I need votes for the following March Madness Rounds:
Please help select the best personal finance post this year by voting in these -- it only takes a few seconds!
BTW, it appears to me that most FMF regular readers don't really like the March Madness tournament (at least based on the reaction to it.) If you have any comments, I'd love to hear them.
March madness FTL. It cluttered up the blog too much... I can't wait until it's over.
Posted by: Dangger | March 18, 2008 at 11:49 AM
Not a fan...I've skipped them all.
Posted by: Amanda D | March 18, 2008 at 11:52 AM
It's a cute idea, and obviously comes from the heart, but I agree with Dangger - just takes up too much space.
In general I'm not a fan of Meta/Admin/Review posts cluttering up my feedreader (which isn't directed at you in particular), it stresses me out to constantly feel under siege by posts and just leads me to dump some of the blogs I follow.
Posted by: bettergoalsetter | March 18, 2008 at 12:02 PM
I like that guest posts are featured, but I don't like the brackets idea with them... regular readers end up seeing the same blog entries over and over again, and I agree that it clogs up the feed reader and is redundant.
Cute idea, but maybe for guest blog posts in March, there can just be a "vote for this post" button at the end of each one, and the post with the most votes wins? That way, there won't be all the duplicate posting...
In any case, I love your blog -- thanks for the excellent one-stop resource on personal finance!
Posted by: chiamo | March 18, 2008 at 12:10 PM
Thanks for the feedback so far. This is kind of what I suspected. I think I'll forego it next year.
Posted by: FMF | March 18, 2008 at 12:45 PM
I think the quality of blog posts is better this year than last year. I have enjoyed being introduced to new blogs.
However, I agree that some method of shortening the process (like chiamo's suggestion to have one vote) would improve the contest.
Posted by: Jeffrey | March 18, 2008 at 12:55 PM
Maybe it's the repetition that makes it not as interesting-- what if you asked people to submit enough posts to go through all the rounds (so 6 posts, I guess), and then you switched posts as the bloggers advanced in the tournament so you'd see different articles each time?
Posted by: Madame X | March 18, 2008 at 01:09 PM
I enjoyed the posts I read, but there were just too many for me to read all of them. I like the idea of having each blogger submit multiple posts so there isn't so much repetition.
Posted by: Kyle | March 18, 2008 at 02:06 PM
What if I did the same thing as this year but had a prize for one commenter (drawn at random) during each round?
Posted by: FMF | March 18, 2008 at 02:45 PM
I like the concept, but march madness brackets aren't the best method for this type of competition. Once I got through the the first round or two, I stopped reading and voting because I had already seen the posts. It's not an acutal "tournament" (a la NCAA) because it's not a new game in each round - just the same posts we've already seen. (I know they're paired up differently in each round, but that's just not enough to keep it interesting). Maybe each blogger submits 5 or 6 posts, and if they advance you use a new post each time?
The concept is a good one, but the method needs tweeking to keep it interesting. :)
Posted by: Amy | March 18, 2008 at 05:00 PM
I'd rather see guests posts instead of the March Madness. Some of them are good, but after reading a couple of the early matchups I lost interest.
Posted by: Kevin | March 18, 2008 at 05:55 PM
I wish you would post when the round ends in the actual intro text. I skip over some of the posts sometimes and I like to know until when I have to read them.
Posted by: Jessica | March 18, 2008 at 07:33 PM