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Comps…what do you think?
Hi Everyone. There seems to be a trend towards the public voting to determine who participates in pole competitions. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think this is the future of competitions? I have mixed feelings and am curious to hear what others think. Thanks!
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14 Replies
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I have only seen this in one or two competitions so I would not consider this a trend. I also think that even though USPDF played with this for their west coast entrants they won't be doing it again because there were so many problems and complaints.
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Hi~ I think having audience vote for something like "most energetic" or "most creative" would be fine for a LIVE audience. As long as judging is fair and the real 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are announced as well. But these online voting comps are, to be frank, silly. Why would I vote for someone online, I haven't seen their routine, I wasn't there, and I don't believe competing is a popularity contest. If it were, why would we need judges at all? I also don't appreciate people spamming my wall asking for my vote on x,y,z. A private message is ok I guess, but I just don't like voting online at all. All that being said… sometimes judges are not outside 3rd parties. Sometimes they are friends with or even employers or employees of the competitors and thus judging is biased. In that situation, having the audience input would be a nice nod to those contestants who deserved to place but didn't.
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USPDF WCR, Pole Universe and, most recently, SRPDFC all had some sort of voting element to pick their final contestant. Power Twirl, you're right, it IS annoying to see all those posts on FB. That said, I understand potential competitors need to solicit votes if they want to get into the competition. Shouldn't a competition be based on merit and not who is the most popular, though? I dunno, I'm just really not a fan of the whole voting thing…unless everyone in the live audience gets a vote. Just my two cents 🙂
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I don't know…. I actually like the idea of the pros in the industry doing the judging. For one, they understand how much hard work and dedication it takes to do each move. Ya, some judges are not polers, but have been involved in sports for most of their lives. Every time I explain to woman and men who have not done poling-they think the tricks are cool but don't understand the depth to them. Then they wonder why everyone isn't doing that. I like the idea of the super athletes judging.
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I really don't like the idea of online voting. We've seen how easy it is to duplicate things on this forum alone with all the double posting and we aren't even trying. Imagine when you try and have the know how to double vote.
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I really don't like the idea of online voting. We've seen how easy it is to duplicate things on this forum alone with all the double posting and we aren't even trying. Imagine when you try and have the know how to double vote.
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I really don't like the idea of online voting. We've seen how easy it is to duplicate things on this forum alone with all the double posting and we aren't even trying. Imagine when you try and have the know how to double vote.
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I really don't like the idea of online voting. We've seen how easy it is to duplicate things on this forum alone with all the double posting and we aren't even trying. Imagine when you try and have the know how to double vote.
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I really don't like the idea of online voting. We've seen how easy it is to duplicate things on this forum alone with all the double posting and we aren't even trying. Imagine when you try and have the know how to double vote.
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I really don't like the idea of online voting. We've seen how easy it is to duplicate things on this forum alone with all the double posting and we aren't even trying. Imagine when you try and have the know how to double vote.
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I like pros judging comps too, tho it does seem like it wld be hard to ensure there is no favoritism. Guess u just have to select people u know will be professional. I also think, as spectators, we have to realize our pick/favorite may not be what the judges r looking for that day. That doesn’t mean a comp isn’t fair, it just means the judges preferred a different style. I hope to see more pole comps; I just don’t like to see competitors being chosen based on online voting!
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From my understanding, online or text voting is usually used for business purposes. They will either charge a fee to vote (to make a profit), use it to drive traffic to a site or, even worse, use it to gain people's personal information when they have to "register" to vote for their friend. I don't know these competitive bodies very well, and am not insinuating that they would be selling personal information to third parties, but this is usually why companies will have these types of contests.
I, personally, refuse to participate in these sorts of things. I don't like the idea that my info is being collected and possibly sold (well, more than it already is, being a facebook and google user). I won't vote for anything that asks me for my info and I would NEVER ask my friends to do the same. Maybe if more people refused these sorts of business practices companies would stop using them.
In my opinion, any pole organizations that rely on public voting to determine anything other than awards like "audience favorite" or "best trick" is not a reputable organization and is probably more concerned with making a profit than in the advancement of pole sport.
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For those competitions who wish a "popularity" vote for a portion of their competition, it's a useful promotional tool – but in my opinion it's only a popularity vote.
We considered doing something like this with the live audience at the Midwest Competition but at the time it was offered by one of our sponsors we had already selected our finalists and they had accepted without this element already being in place and I felt it wasn't fair to add it after the fact since some of the finalist may not have liked participating in an event which included this element.
I'm still undecided about whether we will include it this year. To be awarded a title of "audience favorite" may still imply that they were more skilled dancers in some people's minds when in fact they just may have had more friends present.
I also disagree that just because someone is a friend of or employed by the organizers that this makes them biased. In fact some of our contestents felt that knowing the judges personally made it more difficult as those judges may know what weaknesses to watch for in their performance and judge them harder because they expected better of them. So it can work both ways.
The fact is that the pole world is small and it is impossible to have judges who aren't friends with SOMEONE in a competition. We did our best not to use regional pros to judge the Midwest this year but next year we are going national and there is no way we can gurantee having a finalist who isn't friends with or even trains with one of the judges or even myself in the end.
Judging criteria can be developed to avoid favoritism as much as possible and it also helps to have more judges to dilute the voting in case there is some degree of preference which can happen unintentionally since we are all only human.
I disagree that
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Along the lines of judges knowing you….yeah I really hate dancing for judges that know me, particularly those who I have taken privates or classes with because they know my weak points as I've discussed it with them. I feel like it's harder to impress someone you know.
Online judging? I don't like it. My video was a selection for pole dancing universe but to be honest I only tried a little bit to get votes from my friends that I knew would – I hate asking people to vote for me, especially when I truly think some of the other videos are better. I don't think online voting gets the most qualified competitor, I think it gets the person with the biggest mailing list. I'd still accpet a spot in a competition should I have gotten it through online voting but knowing me I'd walk in feeling far less secure about it.
On another note – pole and competitions are still really new and online voting is another way for others to feel badly about themselves when they aren't selected, especially if they have a good video…I just see too much tension. Let judges make decisions 🙂
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I really like how ice skating is judged – u get rid of the highest and lowest scores, then add the rest together 🙂
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