Open Activity: Animagus Voting Discussion

[caesaria.livejournal.com]

Activity: Animagus Voting Discussion
Points/Knuts: Participation Only - 10 points/5 knuts (2 points for additional comments, 30 points cap)
Deadline: December 28th, 5pm UTC

We know that Animagus Voting can be a time-consuming, complicated thing, with so many animals and species to choose from and so many places to check. It can be especially hard when you really don't know much about animals at all. But it's really, really not that scary! We promise ;-)

So this activity is all about Animagus Voting! If you vote on Animagus apps regularly, tell us how you go on about it! Where do you start? Do you get a ~vibe from an applicant and then go off that? Do you look at their preferred weather or time of day? Do you take their appearance or pictures into consideration? And where do you look? Do you go to wiki straight away or do you know some animal resource pages we might not know about yet?
And if you DON'T vote for Animagus, if you've never tackled it before, tell us what kept you from it and what we could do to help you try it. If you're new at HiH, tell us what you WOULD do, maybe check out some apps for ideas.

Please make your initial comment at least 250 words long, so it can count for points. 10 points per initial comment, 2 points for any substantial additional comment (30 points cap). Don't forget to sign with your name & house! (you don't have to sign with your animagus form, since this is an activity open for everyone).

We know that voting can be intimidating (I didn't vote for Amimagus either at first, until I had former Animagus mod peyton07 help me through my first voting, which made it so much less complicated :D) and hope that this post will result in a lively discussion about how to vote on Animagus, what your different strategies are and what tips you can share. We hope that it helps you and that more of you will tackle Animagus voting in the future :D

(and don't forget to check out the current batch of applications here and apply your new-found voting knowledge that you will hopefully gain from this activity to them :D)

Comments

[caitieness.livejournal.com]

I don't vote a lot. I think I've voted maybe two or three times total. Part of it is that it's time consuming but a lot of it for me is that almost every single applicant asks for something with fur, something with four legs, "maybe like a dog! because they are happy and loyal blah blah blah" and it just gets kind of uninspiring to look up dog breeds. And when I do venture off and pick something different than a dog or a cat or whatever the applicant expressly mentioned, I feel like they won't be happy with the suggestion. And I also feel like some of the questions in the application don't help me at all but instead make me confuse. Especially the introverted/extroverted question because more than half the applicants say "I'm introverted around people I don't know but once you get to know me, I'm extroverted!" and then I spend forever trying to find an animal that can be both or isn't strictly a loner animal or strictly a herd animal and I get too wrapped up in finding something the applicant wants that it takes me forever.

When I do manage to vote and not get annoyed I just do each applicant separately. I look up whatever kind of animal I feel fits them as a whole, usually based on whatever the applicant stresses or mentions more than once, and then I find different breeds and make sure the one I choose isn't already registered. Usually my comments end up having too many characters for one LJ comment so I have to trim out some reasoning. I realize I go a little overboard and that's my problem with the whole thing.

Caitie//Hufflepuff

[mewithe.livejournal.com]

The introverted/extroverted question is a tricky one. Usually I'll put that and the shy/outgoing, and hope they'll say if they want a quieter or more outgoing form. If they don't, then I look for other clues. Like if they say they like being with a small group of people, but hate being in large crowds/alone, I tend to go with animals that travel in small family packs. If they say they're introverted and mostly shy, then more a loner animal.

Kat//Hufflepuff