The know it's popular. They definitely play it up. And they know the web fandom isn't a representative sample, but the amount of involvement that caused a writing campaign to Ausiello, etc. should make an impression. And Chipmunk, don't forget that before Wilson was there, Cuddy was losing to Cammie. Isn't losing to Wilson better?

And Chipmunk, don't forget that before Wilson was there, Cuddy was losing to Cammie. Isn't losing to Wilson better? You do make an incredibly valid point.

I suspect Cuddy was picking up some Hilson votes as most palatable alternative. Not anymore. Cuddy's still losing to Cameron. So I'm not sure that's much consolation. :lol: The usefulness of the poll depends on the capability of the metrics. If they can look at the poll and find out that Wilson's 57% (or more!) is the result of a limited number of people voting obsessively, that's probably not that helpful or informative to them. They already know that cluster of fans is out there from polls on their own site. (More telling was the last TV Guide poll Wilson won - it required logging in to the site to vote and only allowed one vote per user. I mean, sure, people can always make sockpuppets, but it would be a pain.)

I've been in lurk-mode since the hiatus started--but I was so thrilled that Wilson had been added to this poll, all official and whatnot with it being TV Guide and all--that I had to vote. I'm hoping that the fact that Wilson is ahead of all the other options is not due to rabid slashers voting and re-voting for hours, but rather because a lot of general fans came to the same conclusion I did about a year ago: H/W simply make each other more complete and well-rounded people than any other pairing. I normally don't "slash" as a rule. But with H/W the bare facts of their dynamic made me hope that the writers might have the balls to go ahead and make it a love story. So I'll cross my fingers now and hope that more of the general fanbase is thinking along the same lines!

Y'll Wilson is down to 53 and Cam is up to 40. We need to vote til it hurts. I've been voting but the numbers haven't changed HELP!!!!!

At this point there are probably so many votes that it takes hundreds to move a percentage one point. But that also means the person you aren't voting for needs hundreds of votes to move one closer.

Add my voice to the pleas for more votes... We were as high as 58% and now down to 50% :cry: today's the last day everyone come on over and vote a BUNCH of times.. :)

Well, Wilson's at 59% as of five minutes ago. Cammy's at 37%.

I wonder if they tossed out the votes from before they added Wilson. If not, his win is even more significant -- not in terms of statistics, but as an indication about how much the H/W fans care.

I thought Gail said above that at one point the percentages were reset. They may have had to do that when they changed the coding to add Wilson. Does anyone else have trouble with the poll in Explorer? Or am I just a special snowflake? It works fine in Firefox.

On what TPTB can take from the poll, I'd think the most significant thing is that enough unique users wrote to Ausiello to convince him to alter the poll. I don't imagine a couple of emails would have done it. Other than that, besides how much internet polling is skewed to younger computer literate fans to begin with, resetting the poll means you no longer have everyone's votes. With the original four, Cuddy had a significant amount of votes, though Cameron was ahead. When they reset the votes, Cameron and Wilson surged ahead, Cuddy hardly moved. One way to read that is that many of the Cuddy votes were from unique users who moved on rather than rechecking and revoting, while Cameron's numbers were made up of a larger percentage of repeat voters keeping an eye on the site. Or not, but who knows? With these repeat voting polls, you don't get a lot of useful information. And including 13 when she's not had a romantic storyline skewed things even more. Even people who like her aren't going to vote for her as House's One True Love. It's silly. Fortunately, I think everyone knows the polls are just for fun!

How many emails do you guys think Ausiello received?

Yes, I take it for granted that TPTB are media savvy--I imagine even Ausiello knows that not bothering to make the poll single vote only made it pretty well only good for entertainment rather than making judgement calls about popularity. However, I do think getting enough emails to include Wilson was significant--Ausiello now knows that a significant enough number of people care enough about House and Wilson to bother writing him that he should include H/W when he does these things. Considering the conversation we had on the hoyay thread about the assumptions these mainstream sites may be making about the conservative views of the majority of their users, I think that's really wonderful.