Here we try to answer some of the tougher big-picture questions people have asked about Voting. For answers to technical questions and other issues, contact us.

Q. Why didn't you use judges?

A. We wanted the community to choose. We went through a lot of permutations to get here but, ultimately, we choose an open voting process because:

• we wanted to make sure that our community had a strong say in deciding the top 20 projects
• we think we can best manage potential conflicts of interest by giving everyone the same voice
• we are trying to walk the talk.

Q. But that just makes it a popularity contest. The people with the biggest networks win. Don't you want something more than that?

A. Voting is a popularity contest. No denying it. We tried to mitigate the network effect (she with the biggest network wins by default) by requiring all voters to pick at least five projects. That way four other projects benefit from that big network too.

Q. But won't people just pick their project and then pick four more at random?

A. We can see behind the curtain and the results, to date, don't indicate that that is what folks are doing.

And we worried about that too. Ultimately, we decided to trust the community and ask them not to do that and, instead, to take some time and choose the projects they really are interested in. If our trust is misplaced, well, we'd rather make a mistake because we trusted the community than make one because we didn't.

Q. But 152 projects! That's a lot to sort through. My supporters just want to vote for me. They don't want to have to sort through everything. Couldn't you have made it easier?

A. We tried to balance the goal of making it easy to vote with the goal of getting people to actually consider all of the the choices before voting. That's why we have a two step process that requires people to review the projects before voting.

And it is a lot to sort through. Next year, we'll have better ways. This year, we tried to provide a print guide and a few online ways to narrow down projects (by cause, goals or tools) that you might be interested in.

Q. If you put so much thought into it why didn't you, you know, MAKE SURE THE SITE WOULD WORK?!? My supporters tried to come to vote but they couldn't register and they couldn't vote. And now I've lost them. It's going to hard to get them to come back.

A. You're right. And we thought it would work. We upgraded, we tested and planned for a turnout. And the real turnout tripled, in one day, what we expected for the week. We've got people here and in Canada hunkered down solving the problem. In fact, as I write this, it's solved.

Q. But I lost all those votes. Now, if I lose, I know it's because you weren't working when my supporters were trying to vote.

A. The problems on the site affected everyone, so we don't anticipate that any one project would be advantaged or disadvantaged by this situation. We are extending the vote deadline to give people a chance to come back and vote again.

Q. Why didn't you just make it easier? Why did you make them register first? Couldn't they have just given you their email address and then voted?

A. Yes, we could have chosen that. But we chose to do a registration, with an email verification, so that we could prevent people from voting multiple times.

Q. Is there anything I should be doing now that the problem is solved?

A. Just keep doing what you've been doing: telling people about your project and encouraging them to vote. The most exciting part of this process is seeing all of these terrific, innovative projects get the attention they deserve from a large and still-growing community of voters and observers. We hope this weekend will bring even more people to the site and help spread the word about nonprofit innovation on the social web.