We’re in the last week of voting for Best Of Regina, prairie dog’s annual reader’s poll on Regina’s neatest people, stores, activities and miscellaneous whatnots. Voting ends at noon next Thursday. Until then I’ll be profiling some of our new categories every day.
What’s up this frosty Friday? Best Plumber And Similar Boring Categories, that’s what.
Best Plumber sounds duller than dust. Look at the “services” section of our poll, there’s a lot of yawners: Best Roofer, Best Carpet Cleaner, Best Insurance Agent, Best Flooring, Best Electricianzzzzzzz. Why would anyone care?
You know what else is boring? Plumbing that works. Level floors in your home or business. An insurance provider that helps you when you’re robbed or there’s a fire. Not being electrocuted when you plug in a vacuum.
Most of us never think about a tradesperson, contractor or or service agent until we need one — but when we do, we sure need them to be good.
So please vote for the boring categories in this poll. Not just to give credit to the Best Plumber, Best Accountant, Best Roofer, Best Glass Repairer or Best Mortgage Broker — not that good people who do their jobs well don’t deserve credit — but to help your fellow prairie dog readers decide to call when they need something built, fixed, insured, landscaped, photographed, rented or managed.
Think of it as helpful consumer information for your fellow readers, who will — I guarantee — be calling the winners of this contest when they need help from a professional at something boring but really important.
Vote for Best Plumber! And all the other unsung heroes who keep Regina flushing along.
the reason for my interest in knowing the actual number of votes is that i think people could easily organise their friends to all vote for one individual who could be the equivalent of Max Pies http://www.sse.gov.on.ca/mcs/en/Pages/Charges_Max_Pies_Operators.aspx
thereby corrupting the process
Hey Jeff. People CAN organize all their friends to vote for them. This is called “campaigning” and it’s legal. We even hand out free promotional posters on a first-come, first serve basis to help shops, businesses and organizations campaign. See this link: http://www.prairiedogmag.com/?p=9572. (Note: I think we have a few left, if anyone’s interested–fraudulent contractors and even well-run businesses can leave contact info on this thread, and Terry will get back to you Monday.
But you’re right, Jeff — campaigning can produce annoying results just like real elections. A well-organized dipshit could conceivably win a category. Caveat emptor.
The important point is that our poll provider tracks IP addresses so one person can’t swamp the system with bogus votes. Every vote in the Best Of Regina poll is real.
But some of them might be stupid or evil.
We should pass 900 votes today, by the way. And high voter turnout works against dipshittery.
Hope this helped. Thanks for the post, Jeff!