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

[mmailliw.livejournal.com]

I have been voting on Animagus applications under five different sets of mods (Ing and Fox, Fox and Sil, Sil and Peyton, Curtis and Liz; Olga and Sonja) - yes... back from the days when mods used thre letter names - and they all have had different requirements about voting.

That said, the current definition of an elaborated vote (requiring 3 substantive reasons with explanations) has given me my template on how to give a vote that earns the full ten points and hopefully sways both the mods and the applicant.

I usually begin by looking through the application for a few key words and phrases that I feel define the applicant (what they're drawn to - maybe - or what they stress particularly much). With that, I usually know what general type of animal fits those traits (if I don't, I look it up). Armed with that knowledge, I then choose a species of animal (or subspecies, in the case of housecats, or genus in certain cases) that perfectly fits the rest of the application by looking up the broad type of animal (Google or Wikipedia) for the specific type of animal that exactly fits the traits I'm looking for. Once there, I'm almost done; all that's left is to find three specific things that the application has in common with this application, and then write out a sentence or two about each of them!

An example of such a sentence:

First of all, it lives in the desert, ensuring you're as far away from water, sharks, and myself – the only 'desert' I like is spelled with TWO s's as possible.

One last thing to point out: ever since I was stamped as a tiger shark, I have been looking for a great white shark to join me in the ocean; however, in order to vote someone as that, I would need them to both have a personality like mine (ambitious, loving to be on top of the food chain) AND love being in the water. The fact that I haven't found one other such soul in over a year is slightly depressing...

William//Slytherin//Tiger Shark//358 words