FUN PART: Second Chance Tournament!
Is your bracket destroyed? Did your picks go awry? Do you find yourself tied for 500th place and full of despair? Weep no more, bracketeers, because our 2nd Chance Tourney is created just for you.
We start with 16 books instead of 64, so the stakes aren't as high but the prizes are just as fine. Go forth and pick new brackets and be hopeful once again.
Please note: you must press the NEW button if you are entering for the first time. This is an entirely new tournament setup.
Also please note: check the list of nicknames, and please do not choose an existing nickname. For folks who have already entered their second chance tourney picks, please double check that the web entries match the email verification. If not, email the verification to Jane and she'll square it away.
And you can keep up with the tournament results, check your bracket, and your neighbor's bracket HERE.
NOT FUN PART: A Rules Update
During the first few rounds of tournament voting, we were alerted to some shenanigans involving readers encouraging others to use IP-reloading browsers to enable unlimited voting. And polls that had around 2000 votes were alongside polls with more than double that amount.
BIG SIGH.
Please don't do that. It's one thing to use your phone, your laptop, your mom's phone, the free McDonald's WiFi down the street and your school library hookup, then going to get your grandpa's cell phone. It's another entirely to reload your browser and vote endlessly over and over.
One is effort (and also hilarious). The other is exploiting a loophole. It's a fine line, yes, but it's there. Please don't do that.
After analyzing the vote patterns, we can see where reloads were happening. If we see that pattern again, we will suspend the polls immediately and disqualify both books.
Yes, that'll fuck up the tournament. Yes, it disqualifies both books when only one may be breakdancing in the loophole. But silly and happy participation is what makes this fun. Strategic exploitation of a loophole is not.
Thanks for being awesome. Let the tournament continue!
A couple of times after I had voted, I wanted to see how particular books were doing in the voting. The only way I could see to check that was to “try” to vote again, whereupon I could see the current state of the poll (and a message telling me that you’d already recorded my vote). I suspect I may not be the only person doing this. Just so you know that I wasn’t trying to actually vote more than once!