Dear @derekhough fans, @PureDerekHough, @puredwts & @KristynBurtt

I tried to post this on PureDWTS website earlier today but it never passed moderation. Since PureDWTS website is apparently not for everyone to share their opinions, I'll post it here.

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I personally ran numbers using Topsy for all the different ways votes may be counted.
I don’t think our votes are being thrown out. Here’s why.

Male celebrities first:
I considered 2 scenarios.

-First scenario is that both votes with and without Spaces will count.
For example: #DWTSCharileCheryl and #DWTS Charlie Cheryl will both count

-Second scenario is that only votes with Spaces will count (the way ABC site was posting it on twitter). Nowhere in the rules does it specifically mention that hashtag vote with no spaces will count.

In the first scenario I got the exact pairings PureDWTS got in their predictions:
Charlie Cheryl
James Witney
Cody Peta
Drew Sharna

But if hashtags-no space votes don’t count, James beats out Charlie in the total number of votes and it changes all 5 pairs!

James Cheryl
Charlie Peta
Cody Sharna
Drew Witney

Here’s an image with the data I got http://twitpic.com/e09zhx

Now moving on to female celebrities. Every scenario I ran, hashtags with and without spaces, produced the same results.

In the order of celebrity rankings based on total votes:
1. Meryl Derek
2. Danica Maks
3. Amy Mark
4. NeNe Val
5. Candace Tony

Here’s an image with the data I got http://twitpic.com/e09zgc

This result is different from what PureDWTS got. And I think the reason is that normally when you search for a phrase with spaces it has to be surrounded by quotes. For example “#DWTS Meryl Derek”.
If it’s not surrounded by quotes, the search picks up all the tweets that have these 3 words in them (not necessarily in this order)

For example, a vote for both Meryl/Derek and Amy/Val in one tweet with spaces (#DWTS Meryl Derek #DWTS Amy Val) would also count votes for Meryl/Val and Amy/Derek because their names are in the tweet (even if out of order).

As a test I ran numbers for phrases with spaces without quotes around them to see if the results turned out different from what I had gotten using quotes around hashtags with spaces. And it came out that NeNe got 2nd most number of votes, instead of Danica. So I think not surrounding phrases with quotes is the reason NeNe ended up 2nd on Pure list, and why our results don’t match.

I also know of two more people that ran numbers independently and got exactly the same results I got. I’m a Maks fan; the other two are AmyDerek and Candace fans, so there’s no conspiracy.

Meryl got Derek, but he can’t travel to FL with Meryl, so he's not available to partner her.

With that in mind, and still using results of our votes:

1. Meryl Val (Val got second most votes for Meryl after Derek)
2. Danica Maks (Maks got the most votes for Danica)
3. Amy Mark (Mark got the most votes for Amy)
4. NeNe Derek (Maks got the most votes for NeNe, but Maks is already taken)
5. Candace Tony

Looks like the result I got match EXACTLY what PureDWTS leaked the pairs will be for the Switch week.

This #Switch is the stupidest idea ever. And it sucks that after voting for a week for Derek to get Meryl and actually getting the most votes for her, Derek still can’t dance with her. If I were Derek’s fan and spent a week voting, I would be pissed. This is not fair.

But I think that accusing producers of throwing away our votes is not fair either.
It looks to me like they ARE going by the votes.

We can accuse them of many things, like posting rules half way through voting, not clarifying rules about hashtags, not letting fans know that Derek Meryl partnership will not be an option because of their schedules.

But I don’t think it’s fair to accuse them of throwing away the votes, because it doesn't look like they did.

If you run the numbers on Topsy with quotation marks around search strings with spaces (the way it should be), you will come up with what I got, and with what AmyDerek fan and Candace fan got.
And these results appear to be matching the actual pairings, according to PureDWTS post.

This would mean that the show WAS counting and using our votes, with the only exception being that Derek was never available to be paired with Meryl this week.

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