Some of you who have been following the Time 100 race for the Most Influential Person may notice that Stephen has been fluctuating between first and third place, with Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo guru) and Rain. Gawker did some research and found out how exactly that was happening:
This year, three extreme cult followings have made Shigeru Miyamoto, Stephen Colbert and Rain the “most influential” people in the world. Joyce Kim, CEO of the Korean-American site Soompi, explained to me how three communities are battling it out to crown a winner.
So last year Rain won — because the community members on my site all voted. Now we’re voting for him again. He is the biggest guy in Asia, like Michael Jackson and JT rolled up into one. Mega mega star in Asia. But people here don’t know him because he doesn’t sing in English.
Stephen Colbert got all pissed that he came in #2 last year, and he did this really funny skit with a Korean music video. He was literally singing in Korean. And this year, when the voting started again, he did a show last week saying “Go vote for me, so I can beat my arch rival Rain.” So his ColbertNation.com fans got on it.
Then Digg.com starting voting for Miyamoto — the creator of Mario, Donkey Kong etc. at Nintendo — and put him on #1.
You win by ranking, not number of votes. So you see how Rain has the most votes. It’s because the Colbert folks are organizing in their forums to vote him down.
Thanks for that explanation, Gawker. Now, we here at NFZ have always advocated a fair fight, and Stephen clearly stated that he wanted people to vote for him, NOT that he wanted people to vote Rain or anyone else down. I think that’s important to remember.
And isn’t it all for fun anyway? What are your thoughts? And let’s play nice, children, in our comments here.
I think it’s way beyond that stage, DB. I believe there is “technological assistance” going on among all parties, and I don’t believe it was started by Stephen’s fans, but you can hardly blame them for joining in.
If you want to blame someone, blame Time — they should know these online contests are totally meaningless unless each person/computer is limited to one vote, as a minimum step toward fairness. Other online contests have figured out how to do that.
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I agree with WordsWithGrace, it really hasn’t been a fair fight since the beginning.
I guess site hits are more important than integrity to Time. I mean, Rain alone has over a million votes, even if they are manufactured.
Hopefully Stephen will mention it on his show again, and that will send another surge of viewers (perhaps the new ones he acquired while he was in Philly?) to their computers to boost the vote a bit in his favor.
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The ones who started the downvoting were the Perez Hilton and Britney Spears hackers. We have since left them in the dust.
We honestly thought the Rain fans were using hacks to get such high numbers, until we found out they simply have high numbers. If Colbert has a Nation, Rain has an empire. Now they are downvoting us too, and using hacks.
I don’t mind the idea of coming in second to Rain, particularly if we can get some singing out of it. Coming in second is good comedy material. Coming in third is not. These Nintendo fans are legion and they’ve got great hacks.
One good thing to come out of this–I think we’ve probably taught a lot of Chinese fangirls about proxies and hiding their tracks on the Internet. That might have long-term benefits.
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If you’ve been following the wars in the comments section, you’ll notice that it has been established that all three groups of fans have at some point used macros.
A few individual Rain fans have used macros, too, even though Eris is right that their numbers are huge: think Britney Spears during her hey-day, combine that with the fact that Asia is the most populous continent on earth, and the fact that for many fans this is a matter of Asian pride and it’s not hard to understand how there are so many folks voting for Rain.
As for the Nintendo fans, you can’t beat gamers for their knowledge of computers.
There is no integrity to the Time poll. There are no published rules, the comments are unmoderated, and Time doesn’t even publish the criteria by which the editors actually choose who belongs in the Time 100 (wikipedia has links to the actual criteria, which is fairly specific and has nothing to do with simply who is popular).
The poll has absolutely nothing to do with who eventually makes it into the Time 100 — it’s just a way to attract attention and maximize advertising dollars.
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doesn’t Colbert have more than a million viewers? Worldwide? I’m Asian and even I want Stephen to win. At least with Colbert, he’s going to “use” his win on the show, Miyamoto and Rain will just ignore this.
If Stephen doesn’t win, I hope the top 5 will be guests on his show. Then Stephen will still win. Along with everybody. :)
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just because it’s a vote for Rain, doesn’t mean its a good one. I downvoted him a bunch.
also, a friend of mine has some Rain songs on his iPod and its in english.
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yeah, what rebnej and wordswithgrace said – and said very well.
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The only way Rain and Miyamoto are even going to know about this is when they’re interviewed. “Oh, did you know you were in the top of the Time 100?” *feints shy innocence* “Oh really? Thanks for the fans who voted” And that’s that.
Unlike Colbert, who’s going to own it when he wins this. Does the power of the Colbert Nation have a.. *gasp* limit after all? *perished the thought!*
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@ zonkbert:
Or they’ll learn about it when the folks over at the Report contact them to try and get them on the show for an in-person showdown with Stephen . . .
No matter the outcome, Stephen will make it entertaining. : )
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You do have to admit, third out of the 207 people on the list really isn’t bad. Obviously, first would be optimal, but maybe we’ll get to see another segment on it.
And still, we don’t know when the contest ends for sure, do we?
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I’m more confused about Jon Stewart, tbh. He was 2nd, now he’s way, way down! How did that happen?
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