Vote Buying, Please... Just Stop.
Day 2,564, 19:33
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Published in Canada 
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by
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by Hotelier
There are certain things that annoy me. Personally I can’t abide willful ignorance, like my older manager who’s summary of Middle-Eastern politics was “bomb the f***ers,” nor can I abide by any the valley girl accent that just makes women sound completely uneducated.
I don’t much like Nicholas Cage either
I can’t stand many other things as well, but in the interest of saving the trolls some material, I’ll move on.
I’ve been a player for a while, and I’ve kept quiet about the many items that irk me to the point of me smashing my keyboard on the desk like an angry German gamer. There’s something though, that I can’t remain quiet about any longer because it’s driving me mad.
This is the most old-boys, annoying yet unfortunately useful tools at any older player’s disposal. I speak of course, of vote buying.
It used to be that any odd player chokes up the two gold to found a newspaper, writes articles and gains his subscribers and votes from actual merit and (sometimes) quality articles. The quality of articles is completely irrelevant, what matters is that players cannot actually gauge just how many people actually liked their article, or found it remotely entertaining. All that any player can assume now is that at least one fat guy with a chin beard and a lot of cash reached out to an organization and choked up 200 currency to bring them 80 votes. 80 shallow votes. None of those people read the article, none of them comment or contribute to the discussion, and quite frankly, it makes you look like a complete prat, provided you advertise the fact you bought votes, as many do.
Nothing needs to be said here.
There’s a certain arrogance surrounding vote buying, it leaks from the corner of the vote box and trickles down to the impending s***storm in the comment section, often including topic changes that have nothing to do with the original subject. Having given several presentations before in my life, I can tell you quite honestly that there’s nothing more annoying than a topic change during discussion.
And so, with the full knowledge that this article will bring about no change, I do hereby ask that everybody please stop buying votes for people. It’s seriously starting to annoy me.
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Comments
I have bought votes before. In the US it became impossible to get an article into the top 5 without 300+ votes. So if I had something that I wanted a good chunk of people to see I bought them. Fortunately in Canada it is fairly easy to release an article, with the proper timing, and get into the top 5 pretty easy. This is especially so if you have something interesting that people want. A little well placed spam will usually do the trick. (BTW, I'm not talking about spamming other people's articles or shouts. That pisses me off and I seldom even follow the link to read the drivel.)
You can afford to buy votes. What about the newb without any cc? Sure in Canada it doesn't make that much of a difference, you can get top article with 20 votes, but damn it it's still annoying to see a votes with 100+ votes on the top page.
I completely agree. What I mention about the US is one of the many reasons I left. It was ridiculous some of the things that were done to be able to 'do stuff' there.
FWIW, I'd rather spend RL money to help and entertain people. Sure I have fun but that's what a game is for. Serious people should do something else.
Using money to control the media and to sway people's opinion...that's too much like real media for my liking.
"I'll buy that for a dollar" (or 5)
Article enderpsed!
With endorsements, you can now effectively buy your votes and make a profit! :3
I agree with everything you have to say.
Now can I just change the topic to talk about Nick Cage? Yeah, his awesome movie to crappy movie ratio is absolutely atrocious but some of his movies are real gems. Classics, even. If Con Air were playing on tv right now, I'd even consider watching it.
I bought votes for the Ministry of Re-Education article for what I feel are valid reasons.
McVicker is trying to fill the top 5 media spots with anti-Thedillpickl hate propaganda, because he's desperate to discredit his political opponent. He does this for the sake of visibility: you don't have to go exploring the media module to find his divisive pinko trash when it's right there on the front page.
Essentially, this is the same reason I bought votes for the MoRE Black Friday article: immediate visibility. It was a limited-time sale and I wanted to use the time well, so I bought 100 votes to keep pace with McVicker's trash articles. That way, people see it and are informed about the sale while it's happening, and are able to take advantage of the government program it advertised.
I admitted to vote-buying in the comments of that article because, like you, I generally do not agree with the practice. In this case, however, I felt it was imperative to get the information on eCanada's front page so that new players (the ones who are most likely to need the government service advertised in the article) would see it, so for the sake of governmental transparency, I admitted to vote-buying in the comments.
I should not have had to buy votes. Normally I wouldn't. But as I said, the information was time-sensitive and McVicker is desperate to drown out his opponent with trolling and trash, and vote-buying was the only way to compete.
Without vote-buying, voting still comes down to a popularity contest which doesn't necessarily mean articles compete on the quality of content. Shouting your articles and having active people on your friends list can help you gain exposure.
V&S