Battle of the E-Penis (Rd. 2 Matchup 3)

[Kraco]

It still seems no different to me: If you have to pick from two people, you have to base it on something. In RL elections if you know nothing about one candidate, you can very well vote for the other who might be a little bit more familiar. Or you could read some questionnaire results that are aplenty before the election, or watch some TV shows where they put the candidates against each other.

However, what's the difference compared to here? The candidates in these contests have posted in these threads, which is equivalent to those preelection campaign infos Animeniax referred to. The personal experience would be mainly from times before these contests, from the forums or irc. In real life you might have followed how the candidate behaved before that particular election for years in previous posts, and this is what I was referring to: I have no great interest in politics and basically the presidential elections have been the only ones where I really thought I knew something about some of the candidates beforehand (well, in that sense my example was dumb, I'll give you that, SK, I should have picked up some less grand election instead as an example. I guess everybody knew Bush and Al Gore beforehand in the US).

[XanBcoo]

Goddamn you guys can bitch.

LET'S TAKE THIS REALLY SERIOUSLY, HUH?

We have the criteria for voting now, so hopefully this will eliminate any more whining for the rest of the polls so the contest can be pointless/funny. Y'know, like it was supposed to be.

Edit: And for the record, I agree with Kraco. I also feel I have enough experience with Arcness/Haku from reading through the IRC thread to determine that he's got what SK doesn't. It wasn't totally based on rep.

[Animeniax]

Well it doesn't say anywhere that you have to vote.

Look at Xan's post, he states he was going to vote for SK because he doesn't know arcness, but then got confused because of arcness's reputation. This is in direct contradiction to what you just posted:

In RL elections if you know nothing about one candidate, you can very well vote for the other who might be a little bit more familiar.

My opinion is that if you don't know what you're dealing with, leave it be. That's why I don't vote in public elections. However, I do plan to vote for Hillary just to mess with this right-wing old coot at work. I told him I'd vote for her just to cancel out his vote. Funny thing is, neither of our votes matter.

[Kraco]

Well it doesn't say anywhere that you have to vote.

Yeah, well. That's only a matter of personal opinion and principles. In the RL I've voted in each and every election for as long as I've been allowed (been over 18 years old). But that's just how I personally feel the citizens of democracies should act. After all, those elections are the supreme power in our systems. But I admit more often than not I really didn't know who I was voting for, but voted nonetheless. And as I have such a habit in the RL, somehow it gets carried over to the net, and I tend to click those radio buttons every time there's a chance...

Look at Xan's post, he states he was going to vote for SK because he doesn't know arcness, but then got confused because of arcness's reputation.

Second hand reputation might sound like a lousy way to choose your candidate as it could justifiably be called joining the throng, but let's consider this particular contest: e-penis. Why, you know, having a huge reputation that even leaks into the consciousness of people having no first hand experience actually is a very strong sign of a big e-penis! A horde of people won't mindlessly chant the name of a nobody.

[Board of Command]

I don't know where all this talk about public elections came from. You're not voiting for the person. You're voting for what the person stands for and claims to do if he/she is elected. You're voting for the party platform. The way the candidates present themselves certainly affect the outcome of the voting, but in general people vote for party platforms. What a candidate does on his Sunday afternoons is completely irrelevant in most cases.

A lot of people don't vote precisely because they don't know who to vote for. You have to spend time reading all the party platforms if you want to make an informed decision, and most people are too lazy to do that. Simple as that.

But I admit more often than not I really didn't know who I was voting for, but voted nonetheless. And as I have such a habit in the RL, somehow it gets carried over to the net, and I tend to click those radio buttons every time there's a chance...

I admit I do this in online votes a lot, but that's a lot different from voting in real elections where the results actually affect your life. Voting for "random" candidates defeats the whole point of democracy and the voting system. If you don't know who to vote for because you didn't bother to do research, then just don't vote. There's no shame in that. It's not like you pay more taxes for abstaining.

[masamuneehs]

this is madness! serious internet business

[Assertn]

People like Kraco are the reason why we have the Electoral College.

[SK]

People like Kraco are the reason why we have the Electoral College.

ROFL.....Kraco got WTFPWND by Assertn.

[Kraco]

People like Kraco are the reason why we have the Electoral College.

ROFL.....Kraco got WTFPWND by Assertn.

Ho... There's one flaw in that logic, though. For you see, there's no such thing in Finland. We elect the president directly, not via a collection of dusty old men. So, if people like me would give birth to an electoral college system, that would mean we would also have one. And because we don't, logic dictates it's not due to people like me.

[joker-kun]

In an election such as you speak, personal experience with the candidates involves knowing his values and policies on the topics you are concerned about. That is all the personal interaction necessary for you to make an informed decision about whether to vote for this candidate. He need not have shaken your hand or kissed your baby for you to know what he stands for.

In this forum people interact via posts and irc chats, and personal interaction consists of reading what a person posts or says whether or not it is directed at you, and not necessarily a one-on-one conversation. If you have not read any of a person's posts or chat sessions, how can you make a knowledgeable vote for him? If not a knowledgeable vote, then why vote at all? Though it also doesn't work, that's why there's an electoral college in the US election system. Otherwise, Paris Hilton would be the next president of the US.

Btw, by this rubric, I should have won already.

This post isn't in direct response to the quote above. Throughout this whole topic you've been talking about how you shouldn't vote for Arcness if you don't know him. Going by YOUR logic that you've been defending shouldn't that mean you, yourself should not participate in the voting at all?

You started an argument with Xan because he voted based on reputation. Yet you avoid admitting that you voted against someone you yourself have said multiple times don't even know. Correct me if i'm wrong but I think voting based on repuation is more legit than voting for someone because you know them and don't know the other. So really, you shouldn't have even voted in this competition.

But (yes I know you're not suppose to start a sentence with but) i'm sure you're going to say this isn't the case, but instead you voted for SK because you have witnessed his 'e-dickery'. Really that's just your hypocritical way of saying you voted for him for his repuation on the forums. Face it, you're biased, you voted for SK because of his repuation on the forums, you're bashing people for voting for Arcness for his repuation on IRC.

This whole debate or argument which ever way you want to look at it was started because you couldn't admit you were wrong. Which is sad considering this is the internet. Tell me, is it coincidence that 75% of the IRC channel doesn't like you? I knew about you simply from them talking about you. Among those were mods of this forum. Not to mention the two people who almost everyone considers the 'nicest' people on both IRC and the Forum disagree with you, have proved you wrong and have even bothered posting in response to you. I'm sure you'll have 101 reasons against this though. We're all wrong, and you're right, according to you.

Before you waste your time typing about how you don't care what people on IRC or the forums think about you, don't bother. I hope you don't, if anything it will show improvement on your part.

ROFL.....Kraco got WTFPWND by Assertn.

Doesn't really seem like someone with a 200+ IQ would say...

[Assertn]

Ho... There's one flaw in that logic, though. For you see, there's no such thing in Finland. We elect the president directly, not via a collection of dusty old men. So, if people like me would give birth to an electoral college system, that would mean we would also have one. And because we don't, logic dictates it's not due to people like me.

Not necessarily. Surely, there are many people like you in the US, hence us having one.

However, some countries apparently haven't caught on that deriving chief executive power from the general uninformed masses is only a good idea in theory.

[rockmanj]

How about that...SK vs. Arcness in the e-penis contest has sparked heated debates about democratic representation and voting ethics @_@...who saw that coming??

[Board of Command]

But (yes I know you're not suppose to start a sentence with but) i'm sure you're going to say this isn't the case, but instead you voted for SK because you have witnessed his 'e-dickery'. Really that's just your hypocritical way of saying you voted for him for his repuation on the forums. Face it, you're biased, you voted for SK because of his repuation on the forums, you're bashing people for voting for Arcness for his repuation on IRC.

This is the issue though. Animeniax is basically saying that if you don't actually visit IRC and meet Arcness, then don't vote for Arcness simply because people say he's got a real big e-penis there. I would guess that around half of the voters are forum-only people who have never witnessed Arcness's deeds. Voting for SK because you've never met Arcness is fine. Yes, it's biased. Yes, it's uninformed. However, if you're not going to learn about both candidates, then you might as well just go with your gut feelings and vote based on what you know, instead of what others know. He's saying don't let your judgment be swayed by how others are voting. He's saying don't bandwagon.

He's not saying you shouldn't vote for Arcness at all. You can get to know Arcness by reading the huge IRC thread. There's plenty of material there. Only then can forum-goers make an informed decision, and that's what it all comes down to: making informed decisions. However, you can also argue that if Arcness has such a reputation, then that's pretty evident of his e-penis deeds. That may be the case for some, and that's fine by me.

I'm not really siding with anyone here because I still don't know if my own viewpoint matches that of either side's. I just get the feeling that sometimes people argue with Animeniax not because he's wrong, but because he's Animeniax. How about everyone just hold hands and have teh buttsecks?

[Kraco]

Not necessarily. Surely, there are many people like you in the US, hence us having one.

However, some countries apparently haven't caught on that deriving chief executive power from the general uninformed masses is only a good idea in theory.

In my opinion for a democracy to work in practice the most important thing is that people actually vote. Sure, some of them may be grossly uninformed, but politicians with any sense of responsibility should then in turn strive to inform those people.

Besides, who's to judge who is informed properly and who is not? If a person thinks everything's cool and so chooses to remain "uninformed" and votes the same people already in power without knowing anything more, that's a message to keep things as they are. If a pissed off person goes and votes at random, that's a message any random candidate would handle things better than those currently in power.

[Animeniax]

This post isn't in direct response to the quote above. Throughout this whole topic you've been talking about how you shouldn't vote for Arcness if you don't know him. Going by YOUR logic that you've been defending shouldn't that mean you, yourself should not participate in the voting at all?

My point as it pertains to this thread is, if you know and/or dislike someone more than you know and/or dislike someone else, vote for the first guy. If I know SK is a punk, and know nothing about arcness, then I would vote for SK. I'm not going to forget all of SK's e-dickery because arcness might be a bigger dick. I voted for SK because of firsthand experience with his e-dickery, including his many troll posts calling me and others f*gg*ts because he disagrees with you. If knowing about one but nothing about the other is not sufficient, then refrain from voting at all. For me, it is sufficient, and people saying "trust me, arcness is a bigger dick" won't change my vote.

I'm only bashing people for voting based solely off reputation (so and so said he's an a-hole) instead of actual experience (like reading his posts). What really got me going was Xan admitting he dislikes SK, but wasn't sure who to vote for because other people dislike arcness (hence his reputation). Is this Xan's vote he's casting, or does he represent a collective we don't know about?

I'm not wrong, I just have a differing viewpoint on a debatable issue. I assume you mean Kraco and Xan when you talk about the 2 nicest guys on the internet. Funny, I was going to use that as an insult against them both, but decided against it, or just hadn't gotten around to it. They haven't proven anything, just that herd mentality will be the downfall of democracy. I don't care how nice they are either. Niceness has nothing to do with intelligence. And I don't care if you don't like me. I didn't like you first.

BoC is dead-on with what I am saying. I am not alone in my fight to save humanity.

[joker-kun]

My point as it pertains to this thread is, if you know and/or dislike someone more than you know and/or dislike someone else, vote for the first guy. If I know SK is a punk, and know nothing about arcness, then I would vote for SK. I'm not going to forget all of SK's e-dickery because arcness might be a bigger dick. I voted for SK because of firsthand experience with his e-dickery, including his many troll posts calling me and others f*gg*ts because he disagrees with you. If knowing about one but nothing about the other is not sufficient, then refrain from voting at all. For me, it is sufficient, and people saying "trust me, arcness is a bigger dick" won't change my vote.

I'm only bashing people for voting based solely off reputation (so and so said he's an a-hole) instead of actual experience (like reading his posts). What really got me going was Xan admitting he dislikes SK, but wasn't sure who to vote for because other people dislike arcness (hence his reputation). Is this Xan's vote he's casting, or does he represent a collective we don't know about?

I'm not wrong, I just have a differing viewpoint on a debatable issue. I assume you mean Kraco and Xan when you talk about the 2 nicest guys on the internet. Funny, I was going to use that as an insult against them both, but decided against it, or just hadn't gotten around to it. They haven't proven anything, just that herd mentality will be the downfall of democracy. I don't care how nice they are either. Niceness has nothing to do with intelligence. And I don't care if you don't like me. I didn't like you first.

BoC is dead-on with what I am saying. I am not alone in my fight to save humanity.

You assumed wrong. I don't even know Xan. It's Kraco and Yuki i'm talking about. As for niceness reflecting ones intelligence. You're right, it doesn't. Re read what I said, it was never referring to intelligence.

Basically everyone's point in here is you do things to purposely attract attention or get on people's nerves. If you want to be technical, No that it isn't what you said at first.

Arcness might be bigger and badder on irc, but he/she/it doesn't participate enough on the forums. irc chatter is fleeting, forums keep your stupidity saved in hard format for future users to see, so SK got my vote.

That is. Yuki and I disagreed with you on that comment. On that comment, you ARE wrong. With IRC logs and with the IRC thread IRC chat IS saved in hard format. Then you decided to get defensive, make a ridiculous comparison to Galileo and slowly your argument changed.

They called Galileo foolish for saying the earth rotated around the sun. See how wrong they were. If this poll were on irc, it might be different, but here on the forums, SK is the bigger dumb kid.

That is shown above. So the original issue was if IRC should be put in consideration for ones vote. Clearly it should . You avoided accepting that or even answering that by changing your argument as I said above.

You're considering voting for someone because some other guys like or dislike him on irc? If you have no experience with Arcness' bs, then don't vote him, otherwise this contest is meaningless. Try thinking for yourself once in a while.

joker, referring to yourself as joker-kun is like referring to yourself in the third-person, or worse giving yourself a cute nickname. "Albert Eintstien" is "definately" rolling in his grave.

That was your next post. As you can see, you completely avoided agreeing or disagreeing with my and Yuki's point. Instead you took it upon yourself to disagree with Xan. I really don't care, once again I don't know Xan. After that though you quoted me. You made absolutely no attempt to talk normal. Instead you tried to insult me twice. Both times insulting yourself. Considering animaniax as far as I know refers to the three, so what are you plural? I already addressed the second insult in one of my posts, don't see a need to do so again.

Taking advice and bandwagoning are two different things.

BoC was the first one to mention Bandwagoning. During the discussion on page two you followed and made the argument your own. The fact is you made a direct attempt to insult Yuki and myself because we disagreed with your assesment that IRC is unimportant. You made no attempt to continue that discussion. As I said, you instead insulted us. The only reason I continued to post was to show how you slowly changed after each point you made was answered with an opposing point.

The fact is, you're looking for attention. You don't know how to carry a proper discussion. You're like an immature elementary school child that says "I know you are but what am I" whenever someone doesn't agree with them. If you said what you said above from the beginning I doubt anyone would have replied to you. If they did, Boc would probably be right, they did it just because of how unliked you are. That isn't the case here though.

[complich8]

both this thread and this whole contest make me sad.

[Board of Command]

This contest is lawlz. Man, I love myself.

[Kraco]

They haven't proven anything, just that herd mentality will be the downfall of democracy.

Herd mentality is one of the cornerstones of democracy. That's what parties are partially built upon: A core of people who design the ideology and then the masses that find it agreeable and join it and then the other masses who join it (or just vote for it) because others are joining it, thus giving the party extra strength. And they all are needed: Some people want to lead, some want to know what's going on but still live and better their ordinary lives as factory workers, clerks, priests, ship captains, soldiers; and then some who don't care but want to continue their lives as they have continued so far, and trust that hope on people they don't know yet still think it's ok for whatever personal reasons. And as has been proven by the years, it can work just fine.

I'm only bashing people for voting based solely off reputation (so and so said he's an a-hole) instead of actual experience (like reading his posts). What really got me going was Xan admitting he dislikes SK, but wasn't sure who to vote for because other people dislike arcness (hence his reputation).

Well, few people consciously want to base their opinions entirely on what others think, but if 20 people verify Arc is a hopeless edick, you'd think that counts for something? Unless you think they are all lying for whatever reasons. At the very least it should encourage to find out the truth. But since we aren't choosing the president here, a regular lazy guy might opt to believe what that bunch of other people said, and validate the wisdom of that mentality, to a degree. Because it couldn't be proven wrong, either.

You assumed wrong. I don't even know Xan. It's Kraco and Yuki i'm talking about.

Secretly I have always yearned to be a tragic, wicked person, but that's not the reason why I must decline this honour. KitKat all by herself takes the first three seats as the nicest person. Never seen a more nice character. I mean, she's even ready to knit scarfs to total strangers she only "knows" from the irc and the forums! Truly an esaint if one ever existed.

Yeah, it would have been insanely funny if she had been included in this contest...

[Jadugar]

BOC has made a serious error in making this match's poll. There should be only one choice at the top, VOTE FOR ARCNESS.

IRC or gotwoot, Arcness RULES !

What I want to know is, who has been voting for SK?


P.S Why is everybody picking on Animeniax? He seems like such a nice guy. Have you no shame/e-penis?