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."

Comments

They won't pick that name

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Do I spy 4chans hand?

[wbr1]

See these other trollish hits... http://imgur.com/gallery/gaJxp

Sheesh...

[transami]

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*.

Re: Internet democracy

[alvinrod]

It's real, but it happened several years ago. That particular entry was only sold online through eBay, but apparently the people who had pushed for it actually bought up all of the run so it was sort of successful. Shit, I'd probably buy it if it were on the store shelves for no other reason that it makes much chuckle.

Re:What is in a name?

[JoshuaZ]

Mc is a very common beginning of a surname. It comes from a word meaning "clan of" or "father of". So fake, deliberately silly names are sometimes done as X McY where X and Y are related in some way. So one might jokingly refer to something like Rocket McBoom as a name for a rocket. In this case, it combines with some other humorous things (including adding face in a semi-random way).

Deja vu

[Ol Olsoc]

Any one remember when Hank the angry Drunken Dwarf was voted People magazine's most beautiful person?

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.