Comments on: Comments on 4781

Post number 4781

mathowie — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 09:54:44 -0800

Remember the MetaFilter election contest? Well, it seems we finally have a winner. Thanks rcade for the great contest!

By: leo

leo — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 10:29:32 -0800

A political genius. Todos los kudos. Now any predictions for Election2004?

By: utopian

utopian — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 10:32:09 -0800

Why, why, why don't i see anywhere this objection to the current and soon to be past question of who ought to be president (does it fucking matter that neither gw nor ag, and maybe not even ralph nader, SHOULD be elected to president? standardized tests have better options (a, b, c, d, e)????) --sorry, this objection: Can the fucking electoral college!!!! We are not a democracy but a fundamentalist state. do you get me at all? who, you ought to ask, is the electoral college, and why are they there. aren't you good enough to decide independent of your state (that is, their legislators) who should lead your country? The electoral college is only one enemy of the people, but it was always meant to be exactly that. It is not your friend, and it is not the picture of "stability." learn something from this election and realize the possibility of democracy--which america under an electoral college has never truly known.

By: leo

leo — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 10:35:49 -0800

Well, utopian, I think the contest was about which enemy of the people would win not whether we're a fundamentalist state or not.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 10:37:37 -0800

utopian? can you not repost the same comment more than 3 times? thanks. - the management

By: capt.crackpipe

capt.crackpipe — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 10:53:35 -0800

That's the last time I trust Tennesee to vote for one of their own.

By: chartres

chartres — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 10:53:41 -0800

I thought that post sounded familiar.

By: brent

brent — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 11:28:44 -0800

I should have just done like they do on the Price Is Right, bet just one more dollar/vote than the previous bidder/poster....Sylloge Congratulations. Anymore contests running now?

By: rodii

rodii — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 11:34:06 -0800

Thanks, utopian--Electoral College bad, what a novel thought. Why don't we ever discuss interesting topics here on Metafilter, like the Electoral College, or Ralph Nader, or Elian Gonzalez? :|

By: tiaka

tiaka — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 11:34:48 -0800

Hey! I demand a recount! Clearly, my intent was not realised. I clearly predicted that I would win, and you are, not realising my intent! Just because I'am white too! I call racist.

By: solistrato

solistrato — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 11:46:25 -0800

Shaddap.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 11:57:38 -0800

We should have more contests, shouldn't we? So far there's only been two. This one and the "best thing for under $30" contest a while back. I was also thinking of copping the interview idea off slashdot, where there's a thread for questions for a few days, then the interviewee gets to pick and answer some from that lot.

By: Mo Nickels

Mo Nickels — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 11:58:55 -0800

The thread-interview idea: I'm for it. I think it's their best innovation.

By: mikel

mikel — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 13:03:45 -0800

It was kind of funny to see all the results this far out! I realize of course that my Electoral college prediction was wishful thinking. Congratulations to the winner. BTW - since when did Slashdot start the thread-interview idea? I was doing that in 1994 or 95 on the web, and I know lots of others did it before that in public forums on the net. Slashdot gets a lot of credit for innovations they never made, or were even very responsible for popularizing that much.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 13:26:02 -0800

Sorry, I really meant "I was also thinking of copping the interview idea off mikel.org..."

By: cCranium

cCranium — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 14:07:48 -0800

Ah, but they innovated it on Slashdot. Sure, it'd been done elsewhere, but but using certain definitions of innovate they certainly are doing so! (oh man. No one cross-post that to /., will ya? I'd rather not get a few hundred thousand angry geeks telling me exactly how stupid I am. :-)

By: cCranium

cCranium — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 14:08:26 -0800

crap. Maybe I deserve said telling.

By: mikel

mikel — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 15:12:43 -0800

Doh! I guess I deserve that. I didn't mean to lay claim to the idea at all of course. And of course I would never want to cut into you Matt - you provide a fantastic site here. I do think it is interesting that /. gets a lot of credit as a virtual community and for doing stuff like interviews when they're really new, and the stuff they do has been written about and discussed for years - going back at the very minimum to Rheingold's Virtual Community in 93. I'm pretty sure that David Woolley wrote about it even earlier. But /. does do it well - very well - and I think it would be a great format here as well.

By: aladfar

aladfar — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 15:13:55 -0800

I did better than 4 people!!! I am soooo S-M-R-T! I mean S-M-A-R-T!

By: UrineSoakedRube

UrineSoakedRube — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 15:44:37 -0800

Hey! Fourth place! Woo hoo! Clearly, the soaking has increased my clairvoyant powers. That, and John Zogby was the most accurate pollster in the country. He was mercilessly slammed for his unscientific methods and his unwillingness to divulge how he massaged raw data, but he came the closest to predicting the actual outcome. A big blow for Gallup, voter.com, et al., who saw a 3 to 4 point Bush win.

By: gluechunk

gluechunk — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 15:57:48 -0800

Wow, I just noticed I ranked #1 in the Popular Vote! I feel like I won something. Is it possible to quickly calculate so what the results would have been in FL went to Gore?

By: gluechunk

gluechunk — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 16:17:37 -0800

That last sentence above makes little sense, sorry. I was unable to type well during my excitement.

By: cCranium

cCranium — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 18:03:56 -0800

I'm pretty sure there's something in this thread that makes for mistyping. That's what I'm blaming my pathetic attempt at communication above on at least. Mikel, I don't think anyone was trying to slam you or anything, /.'s just big and popular, and big and popular gets lots of credit because they're an easy-to-use reference. I think interview questions are a good idea, I'm sure we as a community can come up with better Zeldman questions (another one of those easy-to-use examples :-) than the /. community did. Would there be any easy way to implement some kind of moderation for the questions like /.'s moderation system?

By: rcade

rcade — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 23:15:53 -0800

Wow, I just noticed I ranked #1 in the Popular Vote! I feel like I won something. Your popular vote was amazingly close, especially on Bush (prediction 47.9, actual 47.91008) and Gore (prediction 48.4, actual 48.31525). Is it possible to quickly calculate so what the results would have been in FL went to Gore? I just plugged those numbers into Excel and published the pages on my site. You would have won the contest if Gore won Florida.

By: Kevs

Kevs — Thu, 14 Dec 2000 22:16:14 -0800

Damn, so close! 3rd place, ah well. I wanted the Devil Doll, heh =) Peace, Kevs