An important note for Hugo voting.

[theweaselking]

More so this year than most years, it's important to understand how voting "No Award" works.

The Teal Deer: If you want to vote No Award over something, put No Award at the end of your ballot and DO NOT list the things you're voting No Award over.


Basically, if you put something on your ballot AT ALL, you risk your vote going to that thing, especially since "No Award" is most often the first thing eliminated. The reason it works that way is a little counterintuitive, until you realise that No Award is just another candidate on the ballot.

For an example showing the problem, let's take perennial No-Award-voting favourite category, "Best Doctor Who Episode Written By Stephen Moffat". In 2012, the candidates were Community, some dude having a meltdown at the previous year's Hugo awards, and three largely indistinguishable Doctor Who episodes written by Stephen Moffat, Neil Gaiman aping the style of Stephen Moffat, and Tom MacRae.


Let's imagine your ballot. You are a sensible person of good taste! You want Community to win and all the other options to die in a fire.

You SHOULD vote:
1. Community
2. No Award

The naive model of Hugo voting that a great many people have might make this mistake, though: Because they want the other options to die in a fire, but ESPECIALLY hate that one dude's meltdown and the particularly bad Stephen Moffat episode, they might vote like this
1. Community
2. No Award
3. Some dude having a meltdown onstage
4. Stephen Moffat.

And, y'see, that's bad. Because of how the vote counting works, many people THINK they're "leaving off" Tom MacRae and Neil Gaiman but making extra sure to "downvote" Moffat and Some Dude, when actually they're voting *for* Some Dude and Stephen Moffat *over* MacRae and Gaiman.

Because the voters in this category historically have poor taste, let's imagine the first-round of ballots runs:

Gaiman:50
Moffat: 40
MacRae: 30
Some Dude: 30
No Award: 10
Community: 1. You are the only person with taste this hypothetical year, hypothetical Hugo Voter.

So, Community is eliminated, and all the first-place Community votes (yours) now go to their second choice: No Award. Which is now last and *it* is eliminated, which dumps all the votes for it (including yours) to the next choice down. In your case, Some Dude.

Let's pretend the 10 people who stuck No Award first really did mean it and didn't list anything, so their votes now vanish. This leaves the current voting as:

Gaiman:50
Moffat: 40
Some Dude: 31 <- your vote went here!
MacRae: 30

... and MacRae is now last, and is eliminated.

Congratulations, Hugo Voter. You just eliminated Tom MacRae by throwing your support to Some Dude, when you *meant* to say that Some Dude was so terrible that the only person he should lose to this year is Stephen Moffat and you were actually somewhat okay with Tom MacRae even if you didn't think Doctor Who should be mistaken for "best of the year".


The point is, voting No Award is a useful tool! But anything you list after No Award is going to get your vote and your support BEFORE things that aren't listed at all. So don't do that. If your ballot goes:

1. No Award
2. Chlamydia
3. David Duke

and you leave off the rest of the possibilities because you haven't read them or don't care, then when No Award is eliminated (it almost always is eliminated first, or second if one of the nominees is L Ron Hubbard), your vote goes to Chlamydia. And when Chlamydia is eliminated, you've now voted for the Grand Wizard. So *do not* list people you genuinely do not want to get the award below No Award. List No Award last, and do not list them at all. Things you list under No Award can and possibly *will* get your vote.[1]

And now you know! And don't fucking vote for Doctor Fucking Who, seriously people. It's okay, but it's certainly not the best TV the year has produced.

For everyone who doesn't care about this style of voting or nerd awards but has still read this far, here's a ninja astronaut airsurfing a Draculabot:



[1]: I am ignoring the No Award Test, because it complicates the example unnecessarily.

Comments

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Dr McNinja!

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Blogging this; thanx

No award

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

User supergee referenced to your post from No award (http://supergee.livejournal.com/3289243.html) saying: [...] How to vote against [...]

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

It gets even worse, from my example's perspective, if all the Tom MacRae voters *really liked* Some Dude. Not enough to vote him first, but certainly enough to vote him SECOND. Which means that, because of your hate-vote for Some Dude, Tom MacRae gets dropped and all those votes go to... Some Dude.

Leaving the next round of the ballot at:
Some Dude: 61
Gaiman: 50
Moffat: 40

Uh-oh! Instead of eliminating Some Dude by putting MacRae on your ballot *anywhere* above him, you've not only eliminated MacRae but you just hate-voted Some Dude into first place, eliminating Moffat! Better hope Moffat fans like Gaiman more than Some Dude, otherwise your hate-vote just gave Some Dude the Hugo.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I hope some version of these instructions are included in the voter's packet.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

You do know, right, that even if your No Award vote is eliminated, it comes back for the "No Award Showdown test" at the end of the process:

After a tentative winner is determined by normal Instant Runoff Voting, you compare the number of ballots that voted No Award above the Tentative Winner (or didn't list the TW) versus those ballots that listed the Tentative Winner above No Award (or didn't list NA). Ballots that list neither the TW nor NA don't count for this test. If by some chance No Award comes out on top in this test (it's never actually happened), No Award wins.

The important thing here is that your votes below No Award are saying, "I don't really want this candidate to win at all, but if it must win, I prefer it over the others I've ranked lower." Your vote ends up showing a preference between the candidates you don't like that much while still having a technical possibility of knocking it off completely when it comes to the No Award Showdown.

This Showdown is not part of normal Instant Runoff Voting. It's Section 6.5 of the WSFS Constitution (http://www.wsfs.org/bm/const-2013.htm#article6).

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

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?

[nojay.livejournal.com]

A quick summary --

1. Write your preferred choices in order.

2. If you don't care if something else wins, don't write their name on the ballot.

3. If you actively don't want something to win, write No Award as your last choice after the ones you like AND NOTHING ELSE afterwards.

Does that sound about right, Kevin?

Interesting Links for 14-05-2014

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

User andrewducker referenced to your post from Interesting Links for 14-05-2014 (http://andrewducker.livejournal.com/3090537.html) saying: [...] ) A brief reminder on how ranked voting works (in this case, for The Hugo) [...]

An important note for Hugo voting.

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

User lsanderson referenced to your post from An important note for Hugo voting. (http://lsanderson.livejournal.com/2914174.html) saying: [...] An important note for Hugo voting. How to vote for No Award as your last best choice [...]

[frith]

That's not a ninja, ninja are silent and unseen, not loud and sticking out like a sore thumb. The surfer is in fact my brother (there's a VR screen in the helmet so he doesn't realize how far above the ground he is).

[malkaesther.livejournal.com]

I think I finally understand how the voting works. This is my first real year voting. Thanks for the great post.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I really appreciate this explanation.

Of course, if they don't release the package soon I'm going to have to vote for Best Fan Writer and nothing else, because I won't have time to review.

[calico-reaction.livejournal.com]

Thank you. So much. I was wondering how NO AWARD worked with the ranking system, and I wonder why they simply don't disable your ability to rank once that's selected. Oh, and THANK YOU for the particular example you chose. I'm still bitter over that Community episode not winning.

No title

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

User marthawells referenced to your post from No title (http://marthawells.livejournal.com/604256.html) saying: [...] this again, as it's getting closer to the Hugo voting deadline: An important note for Hugo voting. [...]