I jumped in right away after getting Sorted because I figured that if I was doing something wrong, the mods would simply not pick my votes. I was really happy when my Akita Inu and Appaloosa votes got picked the first time around and then I opened up the Daily Prophet today and _chngingx3lanes decided to become an Akita Inu Animagus :-D
I definitely go with my intuition and a vibe first when I'm voting, so my votes can be a little hard to explain sometimes. I find that the more I elaborate on how my exact train of thought went, the better. I feel like the examples given here (http://animagusmod.livejournal.com/4537.html) of what makes a good vote really helped as a good model.
I read through the app, and start winnowing through the class (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_%28biology%29) rank of species. What helps me here is when the applicant specifically tells us about what types of animals they DON’T want to be, and whether they want to be adapted for land, sea, or air. Using that, I can narrow it down a lot from the class rank (often, a lot of the applicants don’t want to be reptiles, arachnids, insects, etc.). I have to admit, I often confuse what I'm doing for picking out the applicant’s “spirit animal”, like a Patronus or something. But I have to remember that I'm actually picking out a practical Animagus form for them to run around in. I mostly use Wikipedia for research.
From there I tend to rely on my intuition. I think I just respond to certain parts of people’s apps more and prioritize these aspects when deciding which animal’s skins they would feel the most comfortable in. Temperament is key. I find the physical form of the animal in some way corresponds strongly with the applicant's temperament (i.e. how the applicant would use size and presence to their advantage). I definitely think comfort is also an important quality in making a vote. I don’t often see people say that they want to be animals they would be temperamentally unsuited for, like ones that would make them more outgoing, etc. In general, they seem to want to pick animals that they are well adapted to being. So I think adaptation also plays a key role here; they want to pick animals they are adapted to being, and they want these animals to have evolved to conditions they would feel comfortable in.
By now, I usually have a pretty good idea of a form I think would be suited to the applicant. I check it over to make sure it hasn’t been picked yet; if it has, I find a very similar species. I don't like completely changing my mind (like "Oh, spider is taken. Maybe s/he should be a dog instead.") because then I feel like circumstance is just cheating the applicant; she might've gotten that animal as a choice if it hadn't already been taken.
That's about it I think. If I've left out something, I'll add more later.
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I definitely go with my intuition and a vibe first when I'm voting, so my votes can be a little hard to explain sometimes. I find that the more I elaborate on how my exact train of thought went, the better. I feel like the examples given here (http://animagusmod.livejournal.com/4537.html) of what makes a good vote really helped as a good model.
I read through the app, and start winnowing through the class (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_%28biology%29) rank of species. What helps me here is when the applicant specifically tells us about what types of animals they DON’T want to be, and whether they want to be adapted for land, sea, or air. Using that, I can narrow it down a lot from the class rank (often, a lot of the applicants don’t want to be reptiles, arachnids, insects, etc.). I have to admit, I often confuse what I'm doing for picking out the applicant’s “spirit animal”, like a Patronus or something. But I have to remember that I'm actually picking out a practical Animagus form for them to run around in. I mostly use Wikipedia for research.
From there I tend to rely on my intuition. I think I just respond to certain parts of people’s apps more and prioritize these aspects when deciding which animal’s skins they would feel the most comfortable in. Temperament is key. I find the physical form of the animal in some way corresponds strongly with the applicant's temperament (i.e. how the applicant would use size and presence to their advantage). I definitely think comfort is also an important quality in making a vote. I don’t often see people say that they want to be animals they would be temperamentally unsuited for, like ones that would make them more outgoing, etc. In general, they seem to want to pick animals that they are well adapted to being. So I think adaptation also plays a key role here; they want to pick animals they are adapted to being, and they want these animals to have evolved to conditions they would feel comfortable in.
By now, I usually have a pretty good idea of a form I think would be suited to the applicant. I check it over to make sure it hasn’t been picked yet; if it has, I find a very similar species. I don't like completely changing my mind (like "Oh, spider is taken. Maybe s/he should be a dog instead.") because then I feel like circumstance is just cheating the applicant; she might've gotten that animal as a choice if it hadn't already been taken.
That's about it I think. If I've left out something, I'll add more later.