I thought I understood this, but now you've confused me again.
It seems like some people think that leaving off works is "neutral", and putting them below "no award" is a vote against? I'd never heard of that misconception, but I agree it's wrong. AIUI, basically works you don't vote for are treated as ranked equally at the bottom of your ballot (below no award if and only if you listed no award on your ballot).
In fact, it might be nice if there were a way of saying "I haven't read these books, and if people who HAVE read them think they're better than my #1 I don't disagree", but there isn't.
But your proposed solution only seems to make sense if you've heard of that misconception. I would have phrased it as "don't leave anything out of your ballot in the middle, if it's better than anything you did list". In fact, I think my explanation of the ballot would just be something like a sample ballot:
1. Gandhi 2. Someone fairly good 3. Someone else fairly good 4. No award 5. Someone mediocre 6. Someone else mediocre 7. Someone who's friends with Hitler 8. Hitler.
Leaving off everything below "no award" seems completely wrong if you don't want any of them to win, but if they do, you really, really, really want the mediocre people to win over friends-with-hitler and want friends-with-hitler to win over hitler?
(no subject)
Date: 2014-05-14 08:24 am (UTC)It seems like some people think that leaving off works is "neutral", and putting them below "no award" is a vote against? I'd never heard of that misconception, but I agree it's wrong. AIUI, basically works you don't vote for are treated as ranked equally at the bottom of your ballot (below no award if and only if you listed no award on your ballot).
In fact, it might be nice if there were a way of saying "I haven't read these books, and if people who HAVE read them think they're better than my #1 I don't disagree", but there isn't.
But your proposed solution only seems to make sense if you've heard of that misconception. I would have phrased it as "don't leave anything out of your ballot in the middle, if it's better than anything you did list". In fact, I think my explanation of the ballot would just be something like a sample ballot:
1. Gandhi
2. Someone fairly good
3. Someone else fairly good
4. No award
5. Someone mediocre
6. Someone else mediocre
7. Someone who's friends with Hitler
8. Hitler.
Leaving off everything below "no award" seems completely wrong if you don't want any of them to win, but if they do, you really, really, really want the mediocre people to win over friends-with-hitler and want friends-with-hitler to win over hitler?