Bah. Sounds like awesome strategic voting to me. The Scifi folks may be paranoid when they're not winning, but you sure couldn't call 'em stupid. I love it. Do you really think Dan Rather's Reports has more active internet voters than Lost? :p Hrm. Where did all of Dan's voters come from?
That's what happens when it's not a single vote but a tournament vote.
I don't mind so much, all of the scifi shows on that list combined still aren't near most of the other shows in popularity (nor are we, 7th seed), so they needed the edge. Perfectly legit and you see it in real politics all the time. It's why the US is so ingrained into a 2-party system. Because by voting for the 3rd party, which will not win in the current election, you give up your ability to choose between the two bigger parties and that vote *does* count. So you see people voting for the lesser of two evils. Or, you see this in sports runs for the playoffs. Sometimes teams are in a position that, by losing a game, they can face and easier team in the playoffs. It's dirty in sports, because sports are supposed to be competitive. It should never be an advantage to lose. But, in voting patterns, my opinion is that it's dumb *not* to vote strategically.
Trivia: For "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" in Russia, when you ask the audience for help, they try to get you to fuck up. (Not relevant, but funny!).
And yeah, I think you're conservative in saying only 10-20k of our votes are individuals. There's maybe ten people who've voted a lot, maybe 50 or 60 who've bothered to clear their cache a handful of times before leaving. And even then, many only bothered to post when prizes were up for grabs. Ditto on their forums I'd say. Even though it looks like "OMFG *everyone* is re-voting", only a tiny percentage of people are willing to camp out and drudge the votes, and in the end they're insignificant.
What was significant was everyone going to the other forums and letting them know, getting out to the gyms and clubs and the email lists and the other countries.
Our big push came from the pre-fight (~12,000), the post-fight (~25,000), and Forum Day (most of the rest).
We'll get one more big push tomorrow probably, from the casual catch-up fans, as everyone comes home from the weekend, checks their email, hits the gym, and read up on what they missed.
If the gap starts to close in the next few days, we'll just have to make another call for people to extend their social network. Especially in places that HDNet Fights is popular, but aren't English. A half-dozen translators posting why the poll is important, and foom. The bottom line is that we're a larger fanbase that's just as active, by necessity, because fights aren't a regular thing quite yet. So we'll win no matter what.