In Reply to: In case you didn't see it in the old forum: Ok, I've had just about enough... posted by Hank on October 4, 2002 at 11:08 AM:
I'd just like to say that I'm surprised by this thread. I'd've thought that a lot more people would be in favor of keeping the stats meaningful.
Actually, I may be guilty of being at the opposite extreme from SDV: My profile's been listed under Ohio the whole time I've been georging, even though I've spent most of that time at school in Missouri or Wisconsin. I figured that keeping my profile under my permanent residence would be the best approach, because if I moved it several times a year, I'd just be creating needless jumps in rankings--both my own and, now that I'm not at the bottom of the lists any more, quite a few other people's. (I hope I haven't bothered anyone by my choice of states--if so, they haven't told me about it.)
In any case, I think that the "virtual vacations" may have been abused a bit lately. When somebody invented the idea way-back-when (was it SDV?), I thought it was neat. When lots of people do it on a regular basis, it's more irritating than endearing. (Just like hit celebration posts in the Main Forum, y'know....)
After all, I *do* care about my stats, I *do* enjoy the competitive aspects of WG, and I don't mind admitting either of those views. Of course, the main point of the site is to track bills; and if I weren't interested in bill tracking, I wouldn't be here. But I also probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for the *other* fun aspects of WG: the forums, the statistics, and yes, the competition. Does anybody remember all those "imitation" bill-tracking sites that didn't have all the bells and whistles? I didn't think so.
I enjoyed spending a couple of years watching my George Score and ranking increase. Nowadays I've been passed up by a few too many young whippersnappers, and my ranking's going south again; but it's still fun to see how long I can stick it out in the Top 150. And I still hold onto the faint hope of getting 50-state bingo (c'mon, Utah!), or even getting into the top ten hit rates (yeah, right).
Personally, I don't look at the state rankings much any more (there are enough big-time georgers in Ohio that the top of the list is pretty dull after a while), but I certainly did in my earlier days, when moving up in the state rankings seemed a much more reasonable goal than cracking the sitewide Top 150 (which was only the Top 100 back then anyway). Very likely, quite a few georgers still enjoy following their progress up the state listings. It seems entirely reasonable to expect the state rankings to have sufficient integrity to be used in this way.
For the record, I suppose I should point out that I haven't made any of the anonymous posts or sent any of the emails about the whole "virtual vacations" topic--as I said, it isn't an issue which affects my *personal* enjoyment of WG at all. But I do feel that, for the benefit of all those users who do like to track their progress within their own states, it's entirely appropriate for Hank to put a damper on the state-hopping trend.
And as an entirely separate issue (which I'm surprised no one's mentioned yet): Even if you feel strongly that the profile directory is *only* for directory purposes and should not be used for competition, don't the "virtual vacations" defeat that purpose too? It's difficult to look up someone's profile in the directory if it's under a different state every day....