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We have a second contest going on.

And whenever we have these sort of things I see how unfair the voting system is.

Whoever posts first, or quickly gets more votes, has a huge advantage, since most people wont bother checking all answers posted.

I would like to propose a random display of answers (maybe even hidden votes?), something closer to elections on SO, to make it fairer.

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    Ah, but then you take the fun out of gaming the system to win! No, but seriously, we should do this. – ArtOfCode Nov 28 '18 at 1:49
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    Nice, now I got 10 rep! Gotta send my answer to beat those fools! \o/ (kidding [partially], I do think this is an important change =P ) – carla Nov 28 '18 at 1:53
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    Absolutely right, and this is what makes these "competitions" a pointless waste of time if one is not lucky enough to see them the day they're posted or to have material ready for them the day after. – Nij Nov 28 '18 at 2:59
  • Related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/263501/… – Nathan Tuggy Nov 28 '18 at 3:53
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    For this contest, considering the theme, the FGITW effect is highly appropriate/desirable (disclaimer: mine is one of the answers which is doing better than it probably should because it went up early). – Chair Nov 29 '18 at 1:01
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I would further suggest that contest entries should be sorted by newest entries first — the reason being that every entrant would have exactly one chance to sit in that "top spot" until sorted down by newer entries.

Further, for anyone following the latest 'activity' (to vote), folks would no longer have to crawl through all the entries again and again looking for those latest entries since my last visit. As the number of posts grows, finding what's new gets more difficult — so folks are less likely to bother. Putting the newest entries at the top helps mitigate that.

You can't (easily) nullify the fact that early entries simply have more time (and short-tail attention) to accumulate more votes, but letting the newest entries trickle down from the top will help offset the advantage of simply being here first (if even just a bit).

Oh, and then change it back to "top winners first" when the contest is over.

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