How is Invariance doing at 3 Quarks Daily ? No one likes to lose except one’s arrogance.

Day II, 18th Sept 2015.

Dear Friends;

How are we doing? How is everyone doing?

This post is regarding the performance of this blog at a blogging competition it is taking part in, bolstered by your massive online support.

The last I checked in we are doing well. We are 45.2 % of the vote share, the first highest among the top 50. The 2nd highest is 9%. We are comfortably ahead. But keep on purring your votes and let us keep rolling up.

We were a bit late in calling for action to boost our prospects. Yes, the names were announced by 3 Quarks Daily, by 14th September US times, which is 15th September Indian clock, but I realized only by 16th evening that our blog Invariance (here, at mdashf) has been selected for a competition of semi final round, if it breaks the voting round by being in top 20 slot.

That too it was no less accidental. (I have other accidental incidents in life, but I am not concocting here a diversion, lets keep focus) I was checking my mdashf web-analytics, when 3 Quarks Daily showed some unusual traffic. I followed and to my surprise see that our blog 3 myths in Physics, especially in textbooks, has been selected for the Voting round.

Perhaps the number 3 does it. So in one sentence we were late by 1 and 1/2 day by which time we could have gained some good votes for ourselves.

I quickly made an article putting up details. And this article is none other than your favorite one in the last couple days.

So by the night of 16th here in India, we have no leads and no place in the list of things that are visibly in our favor. I go to bed with one thing someone said in a heat of argument “To win wars you need winning strategy”. I have always been gutsy in my life, if you know me. I will win it, you will see. No offense to anyone, I just do not discard myself easily.

So all I am thinking while in bed, (and every night I go to bed with some pounding thoughts, not knowing where things are leading me, but experience says it will be better only with action) what are the strategy that could be implemented here.

And I am thinking OK lets ensue an online campaign howsoever feebly it boosts our prospects. We are pitted against bigwigs here and we all know that. But we are no less passionate about our epic places in history, we all, visible and non-visible faces, right? No one likes to lose, except one’s arrogance.

So I am thinking as soon as I get up I begin to get my supporters vouch for me in this online voting round. OK, so for last few months I have made it a point to not spend too much time worrying especially during late night hours, as been the case, occasionally. Rather sleep, gather morale, wake up and act.

So I wake up early, yesterday, the 17th (read the report below, appended). I check the online voting share, 0.4% and that possibly came from 1 or 2 votes? Mine, and the possible 1 or 2, who do not wait for my clarion call to support me.

A friend votes me up and notes we are doing really bad here as if no one is willing to vote for us. I am still thinking subtle actions are often invisible. So lets just begin to garner support from who we could lay our hands on.

So I begin writing to my connections to help me stay ahead in the competition. It began modest, you see. Steve drops in and says he is helping me break the 1.5+ barrier. Yes we are only having 1.5% of vote share and we have 2 days of poll remaining ahead us, out of slated 4 days. What we are seeing is 7%, 9% and 19% guys standing tall and freakishly scary, right. Yes the highest was then 18 or 19%, the Nova Scotia (naba satya, or anga shudha) folks, some well to do Physics article there. And we are 1.5%

Our action was building up, and we were making soon 3, 4 and 5%. And we didn’t look back any more. I didn’t meet a single guy who refused my call for help down. That’s how popular we are see. And such a campaign sees us building relations far more, than breaking it. So whoever is not favorable to Online Buddy Building, move off, none of your days anymore.

People were not only helping us, they were taking our earnest two line requests and acting upon that to help us win. Do you have words for it, I don’t.

By afternoon what we are seeing is we are well past the 20% vote share. Yes, we are the top most voted blog by now, in this competition of most popular science blogs from around the world. Ahead of Nova Scotia, the 19% top-most, before us.

The afternoon saw a lot more action with people just pouring in to help us more. Some of them were sharing among their own groups and actually getting us votes. Because the vote share kept on rolling up. By the midnight we were somewhere to 42% of vote sharing

Read the report below of yesterday’s activity. I could only compete my campaign goals, by some measure, to 60%. I thought I could re-enact my will to get things going again. But I am not already doing it. And its 3 o clock already.

If you do read, jump in the fray and keep us rolling up.

Happy Reading.

Report at end of Day I, 17th Sept 2015.

Guys it was an amazingly tiring but educative day. I sat at my table since 6 am or so, campaigning through the mist and fog of online terrain, taking innumerable instances of help, support and good will of my folks, gaining a massive amount of fellow feeling in the process. Now its 12 Pm. Almost 20 hrs without a leisure break, literally.

I never campaigned like that, 18 hrs at a stretch. Yes I have done frequent online campaign, running like 10-15 hrs at stretch, but mostly frivolous, like share post for no apparent reason. But here I was promoting my blog, something I wrote a year ago. And this has been selected and being promoted for a blogging award.