$$$ for WPI vote daily now in Vivint Round 2!

[frenchtulip]

Super, Dolphin! So the IACFS/ME does know about the contest. I just sent my emails yesterday and immediately heard back from Dr. Bateman, who is also a member of the IACFS/ME.

 

[eric_s]

It Gets Better seems to have made a pretty impressive jump, around 1700 votes, and the day is not over yet. But the good thing is that even if they were able to keep this up, it would not be enough to beat the WPI. So no reason to not vote for the IACFS/ME, in my opnion. But maybe we should look around a bit, if there are any suspicious signs.

 

[Dolphin]

Super, Dolphin! So the IACFS/ME does know about the contest. I just sent my emails yesterday and immediately heard back from Dr. Bateman, who is also a member of the IACFS/ME.

Good. Although I'm not sure I'd have much confidence in them being proactive: as far as I know (I'm on their mailing list), they didn't tell their members about the matching donations so they're probably less likely to tell members about this.

 

[frenchtulip]

Good. Although I'm not sure I'd have much confidence in them being proactive: as far as I know (I'm on their mailing list), they didn't tell their members about the matching donations so they're probably less likely to tell members about this.

Okay, thanks. Maybe I will try and locate an actual email for Dr. Klimas. I think she will help to spread the word if she has time. She seems to be a central figure within the community of ME/CFS professionals.

The IACFS/ME must surely have a way to easily notify members if they consider this opportunity to be important enough.

I do hate to ask ME/CFS professionals to do the extra task of voting daily. They do so much for patients already and have such busy schedules.

 

[Dolphin]

Okay, thanks. Maybe I will try and locate an actual email for Dr. Klimas. I think she will help to spread the word if she has time. She seems to be a central figure within the community of ME/CFS professionals.

The IACFS/ME must surely have a way to easily notify members if they consider this opportunity to be important enough.

I do hate to ask ME/CFS professionals to do the extra task of voting daily. They do so much for patients already and have such busy schedules.

Contacting Dr. Klimas sounds good.

The IACFS/ME do have ways of contacting their members - we've been getting lots of messages about the conference. They also sometimes send out an E-mail with a statement on a particular issue [they also have newsletters and the Bulletin (which is a medical journal) - but there hasn't been any newsletters or Bulletins since the contest started]. Perhaps a newsletter is in the offing or they might mention it elsewhere with a nudge.

 

[Dolphin]

(Junk Junk)

I happened to look at the Vivint blog and saw this comment:
http://blog.vivint.com/2011/08/wildcard/#comments

xxxx xxxxx says:

The company I work for is small by comparison to many of your other companies in the top ten. But Partnerships in Community Living makes a difference to the lives of the people that it serves. And is giving jobs to people in an area hard hit, with unemployment. Please consider us.

That's an unusual way to look for votes in a charity contest!

 

[Dolphin]

I'm worried about "It gets better project" now - they have got nearly 2,500 votes in the last 24 hours. I'm thinking of going back to the WPI. If anybody can spot if they are cheating, it'd be great.

[Just because a group increases doesn't mean I'd necessarily switch in all circumstances: the other group could simply overshoot the WPI so it wouldn't matter if I had voted; however, I'm not sure the IACFS/ME are going to make it and the big prize is more important].

 

[cfidsurfer]

Ohhhh Noooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope this isn't going to be a repeat of the past contests we seem to lose. Everybody needs to vot for WPI in order to even have a CHANCE at winning. Some of these contestants are sleeping giants who haven't even started ramping up their votes yet. This is going to get VERY dicey! Please vote for WPI!

 

[Dolphin]

There is a reasonable chance the IT GETS BETTER PROJECT vote is genuine.
On the website, http://www.itgetsbetter.org/ , one can see their blog: http://www.itgetsbetter.org/blog/entry/help-keep-this-movement-going-vote-daily/ and it is the latest blog (August 8). They don't seem to have blogged about it before.
Then on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/ItGetsBetter , they have mentioned it twice in the last 24 hours or so, and have thanked some members who have re-tweeted it or voted.
They also plugged it on their Facebook https://www.facebook.com/#!/itgetsbetterproject page on Monday and Tuesday - they last did that back on July 25 and before that it was July 14.

 

[helen41]

I'm worried about "It gets better project" now - they have got nearly 2,500 votes in the last 24 hours. I'm thinking of going back to the WPI. If anybody can spot if they are cheating, it'd be great.

[Just because a group increases doesn't mean I'd necessarily switch in all circumstances: the other group could simply overshoot the WPI so it wouldn't matter if I had voted; however, I'm not sure the IACFS/ME are going to make it and the big prize is more important].

we need to start hunting, to see if their votes are legitimate. I'll try in the morning. Meanwhile, if someone could provide numbers to see if WPI is actually at risk or not, I would be so grateful. I don't want to abandon another chance at money if it isn't needed, but of course none of us want to risk the WPI either

 

[WillowJ]

ok, I'm glad I checked the thread before voting. Thanks so much for keeping an eye on this for us!

 

[eric_s]

we need to start hunting, to see if their votes are legitimate. I'll try in the morning. Meanwhile, if someone could provide numbers to see if WPI is actually at risk or not, I would be so grateful. I don't want to abandon another chance at money if it isn't needed, but of course none of us want to risk the WPI either

At the moment the WPI has a lead over It Gets Better of 47'000 votes. The contest will go on for another 17 days. That means, in order to catch up, It Gets Better needs 2765 daily votes more than WPI has every day. If we put the WPI at 900 daily votes, It Gets Better thus needs 3665 every day on average to reach the WPI. That's why i said yesterday that they don't have enough yet to be able to beat us. While i also see them as a danger, i will not switch back to the WPI just yet. I will see how things develop for a couple of days. If they manage to stay above 2000 for 3 or 4 days, i will switch back. We have to keep our eyes open, but in my opinion, we are still on track to win. I find it hard to believe a charity would be able to get voting in the region of the absolute leaders out of nowhere all of a sudden. If they were able to do that, why didn't they do so from the start and constantly? That would get them 250'000$ and not "only" 100'000$.

Does anybody have numbers about how many followers It Gets Better has on Facebook, how many readers their blog has, etc.?
And could somebody check how many votes they got when they last advertised for it, on the dates Dolphin mentioned? Then we could see if that's normal and just a spike that won't last.

 

[Dolphin]

Eric, you could be right. I think I'll delay voting today to see how things are going later.

 

[Francelle]

Gosh Im not going to risk it. My familys votes are back with WPI, Im afraid. It just got too tense for me a few weeks back with Conejo. Id rather we stay well clear too much stress for us M.E. people lol!

 

[eric_s]

Ok, i checked some numbers.

It Gets Better's Facebook page has 206'000 people who "liked" it.

Dolphin said they advertised on their Facebook page for Vivint on the 14/7 and 25/7.

They got:

8/7: 553
9/7: 336
10/7: 217
11/7: 355
12/7: 250
13/7: 409
14/7: 193
15/7: 73
16/7: 44
17/7: 62
18/7: 93
19/7: 70
20/7: 67


25/7: 45
26/7: 403
27/7: 88
28/7: 66
29/7: 46
30/7: 26
31/7: 30

So it seems they started the contest pretty strong, but then, after the 14/7, they dropped. It looks as if the first advertising, on the 14/7, didn't have any effect.

Then, after the second advertising, on 25/7, votes went up, but just for one day.

With 200'000 people liking their FB page, they certainly are dangerous. It will be interesting to see how things develop, if they can keep this pace up. It might be the blog or another form of advertising that is making the difference now, as the advertising via Facebook seems to not have brought them so many votes, when they did it on 14/7 and 25/7.

 

[Dolphin]

Ok, i checked some numbers.

It Gets Better's Facebook page has 206'000 people who "liked" it.

Dolphin said they advertised on their Facebook page for Vivint on the 14/7 and 25/7.

They got:

8/7: 553
9/7: 336
10/7: 217
11/7: 355
12/7: 250
13/7: 409
14/7: 193
15/7: 73
16/7: 44
17/7: 62
18/7: 93
19/7: 70
20/7: 67


25/7: 45
26/7: 403
27/7: 88
28/7: 66
29/7: 46
30/7: 26
31/7: 30

So it seems they started the contest pretty strong, but then, after the 14/7, they dropped. It looks as if the first advertising, on the 14/7, didn't have any effect.

Then, after the second advertising, on 25/7, votes went up, but just for one day.

With 200'000 people liking their FB page, they certainly are dangerous. It will be interesting to see how things develop, if they can keep this pace up. It might be the blog or another form of advertising that is making the difference now, as the advertising via Facebook seems to not have brought them so many votes, when they did it on 14/7 and 25/7.

Good research, Eric.

They also plugged it every day July 7-14 (which coincides with the higher numbers).

 

[eric_s]

Ah, very good to know, thanks. Maybe i will go back and check what they got before 7/7, but right now i need a break from this ;-)

Edit: I didn't find any earlier values for It Gets Better on the thread. One would have to open the pdfs and calculate the increases, but at the moment i don't feel like doing it.


Edit 2: Ok, what i could quickly do was this calculation: In the first 24 days of the contest It Gets Better got 1576 votes. This means that on average they got 66 votes per day. So, if the advertising started on 7/7, that means without the advertising they don't make much and also that the advertising via FB usually only has a pretty short-lived effect.

So the conclusion is that probably the reason for their current increase in voting is not the advertising via Facebook. Let's hope they will not be able to get even more votes and that the increase is dependent on the advertising, as it seems to have been the case before, and whatever they are doing will lose it's effect soon.

 

[SpecialK82]

It Get Better went up by 2278 yesterday Aug 9, so far today (15 hrs since last file) they have 985. Eric, thanks for the calcs, your conclusion makes sense that they are doing something else to get votes. If we can figure it out, it may help us decide if we should switch back to WPI. I am going to keep my vote with IACFS for now until we can determine if this looks like it will last and as stated if it would greatly overshoot WPI.

Good to look for cheating too.


WPI 53747 + 850 = 54597
Be Perfect 14335 + 123 = 14458
Surfer Healing 9033 + 65 = 9098
Hailey mayz 7218 + 67 = 7285
Next Gen 4361 + 16 = 4377
Invisible 5654 + 55 = 5709
Jumpstart 4109 + 14 = 4123
King Bellflower 4682 + 49 = 4731
Sean Vernon 3441 + 44 = 3485
Partner Living 2438 + 15 = 2453
Shared Hope 2860 + 24 = 2884
Austin's House 2905 + 41 = 2946
Trevor 1106 + 6 = 1112
Dream 1252 + 8 = 1260
Courage 1874 + 24 = 1898
Ameriface 1771 + 32 = 1803
Prader Willi CA 561 + 2 = 563
Gets Better 5829 + 2278 = 8107
Tinnitus 382 + 2 = 384


IACFS/ME 473 + 83 = 556


Light & Love 28708 + 422 = 29130
St John Hospital 11350 + 112 = 11462
ME/FM Action 8320 + 110 = 8430
Prader-Willi 7212 + 101 = 7313
Nightingale 370 + 3 = 373

 

[frenchtulip]

At our house we will be waiting until the end of each day to vote.

 

[No Poster Girl]

I believe that It Gets Better's votes are likely genuine.

For those of you who are not familiar with the It Gets Better Project (wikipedia), it was started by syndicated sex and relationship columnist Dan Savage as a way to tell at risk lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender youth that whatever hardships they're going through in adolescence, they're likely to reach a happier adulthood.

Dan Savage (here's his column and his wikipedia entry) has an absolutely enormous readership. (I've been reading his column on and off since the 90s - I used to read it in dead tree form in the D.C. alt-weekly City Paper.) From its beginnings in his September 23, 2010 column, It Gets Better has basically turned into a movement of its own, with tons of celebrities and regular people making thousands of videos. The effort has also spawned a book.

As Dolphin says, It Gets Better has 200k+ likers on facebook. This is one group that I knew from the start was potential trouble on the horizon for us - they didn't need to vote all the way along. Just rallying their supporters for a few weeks would do it.

I spoke to jace this morning about this. She wondered why, when they have so many likers, they got such a small amount of matching donations ($755) as compared to WPI. In checking into that, looking back on the most recent matching period, I see only one post they made on fb about the matching period. 71 people liked it, and it got one comment. They also tweeted once about it - they have 29k Twitter followers.

I think the reason their amount of donations was so small in proportion to their number of likers is that they have a lot of only peripherally involved followers. WPI's likers are heavily personally invested. That, to me, makes sense as to why the difference in contributions might exist.

I'm going to do a bit of looking around, but personally, I'm not suspicious.

Edited to add: There are more than 40 million results for the exact phrase "it gets better" on Google. Adding "project" to that phrase takes it down to the two-and-a-half million range. "Whittemore Peterson Institute" returns 196k results.