User blog comment:Smash The Echidna/SFW Winter Awards 2015 ~ The Results/@comment-3002957-20150227131647

I'm going to give a quick analysis on this seasons voting from what I have seen.

First and foremost, the drastic drop in votes sadden me. Things could have been so much more interesting if people actually bothered to pay attention to the final rounds, but as you could see. The more layers of voting you added onto the contest, the less people partook in it. There can be two reasons for this;

1. The character they were rooting for did not make it and thus they lost interest to vote.

2. They just didn't care anymore and just wanted the thing to be over with.

The latter presented itself to me quite strongly for a couple of times in chat and also in third party chat applications, the constant question of "Is it over finally?" popped up. While there was no malicious intention behind it. This was a drop in the bucket that would quickly escalate into a torrent in terms for the peoples mindset. They just didn't care. The fun was over and they just wanted their prizes, no more input was needed on their end.

Now onto the MOST attractive character. While it was indeed nice, pitting opposite genders in my opinion is a stern war of attrition. Do not misunderstand me, I am super happy Jasmine won. But when it comes to voting on who is attractive, things can get a bit muddles when it comes to the gender. I've seen in many voting poles (Ran this said pole in Psychology class. Had a picture of a cute girl and a cute guy and asked different genders who thought who was cute.) girls gravitate to voting for the male and female gravitate to voting for the male. It's not uncommon at all because it is what makes you go "aww" that snags your vote and an opposite gender does this a lot easier. (But hey, who knows how it could have went with more voters?)

All in all to summarize that analysis, while it is nice to have a MOST attractive character. Genders have their own merits and thus pitting them against each other will ultimately become a war of preferences in regards to many a thing. In my eyes, if it is a guy and a girl, they both win MOST attractive for their slated gender. All hail the Prom King and Prom Queen folks. *shot* (Still congrats tho~ <3)

Best Roleplay and Best character I have nothing much to analyze because both materials in question brought equal values to the table. There was no need to look into the looks of the character, but the sheer content and effort that was put into the pages and might I say, it was wonderful to read all entries here.

But again, what saddens me the most. Lack of voters at the end result. We merely heard a few choice squeaks of the community but not the community as a whole. Be it boredom, be it losing care for your fav character not being on the voting block or just be it (In extreme cases) spite which is fine, because everyone is entitled to some salt.

So with that all I can do is give a small tidbit of advice; Do not overextend the voting with fancy rounds.

Two rounds is fine, we see the majority of the voting occuring in there because people are hyped and into it. Three is possible but pushing it,. But once you add a fourth, well the voting of the last stage can clearly speak volumes.