🚀 go-pugleaf

Chris Woods wrote in message <3587E629...@cowboy.net>...
>
>You haven't brought the possibility to light until we (the readers) are
>provided with any information whatsoever.  All I see is a bunch of
>hogwash on the web page you gave us a link to and then this breif
>snippit you wrote above.  Neither provided any evidence from a notable
>source to back up claims but instead speculates like some sort of
>conspiracy theory.  If you really want this to be taken seriously,
>provide us wil just a little bit of evidence to support your claim.
>
>Chris Woods who never played ST either, but loved FF7.

Alright, this pretty much proves the votes were suppressed or fudged
somewhat, but it shows why World Charts feels this is justified (they don't
want the results to sound ridiculous when compared to world-wide
popularity).  It is up to you to decide whether you think this is a
reasonable practice for the charts to perform or not, IMHO it is not.

This was posted along with the latest video games top 100, after several
people on the console ngs began complaing about the charts and claiming that
they were suppressing votes...

*snip out  the chart above*
 >Some readers have voiced their concerns that the Internet Charts
 are not just a simple calculation of all the votes we receive,
 and that some results seem to be 'manipulated' or 'fudged'...

>With merely a small amount of voters we can only try to have the
 charts reflect global popularity. This means that certain rules
 are imposed to make sure that the results are not too ridiculous
 for our readers. When the results are somewhat interesting and
 believable, then more and more people will join the charts,
 because of the value they have, and then the charts get better
 and better. It's a spiral going upwards: better charts -> more
 voters -> better charts -> more voters. However, having
 ridiculous results in the charts sabotages any intents we have in
 getting more voters and better charts. We know this, because many
 people stop voting because of some of the weird results. Our
 intention is that the charts should reflect global popularity.
 With such a very small sample of voters it is logical that the
 number of voters needs to grow in order to achieve our goals.
 Having weird results in the charts makes people go away.
 Therefore this is undesirable.

>In publishing the weekly charts, we don't just want the reflection
 of the preferences of the small sample of voters. Because the
 charts are not only made and published for them. They are also
 published in newspapers, on websites, on CD-ROMs, etc. We want
 those voters to behave as if they are the reflection of the entire
 world, and (most) voters know that this is what we jointly are
trying to achieve with the charts.

 >There are two types of disappointed voters: The ones who don't
 like it that some titles are penalized and the ones who don't like
 to see ridiculous results. Both groups of voters are at opposite
 sides of a spectrum, and we cannot please them all. We can only
 make a decision here, based on our own opinion of what the charts should
be.

 >For making the weekly music charts, Billboard uses only a sample
 of music shops and radio stations. Did you know that they don't
 just add all the numbers they receive and publish the results
 uncontrolled? They have all kinds of regulations, checks and rules
 defining the order of the titles in the final chart. Just
 *because* of this vast experience in tuning rules and algorithms,
 Billboard is one of the most respected chart-makers in the world.
 If they would just publish the results from their small samples
 of shops and radio stations, they would never have been where they are now.

> In order to make the Internet Charts grow and become even better,
 we have to impose rules, and refine them as much as we can.
 Otherwise the charts will never ever get to a same level of
 authority as Billboard's and Nielsen's lists, and our charts will
 remain minor lists published for only a few hundred enthusiasts
 and not for the rest of the world. That's not what we are working
 for so hard. :)

>Cheers,
Jurgen.

>You can read about the compilation rules and algorithms at
 http://www.worldcharts.com/_compilation.html