WhatNotToSing.com performance ratings are based entirely on publicly-posted opinions we find on the World Wide Web. They come from blogs, newspaper articles, and forums; from message boards, roundtables, chat room logs, online polls and feeds of every type imaginable. Some have dubbed this virtual world of American Idol fans "The Idolsphere".
A small minority of these sources are websites dedicated solely to Idol. A larger number are general forums for television shows in general, and reality shows in particular. Most, however, are websites that have nothing to do with Idol whatsoever, and this is by design. We strive for the widest possible sampling of opinions, not just those of the show's most rabid fans. We've pulled opinions from hobby sites dedicated to, among other things, ice skating, snorkeling, scrapbooking, hunting, photography, movies, Disney, travel, and video games. We've pulled them from religous sites, kids' sites, military sites, ethnic sites, activist sites, senior citizens' sites, networking sites, tech sites, and sports sites — you'd be surprised and perhaps encouraged at how well Idol ties America together. We've pulled opinions from viciously partisan political blogs of both wings, sometimes holding our noses until we get to the page with the information we need. (Like the Army motto goes: get in, get the job done, get out.) Thanks to search engines like Google and Yahoo!, a few simple search terms are all it takes to produce hundreds of results in places we'd otherwise never dream of looking.
