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Online Voters Name British Vessel 'Boaty McBoatface' (telegraph.co.uk)
Britain's Natural Environment Research Council conducted an online poll to select the name for their new advanced polar research vessel. Though it cost more than 200 million pounds and represents their fleet's largest and most advanced research vessel, when the voting closed yesterday the clear winner, was the name 'Boaty McBoatface'. The name received over 124,000 votes, while the nearest runner-up -- Poppy-Mai -- received just 34,371, and the fourth-most popular suggestion, "RRS It's Bloody Cold Here," received just 10,679 votes. "I am grateful to everyone who has participated in the competition," Britain's science minister told The Daily Telegraph, though he added "You won't be surprised to know that we want something that fits the mission and captures the spirit of scientific endeavor." The Telegraph takes this as a signal that the ministers "were unlikely to endorse the result."
Oh, Internet...
At least the top name wasn't the "RSS Hitler did nothing wrong."
To the world this ship will always be Boaty McBoatface. Whenever it's in the news, whenever people speak of it the actual name will be ignored.
It might not be christened Boaty McBoatface but that's what its friends and family will call it.
Polling the Internet is a flawed idea. It always gives an outsize voice to 12 year olds from reddit and 4chan.
I suppose it's actually rather surprising that Hitler didn't manage place the top spot.
That's why the form of government that works is minimally etatist - republic, monarchy, totalitarianism... Anything below a democratic republic is anarchy - people vode for Boaty McBoatface for president. Then they shoot her.
I think Boaty McBoatface is the best name they could have received. Do they understand how many kids will be attracted to that name? I could see this being a great way to get kids interested in polar science. It will always be Boaty McBoatface to me!
Boaty McButtfucker
Boaty McMuffin
USS USS
McLovin
Stephen Colbert won a vote to name a bridge after him in Hungary...naturally, the govt said no.
The boat people will pick a name that had some votes AND is respectable.
This.
(Yeah, that's all.)
Row row row your boat...
Seriously though, this either became a joke long before the poll closed, or it's another poll effected by a person having a scripted laugh.
So... just like the outcome of all popular elections.
Yes but the poll just officially closed and the people in charge just commented that it probably will not be named this after all.
Can I say the RRS It's Bloody Cold Here has the ring of a Culture ship and would make a nice epitaph for one of the finest science fiction authors of the last fifty years. Given the poll options though, I'd like to suggest the GCU Experiencing a Significant Gravitas Shortfall instead.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
And you wonder why the American primary votes are only taken under advisement.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It's like all those game-show spectators yelling "No deal!" It doesn't cost them anything to see what's inside the next box. For the player, the prize total may increase but the prize per box tends to shrink the longer she plays.
It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, or everyone has to see the stupid name on the bow of a ship.
I'll say it again; democracy doesn't work. - Kent Brockman, 'The Simpsons'.
Hey, if "Of Course I Still Love You" and "Just Read the Instructions" can be valid boat names (they're the names of SpaceX's landing/recovery ships), then the "It's Bloody Cold Here" is perfectly cromulent.
Bureaucrats, no f*cking imagination or sense of humour.
-- Alastair
You never know, maybe "Boaty McBoatface" in Gaelic will be something that in English sounds dignified and/or cool.
several days ago Blas de Lezo was in second position
Breaking news. Well done, slashdot.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
restored.
Also, I decided to call my steel steed "Bikey McBikeface".
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
The authorities ignoring the result of this referendum, is a nice warm up to the British electorate for the result of the Brexit referendum being ignored, in two months and a bit.
A very long time ago (the Internet was new, so this was a paper poll), UCLA polled for a replacement name for a bookstore/cafeteria/recreation area on the north end of the campus. The responses nearly all varied from snide to obscene. The name selection ended with retaining the working name "North Campus Facility".
See these other trollish hits... http://imgur.com/gallery/gaJxp
Silence is a state of mime.
They officially confirmed they would not use the winning name before the poll closed as well.
Learn to love Alaska
The NHL ended up having to sen a mostly no-name enforcer, John Scott, who's more famous for fighting than anything else, to the All Star Game.
Turns out it was the best thing that could have happened for the NHL.
Is this an example of the Wisdom Of Crowds, or a counterexample? According to the Wikipedia page, the Wisdom Of Crowds only fails when "members of the crowd were too conscious of the opinions of others and began to emulate each other and conform rather than think differently". Is that the case here?
Given we're talking about the internet here, they got off easy. It could have easily been the RSS Hitler Did Nothing Wrong.
Learn to have some fun. Go with it, and enjoy the laughs.
Reminds me of the dwarf planet and its moon originally named "Xena" and "Gabrielle". Great names relevant to current culture. But nooooo... the old sticks-in-the-mud decided they had to use long dead Greek gos names. So officially they became "Eris" and "Dysnomia". How many people do you think know those names today? -- I know about them and still I had to look the names up *again*.
:T:R:A:N:S:
Let's vote to rename slashdot.
Table-ized A.I.
Why can't scientists have any damn fun these days?
Giving it such a silly name would actually likely attract attention to what it does, purely because it is such a silly name.
Even the "It's bloody cold here" would go a treat.
Silly names attract attention. Some of it will be interested attention.
They'd read up on it, and maybe a small number of those people would have some interest in it.
It might even inspire some of those people to get interested in the industry(-ies) on some level.
So just go for it.
Give it a silly name! FOR SCIENCE!
I hate this prudish boring country.
Everything is PC, everything is tame, everything is boring, everything is non-excitable and PROFESHUNHUL, sterile and emotionless.
FUCK professional. I'd rather off myself than be such a boring twat.
Everyone know the correct name should be Shippy McShipface.
This is typical of politicians having a vote then not honouring the out come, just more evidence that democracy is a façade.
For a non native speaker, it is not obvious why this name is wrong. Is there a pun, or a reference to a cultural item unknown to me?
A wild guess is that it looks like child talk. Is that all?
They may go with the number three pick, Henry Worsley (Recently deceased South Polar explorer) and name one of the lifeboats Boaty McBoatface.
But, that would be the intelligent thing rather than the bureaucratic thing, so who knows?
This was news like a month ago. Seriously. All the late night comics had fun with it and moved on. Did something NEW happen that I'm missing?
The Internet is over this already. It was reported many times, we all had our laughs, the poll was declared a lost cause and everyone moved on. Not its back? And it's obvious the Ministry is going to ignore the results?
Great work, /. -- gotta keep us up to date with all the latest news.
Did you guys hear that idiot Donald Trump was running for president of the US? Yeah, it's a real thing! I think it was just announced recently.
The ministers need to take the stick out they ass.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I thought this site was about "News for nerds, stuff that matters."
It sums up the British sense of humour. It's very British, and yet the fuckers won't use it, because.... well they're kill joys.
It's the TOP GEAR spirit, when a crappy producer whose only job is to arrange stuff like meals, fails to do his job, he need punched in the Punchy-mac-Punch Face.
It's absolutely a perfect name and they should run with it BECAUSE BRITS CHOSE IT.
What next Mister Rogers??? Smegheads.
With this little experiment in democracy working out as a dismal failure, they might as well go back to monarchy. Oh wait, they already are a monarchy!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Alas Kraft once plucked a product name from an internet poll. A week later they held a second poll selecting "Cheesybite", which is almost as bad.
Vegemite for people who don't like Vegemite... FFS, in destroying a national icon they even had vegemite-flavoured chocolate bars.
1998, and People Magazine wanted to make it's presence known on the newfangled internet.
Leonardo Dicaprio was supposed to win. But 230,169 of us nerds bitchslapped them, and voted Hank in.
People Magazine, being the ethical rag that it is, declared DiCaprio the winner, even though he came in 3rd.
Nerds FTW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Sad to say, Hank is no longer with us.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
> My Kingdom for a "Facepalm" Icon
Worry not, Unicode has you covered:
http://emojipedia.org/face-palm/
Here the public foots the bill of 200 million pouds. The Public says they want the ship to be named 'Boaty McBoatface' overwhelmingly, Yet the public servants say fuck you, we are going to come up with our own crappy name, because in the end we really don't care what the public wants.
If this is how public servants define democracy, I would rather live in a dictatorship.
Or the winner would have been: "RRS It's Bloody Cold Here".
And Ian Banks was british btw and he is worth to be honoured with a ship named like that.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
with it.
Dont you mean Smeggy McSmegheads?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Why bother run an open poll to name the boat, if you're going to refuse the winning name?
Well, I guess they raised awareness about ... umm ... the fact that they have a boat.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
"You won't be surprised to know that we want something that fits the mission and captures the spirit of scientific endeavor."
So Boffin's Fridge then?
Whatever the government choose, there is no way anyone (other than po-faced politicians) will refer to the ship as anything but Boaty McBoatface again.
we voted to name a bridge. We named it "The Chuck Norris bridge"... It won't surprise you it's now called "The freedom cycling bridge"
Just call it: Boaty McScienceFace
Problem solved!
The "It's Bloody Cold Here" is a much better name for a North Seas research vessel.
"Members of the British scientific community cast their votes on what to call members of the general population. The winning choice by a long margin was 'Retard McFatFucks'."
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
If nerds nerding it up on a boat called Boaty McBoatface doesn't capture the spirit of scientific endeavor, then I don't know what does.
So it looks like they are planning to name it something else...Morons
This whole Boaty McBoatface thing has been a publicity goldmine. Seriously, who here even knew there was a UK National Environmental Research Council before this? But the whole circus goes away about 2 weeks after they refuse the name.
If they actually name the ship Boaty McBoatface, the publicity will effectively live as long as the ship does. Interest will tapir off, sure, but the name is such a grabber that any time there's a chance to put Boaty McBoatface in a newspaper story, it will be there.
The Marketing people at the NERC seriously need to tie the "suits" up in a closet for a few weeks until they can get Boaty christened and launched. Its for the good of the organization. Throw enough gin and vermouth in there for a few martinis and they'll be fine.
Apparently Scottsdale Community College students' felt the administration was spending too much money to the school's sports teams instead of education. About 30 years ago the student body, asked to vote on a new name and school colors for the football team, voted to call the team The Fighting Artichokes with team colors of pink and white. The administration ignored the election. However the election was facilitated by the League of Women Voters and the results were binding. They could not be overturned except through another election. A second election saw the student body overwhelmingly keep "Artie the Artichoke." Some 30 years later, however,the colors were changed to green and gold.
I hope they do that! Make it the best lifeboat on there, and give it a big smiley face paint job!
Give it it's own champagne christening and I bet there will be more photo ops with Boaty that boring old Worsley...
A better response for these AC posts complaining about how old the news is, might be to just respond:
"Where was your submission a month ago?"
Slashdot doesn't generate news, Slashdot reports news that other's have submitted (most of the time...).
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Same reason it is pointless to vote for anything.
Did I use 'taking the piss' correctly?
Coren22 an AC exposed your lies about his work https://slashdot.org/comments.... and you merely talk about security but you haven't done better than he has in that area where he actually does things for better security and speed. You're all talk and a liar Coren22.
APK, don't act like you won the argument, you are still using the same arguments you always do, and I have already responded to them. When you are ready to act like an adult and admit your mistakes, maybe you might have a productive conversation with people.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
We see you lost due to a tantrum of yours that you ate your words for. Take your advice. Man up: Admit you played yourself.
A tantrum? Such as you searching every post I make to try and dig up dirt, then posting on many of my comments completely unrelated to the original conversation? I see no tantrum on my side, just me rightfully putting your lies in their place.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Coren22 you're burying yourself in your own dirt. Lies I see are yours quoted Coren22. Apk tore them up with facts https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8987011&cid=51944285
Yup, keep dreaming. We'll all wait for your meds to take effect. You are the only one who cares about these things, and you are the only one who believes what you type.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
It's no dream apk tore you up for your lies Coren22. It's your nightmare that you're exposed in it failing against apk https://slashdot.org/comments.... and it's driving Coren22 crazy 1 post at a time. Nice projecting there about your meds too.