March Story Poll Results!

Alright! While the feedback poll about possible side content is still ongoing, March's story poll ended at midnight yesterday. It took entirely too long to tally the votes, since I had to work through a ton of Tip Jar tier people who voted in the two hours I accidentally left the poll wide open -_-. If there had been fewer of them, I might have just thrown them in at a single vote a piece. But like half of the votes were from that, which would have unfairly destabilized the poll pretty badly for the actual voting tiers. Thus I had to weed them out, which added a good half an hour to the already long process.

Anyway, I finally got the results counted up, let's take a look first:

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One Piece: Halfway Broken: 146.5

Mass Effect: Eridium Dreams: 53 + 150% bonus = 132.5

A Very Confused Pokémon Adventure: 64.5 + 30% Bonus = 96.85

Harry Potter: Pandora's Box: 58

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So...I technically could have put the relatively small number of votes I give myself toward Eridium Dreams and tipped the scale. I seriously considered it, given just how long that story has languished. What made me decide against it is the fact that I would have literally been propelling the weakest performing story to the winner's circle, over all three other fics that people clearly want more.

That just didn't seem right to me, so I didn't do it. Though I might try to squeeze a small update for Eridium Dreams into March anyway, just because it's been so hideously long that I'm afraid people will start considering it abandoned :-(. Regardless, without me sticking my thumb on the scale like that, Halfway Broken retook the win for March. So, look forward to a resumption of Luffy and Co's adventures in the coming month!

That's honestly not too unexpected. I'd half-expected Eridium Dreams to pull a win given just how much of a boost it had, but no dice there. Pandora's Box didn't have much of a shot with its boosts gone for the moment (they will start accumulating again after the next vote). A Very Confused Pokémon Adventure did well. It's always done at least decently, and with it starting to get boosts again it will quickly become a serious contender, I think.

Overall, I still think the system is working out fairly well. The vote boosting is only supposed to keep stories from dying, not make them the regularly scheduled winners over more popular stories, after all. And Pandora's Box will start out at the higher boost I decided on when/if it starts getting them again. For those that have forgotten, while I initially set the boosts to +20% after two months of not being updated, then +10% for each additional month, I adjusted them upward to +30% and +15% respectively once I got a feel for how it was working out. So Pokémon Adventure will get a 45% boost next month, and Pandora's Box still start getting a +30% boost in April. Eridium Dreams is still on the original model since it's boosts are already huge. So it will be at +160% next month.

Well...that's it for now. Look forward to more Halfway Broken next month!