Just letting you know right now, this is from my perspective.
I see this kind of situation is usually towards more of an overhype towards the more popular IP or franchise. With this, I sense there was an unfair disadvantage compared to how it's paired up.
With DOOM, it had a really big comeback over recent years with 2016 and Eternal (with its DLCs). Compare that to Newgrounds, which only had a big resurgence after the release of FNF back in 2020. While both are still popular today, DOOM seems to have the bigger influence thanks to its more mainstream appeal. With that in mind, I'm sure that it's a matter of mismatched competition.
Tankman is more of an underground icon, he just wouldn't have the same type of luxuries outside of his home website. Again, it's just my perspective and I don't hold any ill intent, but the way I see it, the main factor at play here was popularity. Nobody was really at fault here.
Still, no hard feelings.
Cyberdevil
Ah what a complicated situation. As an avid fan of both NG and DOOM I had the same dilemma with this, but feel like my love for DOOM wins over my love for - not NG - but Tankman. I'm just not as avid a fan of that series as I am of the site. I don't feel like Tankman is synonymous with NG as a whole - if there is a mascot who definitively is I think it'd be either Pico or Alien Hominid, both of those characters with a richer; more ingrained presence with the community here...
So, personally I wouldn't correlate Tankman's loss to a loss of the community as a whole. maybe Pico comes along eventually and wins? Maybe Hominid does? Maybe they already have? Maybe it's still a victory then?
Besides the characters themselves though I feel like this is still just a game, and just a fictional fight, and though I know saying that might feel like a hostility towards those who invest time in it to the point that it feels like more than that... I'd wish it didn't. It can't be healthy to hold something in that high regard that you're disappointed with the outcome of a poll years later. :/ There should be more important things in life... things don't always go as you want them or expect them to, but such is life; it's an inevitability of our being here...
As for your question I don't think anyone's in the right or wrong here. Nobody's at fault. People voted as they wished and the outcome does seem to reflect the overall preference thereof...
Sorry to hear this affected your friend so much though.
homor
Thank you for the kind words, friend!