I sent this message as an email to the FoodBuzz editorial staff today. Its sole purpose was to acknowledge their effort and the opportunity afforded us and to offer up what I think are some constructive comments that might make it better next year. But then, as an afterthought, I decided what the hell?…why not post it and get feedback from anyone who cares to comment? Isn’t that what blogging is all about – initiating and/or contributing to thoughtful discussions? Here’s your chance to say more than “nice photo, great recipe or I’m voting for you.” 
Go for it!
And let me just say (if it is not abundantly clear)…I absolutely loved the opportunity to participate in Project Food Blog; I’m enjoying getting to know so many talented bloggers and seeing their work spotlighted in this forum; and I’m seriously looking forward to Project Food Blog 2011!
To FoodBuzz:
Project Food Blog was a great idea! I recognize it was a huge organizational undertaking and you’re really pulling it off seamlessly…so kudos to you and thanks! But since it’s a ‘first’ and we can always learn and improve, I thought I’d offer my personal feedback at this halfway point. Now that the crowd has thinned, it’s really becoming a challenge of pros.
The Pluses
1. Fun!
2. Invigorating!
3. Everyone benefits.
4. Great learning experience. People get in ruts. It pushes challengers to stretch and up their ante.
5. Fascinating to see some of the imaginative entries.
6. Good bonding experience to meet so many talented bloggers through their entries.
7. Increased readership. I’ve gotten quite a few new followers and have started following others.
But there were some hitches. These are my personal observations and wishlist for 2011 which I hope you find sincere and helpful.
3 Minuses/Suggestions for 2011
The first two are intertwined and inseparable: non-compliance and voting. The Project Food Blog challenges as you set them out for us in the challenge directives should have been taken literally. The subsequent voting for non-compliant entries in the second and third rounds eliminated many worthy challengers who followed the directives.
Blogging is communication. It is staying on theme. It is visual and narrative. The ‘best food blog’ should be about the quality of work, not the number of votes you can stuff into a ballot box.
Specific suggestions:
1. Compliance. Bloggers who do not follow the challenge directive should be automatically eliminated before the vote opens. If this cannot be done at your end for some reason, then voters/judges should be clearly, strongly (and repeatedly) prompted to take ‘compliance’ into consideration.
• For example, in the second round the challenge clearly stated ‘no Italian or French’ and yet there were blogs that chose to ignore that directive. And voters advanced them to the third round.
• In the third round, the directive was a ‘luxurious dinner party with new tastes and exotic flavors’. I was stunned by how many bloggers chose to go with a non-exotic and not-new fall harvest menu, or childrens’ parties, or other clearly non-compliant themes. Again, votes were wasted and another group who deserved to move forward for at least one more challenge was dropped.
2. Voting. I think challengers should be advanced – only and totally – by merit. Therefore, I’d love to see judging solely by an impartial panel of industry professionals. This panel could be a trio like this year’s with the addition perhaps of any or all of the following: a noted food photographer, food writer, project sponsor representatives or even foodbuzz staff members.
Otherwise, left to us, it really becomes a numbers game — even within our featured publisher community. Many votes are cast on a loyalty/blogging friend basis. It’s human nature. And then there are the ‘quid pro quo’ votes. We all left ‘voting for you’ comments with the hope of reciprocal votes and those that use the tweet link to announce votes seem to be employing just another strategy to garner votes. The more one tweets their votes, the more likely they are to get a return vote. These type votes enabled some entries to advance without true merit or compliance.
Interestingly, early on and when we had the PFB tweet-up, I saw people commenting negatively about not entering because it would be a popularity contest. I thought those comments were rude and that they just didn’t get what a personal growth opportunity the challenge offered. It turns out we were both right. It is a growth opportunity if one chooses to take it — and, as structured, it is a popularity contest with some negative connotations.
3. Timing. Lastly, it would be great for both sides (you/us) if this were done earlier in the year so as not to interfere with the Festival news, sponsor challenges and event planning. Perhaps during the summer.
I hope my comments are taken in the spirit given and that you find them helpful in planning PFB 2011.
Looking forward to seeing you all at the Festival.
[end of message]
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I don’t think you could have said it better Joan. Originally I thought that the 3 judges voteed on the merit of the bloggers posts and then there was one person moved on to the next round due to popular vote. What is the role of the 3 judges?
My understanding was the judges were 50% of the vote and featured publishers represented the other 50%. One ‘readers choice’ was selected by overall # of votes including outside the community. (?)
Yes, Joan…this is what FoodBuzz posted about that…
“3. As a Featured Publisher, what do my votes mean?
Each entry will receive a score (private to all users) that is based half on the judging panel, and half on votes from Featured Publishers. Votes from regular readers (non-Featured Publishers) are also collected, but those votes only count towards the readers’ choice award, which advances one contestant per round. “
You make some truly excellent points. However, I’m pretty sure that only ONE person is sent on to the next round on votes, and the others are judged by the panel. I think that needs to be clearer.
I agree wholeheartedly with the timing issue. I think voting should begin on Tuesday, leaving Monday for moderators to make sure the posts comply. There are people still in competition that have yet to cook anything from scratch, which offends me. There are entrants that were NOT advanced to round 5 who worked extremely hard, and yet others advanced instead.
I’ll be passing this on, for sure. Thanks for saying what a lot of us are thinking!
Great thoughts! I felt there should have been a cap in the number of participants or a challenge to enter. The number of people in the first few challenges was so ridiculously large I didnt even bother with it.
Well said!! Have you heard anything back from Foodbuzz?? It’s a perfectly worded letter, and I know so many of us agree with you! I’m going to pass this along- people need to see it!
I did not participate this year for a myriad of reasons… timing being one.
Timing of summer would certainly allow a better time for people in the thick of school + work + sports + etc… Summer is a slower pace for everyone. Makes sense.
Ivy Liacopoulou commented on your post.
Ivy wrote:
“Well said Joan!”
Joan…I don’t know exactly why I clicked on your post…especially since I ONLY registered on FoodBuzz to encourage some of my Foodie bloggers who I think should have gone ahead a little further…since they DID follow the directives properly!
I’ve been blogging my culinary journey now for almost a year…and still have not jumped into the FoodBuzz craze. I’m sure that it’s a great organization, however, for now, I’ll keep my distance for yet a little while longer.
I particularly agree with this point that you so eloquently made ” Voting. I think challengers should be advanced – only and totally – by merit. Therefore, I’d love to see judging solely by an impartial panel of industry professionals.”
With this, I shall let it go and leave it in your very capable hands. I find it fantastic that you have what it takes to speak up…Brava!!!
Nice discovering your blog ;o)
Flavourful wishes,
Claudia
I signed up, but then didn’t participate for many reasons….time the main one, but the other….I HATE asking for votes!
I hope they will take that under consideration. Of course, voting drives more people to the site, so….who knows?
Joan
I agree that merit should play a more important role in this competition. I even wish it could play the most important role. So I understand what you are saying very, very well.
However, where I disagree somewhat with you is here. FoodBuzz is a business designed to make money. We all make money participating and the money we make is tied to the success (popularity) of FoodBuzz. The better they do they better we do. These contests are designed to be fun, but more importantly (from FoodBuzz POV) they are meant to drive traffic, increase their share on the web, bring new blood and new readers thereby increasing the money made by FoodBuzz and (by a lesser extent us) by us. In other words it’s a business first. Energized communities is a proven path to web success. Why should they veer from that path? The voting increases participation and keeps the contest from being limited to professional cooks, or those bloggers with a whole lot more experience.
Besides, voting and community participation is what food blogging is all about. It’s why I got involved and it’s why FoodBuzz does so well.
There should be plenty of ways to balance the needs of FoodBuzz with the participants need to feel that the contest is legit and that talent is being rewarded and I hope that FoodBuzz thinks about that a bit more next time.
Which means it’s not perfect, but it is fun, and if it helps me increase my traffic and strengthens our community then I’ll be involved every time.
You know I love you and I admire your stance here, but I also wanted to throw my 2 cents in.
GREG
Well said, Greg…thanks for your perspective and pointing out the business end of the equation. However, I feel it’s false and non-repetitive traffic and there must be another way. That’s why I decided to put it out there. That said, I agree it’s fun and I’d definitely do it again. In fact, I learned a lot and hope to be a better blogger from here out.
I, in no way, meant to ‘dis’ FoodBuzz. I love them!
You are so right, Greg. I was talking this over with my husband last night & venting a little about the obvious “popularity” element. I hadn’t thought of this perspective, surprising because I normally think of the business needs of an entity first. I am SO enjoying the contest…thank you for the much needed levity.
I love you! You open letter is amazing! May I have permission to repost it on my blog with full credit to you of course? Please let me know.
I so agree about the 3rd challenge, half of which were fall themed. I may not be ready to make it all the way to challenge 10 but I was surprised I did not make the cut on that challenge. I busted my butt on a molecular gastronomy meal that was completely exotic and unusual, did the full party prep writing. I do feel I got the popularity short end of the stick on that challenge.
I agree votes from readers should not take so much place in the final decision.
It was an amazing first experience and I cannot wait for the 2011 edition too, but tweaking is essential
Feel free to do so.
Joan, let me know if you want to do a contest with me … we can set it up however you want
… I have been meaning to reach out to you to ask anyway … and this was the perfect excuse. Send me an email if you want to co-sponsor something with me.
These are some good points Joan. I do think though that only the readers choice moves on by votes. I was pretty sure that everyone else moves on by discretion of the judges. I hope I’m not wrong here. Kudos to you for posting this!!
well said – lets see what happens – the real winner here is foodbuzz since all of us combined have surely driven well over $10,000 worth of traffic their way and if we havent yet I am sure we will…
Nice photo, great recipe, I’m voting for you… oops, sorry, wrong post
I agree with so much of what you have said here. I would far prefer to see a competition judged solely on merit and without the popularity contest aspect (though I take on board Greg’s points too). From what I can see, folks who had smaller followings to begin with needed to produce way better than average entries to get through, certainly in the early stages, because the volume of entries was just too large for things to be any other way.
Regarding compliance or lack thereof, there are a couple of things I would say. Firstly, I would hate to see challenge prompts that were overly prescriptive – bloggers and blogging styles vary so much that you need to allow scope for different types of blogger to shine, while still meeting the requirements of the challenge. That said, foodbuzz will absolutely need to be clearer next time in their description of what is or isn’t deemed to be compliant for any given challenge, just so we all know where we stand. We need to know how loose (or otherwise) our interpretation of the challenge can be. If posts are getting voted through that are perceived by some as not meeting the requirements, then that just creates unnecessary bad feeling and nobody wants that.
Thanks for adding your balanced comments…and the funny lead-in!
I definitely admire you for sending this letter both to FB…and out into the blogosphere…it has sparked some wonderful discussion. I agree about the “main” vote being decided by judges only. And yes, change them up and add people from different pieces of the pie. It’s very hard for those who are not virtual ass-slappers to keep up. That said…I also had a fabulous time with the challenges that I did have the opportunity to do and found a lot of great new blogs to frequent! Still up in the air about whether I’d do it again, though…
Wow, the thought of Project Food Blog 2011 makes me tired just to think about it. Maybe every other year, please!
I would have to agree with Greg. Same reason elimination-style reality shows on TV do not award merit first. It’s kind of not the point.
Further, with regard to food blogging, one should consider what “merit” means. Like it or not, life is a popularity contest, and professional food blogging is no exception to that. So if we’re looking for a food blog star, I don’t see anything particularly wrong with their marketability/popularity being part of the equation. Mind you, this is coming from someone who is not at all popular. It’s 50% of the score, so it’s interesting to me to see what will fall out.
I agree that Foodbuzz should have been clearer about the expectations for each challenge, but my feeling is that they were not trying to weed people out on technicalities. I feel that the spirit of the challenge prompt was addressed in most cases, albeit not always to the letter. Part of the judges’ rubric, according the user agreement, was how well the contestant addressed the challenge prompt. So it was taken into consideration.
Just my $0.02. Great discussion.
I got my email to join this competition while I was in Greece. The reality was that I returned back to reality just before the competition/posts/recipes would begin. I was not prepared and I did not participate.
If the directives were not enforced by Foodbuzz then yes, there is a issue.
One of the reasons I did not participate is that I did not want to be part of the pandering for votes and perhaps pit blogging friends against each other.
I wanted no part of that.
Yes – the vote pandering is the hardest part for everyone. No one likes it (bloggers and readers alike). That’s why I think it would be so much better if it were taken out of our hands and left to an impartial jury.
Amen sista.
So many great points (on both the pro and con list) and I think that FoodBuzz would be smart to listen to some of these.
And I have to agree with Ben that just thinking about the 2011 one makes me a little tired, but I’m still excited to do it again.
Joan
Great Note to Foodbuzz. In their defense first time events always have mishaps, but to advance someone who does not follow the rules, is totally and completely wrong. If you consider the popular TV realty show “Dancing with Stars” it is a popularily contest, but if you lift when you shouldn’t the dancers are chided and their scores reflect the error. You can’t stop the popularity part of the contest, but you can force the participants to cook by the rules!
Nice going Joan, I hope they take your comments to heart!
I agree with you on all counts. I too was disappointed. You said everything that had to be said eloquently. I am new at all of this and I am glad that you are around to voice your opinions to help others.
I love this post, Joan. I knew none of this as I am not participating. I don’t even understand some of the things you are writing about like: “not to interfere with the Festival news, sponsor challenges and event planning” what is The festival? etc… Anyway, I am SHOCKED to read that non-compliant posts were allowed to get votes and move on. Clearly, there was not enough staff to oversee this project, if that happened. So, first and second point are hard core and MUST be attended to. Third point, is like it is everywhere in these kinds of contests and why I will never participate. The public votes are how you get in. Thankfully, in this contest, at the very end, the judges will go through (hopefully) all of the posts of each contestant and judge the final winner on merit within the very small remaining pool. I don’t see that they can do it any other way. But, two heads are always better than one. I loved reading the challenges and seeing how they did push the writers to go beyond what they would normally do. I loved that. I will have to read all comments later, when I have more time. This is clearly a good read and the kind of discussion I wish every post would initiate!
Valerie
Joan,
I don’t have a single word to add because you have said everything that was in my mind and heart…Seeing people advance just because they have 100 friends glued to the computer screen really makes me feel disappointed…Let’s only have judges, if not this becomes a friend/beauty contest..I think Foodbuzz is doing a great job, they still have time to correct some normal deviations that happen whenever we launch a new project/idea. Let the best one win!
Hi Joan – kudos to you for writing and sharing this open letter. It’s very interesting to hear all the points of view.
I wholeheartedly agree on holding contestants accountable to the rules of the challenge.
Regarding voting – asking for votes is my least favorite part of the challenge. I don’t mind voting for others however. That part is kinda fun.
It will be interesting to see what changes are made to the next competition.
Thanks again for sharing your letter.
LL
Joan, sorry for being so late to come and leave a message. I read your post but wanted to see what others had to say about it, that’s why I did not leave a message the first time. I hope that Foodbuzz will take this into consideration next year but I don’t think I will participate again. I think we should keep our dignity and not beg for votes.
Joan, you are the reason I love blogging. We don’t have to please anyone’s editorial pen! Bravo.
I agree to a great extent with what you said. I think one way to make this cleaner is to eliminate the name of the blog on the post. Yes, traffic is everything, and part of being a good blogger is driving traffic and being “popular.” But, I would hope for more quality in this type of contest.
I signed up and opted out due to bad timing. I think a better time would be anytime from February to June.
Hi Joan,
Lovely post. If you want to read mine, the link is…
Oops, this is not a competition-post, is it?
I think many of us agree with your points here. I feel a little embarrassed every time I have to ask for votes. (I’ve even stopped putting up the Monday ‘Vote 4 me’ posts unless I have something new to offer to my readers.) But then again, I love reading other people’s posts and having a chance to vote for the well-crafted ones. While tweeting, I don’t use the auto-tweets but do share links with my view of why I liked the posts so others can read them too.
But all-in-all, I agree with you: I don’t like the idea of popularity contests.
One thing I would like to point out though is how different this competition is from other ‘reality contests’. It has always struck me how supportive the food blogging community is of each other, how we love sharing stories and ideas. Sure, we all want to move to the next round, but are genuinely saddened to see the deserving ones get cut from the competition. Kudos I think to each one of us for that!
Well said. It’s true. We are a very supportive community. Even after being eliminated, I continue to read every entry in each challenge. And I vote for, as you say, “the well-crafted” ones.
I agree with you totally. I stopped voting after the second round as it was tiresome seeing all these votes for things that were not part of the challenge. And maybe people should only get a limited number of votes. Thanks for your time. I hope it helps.
Well said, and I agree with many of your points. I think there’s wiggle room in the challenge directives but there were some people who didn’t even throw a dinner party (yeah, I can plan one, too — it’s the cooking and the timing that make it tough!) The weird thing about the “popularity” aspect is that it’s just one metric of popularity — friends/followers who are also featured publishers. That being said, I don’t want to sound like I have sour grapes, and I enjoyed the rounds of the competition I did participate in.
I agreed with pretty much everything you said, particularly the voting part. I loved what you said here: “Otherwise, left to us, it really becomes a numbers game — even within our featured publisher community. Many votes are cast on a loyalty/blogging friend basis. It’s human nature.”
Nobody is really to blame that this IS a popularity contest…loyalty and friendship is, as you said, natural. And as for marketing “skills”…it’s a bit more unfair in this area because some ppl don’t have the time to comment on everyone’s blog asking for votes. But then, it also shows dedication and the desire to win…which is acceptable and welcome in any competition.
I suppose it all boils down to how you view this contest. Some people view it more strictly as a competition, while others as a fun project and community effort. Either way, we all still benefit in some way or the other.
I myself have found several bloggers whom I’ve fallen in love with because of PFB, and I’m always gonna be thankful for that. I also loved the support we showed each other, even if some probably isn’t as sincere.
Personally, the most fun I had was being kicked in the butt to do something out of my comfort zone, and also when I did that weekly round-up of my favorite PFB posts, I had a lot of fun “researching” more on the bloggers whose entries I liked. That included you.
Well written and respectable Joan. All is true and your feedback will most likely help to make the competition better next time. I appreciate people who say/write what others are thinking or wondering about. It takes guts and often brings improvement to the masses, so thank you. That aside, the competition was indeed fun with MANY benefits — My eyes welled up when I didn’t see a second trophy. Say what? What a baby huh, hahaha. Did I just tell that? Oh well, it’s all good.
Ciao, Shelly
FYI – I accidentally posted this comment on CheapEthnicEatz Blog, thus re-pasted it here. Thanks.
This was a great post. It needed to be said. I love foodbuzz and I love their efforts. I just wish that voting was more transparent. I wish i knew how many people voted for me. i wish i knew who voted for me because I could of loved to say Thank You.
you know what I mean…
I have to say, kudos to you for putting it all out there and saying what most of us are thinking.
As for your comment regarding “compliance”… I think it’s a touchy subject, although I think FB was trying to allow for as much interpretation as possible. Do I think that those who opted for French or Italian, or better yet some version of American cuisine really went outside the box like we were asked? No, and I would agree that those who went for French or Italian even though those were clearly labeled as off-limits should have been dropped before voting even started.
However, I am on the other side of the table when it comes to round 3 as I was one that did a fall themed meal. Honestly, I was sick and tired of reading about Asian, Indian, and Turkish cuisine that I really didn’t want to go there. (Seriously, if I have to read about pho one more time…) Instead I chose to focus on fall ingredients mixed in combinations that were new to me and my guests. That was my interpretation of it. And that way I could also pull off a seven course meal and put more time into the luxury side which was the main focus. Maybe that’s a point where they could be more clear. That being said, I didn’t vote for those menus (fall or not) that didn’t go anywhere close to outside the box with their menu AND didn’t focus on the luxury part either.
As for a suggestion for their next PFB attempt, I would have LOVED to have feedback. Preferably anonymously and from both the featured publishers AND judges. Where did I stand in the rankings? Just how many people really did vote for me?
Anonymous comments would have been fantastic to have while reading these blogs. There were so many times I wanted to present constructive criticism or yes, even a “way to not follow the directions” only to hold my tongue for fear of losing votes. Sad, but true. It would have been so nice to have received feedback (other than the typical “Great post! Vote for me!) that actually gave me suggestions on things to work on – maybe my blog is too cluttered and hard to read? Maybe my pictures are horrible? Maybe I just don’t have enough readership? Even though I learned a lot through the challenges, some direction would have been nice. Maybe in the “Sorry you have not moved on” letter, the judges could have posted their final remarks about what they did and didn’t like about your blog. It’s just frustrating to not make it to the next round, and not know the real reason why.
Thanks for taking the time to express your view (and to all those before you who did as well). I think we all learned a lot…including FoodBuzz. Considering this was a first undertaking, it’s been going very smoothly. I don’t think they could have addressed individual bloggers with the reason why they were eliminated — especially since when the project was formatted, they were expecting 2000! I’m looking forward to PFB 2011.
Joan, Applause applause applause. Thank you for expressing what a lot of us felt. I found myself tweeting my “I voted for “and hated it so I stopped. It was a great experience and I learned so much and found so many blogs I wouldn’t have discovered on my own. Thanks for speaking up !
Thanks for saying what many of us participants wanted to.
I found those participants who may still be in the challenge that didn’t follow the directions of challenge #2 really astounding. How can you set up rules and then not follow them?
My husband said it would be a big popularity contest, and that’s often what life is about, but if that was what was required to be a successful participant, let us know beforehand so we can sit around and try to get our 700 Foodbuzz friends (just kidding, I don’t have that kind of leisure).
I was dissapointed not to have moved past round 3, and I was one of the ones who made pho, but had many more pictures and details than others who did so as well. I thought that was a brilliant idea, but I did announce what I was going to do before I made it – possible error on my part.
I mainly wanted to know what the judge thought of why people were moving forward – why did they like your post or not? They could write a few notes about each and then some Foodbuzz staffer (or intern hired for the event) could post it for us.
I was selected for the 24×24 event, so I had to have a dinner party on Friday night for the challenge that I didn’t advance to, and then have a separate dinner party the next night for the 24×24 event. It was quite a bit of work for not advancing.
Also the timing of the events is crazy. To be able to even throw a party for challenge #3, you had to throw one even if you didn’t advance, and many many people did that. A fall theme seemed so easy, but didn’t seem to fit the bill of “exotic and elegant,” but yet many advanced.
I don’t know if I’d participate next year. There would have to be many changes.
It will be interesting to see who the final winner is.
I have learned a lot about different ways to post and taking better photos as part of my participation.
And, who ever thought I would be in this kind of challenge anyway?
Thanks for lending your thoughts to the conversation re Project Food Blog.
I think it was a learning experience for everyone, including FoodBuzz.
I’m super late to the conversation, but I wanted to say my bit. Just because I like to say bits.
I told myself when I got into this that I would NOT have sour grapes about it. No matter what. We’ll see if I can do it. I’m sad that there have been negative feelings over it (not you, but definitely a lot of your commentors).
I think if the whole voting thing (as it is 50%, you’re right) actually made or break you (which it can’t since it’s 50%) I would have been out in Round 1. I have very few readers as I’m just barely getting a regular blogging thing going after having my baby and I know for sure, for SURE, it can’t be a popularity contest because I have fewer comments than almost anyone else’s blogs I read.
I never read all the entries, but I always go back to the ones I liked in previous rounds (yours was one of those) and if we hadn’t had the voting baton, I wouldn’t have read as many as I did. I also think people would have stopped looking at posts as the contest went on (I already think less people are looking at them because mostly the people involved are the only ones not over it.). I wanted to vote for posts I liked. I didn’t leave comments on every post. I’ve enjoyed that mostly people have been positive, but I agree that I would love to have some constructive criticism because I am trying to figure out ways to make myself better. Reading other people’s blogs has definitely done that. And I’ve started reading a lot of new blogs because of this, as many other people said.
I think that the challenges didn’t actually state not to do French or Italian– though they implied that this might be more in our comfort zones. Actually, if I had done either of those cuisines, that would have been out of my comfort zone ’cause those are 2 cuisines that are barely in existence over here. I agree that the challenges had a more open interpretation feel to it, which is why I like it. I already hate reading posts that are the same as someone else’s so it’s good to have something to grapple with and interpret. It helps with variety.
Really good point about the “vote for me” comments. I doubt that has gotten many reciprocal votes (at least, I hope so, in ideal world) because voting is secret, so there’s no real incentive to follow someone back to vote.
Sorry for my all over the place comment. I actually read all the comments so I have a lot in my head.
I’m excited for the foodbuzz festival and I’ll hopefully get to meet you. I’m sure there will be a lot more extension of this conversation among everyone there. Good job for getting the conversation going.
Better late than never…you add some very good points. I look forward to meeting you.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree with your positive comments, but was also frustrated by the negative things.
Welcome to the ambiguous world of the interwebs. More traffic equals more money and the computer screen provides anonymity. No matter how eloquent your words, an open letter to the hosts of the contest from which you were eliminated makes you sound like a sore loser.
I am not. In fact, I loved the experience so much my motive was to air what I thought and others were saying in an effort to make it better for next time. That said, I knew I was gambling that my intentions might be misread.
absolutely agree with you. as soon as I realized that it will have to do a lot with popularity and getting the votes, I was out.
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