Update: SHE WON! (was: Oh No!! Olivia is losing ground FAST!)

[Wolf-Kim]

She is starting to catch up! She is down by only 1% right now, but I fear tomorrow morning which seems to give the other kid a huge boost.

Hey, the moderators helping out would be great. We could make is a BYC family effort! How about it Mods? Wanna post it as an announcement on the main page? BYC could be Olivia's unnofficial sponsor!

-Kim

 

[heritagebirds]

I voted, best of luck!!!

 

[organichic]

Quote:
I apologize for joining this forum just to make this post. 1st- a sincere good luck to Olivia, she is indeed a cute kid with a great video. But in all fairness, I wanted to clear something up...(it's my nephew who is the "other kid".)

My niece didn't win by a landslide, in fact it was a VERY slim margin. In fact she split the "prize" with the girl who came in 2nd because she knew how bad it would feel to lose, especially by a small number of votes.

There have been other comments about the parents voting over and over, and having their coworkers all vote. Another misconception. They are trying to raise 4 kids, homeschooling 2 of them- a) they don't have time to sit there and vote over and over b) you can't do that anyway c) they'd rather see their kids lose than win by cheating and d) they're having internet troubles and haven't even been able to vote for their own kid the past couple of days.

Their mom is a SAHM, and their dad is self-employed. They don't have coworkers. They do have friends, and a LOT of relatives, who are supporting them. I know they, and I, agree that this should be based on merit. Public voting doesn't allow for that. But I don't see anything wrong with asking all your friends and relatives to vote. And if those people have their friends vote, you're lucky. I wouldn't say that's "networking" though.

As far as the ENTIRE school district voting...my niece and nephew are homeschooled. They do live in a fairly small community, so everyone knows them. Also, between all of our many aunts, uncles and cousins- well over a dozen are teachers... all in different districts across the country. They've said their local school districts (and probably all school districts) also block youtube, but not the storytubes site.

It's heartbreaking to see those kids with only 20 or 30 votes. They put their hearts into it, too. It really makes us sad, and my nephew won't be entering next year because of that. He has cast his vote for an underdog every day instead of voting for himself.

I just wanted to say that, because it's easy to think of your competition as evil (or cheaters). But these kids are good kids, too. They are a nice family.

Good luck Olivia!

(if the "other kid" wasn't your competition, you'd have my vote, too.)

 

[PAChickenChick]

I just voted

She's at 44%, tied with the littlest boy there. I watched all the videos and can honestly say her's was the best.
I was totally blown away by the choice of book from the youngest boy, but hey, you never know... And the other videos are nice but none of the other children had the confidence she has.
Win, Lose, or Draw....she did a great video!

 

[SeaChick]

Dear organichic-

Thanks for your post and kind words. Your niece and nephew are certainly bright kids. My daughter and I voted for Chloe's "Sacrifice" every day during her category.

We, my daughter and I, certainly didn't just assume at the start that people were cheating. But things have happened in the last two days that are highly suspicious. On Monday evening and again last night, between 4:20 and 5:45, votes for your nephew have been coming in at an unlikely clip. The sponsoring library told us that his parents told them that there is a computer lab open after school for all the kids that didn't get to vote. Well, last night, apparently 1,350 kids "didn't get to vote at school" and voted fast-and furious, at some points 75 votes every 3 minutes, until exactly 5:45 when the voting faucet was turned off. After that, only 10 votes came in over the next FOUR HOURS. I sincerely HOPE that it was just a bunch of kids, and that they were caught by an adult and reprimanded and that the sponsoring library will be told about it. Because we've been watching the voting patterns and there's just no way that was naturally occurring.

I make me really, really sad to see that sort of thing. And sad for my daughter to have to see it. It really sullies what should be a good, wholesom contest about BOOKS..... Why would someone do that? It's a kids' contest, for goodness sake! We strongly feel that it should be judged on the merit of the videos, not this unnatural popular vote. WE're urging the sponsors to at least add a merit-based winner next year, if not cease the popular vote altogether. I just don't see what it adds to the contest beyond a lot of stress and potential for cheating.

Also- sorry about saying "landslide"... about your niece's win. What I should have said was that she won with over 7,000 votes.

Also- the sponsoring library is the one who told us that their entire school district has bee making certain that every single kid votes. We didn't make that up.

Thank you,
Stacey

 

[organichic]

SeaChick-

That's funny that you voted for my niece...when they watched all the videos on youtube, before voting started, my niece and her mom said the "chicken girl" was their favorite. They liked Olivia immediately. How could you not?

I can see why that voting would seem suspicious to you. What they told me is that the schools left the labs open (supervised), rather than interrupt classes for voting. They only let kids vote during school if they were already in one of the labs, and had time at the end of class. I believe the districts there could be encouraging every kid to vote because there is a strong sense of community support in their county. It's a cluster of a lot of small towns. There are 5 buildings voting in just their town. They also have the high school in town voting since Monday (their older sister goes there and got everyone to vote) and they have a cousin living with them, that attends high school in a neighboring town, who got a lot of kids in her district to vote. (4 more buildings, and she also spread the word around the college she'll be attending this fall.) They have cousins in 2 other neighboring towns (4 more buildings) who are pulling in votes, and their neighbors attend the local private school. They have several thousand students that could be voting every day, so I'm actually surprised by how few they've gotten. With over a dozen school buildings, some with 2 or 3 labs, 30+ computers in each lab...they could get over 500 votes in 1 minute. Of course, not everyone will vote.

It also doesn't surprise me that voting drops off around 5 or 6. (I used to live there.) Pretty much everything closes at 5:00 (except Wal-Mart). It's like a ghost town at night. People will vote from work, but not many are the type to vote from home. Their library put signs on their computers so patrons would vote. Even they close by 6. The only night voters they get are probably all of their relatives and friends in the rest of the country, those of us that are up past 8pm.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Our whole family is on board with ending the popular vote! It's ridiculous. Everyone I know is so wrapped up in this, like a sport. They're e-mailing back and forth...people that haven't even met my nephew. It's unfair. You want to see your "kid, nephew,friend...whatever" win. But then you watch a video like Olivia's, and you see all this fantastic support and enthusiasm, and you don't want to see her lose. We're all torn. I think it's going to be a lose-lose situation. There can't be that much joy in winning at this point. I think the contest was an excellent idea. Best I've seen in years. The voting is all wrong, and so are the categories. I don't think a just-turned-7 year old should have to compete against a 6th grader. If they hadn't done it that way they could have both won! Maybe we can ALL encourage the sponsors to do it differently next time.

to everyone else here-
I love the support you're giving Olivia, it's very encouraging!
keep voting...it's almost over!

 

[gumpsgirl]

Come on people! VOTE!!!

 

[SeaChick]

Hey we really appreciate everyone's enthusiasm but lets remember to play by the rules -Thanks!!!!!

 

[Wolf-Kim]

I've voted again this morning. My family has been voting for her, I have also sent it in to local chicken groups and they are voting for her.

She is ahead by 3% this morning(8:22) and hopefully she can keep the lead. She did an excellent job, I even showed Adam(when I made him vote) and he was even amazed at how someone so young could do such a good job. Everyone I've sent to the sight has really enjoyed Olivia's video. Just wanted to let you know everyone I know has loved your video, Olivia!

-Kim

 

[GwenFarms]

I watched them all and thought Olivia's was the best. I didn't just vote because she is a part of our board. I thought all the kids did a great job, but she was so articulate and really showed the subject matter of the book. All of them were great, but her's was my favorite.