Survivor Appendix E (5e) Authors- Ursula K. LeGWINS!

BookBarbarian · Sep 26, 2018

Sacrosanct said:
Hate to break it to you, but the contest won't end faster that way. Each voting post as a net -1 result, regardless of who you vote for.

I do think there is a pile on effect.

Some people who would upvote a choice and extend the life of the contest never get the chance if we kill that choice off.

Prakriti · Sep 26, 2018

Sacrosanct said:
Hate to break it to you, but the contest won't end faster that way. Each voting post as a net -1 result, regardless of who you vote for.

Piling on the lowest author might actually slow things down, since some people stop participating once their favorite author gets eliminated. So the longer those authors stay in the game, the longer people will participate, and the faster the game will end... theoretically.

CleverNickName · Sep 26, 2018

Sacrosanct said:
Hate to break it to you, but the contest won't end faster that way. Each voting post as a net -1 result, regardless of who you vote for.

Yeah, I know. It helps condense the list, though, and that's not nothing. As far as I know, there's no real way to accelerate the eventual end of the contest.

But more to the point: I wouldn't know who to downvote otherwise. These are all excellent writers!

The M'hael · Sep 26, 2018

Alexander, Lloyd 20-2 = 18
Cook, Glen 22
Jemisin, N.K. 11
Kay, Guy Gavriel 17
LeGuin, Ursula 22 +2 = 24
Lynch, Scott 14
McKillip, Patricia 20
Pratchett, Terry 19

Wolfe, Gene 18

BookBarbarian · Sep 26, 2018

Alexander, Lloyd 18+1 = 19
Cook, Glen 22
Jemisin, N.K. 11
Kay, Guy Gavriel 17
LeGuin, Ursula 24
Lynch, Scott 14-2=12
McKillip, Patricia 20
Pratchett, Terry 19
Wolfe, Gene 18

Dausuul · Sep 26, 2018

CleverNickName said:
Yeah, I know. It helps condense the list, though, and that's not nothing. As far as I know, there's no real way to accelerate the eventual end of the contest.

If your goal is to end the contest early, a good strategy would be upvote whoever is in the lead and downvote whoever is in second place.

This has two effects:

By spreading downvotes around, you keep rivals around for as long as possible, encouraging other players to stay in the game.
By concentrating your upvotes, you run up the score for whoever's in the lead, reducing the total number of votes required to end the game. (The game ends after roughly* 20N-X votes, where N is the number of contestants and X is the winner's final score. A higher value for X means a quicker win.)

[size=-2]*The exact value is 20N+O-X, where O is the number of contestants who were "overkilled" by a downvote when they were at 1.[/size]

CleverNickName · Sep 26, 2018

[MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION]: It's a good of a strategy as any. And XP for showing your calcs!

I maintain that my current strategy of culling off the weaker scores quickly is the best strategy for a rapid end because it reduces the number of contestants (N) and therefore concentrates the negative votes (the only votes that really matter) onto fewer and fewer targets.

TL;DR: 20N outweighs -X in your formula, so I'm gonna attack that N.

[MENTION=6855149]Prakriti[/MENTION]: I understand that a lot of participants are spite-quitting because they can't handle their darlings getting voted off, but I don't think it's a foregone conclusion. (I mean, Terry Brooks was my darling and I'm still here.)

Gradine · Sep 26, 2018

CleverNickName said:
TL;DR: 20N outweighs -X in your formula, so I'm gonna attack that N.

I'm quite positive in this particular formula that N is set at the very beginning of the competition.

Grognerd · Sep 27, 2018

CleverNickName said:
@Prakriti: I understand that a lot of participants are spite-quitting because they can't handle their darlings getting voted off, but I don't think it's a foregone conclusion. (I mean, Terry Brooks was my darling and I'm still here.)

And to be fair, I'd rather have people spite-quit than constantly spite-vote and argue about it. Look how much all of the bickering and spite-voting drug on and sucked the fun out of the previous Survivor thread. At least in this one everyone seems to be having a pretty good time, personal favorites notwithstanding!