Room of the Month Runoff Votes

[MetroidNerd#9001]

I always found it rather unsatisfying to see a tie in Room of the Month contests, especially in races where votes are split between upwards of 8-10 entries, meaning the winners only got 2-4 votes each. I think this could be remedied by implementing a system of runoff elections, with two options for implementation:

1) A runoff is initiated when there is a tie for first place, with the runoff held just between those who tied, and voting lasting for a week.

2) A runoff is initiated when no room receives a simple majority of votes (Could make it half or half plus one), with the runoff held between the top two rooms of the initial vote, and voting lasting for a week.

I believe either of these changes would serve to provide more accurate results for Room of the Month, as well as make Room of the Year more consistent, always having 12 rooms to choose from, as opposed to some months having two or even three choices. Speaking of Room of the Year...

Room of the Year could also be improved, possibly by adding more rounds of voting to slowly narrow down the winner. This could work similarly to my second idea for RotM runoffs, but with more rounds because there are more rooms. Here's an idea for it:

1) Initial voting for Room of the Year begins in February after December's winner has been decided, where members choose any one of the twelve rooms from the past year. If no room receives a simple majority of votes, move on to round two at the end of the month.

2) Eliminate all rooms that got 0 votes and the two or three that got the least votes in the first round. Wash, rinse, repeat with voting until the end of March. If no room receives a simple majority this time, move onto round 3.

3) Take the top two rooms from the second round (or three if there's a tie for first or second place) and pit them in a final runoff election. Whoever receives the most votes in the round, ending at the end of April, is chosen as the room of the Year!

The need for runoffs could potentially be eliminated entirely if someone were to implement Ranked-Choice-Voting, but given the current system we have, I think a series of runoffs is more feasible.

[OneOf99]

I think this an interesting thing to consider and one that I honestly never really thought about before. For a while we have just had ties put together as joint winners because it is easiest for us to manage. There is a kind of charm (to me at least) in having something like a three-way tie because it usually is a result of different games with vastly different tile sets.

The main issue I see with doing these runoff votes is that they may clog up the contest board page, though perhaps that isn't much of a problem since I don't think we've ever even reached ten unlocked topics at the same time on there. I'd like to hear what other people think though and if there is more support for this, because if so then hey, why not change it?

The issue involving 8-10 rooms existing is hard to fix however, and honestly I think it would be nice if people could vote on multiple separate rooms (like if there are 4-7 rooms we give two votes, 8+ you get three). I don't know if this is possible to implement, but I can ask around.

[Moehr]

May be able to post three separate polls at same time I guess?

[Smiley]

Polls do have a setting for maximum votes per user.

[OneOf99]

Polls do have a setting for maximum votes per user.

Great, now I am officially unfit for this job considering I should have known that.  :blush: