Who are The Most Beautiful SL Men Finalists for 2009?

Starting on Tuesday, November 10 The Most Beautiful SL Men Finalists for 2009 will be announced here and over at my main blog, Eddi Haskell's Second Life. 

I will post the results at midnight.

Out of about 200 men photographed by me this year, 25 are finalists. 5 finalists will be announced per day  through Saturday, November 14.

Questions and Answers:

Q. How did you decide who to photograph?  How were the 200 men selected?

A. Totally at random. I would go to a club, or go to Hubs, or anywhere such as SL Woodstock, and see someone who I thought looked good and took their picture. I learned to ask people if I can take their photograph after getting one complaint that I did not check with someone first.  In addition, I do some professional seatings and they are in here.  Most of the shots are people i just ran into at clubs.

Sometimes people would be over visiting, and I would be in the mood to photograph,  I would offer to shoot them.
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Q.   Aren't these guys all your close friends?

A.    No they are not.  In fact, many of my closest friends who I have known since day one are not in here. And some of my closest friends (you know who you are) did not make it as a finalist.
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Q.  Aren't some photographs better than others?

A.  Of course!  Some are much better than others. However, the best photographs in my opinion were not always the winning  photographs
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Q. Are most of these guys gay?

A. Most, but not all. I go to gay clubs and do most of my photography there.
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Q. Is this  a popularity contest?

A. To a certain degree it it. Any well known Second Life person is bound to have people searching for them anywhere. But many of my finalists are frankly not that well known.

Q. So in a way, isn't this contest a big bunch of bull? 

A.That certainly is one way to look at it!

First of all it is not a contest.  There is no prize other than to say you are a finalist right now.  I am not sure what I am doing with this, I have thought about an exhibition of winners as a next step. 

What  I am showing is the top  13% of all the people that I photographed in terms of reader interest. If the finalists want to claim that they are a finalist in Most Beautiful SL Men they can. It is a lot better in my opinion than these cheesy pay for vote contests - no one paid me to be a winner or paid for their votes, there was nothing like this.

And one thing I will never do is a contest to figure out who the "most beautiful man of SL" is through pay for votes. I thought about doing this for the homeless shelter I raise money for, Bread and Jams, but I am not going to -- I really resent when people ask me to pay to vote for anything, and I am not doing this. 

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Q. How were the finalists chosen?

A. By using Statcounter software and coming up with image viewing time, download, and return activity.  In other words, reader involvement with each image.  I did not count "votes" which appear on the blog after the first four months, because people can vote for themselves more than once.

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Q. Will I publish my formula and a detailed description of how I calculated my winners?  Will I publish a rank order of the winners?

A. No. Why?  I don't have the time to do this. It is complicated, and I do not think people should be taking this too seriously anyway (see next two questions).
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Q.  But some people were photographed more than others. Does this mean they have an advantage?

A.  Yes. But not that much of one surprisingly.  The person photographed the most was myself (not surprisingly), and I am not being counted. Also Ryce Skytower, my alt, was photographed quite a bit and would not have been a finalist if he were counted.  Most of the winners were only photographed once.
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Q.  How can you say these are the most beautiful men in SL?

A. I am not. I am saying that these finalists are ones who readers of my blog, Most Beautiful SL Men, found the most engaging in terms of reader activity, and who "turned on" over 6,000 unique readers of my blog the most.

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Q. Will you be repeating this in 2010?

A.  I am not sure yet.
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Q. Can I request a reshoot of my photo, or request that I be in Most Beautiful SL Men?

A.  No.  I do not do free work on request.  The only way to do this is to pay for a seating.  However, this blog is definitely not a way for me to get more work. I actually have not had much time for these requests lately.  I put paid seating pictures in Most Beautiful SL Men.  If you are interested in a seating, please drop me a note card inworld for information.with your name on it.

However, if you are really really nice and polite and use the word "please", and if I am photographing that night, try asking me if you see me in a club or hanging around. I like to be nice and help people who are nice in return.  But if I cannot, please accept this. Also, I only photograph evenings Sunday - Friday, and never when I am out with my partner Jago; he has my complete attention then.
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Q. Can I have a copy of my photo?

A.  Yes. All photos on my blog can be downloaded onto your drive. Just click the picture to open it and save it to your hard drive. Please just credit me if you use it in a blog.

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Q. If I hate my photo will you remove it?

A.  Of course. Leave me a message inworld.


Thanks for reading, Eddi.