Vote Rigging/Choice Editing

[Damellis]

Perhaps i am jumping the gun a little here, but in regard to "Singers You'd Like to Perform at the 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremonies" http://www.the-top-tens.com/lists/singers-perform-london-olympics-opening-ceremonies-3.asp <<<< there was a choice that was clearly acceptable to yourselves, as when choices are added we recieve "Thank you for your input. Hatsune Miku will be added to this list as soon as we have had a chance to review it. If you have another suggestion for this list, please add it below" as a response.

now, the choice "hatsune miku" had been reviewed and added to the list of votable choices, and for a while it was sat around #22 between TVXQ and Miley Cirus. it was there, it was votable, and it has now vanished off the face of the earth. Granted, she is not the typical singer/performer, but she is a singer/performer in her own right

[Usagisama68]

I agree with you 100%. I voted for Miku (who sat at #22) 20 minutes before I heard that she want missing off the list. And when I looked I couldn't find her anywhere! They obviously removed her for some reason, and I want to know why and have her back on the list (as she deserves to be).

[Damellis]

Concerts with Hatsune Miku have sold out before now, and have even had to be expanded to cope with the demand, further to that, Hatsune Miku has appeared in Advertisements for Famous brands like Toyota, and their new corolla.

So come on there is no need to blatently deny us a choice that the public have made, a choice that even yourselves initially deemed acceptable

[Amaririsu]

Miku Hatsune shouldn't have been taken off the list. Sure, she isn't "real", in the sense that she isn't a human being, but it adds more interest to the Olympics, no? What's more attention-grabbing than a virtual diva performing live in the Olympics for the first time? Besides, having Miku perform shows how technology is rapidly developing, and it shows how modern our world has become. She's perfect! She's as or maybe even more entertaining than most performers in the list too.

[admin]

We appreciate your concern over the synthesizer application Hatsune Miku being removed from the list after it had already been approved, but it wasn't until after the item had already been approved that we discovered that Miku is not a person.

We recognize that many people are fans of Miku and consider it to be a "performer", "musician", and a "singer", and we discussed whether or not she should be categorized as so. What ultimately made our decision is the fact that, by itself, the Miku software does not actually make an audible sound.

According to dictionary.com, a singer is "a person who sings, especially a trained or professional vocalist". A singer may also be something like a bird that creates a melodic noise, or even a machine that generates an audible whine. Depending on which definition you want to use, a singer can be used to describe a variety of things, but there is one thing that they all have in common - the creation of sound.

Miku on the other hand does not create sound. It generates instructions that can be used by a computer to tell audio speakers how to produce a sound. It is a merely a tool that can be used by people to help create music, and while it is an exceptional tool, it is more akin to an electronic keyboard, GarageBand, or Auto-Tune than it is a singer.

Saying that Miku is a singer is like saying that a pencil is an artist or a chisel is a sculpter.

We recognize that this post will certainly fail to appease all those who are upset about Miku being removed from the list, but we still feel that the rationale is solid. We apologize to everyone who had voted for Miku before it was removed from the list.

[jrharbort]

So you allow your admins to approve additions without any sort of research? And they're free to simply remove any approved submissions at will? I'm sorry, but that is an extremely flawed system.

You try to pass off your site as a fair representation of our opinions. But your own actions have clearly contradicted that.

And if you insist on using your current argument (and a very flawed one at that), then I suggest you triple check the current list. There are at least a dozen more entries listed that don't even produce vocals. Yet you are allowing them to remain on the voting page. Can you say "hypocrites"?

If you took the time to take down Hatsune Miku as an afterthought, I think you can put the effort to remove the other unfair entries.

Since this list isn't even used for any sort of official means, your site has nothing to gain by her removal. Except for a lot of very angry messages.

And lastly, Hatsune Miku was not on the list to represent herself. She was on that list to represent every single artist and fan within the Vocaloid community. Removing her has been an insult aimed at the millions of producers and fans around the world.

[LeiruLone]

If this truly is only a matter of voting and opinion among the fans then what truly is the harm? By removing Hatsune Miku the administration thoughtlessly angered many fans (including myself) for their own bias of singers. While not a "real singer" by the standards of yourselves, Hatsune Miku is a singer in her own right by the co-operation and hard work of legions of fans. She should be added back to the list for these reasons.

[MatoKuroi]

Aren't admins suppose to review then approved the nominee? So why you have approved her from the start then remove her after? Seriously, she was made to be a singer, they are still using a person with experience in order for her voice to sound like other singers out there. Besides just look at her votes. Being a singer doesn't really have to be a "human" Look at her concerts and fans plus look at her supporters as a singer. Isn't the same how people teach singers to sing and we are doing the same thing for Miku. Put her back. The public demands it. Besides she represents Japan.

[admin]

"So you allow your admins to approve additions without any sort of research?"

We do a quick check for things like spelling errors and to verify that the addition exists, is appropriate for the list, etc., but there are instances where things can slip through the cracks. We have had nearly 20,000 new item submissions already this month. Even if we spend as little as 30 seconds "researching" each new item, that amounts to over 160 man hours spent researching. For a free site, it is simply not practical to designate that much time and resources.

"And they're free to simply remove any approved submissions at will?"

No, we have made it clear that the removal was not made on a whim.

"here are at least a dozen more entries listed that don't even produce vocals. Yet you are allowing them to remain on the voting page. Can you say "hypocrites"?"

If you would be willing to point out some of these entries, we'd be happy to review them.

"Since this list isn't even used for any sort of official means, your site has nothing to gain by her removal. Except for a lot of very angry messages."

Easily the most rational argument made so far. We will reinstate Miku based on this idea.

[Gwerty]

And here I thought you guys were aware of the poll rigging and took her off because of it. If you're going to add her back, can you at least put her back to around 70 where she was originally? There are people from a certain website who have been using a script to spam votes for her. How else did she shoot up to 20ish in just 2 days? The script is as follows:

VERSION BUILD=7401110 RECORDER=FX
TAB T=1
CLEAR
URL GOTO=http://www.the-top-tens.com/lists/singers-perform-london-olympics-opening-ceremonies.asp
TAG POS=1 TYPE=DIV ATTR=ONCLICK:recordvote('385450','99638')&&CLASS:addvote
CLEAR
REFRESH

For iMacros (Firefox Add-on)

Or you could at least make voting IP restricted, because it looks like it's cookie based right now and people can just clear cookies and vote again.