Top Ten College Students Voting

These past few days, having some free time, I've been following the online voting for our school's top ten students and discovered some interesting things.

To say I had no interest in the voting results would be a lie, since I did participate myself. However, aside from sending spam text messages via QQ and Fetion, I hadn't considered any other methods. I knew my popularity and fame at school didn't reach the level of the "top ten." But a glance that day piqued my interest in this vote.

That night, I discovered I had over a thousand votes! I was secretly delighted, wondering if someone had been promoting me, or if my popularity wasn't actually that low. But upon closer inspection, a chill ran down my spine. The difference between first place and thirtieth place (the last place) was only 100 votes. The vote changes over the next few days confirmed my suspicions: I wasn't actually that popular, and no one had helped me promote myself.

Let me first explain the rules of this vote: Students of Hangzhou Dianzi University can choose 10 people from 30 people (no more or less than 10) by using their student ID and name, and then vote. The same IP address can only vote once.

Kids who frequently participate in online voting have discovered that if someone has a large number of student IDs, it's equivalent to controlling a large number of votes. And when voting for 10 kids, it's very difficult to create a significant gap in votes unless everyone has a very thorough understanding of the 30 kids and their abilities are vastly different.

This seems to explain why the first and last place votes are always within the top 100, but another strange phenomenon is quite perplexing. On the first day, I hovered in the middle, but on the second day, I jumped straight to the bottom few places, on the third day I was back in the middle, and on the fourth day, I was at the bottom... forming an endless cycle.

Doesn't everyone find this fun? I find it very interesting. The deadline is 24:00 on the 13th. I'm wondering if I'll be one of the last few on the 13th, and that will give me an advantage, allowing me to secure a stable middle position in the end? Do other kids like me have the same thought? Everyone should try to be one of the last few before 12:00 on the 13th.

Haha, just kidding. I hope my friends at Hangzhou Dianzi University will vote for me a lot in the last two days!

I'm number 18. Please choose the other nine carefully; you can click on the profile picture next to your avatar to see their details.

Link: http://go.redhome.cc/newvote/2011sjdxs/