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Figs and Fig leaves…
October 3, 2008 | 58 Comments
“Shape is a good part of the fig’s delight.” ~ Jane Grigson
“I’ve never turned over a fig leaf yet that didn’t have a price tag on the other side.” ~ Saul Bellow
Talking of fig leaves, we’d like you to help us understand a strange phenomenon.
The CLICK Host’s Pick Award voting was opened to our readers on October 1. Until now, we’ve had 48 voters.
The Analytics data tells us that from October 1 until the moment of posting this we’ve had 3505 unique visitors. Of them, 1275 visitors have stayed between 5 and 30 minutes (i.e. they actually read this blog). Many of them are regulars.
Why do they not want to click a checkbox (or two) to pick their favourite pictures among this month’s CLICK entries? I mean, they surely “get” that it means a lot more to the winner of CLICK Hosts’ Pick if 1000 people voted as opposed to 50 ??
Look, no one is compelled to vote, comment or participate in any way, shape or form on this site. However, just as it is the prerogative of lurkers to lurk, it is our prerogative to draw our own conclusions. So why is it that people lurk at a site for MONTHS, read every post, follow CLICK each month, and refuse – ABSOLUTELY REFUSE – to participate by simply clicking on a checkbox?
What is their fig leaf? We speculate:
1. They don’t want to spoil their manicures.
2. CLICK is a load of crock. They have more talent in their little finger than all our participants put together.
3. They got a hangover downing a six-pack every time Barbie said “nukular” yesterday.
4. They are afraid that clicking on a checkbox will cause carpal tunnel syndrome.
5. All of them belong to a Lurkology cult that bans them from participating on a site in any form. They just come here and avert their eyes just as they reach the dateline on the post. It’s like some teenagers and porn. They keep getting the DVD, but return it without watching it ‘cos it just doesn’t feel like the right thing to do.
6. They are like the ‘undecided voters’ who don’t know if they want another eight years of military, fiscal and institutional carnage, or a change of guard. They need eight more years to decide. Five days to pick three pictures among ten is not enough.
7. They are from another planet and don’t understand the language or voting instructions. They just come to see the pictures.
8. They don’t give a fig.
This is not meant to be a Sophisticated Insult, just an observation borrowed from Mark Twain.
You must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes you a long time to make it up.
If you would like to de-lurk just this one time and educate us about your interesting behaviour, it would give everyone a deep insight into human psychology. Even if you have a URL from Neptune or Jupiter, if you understand English and can read this, we’d like to know what you’re thinking.
Do the regulars have any insights?
- Bee and Jai
Edited on October 6, 2008: Thank you for your feedback. Follow-UP POST.
Filed Under: Fig, insults, MUSINGS, NaBloWriMo, Photo Essays, Sophisticated Insults Series
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58 Comments
I think enough has been said about the slighltly cumbersome process of remembering the your favourite pic/s (name and blog) and then voting on another page (not the amount of time it takes), but then again every process in life takes effort. So for me, it has always been a procratication issue of ‘let me check out the post today and I’ll vote tomorrow’ ..until the deadline has passed and its too late. I totally understand your need for interaction from us, just like I would want on my blog. Otherwise I’m an avid click and jugalbandi fan, and I resonate again to keep the viewer voting on, ‘viewer’s choice’ is a special and different catergory of click and I will get my act togethor and vote!
thats procrastination I meant above…
thank you all for your feedback. here’s what we conclude.
http://jugalbandi.info/2008/10/feedback-and-a-sense-of-perspective/
Lurker and voted!!!
I am a lurker and i voted
That was a kick in the butt but in a good way.
I love you blog btw great job.
Well, I usually vote, but missed this last one. My apologies. I will have to say though that it always took a little time as I needed to write down on paper my three picks. What’s that you say? Checkboxes next to the pics? Wonderful.
I’m not sure that I enjoy the thought of picking from a scaled-down list though. I’m sure that your intention is to make things easier, but the thing is: people who are voting are generally interested in food photography, and perhaps they wouldn’t mind looking through them all, and perhaps there is a photo that didn’t make your final cut but would appeal to many people. I’m not insulting your taste here, but in reality the category is: reader’s choice of your choice. And I find that a bit of an insult to my own judgement.
But not too much. Overall I monthly look forward to seeing the entries and outcome of this event! And as a fairly regular reader and sometime-blogger, I appreciate all the work you do.
But then again, honestly I am here more for the text: though photos display good taste, imagination is too precious to waste.
i agree that’s what the idea was – let readers pick from ALL the entries, and it was less work for us. then there were complaints that it was too cumbersome, and the spread of votes was too thin. this is some sort of a compromise.
Goota come clean….took part in this event but missed the voting deadline!
( however does it count that I voted for the previous event on citrus or am I going to be virtually chastized…ohh that already happened!!!!
I could never find where to vote – I’m sure I couldn’t even see the top entries for last month – it’s not very clear. There wasn’t any mention of it on the image gallery page, it should have a link and the date to vote by.
(I do love to look at the photos and am off to vote now.)