Icon Contest #15 Discussion

[Devine]

Even without the presence of expertly skilled judges, I'm still against the idea of giving public polls too much influence. Not without some way of making sure some degenerates don't unfairly influence them. At the very least, you can put your faith in a judge. You know they thoroughly examined the entries.

If anything, I say public polling is best used as a tie-breaker. Look at the previous mini-modelling contest. The poll was weighted in favour of the cutest entry, almost causing a tie. I doubt many of the voters actually checked the models out, beyond maybe giving them a cursory glance. So what happens next time? Does someone win an otherwise close contest, because the poll was full of filipinos voting for the only filipino entrant, because they're from the same place? Or because one of the entrants has more friends?

Before it's brought up, I'm not saying that the aforementioned poll skewed the results. My argument is simply that it has the potential to do so. Contests are, by their very nature, based around technique, skill and merit. They need to stay that way.

Is that a response to the 66%-33% thing which was mentioned by Naze?
Or to my 50%-50% idea when only one judge can be found?

 

[Direfury]

Both, in a sense. There's a vetting process for judges, but polling is easily skewed. I mentioned in a previous post, something about asking voters to post when they vote. Get their thoughts on the entries they chose.

For entrants looking to improve, that feedback could be of great value. For others like me, it eases our concern.

 

[Freddyk]

Hi everybody,

0. I'm generally against competition (where competition means trying to prove yourself being better than other people). However I like personnal challenges (where challenge means trying to make your best in a given theme). Which leads to how I see contests: challenge people to make the best they can in a given theme. In that regard, winners are meaningless. However, critics and rating are important because it's constructive feedback from your peers, allowing you to assess the quality of your creation and see your progress.

1. I think a lot more people can be considered for judging. Having several ressources with good rating in said category should be enough to make you a potential judge. However I disagree with giving such judges less power than "experts", that would not encourage people to make good reviews. Judges' job is to give constructive critics and (as much as possible) objective rating. In that regard, the more judges the better because you get the more feedback. The time spent to make good reviews is enough to give weight to your judgment.

2. I disagree with giving more weight to poll. Poll voters just give rating without constructive review, which makes poll result not interesting to me. Maybe some voters actually do true reviews before voting, in that case they would better become judges.

3. Harmonized rules would be better if we want to improve contests, you cannot progress if everyone tries different things without considering what other do. Which doesn't mean such rules should be engraved in stone, they could always be improved by general concertation. Maybe some categories will have problems because of the lack of judges, maybe allowing more people to judge will solve the problem, maybe not.

 

[Naze]

Alright guys the poll for the Arena changes is up, hopefully more people will care to objectively participate, since voting in a poll is easier. Thank you for already being here and adding to the discussion.

Both, in a sense. There's a vetting process for judges, but polling is easily skewed. I mentioned in a previous post, something about asking voters to post when they vote. Get their thoughts on the entries they chose.

Indeed I forgot that. It's now added as a 4th option in of the poll thread.

1. I think a lot more people can be considered for judging. Having several ressources with good rating in said category should be enough to make you a potential judge. However I disagree with giving such judges less power than "experts", that would not encourage people to make good reviews. Judges' job is to give constructive critics and (as much as possible) objective rating. In that regard, the more judges the better because you get the more feedback. The time spent to make good reviews is enough to give weight to your judgment.

Yes that's a valid point. However this demonstrates how this part of the backup "non-expert" judge seems to be too debatable right now. So I took it out of the 1st topic of the new thread. I think it'll be healthier if we first agree on having 2 judges, and only then we go for what we'll do on the exceptional cases.