Mouth 2 Mouth

This is going to be a great deal of reading.  :)  Thanks for putting it all in order to access them all. I booked marked this for fast reference. Many Thanks!

Sincerely,
William

Caleb - wow!  I'm impressed - this will be a great deal of work, but I think it is a good idea - thanks!

Hi Caleb,

Thank you for putting things easily in one place for all to find and for giving us a great and secure way to vote. 

Take care,

Tisza

Looks like a great way to do it and verify authenticity. Thanks

I joined active rain week 2 of project blogger.  I notice a few of the apprentices, but did we lose a few bloggers on the way?

Caleb...

Are the contestants allowed to vote for themselves?

I am not the only one wondering about that :)

TLW...ROAR!

The contestants can and should vote for themselves.

Thank you.

Cool...

Hear that guys. Go vote for yourself :)

Thanks TLW - I would have totally NOT done that.

I know :)

Caleb - is this open to only Active Rainers or others as well?

Ines,  Unless I'm missing something about the contest rules I believe it is open to the entire audience.  So not just ActiveRainer's.

Geez - I am going to have to bookmark this so I can read at my leisure. Thanks for putting the information all in one place!

Caleb,

I am wondering if the voting will be worth 210 points or 150 points or some other number? I'm not really sure I understand how it is working.

Also, several people have emailed me stating that they get a bounce message when they've tried to email in their vote..... So I'm a little concerned (probably a dozen have told me this). Is it working OK for others?

Thanks,
Mary

Mary there should be no reason for a bounce, we discussed your particular issue off the post.  The points alloted at 15% of the judge's input should be a total of 693 points to be divided between the votes.

Caleb,

Fair is fair. These bloggers deserve to win fairly.

Wow, I can't believe it's time to vote. It's so hard. They are all so great! Going to go back for a quick refresh, then cast my vote. Thanks!

Caleb's right - the problem with the bouncing of my friends' emails apparently had to do with the web-based email program I was using. Sorta like copying something out of MS Word causes extra coding to get attached - that was happening with my email telling people where to send their vote. It was not visible to me but became part of the email when I hit "send". So the bounce problem had nothing to do with AR.

Let me get this straight.  So Mary's friends can just vote for her without worrying about which blog is best.  So anyone can vote for Kevin without reading his blog.  Do I have that right?

So I can send an email for everyone I know as long as I put their full name and phone number and tell them I'm doing it so they say they agree with the vote when you call.

Just making sure I've got this right. It's a popularity numbers game.  Whoever has the most friends wins.

Kev...Joan Rivers rules.

 

Not win's, but wins the majority of the audience vote.

LOL.  On that basis.  Who cares who wins?  Stop the audience vote now.  It's not a sound basis for whose blog is in first place.  Ditch it.  No better than the last system, if my Mom in Philly can vote just because I asked her to.

It's time for people to grow the hell up.  You're acting like a bunch of kids.  Having your friends vote for you...please.  What does that prove?

ARDELL

I'm so watching all of this transpire from the sidelines.  Gone through a lot of popcorn.  ARDELL, Joan does rule!

Kev,

I have over 300 family members.  Can they all vote?  LOL  Don't do it.  Stay away from the voting.  Be in 5th place with whatever dignity you have left :)

ARDELL,

I'm fine with it all.  I'm looking forward to meeting you and San Francisco.  We have to go to a disgustingly expensive dinner (on me, of course)

Technically, from what Caleb says, yes, they can vote.

 

BTW.  I'm only bringing jeans.  Nothing fussy.  So we have to go to someplace cool/trendy/expensive where they would appreciate my $300 jeans.

 

Gotta go--Paula Abdul's reality show is on.

 

K

Wow, I leave for a couple of hours and all kinds of stuff gets stirred up.

For what it's worth, Ardell, I too would have preferred the voting be restricted (better: eliminated since I don't think it's workable, though a nice concept). The idea I floated here in Active Rain was that only folks from AR who were logged in could somehow vote. I don't know how you could otherwise restrict the voting to those who had read all the blogs seriously. But anyway no one jumped on my suggestion.

Obviously I didn't set the voting up, but I don't want to be undone by it either. If there were no votes, Fran and I would win (no matter what the end result of week 3 would be). Being a pragmatist, I've looked at the voting and realized that it's very possible that if I don't take it seriously and do everything that is legally alllowed to try to get votes, Fran's and my position could be lost. We would have to be several hundred points in the lead to be able to afford to say, "oh it doesn't matter how this turns out".

So while I agree that this voting is not a very good setup, it would be totally stupid and irresponsible of me to say "I don't like the rules so I won't play" and then see CARE not get the cash prize when my efforts might have helped to make that possible. I will break no rules and in fact have made available on my Live in Los Gatos post not just information on my blog or our team, but rather on all the teams and all their posts.

I make no apologies for trying to do my best in every aspect of the competition within the confines of the way its been set up. Yes, it probably should have been organized differently, but it wasn't. Hopefully next time there won't be a voting component at all - let it all fall to a good panel of informed judges. This is how it was set up this time, though, so this is how it will be played out by me and several others for sure. It is what it is.

I went to a dance contest and a whole group voted for their friends, even though clearly a different couple were the best dancers.  That just sucks. 

Should you vote for yourself if someone else has a better blog?  If you like someone else's best, would you vote for yourself anyway?

Kevin,

Don't forget to vote for yourself :)

Hi All,

ARDELL, I agree with you and with Mary that the audience voting is flawed even with this most recent adjustment, but sometimes you have to play the cards you are dealt.  I also make no apologies for asking for votes, but you know what I would love to see happen in my heart of hearts?  I would love to see the $5000 divided between all the teams that are left equally as there is not one charity that is more deserving than another and there is not one team that has not given it their all.  What do you other folks that are in this thing say?

That would make it a true win/win for everyone and that really would be the right thing to do.  Give the title to whomever you wish but let's make each of the charities and those that have sweated blood for their benefit winners regardless of whether you have 300 family members or not.  A little of something is a darn sight better than an whole lot of nothing don't you all agree?

Actually, I have to go outside my family circle as I am an only child's only child and everyone on my mother's side including my mom (whose birthday is today - happy 77th mom, I really wish you were here) has passed on so unless my folks can vote from beyond the grave that would be a toughie:-)

Actually, I think I am going to pitch this as a post of it's very own...

Take care all, help lots of people and have a wonderful day!

Tisza

I feel like I should be leaving comments on these posts so I will.  Thanks for giving us the opportunity to participate in Project Blogger. I never really caught on to how it all works but don't feel like a failure because Vali has a blog.  I did make a commitment to her personally.  I should not have made the comittment to participate in the contest, but do not have any regrets.  My work load is heavy especially during the spring and early summer months, and there were other complications.  The structure of the project blogger was mystifying, and I don't catch on very quickly unless everything is spelled out.  Even this post caught me off guard because I thought the contest was over.  I did not understand the criteria used to judge the blogs or the qualifications of some of the judges, but am not questioning it, or contesting it.  

In general I don't think our industry understands the type of blogs agents need to have to market themselves, and to attract clients, which is my most important take away I have gotten from participating in the project.  The contest also helped me make some decisions about my own blog and about where it is going to go from here.  Unfortunatly what has worked so well for me will not work as well in the future.

I applaud the efforts of the apprentices and  the hard work of the coaches and would like to thanks Jon and Caleb for their patience. 

 

Teresa- fwiw, I love Vali's blog. I love to read her, and I hope she enjoys her blog for a very long time.

Other than that, I'm like Kevin about the week 14 judging- nothing to say.