Are You Curious?

I have been wondering how PoetrySoup ranks winning poems in non-premium contests. I am assuming that sponsors select placements (1,2,3, etc.) but do not rank within placements. I have chosen a recent winning list from Brian's contest as an example. I chose this because Brian has a larger population under first place and it's easier to see the pattern in a larger population. Here is my obeservation: Once the sponsor selects names under first place, PoetrySoup sorts (does not rank) the winners by first name. After that a few names are randomly reshuffled so that the sorting by first name is not obvious. To verify, I removed the names that are out of place (not in aplha order by first name) and saw that remaining list is sorted in alpha order by first name. This is not an opinion blog. If you comment, please follow the steps I suggested, and share what you see. This is not about merits of placement--this blog is only about how winners are listed under a chosen rank. Just sharing my observation. No disrespect to anyone. Of course, there may be another explanation.

	1	Hawaii's mocking parody - hiku	Hilo Poet
	1	Compose	Andrea Dietrich
	1	ASLEEP	Anisha Dutta
	1	WINTER HAIKU	Ann Gilmour
	1	voice of glory	Gregory Richard Barden
	1	CHILD'S THANKSGIVING	Beata Agustin
	1	The Blockaders	James Marshall Goff
	1	Somewhere Over the Rainbow	Carol Mitra
	1	autumn at hand	Christuraj Alex
	1	Shock diagnosis	Richard Tipping
	1	again and again	Constance La France
	1	Winter Canvas	Debra L Brown
	1	Dappled Winds	Sam Kauffman
	1	Bank Robbers	Edward Ibeh
	1	Land of my Fathers	Wendy Watson
	1	Knife's Edge	Emile Pinet
	1	School Closed	Eve Roper
	1	A mother's love	Farah Diba Pastor
	1	Spring's Arrival	Frederic Parker
	1	Snow moon	Rama Balasubramanian
	1	when dewdrops run dry	JCB Brul
	1	Nostalgia	John Read
	1	insecurity	karen croft
	1	Acquittal Clock	Sotto Poet
	1	The Poet And The Doctor	L. J. Carber
	1	BELOVED CHAOS	Line Gauthier
	1	Autumn Years	Regina McIntosh
	1	Innocence All Too Fleeting	Robert Gorelick
	1	'Shorty'	Robert L. Hinshaw
	1	My Avocado Fridge	Sandra Haight
	1	Melting In Bay Of Bliss	Subimal Sinha-Roy
	1	A Whimsical Dream	Valsa George