Pozor Rossii

[Josh Wilson]

By address, it means IP address, which, in part, can tell where your
computer is located. The voting system doesn't ask you for an email address
- or even registration - but it does limit each IP address to one vote every
24hours (I just tried, as a test, to vote for Ksenya Sobchak, which went
through fine, and then Joseph Stalin, which failed). 

I'm curious, though, if this wasn't set up for entertainment purposes or as
a serious poll, what is its purpose for existence? The voting system strikes
as fairly well thought out - at least as well implemented as its
predecessor. It's also spawned some interesting debate in my view (and,
granted, a lot of frivolity, but hey, it's the Internet). 

As to its not being discussed by "serious" commentators, I'm pretty sure a
letter to a few media outlets in the US and GB would likely start to place
discussion of it in articles and oped columns within a week or two,
especially if Putin stays in first place. 

In short, although we laugh at clowns, there is an art and philosophy to
clowning that some take and study very seriously. I don't see why we should
completely throw out any and all value to this poll - especially if we grant
credence to another. 

Just my two cents... 

Josh Wilson
Asst. Director
The School of Russian and Asian Studies
Editor-in-Chief
Vestnik, The Journal of Russian and Asian Studies
www.sras.org
jwilson at sras.org


-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of E Wayles Browne
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2009 5:05 AM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Pozor Rossii

Yes, perhaps....but some people in Russia use gmail or yahoo
addresses. Should they be disenfranchised?

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