I have answered this on the other thread. Research from Duke University estimates the number of Internet users in China to be around 20 million people Now, assuming 10% of these Internet users are at the same time also basketball fans, there would be a potential 2,000,000 votes coming from China. But, not all 2,000,000 people know how to vote in NBA.com, plus some people are just casual basketball fans. So assuming 10% of these 2,000,000 Chinese people actually vote, that would give only 200,000 votes coming from China directly. Not as much as people would initally think.
Not that I'm one of those people who thinks that all his support is coming from Chinese people, but you can't forget all of the Chinese Americans whose attention Yao captured. I'm going to assume that a much higher percentage of them have internet access and are voting for Yao.
Yes if they are die hard fans. But most people are not. Anyway, Shaq only gets 600,000+ votes. How do you explain this? U.S. Internet users are many more (100 million+) compared to China's (20 million). Plus basketball is more of a mainstream sports in the US. General awareness about the sports and the players are higher. And these US fans can vote twice for Shaq. I'd say both Shaq and Yao get similar number of votes from US fans (600,000). But Yao gets that additional 200,000 votes from China.
I don't think they would use ip to identify the votes. For one, many people don't have a static ip, so everytime they log in, their ip changes. This would let them vote as many times as they want. I'm on a dial-up at home so all I would have to do is reconnect to vote again. The more important reason why they wouldn't use ip to identify the vote is that many internet service providers reuse ip addresses for different users as needed. Then there is the point you brought up that some computers are used by more than one person (as with public terminals).
I hope Shaq can redeem himself after that racial talk. If Shaq wants to show the world that he has class, he will gracefully accept Yao starting and not play the China card. There are billions of people in China. If they all voted for Yao, do you really think that he'd be up by only thousands? Plus, Americans have to understand that internet access and personal computers for that matter are not households in China. I do agree with Quakes that many votes came from N. America, especially from Houston!!!
So can Americans. Hell, Germans can vote all they want and Nowitzki should be ahead. Please, stop playing the China card. How come Wang Jiji or Bateer isn't near the top? We have Russian players in the League, but nobody plays the Russia card.(Last time I checked, Russia is a pretty big country) Besides, All Star game is just a popularity contest. I want Yao in the Finals, not the all star game.
Thank you. Somebody should start a thread titled "Stop playing the China card". Man, let the Asian boy get some credit without international conspiracy theories popping up.
*********** . com has the following take on Yao's all star voting: NBA BASKETBALL Jan. 6, 2003 Yao Ming's diverse votes By John Son / Richmond, BC Canada Looking at the results from the latest All-Star Vote returns, you'll probably notice that Chinese rookie Yao Ming is second in the Western Conference votes. Must be the billions of online voters in China, you say? Surprisingly, no. Yao also leads in voting from traditional paper votes - the ones people fill out at arenas, Champs, and Best Buy. Looking at straight numbers, Shaq is undoubtedly the best center in the NBA. Shaq's 26.3 ppg and 11 rpg against Yao's 13.2 ppg and 7.9 rpg - Shaq blows Yao out of the water. But it isn't the best players who are voted in to play in the midseason classic - it's the players the fans want to see. During the last few seasons, there hasn't been any competition for Shaquille O'Neal in the West. He was far and away the best pivot, and fans really had no choice but to vote him (or their local team's player) in. Shaq isn't the most popular player in the league - in fact, fans in most cities may recognize him as the most dominant player in the NBA, but they don't necessarily like him or his style of play. Most NBA fans outside of LA revel in the fact that the Lakers are struggling. I highly doubt anyone in Utah is voting for Shaq - add Sacramento, Portland, and Orlando to that list. So now that fans have someone other than Shaq to rally around, why wouldn't they vote Yao in? In contrast, Yao has flourished in the spotlight. Reporters in every city he's visited have featured him. It's impossible for an NBA fan to not hear about the budding star. His humble and witty post-game remarks fill game summaries on a regular basis. In a sport filled with cocky superstars with nothing but dollar signs on their minds, how can you not root for the guy? Even Shaquille himself has offered praise for the 7'5" pivot: "He has all the tools -- shoot, dribble. He can play. He's no slouch." The "Big Aristotle" added, "(Yao) shall be 'The Man' in a few years to come." Atlanta guard Emanual Davis said, "You want to know about Yao Ming? Let me tell you what the NBA players think about Yao Ming. All you need to know is that every player in the league wants to see him play. They're all talking about Yao Ming, and everybody wants to see him play." Unfortunately for Yao, all the other NBA All-Stars will be looking to posterize the rookie, come All-Star weekend. Somebody want to get Yao a plus-sized helmet? ***********.com is the online leader in professional basketball coverage.
Jan 17th is going to be huge. ESPN is already advertizing that game (almost 2 weeks in advance). Methinks that game my register very very high when the rating and TV share returns. I hope Shaq takes it easy with Yao. I also hope we play well enough to win.
Here is my theory of the source of Yao Ming votes. The simple way to look at it is to look the total votes so far counted. Is that number much bigger than the previous year. That number shows the number of voting fans. Since there is only one vote for the Center position per fan, the center votes should reflect the total number of voting fans without multiplication. Adding Ming's votes and Shaq's votes together, that is 1.4 mil some votes. The previous year, shaq alone got 1.2 mil votes, so the total number for center should be around 1.4 mil as well if not greater. I assume the voting fans in North America didnt decrease by much this year compare with last year, considering NBA is still as popular as before. Sum it all up, I dont think there are too many votes in Ming's total count are from China. There are sure some, but not that great enough to change the outcome of the voting, because the total number of voting fans didnt increase drasitically compared with last year, the supposed chinese votes otherwise should've boosted that number by several folds. Ming is leading Shaq by 150 k some votes right now. Even if no Chinese votes are counted, Ming might still win or tie the race with shaq.
There's only a few hundred tickets left for 1/17, for those that want to see it up close and personal -- if you were planning on getting tickets, get 'em now. Tim
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/marty_burns/news/2003/01/03/burns_yaoming/ CNNSI still plays the China card.
I hate to be beating a dead fish but storing IP address will not ensure a voter cannot vote 20 times a day. For the simple reason that IP address can be changed. If you are using cable/dsl then IP address cannot be altered or altered easily any way that I know of. However, if dial up connection is used, the IP can be changed to allow multiple votes. The constant address is NIC address not IP address and unfortunately NIC address cannot be stored. As for someone mentioning storing all voters in a flat file using an SQL server, that will not work either. Because it takes a lot of time simply to open and close the file (if you don't close the file, errors occur). On top of that, SQL operates even slower. This will reduce the speed of NBA.com significantly and therefore simply not feasible.
