Is It Sensible That You Can Vote For Yourself?

If you don't think it is good enough to vote on yourself, why enter.

These aren't contests that have any kind of recognition outside of FAA. And unless it's a juried contest the votes are a bit popularity, and a bit on merit. The biggest purpose is to make sales, and for the most part it's a fun diversion. So why would you not vote for yourself and boost your shot at making a sale?

I always vote for myself. What would be better is if the artists names were not on the contest entries.

there is no reason not to. but again, you don't get a prize usually, and i don't think it helps to make you sell. this isn't a strict contest thing, anyone can make it, and because many of them allow vote solicitation, its really about how many friends you have anyway. another words you won't get an idea if your work is better than others because other people sort of cheat.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

This is a very minor issue that is confronted once per month here in the forum. Usually posted by someone new to this pond

Consider this a way of life here at FAA. What one would do in the daily routine of their local art club is not how it works around here.

Getting used to and flowing along with the rules on-line is part of the metamorphosis we must go through.

Welcome to the club.

What Jessica said. I agree.

Contests, by design, are supposed to get exposure. FAA is not an art competition, it's an online store. If something is really supposed to be on "merit" alone then it should be juried. But I digress

If you were running for President would you vote for yourself or your opponent.

Usually in the contests you are given several votes. I don't see anything wrong in casting one of them for yourself.

Petri, I have always voted for myself in a contest. It has always been my understanding by voting for yourself this gets you placed on the Leader board. I always considered if the contest has over 200 plus images in the contest odds of someone sitting looking at every image to cast a vote does take time to review and many members do review them all. When participants cast a vote for themselves most individuals do look at the leader board page and review and cast their vote from that page.

We are not preventing self votes in the contests

Most times my own vote is the only vote my work gets. There wouldn't be much point in entering if I couldn't vote for myself because those who only look at the leader board would never even see my images.

Agree with Abbie and MM, the site never prevented for participants to cast the first vote in contest.

In most juried art contests I have entered, at least locally, the panel of anybody in the jury would not be allowed to even enter any of their own artwork. And to vote yourself a win for artwork that one in the jury would enter would be outrageous. So I can perfectly understand why the OP would find it also outrageous to vote on their own artwork. But if the rules say that you can vote on your own artwork, then those are the rules. But the contest administrator can have the choice of posting a rule that one can not vote on their own art, and then the contest administrator can choose to make it that voting for your own art is a disqualification for that contest. Then if that is the stated rule for that contest, then you should not vote for your own art.

If you want a logical answer...

The way the contest feature is designed by FAA... The voters have several alternatives to cast their votes. One way is to go through every selection one by one on the vote page (where each page shows only one image entry). Sometimes there could be several hundred pages or even more than a thousand entries. (This is one reason why there are many complaints about the "contests" that allow 10 entries for each member and why some members do not enter those said contests).

There is another way to vote, by going to the Leaderboard page however, the image must already have a vote before it can appear there. No surprise, allegedly most votes are cast on the leaderboard page.

Assuming the leaderboard page which keeps a running tally of votes per image has by default narrowed down the allegedly best images by previous votes (both from the voting page and/or the Leaderboard page), this could in theory, sort out the best (or favorite, or most popular, or most solicited) of the contest's images to choose from, on a much shorter list, and at a comparative glance.

Problem...
Since assuming, most people vote from the Leaderboard page, and since an image must have at least one vote just to appear on the Leaderboard... and one cannot depend on an image having received a vote... the best solution is to vote for your own image to assure it appears on the Leaderboard.

Aside from the logic, why would there be anything wrong with voting for your own image?

Sidebar... I happen to immensely dislike those contests where the host dictates that members are not allowed to vote for their own image. I for one am greatly upset when anyone tries to tell me how to vote in a contest. If an image is eligible for voting on, and the members are eligible for voting, where is there a dependency?

Yeah yeah, we all know (except for one stubborn contest host I'm aware of) that these so-called "contests" aren't really contests at all, but just a means of getting greater exposure for your work (thank you for that). Assuming this is true, then why not call them something other than a "Contest"? Also, if the contests are meant for FAA artists to gain additional exposure for their work, why do so many contest hosts, make such long lists of demanding criteria for the contest submissions? They should instead make it as easy as possible for entries to be made, not more difficult. (just my 2 cents).

A possible exception...
If these were REAL, unsolicited contests, and not just to gain additional exposure, I might say that voting for yourself IF YOU ARE ALSO THE HOST of the contest, might be an advantage for you thus unethical. Since we're told the contest premise is only for additional exposure and now, FAA actually encourages solicitation for that exposure, then I'm not concerned with the ethics of voting for my own image if I'm the admin host.