Comments on: ASUS Blogger Winner Announced!

By: WidGet

WidGet — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:49:38 +0000

The Inquirer like the rest of us has decided that you idiots need to be exposed as the frauds that you are.

Long may this continue until you all accept your own responsibility in this debacle.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1469209/asus-defends-blogging-competition

You are a bunch of amateurs and based on your incompetence, you should try a new vocation – politics perhaps????

By: Slated

Slated — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:46:57 +0000

Why the mystery over these supposed “problems” with the voting system? Is there some particular reason you can’t just give us the details?

If there really were problems, then the results should have been declared void, not recast in this arbitrary fashion. Then the competition should have been re-run from scratch.

Can you imagine if something like this happened in a political election? There’d be riots, a public enquiry, and probably criminal prosecution.

Unless the competition runners can prove the legitimacy of their claims, and explain why they switched to this bizarre voting scheme, instead of just re-running the competition, or using the original results, then I think most people are just going to assume that the whole thing was rigged.

So, was it?

Sure looks like it to me.

By: WidGet

WidGet — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:11:58 +0000

ASUS and you ElectricPigs – do the right thing – both the popular vote and the girl who can take nice pictures should both be declared winners and get the spoils of the competition (that means get the prize for u idiots) purely because of your incompetence.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1433394/bloggers-outraged-asus

By: David M.

David M. — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:51:41 +0000

After reading this post and the associated comments, I have to say that I am absolutely appalled that something like this would happen in a credible competition! I didn’t vote, but I certainly have an interest in the moral stature of a company I have often purchased from and I will certainly be evaluating alternatives from here on out.

Thanks for testing (and ultimately ruining) my faith in Asus.

By: LaraC

LaraC — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:01:30 +0000

I agree completely – it was a waste of our time and effort reading all the posts and voting for our favourite.

I cannot see how the blogger who was in 5th place at the close of poll could possibly have won other than the other bloggers thought they’d increase their own chances by voting for one of the least popular people – electricpig chose to do a poll and invited us to vote, surely if there was concern over the validity of some votes they could have fixed the system rather than abandoning it?

I also find the outcome suspicious, who voted for who and why did it take so long to announce it? And why does the winner just happen to have one of the highest amount of blogs?

It doesn’t make me want to abandon ASUS but I certainly will not be returning to this site if this is the way they are going to treat their readers.

By: WidGet

WidGet — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:28:34 +0000

Mr Holland,

Considering you didn’t have the foresight to run a credible competition for the bloggers, how are we the viewers meant to trust that one of us lucky suckers is going to win a PC for making comments?

PS – I can’t write but I take nice photo’s so does that mean I win?

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:51:28 +0000

I don’t agree. As a reader and voter I was not consulted about changing the system. There are a number of problems here:
1. If there was a massive problem with the setup, then it was a lack of foresight to let us all vote and then toss our votes in the bin.
You said: “It would have been easy for us to slam shut the comments section on this page, make our conclusions behind closed doors and simply announce the winner” but thats exactly what you did! And now because you haven’t shut off the comments for this page we must treat you like heroes?
2. “but we believe in openness and hope we’ve reached a satisfactory outcome for all involved” – not even close. This is not a satisfactory outcome and neither was it open, not to me at least.

You don’t even say what the problems with the process are, it is just a big mystery.

The bigger issue for me here is my trust in Asus. This process is representative of them as a company. The rules were changed after the fact. This whole thing has been turned into a mess and a joke. I became involved by reading and commenting, partially because of the competition and I bought into this process through my involvement. What you achieved is to make me feel like a fool for trusting you.

By: James Holland

James Holland — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:21:21 +0000

Hi guys. Let me step in here and stress the decision to change the voting strategy wasn’t taken lightly. However, we received a lot of feedback from readers and the ASUS Bloggers alike, to such an extent that we had no recourse than to pull the vote and find an alternative solution. We cleared this with the ASUS Bloggers themselves beforehand, and they all felt the way the situation was resolved was in the spirit of the overall experience.

It would have been easy for us to slam shut the comments section on this page, make our conclusions behind closed doors and simply announce the winner, but we believe in openness and hope we’ve reached a satisfactory outcome for all involved.

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:07:12 +0000

Just to shine some light on this shocking vote rigging, this is actually what happened:
1. We as readers were told to vote for our favourite blogger and the winner would get to keep the kit they reviewed.
2. Gavyn Britton won this vote by a clear margin.
3. The editors of the site for some reason did not like this.
4. The bloggers were told to vote for each other.
5. Emma won this vote with 3 from 6. A fifty percent margin!! As it is so excitedly declared in the blog post above.
Emma gets to keep her kit (I did really like her blog posts but she didn’t win the popular vote). The rest of the bloggers including the actual winner get an Eee PC.

This is truly shocking and I wonder if the editors of this site also administer the voting in Zimbabwe? It’s disgusting favouritism or highly misguided ideas like this that destroys all the excitement, credibility and positive energy that has been created by what was actually quite an exciting idea. I for one have become an Asus fan over the time that this competition was running. Thats all gone. I won’t be buying an Asus product anytime soon.

The feeling of being cheated by someone changing the rules after the fact just leaves a sour taste in the mouth. What a pity that this had to descend into such dishonest changes to the system. I also feel sorry for Emma and Gavyn they, and the other bloggers, don’t deserve to be treated in this way.

By: WidGet

WidGet — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:24:45 +0000

so u ask for us to vote for our Fav blogger then u toss our votes and go to plan B?????

what a crock of sh%t