com]

Has anyone e-mailed Kristin the link to the VM bot?? I'm going to, because I am a bitch, and because that stuff makes me ashamed to say that I watch the show. First we have a huge group of people "no longer in the fandom" deciding to actively campaign to get the show cancelled. Then we have people cheating on an online poll? Retarded.

I actually would believe that GG didn't have a bot, though... I think the readers of Kristin's column tend to be big fans of that show.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I actually would believe that GG didn't have a bot, though... I think the readers of Kristin's column tend to be big fans of that show.

The problem with that is that according to her the third-place show suddenly leapt to first within a few days. If Veronica Mars is in second and they're all using a bot it either means that Gilmore Girls have a bot or that thousands of Gilmore Girls fans suddenly came out of the woodwork and voted for three days straight or so.

[winterweathered.livejournal.com]

Fandom sucks, dude. I am proud of us for our legitimate little 7%.

[astrothsknot.livejournal.com]

Results are meaningless anyway. networks don't pay a blind bit notice to her, it's just a wee bitty extra publicity in a thowaway comment.

Think of the publicity that we can get when VM wins and the shit storm that can erupt from online cheating.

If it's a quiet newsweek, it'll fly. I'll bring the drinks. Someone else can get the popcorn

[newredshoes]

Hey, the bot has vanished! And voting is open again. Or at least I was able to get to a voting page just now.

Eenteresting...

[allyoops.livejournal.com]

One of the SOS posts has over 160 pages of comments on it, the most recent ones including gems such as, 'it's okay to vote however many times you want/to use bots because they didn't say you couldn't'. Yeah, right. 'Cause cookies that prevent you from voting more than once weren't proof enough that you were only meant to vote once.

It's sad that people think that if it's not explicitly detailed in the rules that cheating is wrong, then it's perfectly okay to do it. :/

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Newspaper journalist, first time doing an online poll... I wouldn't be surprised if she was honest, just too naive to even comprehend bots...

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever seen her writing for a newspaper, but I know for a fact she's been online for years and this can't possibly be the first time she or the people she works with have done an online poll of this type. They do this particular poll every year but usually they do it by email.

And naive she may be, but honesty isn't one of her strong points. Out of all of the gossip columnists out there who spread spoilers on a regular basis, nearly all of the ones she gives out in her chats are either old news or foilers. She's notorious for being completely full of crap.