Interview with a Champion Voter: William Adley (WinterWalker)

The fourth Champion Voter interview is with William Adley, who's known as WinterWalker on the boards.

1. When you think about it, 5,000 votes means that you put in a minimum of 83 hours and 20 minutes, which is roughly equal to a part time job. What drove you to put in that kind of time?

I had plenty of 60 second moments at work to dedicate to the task, and had tried to get there twice in the past and failed, so decided to go all out until I hit it this year. Besides sleep, and driving, I was always near a smart phone or computer so it was easy to get a few votes in.

2. What makes an item Superstar for you? What were some of your deal breakers that made you vote against an item rather that for its competitor?

I think I flip flopped a lot this year, but seemed to gravitate to the items that had a theme of effects that meshed well, and seemed 'new' rather than an item that was blatantly gross, or horrific.

If they only thing going for an item was it's shock value I wouldn't vote for it.

If it was "prized by", or "...but in the hands of X it shows it's true power", or some other very specific class or group coveted it...well I don't see that as superstar, I see it as niche, and tended to skip it.

I saw a lot of these and they were instant deal breakers, most times I wouldn't even read entry 2, having already decided entry 1 was on my blah pile. If I found similar entries, I fell back to template design, and lastly, i.e. hardly ever, price of the item.

3. What did you think of this year's twist? If you voted last year, do you think the quality of the items was better or worse than prior years?

As an entrant I was miffed, but in the same vein as a good friend pulling a prank on you. I think it exposed a lot of talent under pressure, and the flip side exposed entries of those that maybe need a little more experience under their belts. My honest, hope no one gets offended response is I felt like there were fewer entries that really jumped out to me as 'Superstar' quality, but when they did hit my monitor I knew right away "this is the stuff."

4. This year's cull was controversial, what did you think of it? How much did it affect your voting?

I wasn't aware there was even a big controversy about it. My voting habits were unaffected, though I did spend a little more time reading entries than before as I saw less of the same items I had been reading.

5. If you could change one thing for next year's competition, what would it be?

Hrm, tough one. I like the very nature and spirit the contest brings. I wouldn't change anything about how that works. However, if I did have some feedback it would be to make the pre-populated template with the BBcode tags part of the submission process, so it would be very hard not to use it.

I was bummed when template parts were missing, or someone used a completely different template altogether. It doesn't matter how great the ice cream looks, if you serve it to my in your hands I'm going to frown on it, you know? I'm sure a few votes went to 'the other guy' as a result of bad template design this year.