I’d leave it, there’s plenty of room for newcomers already. At any rate the next poll is a long way away now, you have the time to mull over it.
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Same hat almost! Mushishi was the first Japanese book I bought after I moved to Japan
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If possible, could Mushishi either go first or last? I am moving so this would make it a bit easier on me to run and keep up with.
I hope people who already voted see this 
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Leave it 
I will withdraw NANA as it will start on its own, so there’s one more spot!
I think that should be possible:) so in two days I will close the poll and announce the order, if Mushishi doesn’t win first, it will be last.
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Thank you! I really appreciate it
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If you guys don’t mind one more poll.
The past two voting rounds, someone (I didn’t check nor care who it was, might different people too) voted / changed their vote at the last minute in a way that it decided the outcome of the vote.
I feel a bit uncomfortable about that, that one person can decide what the outcome will be, it’s supposed to be a common decision.
Here are the few ideas I’ve had to try and prevent that, let me know what you think: (anonymous poll)
- Don’t show the votes until the poll is closed
- Don’t close the poll automatically but manually, so only Akashelia knows the exact stop time
- Leave things as they are now
- No opinion
- Other idea (pls comment)
0
voters
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I’m amused that the poll about whether or not we should go with hidden votes has hidden votes. 
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I’ll fess up that it was me this time causing a tie. I liked the way atelier hat looked when the club first started but haven’t followed an IMC pick yet. I happened to see a notification about the poll closing soon and voted for twin spica. When I saw that it’d be close enough to tie I also voted for silver spoon because I think it’d be easier than fullmetal, which I’ve tried outside of a club before and found difficult. A tie might have happened anyway but my timing messed it up. Sorry. I do think I can read spica with the club though.
So I think speculating about who will win is fun to watch sometimes but maybe randomize the time of day so people don’t know to the minute when the closing is.
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I am a bit torn on whether it makes sense to hide the results until the poll closes. On the one hand I think it’d be less fun, but on the other hand I sometimes wonder if the preliminary results become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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Exactly. If you show up for voting and there are already a few picks leading the vote then it feels like you better choose from those than actually vote for what you want. I also agree that watching feel evolve is fun, but I think it interesting to see what people actually vote for when it’s hidden.
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AND it doesn’t close automatically 
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I don’t think that last minute changes are that big of a deal, they can only decide between two or three already-popular options. At that point all outcomes are fine I think.
That being said I am also mildly curious to see how different the distribution would look with hidden votes so I’m not against experimenting.
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@Akashelia Sorry if I made you uncomfortable, I voted late, but for things that I really want to read, so I don’t see the harm. If someone reeeeally want to read something, than they can bribe other voters with gifs, enticing description, etc. I think it’s part of the fun. Most of us wouldn’t know about Twin Spica if it wasn’t so close to be eliminated (and amazing Greya’s post of course).
Though as Phryne said the start of the poll decides it’s future, but I recon people still would vote for things that they really want (in addition to top picks).
We could experiment with next poll (in very distant future 
)
@SpiderWeb Aaaah, I’m afraid that Silver spoon could be even more difficulf than HagaRen. Though I hope not. Actually I checked natively and it seems nobody graded those two manga against each other. Strange…
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Thanks all for participating to the discussion, keep it coming 
I’m also thinking that we could copy even more from some other official election systems: vote blind, but at the end of the vote make a new poll with the 2-3 winners of the first poll to see which one we actually read. (Okay then I stop with ideas or we will spend more time on voting than on reading 
)
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What we need is an electoral college.
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I don’t think we would need a second round of voting personally since if it were blind, I think we’d have less of a chance of ties.
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INSTANT RUNOFF! INSTANT RUNOFF!!!
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I also voted at the last minute, but it would have caused Silver Spoon to win. It seemed like folks were excited about the three way tie, and although I have voted in the past, I have never actually followed through and participated in the club (insert shame shame gif here), so I figured I shouldn’t be the one to shift the scales.
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hmmm
Showing the votes or not - meandering thoughts
- Seeing the status definitely changes my vote:
- If there are two leads and I wasn’t originally interested in one, but I do want to join the club, then I’ll vote for the one I would rather read around the day before the poll closes. I like having this ability and it increases my engagement in clubs.
- I change my vote for maybes depending how they are doing in the poll and whether I want to read with the club in that cycle. If a maybe is polling high but I don’t want to join another club right now, then I wouldn’t vote for it. If a maybe is polling low (perhaps dropping off the club), then I will vote for it. Perhaps this is artificial and unhelpful… although sometimes those picks do win!
- The first time joining a club, in the past I felt self conscious about voting. In retrospect I shouldn’t have worried about it, of course, but I see some other comments that I’m not the only one feeling like if my vote “should” count. Maybe hidden votes would help with that? But I don’t know anymore. Perhaps a hidden vote is something to try now and then if we are voting more often (2 short clubs in a row). Or just reassuring people that clubs want more members and if their intention is to read along, even if they don’t know if they can keep up - well, just vote and try your best!
- I can see how some people might have fun either making or breaking ties at the last minute. I don’t really have an opinion on this tbh. I can’t deny that following the votes is fun, even if sometimes I literally don’t care which of the top 2 (or 3) win. I wonder if the clubs would get less engagement if the polls weren’t as exciting The excitement means there are frequent reactions and the thread stays current, which might attract new members. So - potentially overall positive to keep the votes showing? Whether or not the poll is swayed by last minute votes - from the comments it looks like it’s a mix of people playing whack-a-mole with ties and others just voting late, all of which is fair game in my book. Some people might only decide at the last minute or only discover the poll late and I wouldn’t want them to miss the vote or feel bad for voting and breaking a tie. So I’m neutral on whether or not the poll is closed automatically or manually. Perhaps at IMC master’s discretion?
2-way vs 3-way ties
The whole thing makes me wonder if how we deal with ties should change? Reading a 2-way tie in series is ok because the club turnaround is fast here and another vote right away would be silly. But a 3-way tie means it will be awhile before the club votes again and that is a bit of a shame if you didn’t vote for any of the top 3. In this case it was already agreed to read them all it seems, so I’m not suggesting to change anything this time. I just wonder if anyone else agrees in future a 3-way tie should get a run-off vote rather than 3 consecutive clubs. But this isn’t a strong opinion, just a, “really 3?” kind of thought.
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I don’t like the idea of hiding the results until the poll closes. As others have mentioned, following the results as they come in is part of the fun. Changing this would probably fix the issue, but I think it’ll hurt engagement and participation.
Not closing the poll automatically might help with last minute changes, but I think people will still change their votes. Admittedly, I have also changed my vote before later in the polling cycle, but not at the last second to choose a winner. Some manga I might want to read eventually but not now. In that case, if a manga I want to read eventually is at risk of being eliminated, I’ll throw it a vote to reduce the chance of that happening. Varying the poll close time wouldn’t affect my ability to do this since I do it in the last 1-3 days, not at the last second.
One alternate option, if I can get Discourse to implement this idea, would be to lock an individual’s vote after a period of time. Just like how if you like a post by accident you can undo it, but after 5 minutes or whatever you can’t. Similarly, if you can’t change your vote after a few hours, last minute changes can’t happen. I suppose my worry with this idea is that some people will then try to hold their vote entirely for the last second. So it probably would only work in combination with one or both of your other ideas…
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