'Pick this site’s charities for the next year.' Poll results/discussion

JimmyTheWig

It means that there is no point in short-listing smaller charities.
It means there is no point in any debate or discussion about the good work of the charities.

It just comes down to which charities can muster the most support.

If that's the way you want it to work then fair enough. But don't go pretending it is about site users voting for who gets the money. It's not.

MSE_Martin wrote: »

without this no one would get anything.

That's only true if no-one can come up with any better way of selecting the charities.
I would prefer the MSE editorial team to choose them to this bun-fight (though I think a poll of existing users would be even better).

Is this how you envisaged the voting would happen, with charities mustering votes from their support base? Or did you envisage it would be a poll of site users?

If this isn't what you wanted it's ok to say so. Whether you feel you can change the rules for this time or not is up to you.
But I certainly feel something should be done for next time.

RTR_Bloke

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Hi folks,

First of all we are watching what is happening and measuring where its coming from. If people are asking people to vote on other forums, that's within the rules - multiple votes or automated voting are excluded and we are tracking them.

However lets take this back a step... please remember this is about "which charities get the money" not about "which charities dont get the money"... its a positive thing, without this no one would get anything. These four charities as well as Recycle and of course the MSE charity which gets the bulk of the funding all benefit and in turn between them benefit the wider community, environment and developing turn... surely not a bad thing?

Martin

Hi Martin.
My 1st post and probably not the last on your forums.
I think I speak for most of the ex and serving forces personnel when I say a big thank you for nominating H4H and all the other worthy charities.
There has been a little banter and bickering going on here as you've noticed but for what it's worth, most of those who serve or have served in the forces have an invisible bond that makes us passionate about our community, so, we do on occasion go a little overboard with our enthusiasm but never is any harm meant :rolleyes2
Adam.

gomann

Your Post 93 is what i expected to hear you say.

And, frankly, I agree with most of that. There are some smaller Charities on the shortlist who quite probably need the financial boost more than those with a larger support base. However, would the same "distribution of support" not still apply if the poll was restricted to the [xxx,000] subscribers to this website? Do you believe that individual views on 'deserving causes' are really likely to be swayed by posts on a Thread? And how many of those 34,926 who have voted have even read what is here, let alone contributed to the 'debate'?

I have no doubt Martin will be scratching his head over this one for some time to come, and I certainly do not pretend that there is an easy and obvious answer.

JimmyTheWig

gomann wrote: »

As to the "shouting loudest" aspect, are you implying that those outside the regular subscribers to this site should not be made aware of, or permitted to participate, in the Poll? And that supporters of causes should not attempt to generate additional support for their cause? I'm not seeking an argument, I assure you: I'm simply seeking clarification, because there are valid points to be considered.

I am saying that it is the users of this site who have generated the money that is being distributed to these charities.
If the site has decided that those users should determine which charities get the money then the vote shouldn't be skewed by charities getting their supporters to vote when they'd had no connection to this site in the past.

I'm not proposing much of a criteria here to be eligible to vote. I'm not suggesting you need to have posted x number of comments, or clicked y number of links. All I am saying is that you should be a member of the MSE community to get a vote. I think this could be easily determined by those with a username prior to the nominations being opened and those signed up to the weekly email prior to nominations being opened.
This is similar to the criteria used by Wikipedia when an article is up for detetion. Fans of that article's subject can't be drafted in to vote to keep the article unless they'd registered before the article had been nominated for deletion.
I realise that this will exclude a few people. It will exclude those who have legitimately joined the MSE community since nominations opened. That's a shame, but it's just one of those things. (If you move into an area a fortnight before a local election, for example, you miss out on your chance to vote.)

I totally believe that everybody should be allowed to contribute to the discussion, whether allowed a vote or not.
I have no problem with people from a charity coming along and saying what great work they do, why it is relevant to MSEers, what use they could put the money to, etc. In fact, I would welcome that. The more information available to help us make up our minds the better.

gomann

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

I am saying that it is the users of this site who have generated the money that is being distributed to these charities.
If the site has decided that those users should determine which charities get the money then the vote shouldn't be skewed by charities getting their supporters to vote when they'd had no connection to this site in the past.

I'm not proposing much of a criteria here to be eligible to vote. I'm not suggesting you need to have posted x number of comments, or clicked y number of links. All I am saying is that you should be a member of the MSE community to get a vote. I think this could be easily determined by those with a username prior to the nominations being opened and those signed up to the weekly email prior to nominations being opened.
This is similar to the criteria used by Wikipedia when an article is up for detetion. Fans of that article's subject can't be drafted in to vote to keep the article unless they'd registered before the article had been nominated for deletion.
I realise that this will exclude a few people. It will exclude those who have legitimately joined the MSE community since nominations opened. That's a shame, but it's just one of those things. (If you move into an area a fortnight before a local election, for example, you miss out on your chance to vote.)

I totally believe that everybody should be allowed to contribute to the discussion, whether allowed a vote or not.
I have no problem with people from a charity coming along and saying what great work they do, why it is relevant to MSEers, what use they could put the money to, etc. In fact, I would welcome that. The more information available to help us make up our minds the better.

Sounds fair enough to me, and presumably technically achievable without too much difficulty. Martin?

Excuse me ... I must go and subscribe, because there's a lot on this site of interest to me anyway. I wish I'd discovered it earlier.

JimmyTheWig

gomann wrote: »

However, would the same "distribution of support" not still apply if the poll was restricted to the [xxx,000] subscribers to this website?

Are you saying that a charity could email its supporters asking if any are members of MSE then to please vote.
Maybe, but (a) would be much fairer as it would be existing members and (b) would be less likely to affect the outcome as it would only generate votes from a proportion of their support base.

Do you believe that individual views on 'deserving causes' are really likely to be swayed by posts on a Thread? And how many of those 34,926 who have voted have even read what is here, let alone contributed to the 'debate'?

No, probably not many. But that's up to the voters and the posters.
It people want to vote without reading the discussion then that's up to them.
If people want to contribute to the discussion, knowing that many voters won't be reading, that's up to them.

JimmyTheWig

gomann wrote: »

Excuse me ... I must go and subscribe, because there's a lot on this site of interest to me anyway. I wish I'd discovered it earlier.

That's the one bonus of the existing method - that it brings new people to the site!

The_kid.

MSE_Martin wrote: »

I think you've totally misunderstood the aim of this.

The site gives two thirds of its money to the MSE Charity the remainder is split between five charities. Very deliberately that is decided by the users as they're the users picks - to do that users nominate, a panel of users shortlist, and users vote. The shortlist is nothing to do with my viewpoint - that's the whole point of it. IN a community site some of the decision goes to the community. If we gave money to every charity nominated then frankly it wouldn't eb a meaningful amount for anyone.

As for this being a traffic grabber, MSE has nearly 500,000 users a day, if this was being done as a traffic grabber, it would be a very expensive and unnecessary one. As for being a patriach... how lovely of you to say so!

Martin

Perhaps in light of so much backbiting and negativity as a result of this.. I wonder if you still think its worth £20,000? I was forwarded this link in an e-mail and there are now at least 4 people who are shaking their heads with dismay. Instead of dishing out money which you know you will be able to do, why not cut your costs and instead ask people to make a contribution to the charity of their choosing? Instead, why not offer £100k's worth of investment advice time to small charities? Why not set up a service that has allowed you to coral investment help which offers preferential and decent terms for charity? Why not dare to think differently? Why not fund 2 people at your office who are there to just coordinate financial advice for ALL charity which can then benefit all, or those who subscribe to it? This is what the British Legion does. It knows that dishing out money is of limited and short term use.

I imagine, because when it comes down to it, philanthropy will always play second fiddle to prosperity. But why dictate in such a manner, why feel the need to have control of something? Why be so devisive, why not just completely seperate the act of giving with your commercial entity? Whichever charities are granted approval, the whole process has been undermined. Thats not a subjective analysis, its a fact. You have although you probably haven't meant it to happen, turned charity against charity emotionally, undermining the whole point of giving, and have cast much good work which has been previously done quietly and without fuss, in an unintentional but harsh and unflattering light. Sorry Martin, but I have been around global meeja brands for far too long to trust much in the way of denials of personal or commercial self interest. Nothing personal, I just know how it works.

Cheers. :cool:

gomann

Jimmy, in reply to both ... we broadly agree [I think we always have done, actually].

Oh, look ... two new emails: I'm a subscriber!!

The_kid.

Gomman wrote:

Excuse me ... I must go and subscribe, because there's a lot on this site of interest to me anyway. I wish I'd discovered it earlier.

JimmyTheWig wrote:

That's the one bonus - that it brings new people to the site!

Now there's a thing.