Out of all the things in everything, which one... is average-est?
It's a question we sometimes ask and never need to know the answer to. And finding answers no one needs is precisely the role of the tumblr tournament poll!
Thing submissions currently closed.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does this work? Tumblr users can submit a thing via ask, and the thing will be tried against the other things one by one in random order. 1v1 polls will determine which of each pair is better.
Won't that make way too many polls? Oh yes. If we do ALL the polls of the round robin, there will be a number of total polls equal to the square of the number of things that tumblr users can think of, minus that number, all divided by two. That's pretty many. Or perhaps zero. It depends on if this blog gets traction or not.
Sooo do you have a solution to that problem? We'll probably discard things that lose all their polls, or enough of their polls, or something like that. They can go on a "not that average" list that will grow over time.
It sounds like you haven't really got a plan. My plan is to copy Best-Thing.
Why not do a regular single-elimination bracket? Same as above.
What kinds of things can be submitted? Submissions should:
1) be a thing. It can be abstract or concrete, alive or not, all are accepted. Examples include "doughnuts", "the letter M", "breathing", "spacesuits", "being a human", "regular meat made from regular animals", and more!
2) be something that a typical tumblr user could plausibly be familiar with. So "chickens" is fine but "the chicken that is outside of tumblr user fake-example-person's house" is not. It also can't be "your mom" or similar because that referent changes depending on the answerer. If you're getting specific, make sure it's something the voter could look up. If it's fictional, please include a brief indication of its origin.
3) be average. Or at least not good or bad. We are trying to find the most average thing, so submitting "vaccines" or "racism" or whatever isn't going to be accepted.
4) not be a fandom thing. There are so many other tournament blogs for those. No fictional characters, works of fiction, films, shows, franchises, songs, video games, musicians, writers, actors, etc. Less specific options like genre or medium are allowed. For example, "Sherlock Holmes" or "A Study In Scarlet" or "Arthur Conan Doyle" would be disallowed, but "detective fiction" is allowed. Something that's fictional but not from a specific source, like "wizards", is allowed. (Some of these are going to be difficult edge cases and they will just be judged by my gut.)
What do I need to send in my ask? You can just include the thing itself, but if you wish you may add a brief explanation of what the thing is. Please add specificity if your thing shares a name with something else.
What if the options are two very different levels of specificity on similar subjects? Vote with your heart. Is more specificity averager?
What determines whether you include a Wikipedia link on a poll? Our finely tuned reference-inclusion criteria consider such factors as an average person's familiarity with the thing, whether we feel like it (it makes the post take longer to write) and whether we remember to (remembering things is hard). We do try to post a link for both options if one is included for either, though this is not always possible.
You sound familiar. Are you some other gimmick blog? This FAQ is plagiarized from @best-thing, and the idea to plagiarize it is plagrized from @worst-thing-polls. But you may also recognize me from @everythingtournament, or maybe @wikipedia-daily
I'm mad (and not in a fun pretend way) about one of the options getting votes when I have strong feelings about it. In fact, I think that this thing may be What's Wrong With Society. May I annoy you and/or others by ranting in the notes about it? No. This may get you blocked.
I'm not mad about it but I think one of the things is good/bad and therefore violates the rules. What gives? I'm not going through a careful ethical evaluation of every thing. Sometimes I remove one that was previously accepted; sometimes I don't. If people are constantly pestering me about which things get accepted, I will stop having fun and this blog will cease. You will therefore have to tolerate some inconsistencies.
Can I submit my orientation, gender, or other essential element of my identity? It's probably best not to.
I'm upset with how you handled my submission in some way. That's not a question! Perhaps "running a gimmick blog and handling people's submissions in a way they don't like" is the real Averagest Thing.
I have a different question. Perhaps you should ask it instead of waiting for us to anticipate it!
