[Poll] What's the point of a contest?

[Naze]

What do you feel the point of contests generally is?

Cast a vote to help us understand what our userbase expects from Arena contests.
You can vote on up to 3 options if you're not sure within an wider range.
Concepts below have been summarized from previous discussions:

Competitiveness: i.e. a test of skill, a more serious tone, competitive environment, prizes, etc. Fun: i.e. having a good time, a more casual tone, community interaction, help each other, etc.

The new wording of the teamwork rule generated a discussion in which we felt like this was needed. We noticed there were many nuances in people's opinions, so this format of poll could help us get a better grasp of them. As a sub-optimal consequence some factors have been put aside (like improvement, creating more resources, etc) but you're welcome to elaborate your opinion in a post below.
You can change your vote if you happen to have made up your mind during discussions.

 

[Kyrbi0]

This Poll exists to obtain a Hive-wide consensus on the point of Contests generally (as much as possible).
It is the Prime Question because it is the foundation which informs a myriad of important decisions about how we all believe Contests should be run.

The presented philosophic dichotomy (that of "Competition" ("COMP") vs. "Fun" ("FUN")) is the result of a great deal of time, thought, energy, and involvement, both with the community generally and the Arena specifically. There are tons of things people want out of Contests (recreation, test of skill, enrichment, community, practice...), but I believe that the primary Question lies on this more metaphysical spectrum. To explain:

COMP: A user most aligned with COMP sees Contests as a test of skill; a proving ground where they can match wits & abilities with other users. They believe a Contest is most enriching to the community when it is fair & competitive. In order to best determine 'who is best', a COMP-aligned user will look for Contests to be as specific, organized, and focused as possible. They will generally prize 'standardization' very highly, in order to best ensure an even playing field. They will prefer Judges to public Polls, for fair & balanced outcomes. They will want Rules to be very clear & specific, and want people to abide by them strictly, ensuring an even footing. Objectivity would be prized over Subjectivity, especially in Criteria/Judging. An example might be the Wc3C.net Hero Contests.

FUN: A user most aligned with FUN sees Contests as, well, a place to have fun. They believe the community is best enriched by Contests which focus more on having a good time & offering a few constraints & Rules which don't over-focus or over-complicate things. They don't necessarily feel strongly about having official Judgements or awards or strict, standardized Criteria; the act of creation & the joy of the community is more important. There may be a greater focus on subjective experience rather than objective 'data'. They would emphasize the 'hobby' nature of the craft and focus on communal enrichment, with perhaps a nominal appreciation for rewards. An example of this might be some of the early Concept Art Contests, or the Hero Contest #6.

Both of these are on the more extreme ends of their philosophy; I believe it likely regular users will fall closer to the middle, and may indeed feel that it's different for different disciplines (i.e. Icons, Models, Textures) or even for different Contests.

That is part of why each User not only has 3 Votes to assign, but is Free to Change their Vote at any time in order to better reflect a changing opinion.

Thank you for your time & patience. I earnestly believe this will aid the community in running better, more favorable Contests.

~~~

Original Description (or see thread linked above):

I have thought about Contests the Hive for a long time; anyone can check my record and see I've joined a dozen or so, Hosted a few, and spoken at length about them. I care about them a lot, and want to see them improved; problems fixed, inefficiencies minimized, rules clarified & made more explicit, enforcement enjoined.

There are a myriad of intriguing & challenging questions to consider in this discussion-to-be-had; this most recent discussion about the meaning & extent of "teamwork" (to the end of clarifying/explicit-izing the Rule) is but one piece of the greater puzzle.

~

I'm the kind of guy that likes to get the root of things. The base, primal, foundational element that underscores & underpins everything else. If we can't answer that, how can we hope to answer all the other questions? The questions whose answer depends on the answer to that ultimate, foundational question?

What, then, is that question? After a great deal of time & thought, I believe it to be thus:

What is the Point of a Contest?

While I would love to entertain contenders to this as the Prime Question, I currently stand convinced of it's primacy; answering that Question* will lead us to the proper answers to all other questions. And in fact, no other questions can really be well-discussed without that Answer.

~

I recognize, first of all, that this is immensely complicated question, and it is difficult (if not foolhardy) of me to try & boil it into a single Poll. Yet, I feel we must try.

I recognize, secondly, that humans are immensely complicated, and we often have varying desires & preferences that can shift due to circumstance or time. The goal here is to get a general sense, a 'taste of the tides'; to aggregate the opinions of the masses in order to best serve those masses.

*I recognize, thirdly, that the Answer to this Question (due to the first two 'recognitions' above) might indeed be impossible to determine generally, but instead be best determined on a more discipline-by-discipline (or even Contest-by-Contest) basis. We will attend to that as well.

~

In a nutshell, though, I felt that Contests (or rather, the people who interacted with them) generally fell on a two-sided spectrum; those who thought Contests should be more serious/tests of skill, and those who thought Contests should be more relaxed/community-building/fun-having spectacles. While I still believe this to be important, @Arowanna has successfully changed my mind that there should be a third corner to the graph; "self-improvement". It has roots in 'serious-mode' and roots in 'fun-mode', but is not quite either one. I have further folded "community-improvement" (i.e. making more resources & such) into that, with the title "Eudaemonia" (Greek for "flourishing/prosperity/growth")

Thus I propose:

SOME KIND OF POLL-SERIES TO THE SITE: HOW TO RUN CONTESTS

PART 1: WHAT SHOULD CONTESTS MAINLY BE ABOUT? (MULTI-VOTE PLEASE)
"Fun" (i.e. to have a good time, a relaxed tone, engender community engagement, etc)
"Challenge" (i.e. a test of skill, a more serious tone, competitive in nature, etc)
"Eudaemonia" (i.e. self-/community-improvement: to improve ones' skills and/or to create more resources for the community)

PART 2: SHOULD THE ABOVE BE DETERMINED & PROMULGATED? (i.e. set in place/stone, etc)
Yes
Maybe (why/why not)?
No

PART 3: IF 'YES', HOW SO?
At a site-wide level
On a Contest-by-Contest basis
On a discipline-by-discipline basis (i.e. Icon Contests vs. Hero Contests vs. Coding Contests vs. Concept Art Contests, etc)
Other?

PART 4: WHERE/BY WHOM SHOULD THIS BE DETERMINED?
Site Discussion - by Administrators
Contest Submissions - by Host, then Users
Contest Submissions - by Moderators
Other - by Other

I am not prepared to make The Big Poll for the Prime Question at this time (gotta go to work). Moreover, I would want the blessing & administrative-oomph of Ralle; ideally, this Poll would not only be publicly announced (via the notifications bar, like for Contests), but perhaps could even have every individual user personally notified (pop-up or somesuch) to check it out. For this to mean anything we need maximum outreach & involvement.

I have a lot more to say about each of those options, but it will have to wait. Thank you for your patience & (hopefully) involvement. I hope to move forward to Polling soon.


Respectfully,

Kyrbi0

 

[deepstrasz]

Guys, seriously, what kind of indecisive vote is that, choosing more than one option....

You can vote on up to 3 options if you're not sure within an wider range.

Say what? And the meaning of the differences between percentages is...? If people don't know what they vote for, they shoulnd't choose at all.

 

[Chaosy]

Because maybe it is not black and white?

For me personally anywhere between 60 and 90 is fine.

 

[IcemanBo]

Both is important for me, fun and making a competition. I'm not very sure though what % number to pick. For example we were at a point already defining teamwork conctretely:

• Feedback is allowed, but physicacal work-sharing is not allowed. (idea)
  vs
  
• Feedback is allowed, but if users feel unfairness, staff considers to step in. (idea)

.. as voter I probably could imagine something better of such examples. Because as said, weighting fun is also essential for me, but for example I would also see importance of weighting result of help instead of pure method of help.

 

[Naze]

Say what? And the meaning of the differences between percentages is...? If people don't know what they vote for, they shoulnd't choose at all.

Ah, well, I did this because I think we should consider the opinions of everyone, even people who don't have a very clear, objective idea of how they feel about the Arena. Such people would probably abstain themselves from voting in a more normal approach. This is a way of trying to get them to participate more, and as a result think a bit more about it.

For those wondering how to interpret the results: I was thinking about how to make this poll in a way that accepts the different gradations of opinions, so Kyrbi0 came up with this. Look at his reasoning:

Ideally, we would end up with a nice little 'bar graph' of sorts that would accurately describe the overall Site-wide opinion of the 'entire' Hive community, with appropriate gradations as will probably be the case. An example:

100%-srs	=============
90%-srs	======
80%-srs	=====
70%-srs	==
60%-srs	===
50/50-srs/fun	=====
60%-fun	========
70%-fun	===========
80%-fun	==============
90%-fun	================
100%-fun	==============

A result like this would tell us that on the whole, the Site generally thinks Contests should be more about FUN, rather than being mostly SRS. This would inform the stance that, generally, the Contests on the Hive should focus on "having fun", on "enrichment of users & community", with less of a focus on strict standardization, Rules enforcement, Criteria specificity, etc etc. Just as an example.****

@IcemanBo yea... This poll won't directly decide anything practical like the teamwork rule. It will only help us understand what we should focus on, when deciding such things

 

[deepstrasz]

Because maybe it is not black and white?

For me personally anywhere between 60 and 90 is fine.

It's like saying you don't really care if you get 60 or 90 dollars per hour as salary.

 

[Kyrbi0]

It's like saying you don't really care if you get 60 or 90 dollars per hour as salary.

It's... Not. It's like saying "I'm comfortable with this range of relative serious-vs-fun in Contest on the Hive, generally speaking". It allows for a greater freedom of expression & a better representative sample than a simple binary "SRS or FUN".

 

[Murlocologist]

Paradigm of people joining competitions to compete will never change to ''people join competitions to have fun''. Who cares what is the point of a contest? What is the goal of this thread? Poll with the negligible sample of votes it will get cannot be regarded as any relevant research, so what is the point? I voted for 100% competitiveness and yet I don't care for feedback being or not being teamwork, why is it presumed there would be correlation between those two? I get a feeling that trivial subjects such as this one, for reason unknown to me, get priority over the key questions of arena and its concept in the future: how to make judges faster, how to attract people to join contests again, how to make contests interesting again, how to refresh contests finally?

 

[Kyrbi0]

Paradigm of people joining competitions to compete will never change to ''people join competitions to have fun''.

How do you know we're at the former & not the latter? If anything, I my personal experience & observation has told me the Hive is more about 'fun' than 'srs'.
The point is, we don't know; that's what this Poll is for.

Who cares what is the point of a contest?

I do, and with the proper context I think you all will too. It informs nearly every other element of Contests.

What is the goal of this thread?

To gather as much data as possible on what the Site believes about Contests, in order to more precisely discuss & debate their provenance & administration.

Poll with the negligible sample of votes it will get cannot be regarded as any relevant research, so what is the point?

The plan (I hope) is, soon, to publish this Poll in an unprecedently public manner. I am hoping not just for a Sticky or for a site-notification-banner, but possibly even PMing every user. This will achieve the sample size necessary to make it meaningful.

I voted for 100% competitiveness and yet I don't care for feedback being or not being teamwork, why is it presumed there would be correlation between those two?

Thank you for your vote (and, on a personal note, glad you & I are on similar pages, Contest-wise).

While it may not be true 100% of the time, I don't think it's very controversial to say that, in broad strokes, an individual who cares more about the competitiveness/seriousness of a Contest will be more concerned (generally speaking) with standardization & how Rules are created & enforced, than one who cares more about the Recreation/Enrichment of a Contest.

You may personally, individually, differ on specifics. But that's OK; that's why we're getting the broad brush-strokes awareness of the Hive's perspective. The "Contest Zeitgeist", if you will.

I get a feeling that trivial subjects such as this one, for reason unknown to me, get priority over the key questions of arena and its concept in the future:

Perhaps because you are incorrect, and it is not trivial? I firmly believe it to be the fundamental Question in this whole endeavor; to whit:

how to make judges faster,

Doesn't matter if it's not clear what kind of Contests we run (the quintessential "for Fun" Contest would likely not even have Judges, just a public Poll).

(Also that's not really a thing we can "fix" by talking about it, per se; users are people & people are fallible. Also this is a hobby for nearly all of us. I am open, though, to discussing ways to mitigate the issue, in the future.)

how to attract people to join contests again,

Key to attracting people to something is knowing what they want. This series of Polls & conversations I have planned will get us closer to that knowledge, and closer to being able to apply it to, I believe, engender more interest.

(Also again, you're fighting against human nature here.)

how to make contests interesting again,

'Interesting' is in the eye of the beholder, but like 'attraction' above, people will be interested in Contests that align with their preferences. Determining those preferences on a grand scale (if at all possible) thusly seems a worthwhile endeavor.

(Also, that's incredibly subjective. Do you feel like Contests have ceased to be interesting? Because I sure don't. In fact, the last 3 Hero Contests have been an absolute blast for me (& I haven't even won). You're welcome to your opinion but I don't know what you value (point of the Poll & convos) so I don't have good context for it.)

how to refresh contests finally?

Um... What?

~~~

Believe, I appreciate your fervor in trying to solve some of the greatest problems faced in the Arena. I want to solve them too; just from a foundation we can all agree on & understand. So many of the conversations we all could have (teamwork, Judging, Polling, submissions, standardization, requirements, strictness, timelines, Hosting, presentation, etc etc etc) are kinda pointless without the Answer to this Question.

 

[Arowanna]

TL;DR: self-development, pleasure and the cozy feeling of a small community doing things together.

Hopefully the last time I repeat this:
I'm here for self-development*, to do something I take pleasure in, on a cozy little forum that isn't bloody serious. I do not care for the competition, I get enough of that when I try to get back into the game industry browsing portfolios or the professional game art dumps at Polycount.

I consider the idea of online competitions completely redundant and pointless unless there's something concrete to be earned from it. The only thing I can see is self-development, as I do not personally harness anything positive or negative from Internet points. All I know is that I do not care about the size of my E-penis.

I know, self-development can be achieved in a vacuum. But doing it in the company of like-minded people, is to me, cozy. So trying to apply some kind of logic to this, I guess I end up at the 100% fun. Whatever that might mean.

There are also various smaller nuances that paints the contests for me. I love seeing people develop as artists, so there is some sort of voyeur-esque thing to it as well. I also find some kind of weird enjoyment out of trying to help people with their craft. What most people do not seem realize is how much providing feedback and help in a critical manner actually improves your own understanding of art.

There is most likely more stuff that my ethanol drenched brain can't think of right now, but I guess that will have to do.

*Can be translated into community development as well.

 

[Shar Dundred]

Have yet to see a contest reward here on Hive that I care for, really.

Honest 100% fun from me. Also because I, quite frankly, don't really care for the creations of other "competitors" here.
"But I wanna be better than others" - You don't get better by competition, you get better by improving your skills.
Can competition help motivate or even improve? In some cases, I guess.
Competition should NEVER be the main motivation, however.
I condemn everyone thinking like that, this is a hobby, we are all here for fun, we don't get paid, no matter the results.
Get your heads out of your asses with that 100% competition thing. Geez.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Have yet to see a contest reward here on Hive that I care for, really.

Honest 100% fun from me. Also because I, quite frankly, don't really care for the creations of other "competitors" here.
"But I wanna be better than others" - You don't get better by competition, you get better by improving your skills.
Can competition help motivate or even improve? In some cases, I guess.
Competition should NEVER be the main motivation, however.
I condemn everyone thinking like that, this is a hobby, we are all here for fun, we don't get paid, no matter the results.
Get your heads out of your asses with that 100% competition thing. Geez.

While I appreciate your Vote & post explaining it, you go too far in condemning those who think differently from you. Take a moment & think about it from another's perspective.

 

[Shar Dundred]

I did with the "I wanna win" line.

My statement and its condemnation stay unfazed.

 

[ArchDuke]

I'd say 80% competitiveness, the rest is all fun

 

[GhostWolf]

Can you please actually put out there what the discussion is about, which seems to be something about rules with helping people in contests, rather than meta threads that try to define words in the dictionary by a popularity contest?

 

[Naze]

Can you please actually put out there what the discussion is about, which seems to be something about rules with helping people in contests

Hello. This thread is not about any specific rule. This thread, however, is: Regarding Contests and the New Teamwork Ruling and I see you already contributed with a post there, so thanks.

This thread is about getting people to answer a poll "what is the point of a contest?". The aim is to understand how the commuity feels about if contests should be taken more competitively or not. You may've noticed that, in the previous discussion, it ended up with us being divided in the "I-like-competitive-contests" folk and the "I-join-contests-for-fun" folk, and we had conflicting interests on a rule. It might have seemed that only IcemanBo was promoting the rule, but actually there were more people who agreed with him previously, and who defended that contests should have a primarily competitive environment. They just didn't say in that other thread.

 

[Kyrbi0]

@GhostWolf
It should be more clear when I finish editing my first post in this thread, but have you read this thread? Even if only the first post. It is me explaining what this is all about & why I believe it is important.

 

[Lord_Earthfire]

I think that competition is a great tool to push your skills higher and to motivate yourself to become better in what you are already doing. So i would say, while fun should to a certain degree be there (mapping is for most of us a hobby, after all... a hobby i personally would like to have more time for, by the way...), most of a contests focus should lie on the competition side of things. Challenge and with it self-efficacy are far better sources of satisfaction than just doing something for the heck of it.

Edit: What i would like to add is that we are still a kinda small community. So ruthlessness would only cut in our own flesh when we think about things like deadlines and rules. That doesn't mean that we should drop standards, but it should mean that we should hear on the contestants feedback on the set of rules of a certain contests. This happened different times already that deadline were extended, which is a fine thing, for example.

 

[TheLordOfChaos201]

a place to brag, get applauded and wall around feeling good there after

 

[IcemanBo]

It sounds good if the only motivation is improving one self, but in reality it's not always practical to the end and people are also asking for other kind of motivation and appreciation. One sure can say competition and awards are nonsense. Though, following this we also can remove all scores, awards, ranks completly, our official hosted projects, remove rep, remove titles, colors, custom profile ranks (only 1 for all is enough), resource ratings (people wanted achieve DC always, which is also kind of a ranking), and, and, and ... all stuff where we don't practically use it for self-improving, but to bring some extra fun and motivation out of basically nothing, or not too much. Same with winning a competition.
Even for some it might seem useless, such things can make someone feel good and that can be important in the end, too.

 

[Devine]

I chose 50-50, which is probably the most popular vote for a reason.
To be honest, I don't get why we need threads/measures like there has been going on lately, after 10+ years of relative successful contests.
Just try to keep it fun for everyone sounds like your best bet to attract the most traffic. For me that also means keeping it fun for absolute noobs.
The reason I am/was against the rule that initiated all this was because it is/was very limiting towards one site of the "competition/fun spectrum". (I'm not sure if the rule is still in place?)

 

[Murlocologist]

How do you know we're at the former & not the latter? If anything, I my personal experience & observation has told me the Hive is more about 'fun' than 'srs'.
The point is, we don't know; that's what this Poll is for.

What fun? Shouldn't the ''fun'' factor already be achieved through the working on entry itself? What other fun are we talking about? Contest dynamics revolve around working on entries. How would competitive environment (no cheating, posting entry on time, following the rules, scores from contest judges) endanger the fun in any way? Most of the time motivation and goal are also not the same. One can join contest because he'd like to communicate about the subject matter of contest through his work, interact and have ''fun'' while doing that and his goal can be winning a contest, in other words making an entry that is better than the rest. And that is perfectly justified, otherwise he'd need to have a loser mentality.

 

[Naze]

What fun? Shouldn't the ''fun'' factor already be achieved through the working on entry itself? What other fun are we talking about?

Well I'll try to break down what builds the "fun factor" in my mind, because I'm feeling we're struggling a bit.
One point of fun is making an unpretentious entry (if the process of making it is enjoyable), by unpretentious I mean making things not because of desire to win. Just the action making things unpretentiously, listening to something you enjoy, because you like the process.

Second point is the answer to your question: Interaction! Which can be done by giving/receiving feedback, posting opinons on each other entries, etc. The technical interaction proceeds along the thread as people post WIPs, and if the environment is comfortable enough, it consequently allows lesser interactions to flourish (people having small talk, eventually making silly jokes, etc). When Arowanna posted about the "cozy feel" he enjoys from our small community contests, I bet he's talking about this. Ofc this is very personal.

How would competitive environment (no cheating, posting entry on time, following the rules, scores from contest judges) endanger the fun in any way?

Picture this: the rule kind of demotivated people to post in the thread, right? Just like in real life, if no one breaks the ice with some conversation, it's harder to have that casual enjoyment of interaction when being in a silent room with other people. Our "ice breaker" would be posting feedback on each other's WIPs, in my point of view, because it's a technical interaction that's acceptable in that environment. So competitive environment as you said above (no cheating, posting entry on time, etc) doesn't endanger fun.

You see, all this "social stuff" is very subtle and also not everyone's cup of tea. But for some people it is, e.g. personally I'm kinda in the middle, I like it here because I take this Hiveworkshop environment in a casual unpretentious way, so I'd like to join a contest in the "cozy room" rather than in a silent one, but in RL it depends.

 

[Devine]

What fun? Shouldn't the ''fun'' factor already be achieved through the working on entry itself? What other fun are we talking about? Contest dynamics revolve around working on entries. How would competitive environment (no cheating, posting entry on time, following the rules, scores from contest judges) endanger the fun in any way? Most of the time motivation and goal are also not the same. One can join contest because he'd like to communicate about the subject matter of contest through his work, interact and have ''fun'' while doing that and his goal can be winning a contest, in other words making an entry that is better than the rest. And that is perfectly justified, otherwise he'd need to have a loser mentality.

Not everybody defines working on something as fun. Sure it's relaxing to some extend otherwise you wouldn't do it, but for many people the community is the real fun factor; bonding, joking around, growing together...
A bunch of people seem to struggle with this concept but for many people, the fun dies if things become too serious/competitive. It's the same reason I was so critical about your review for that "noob" in that one texturing contest. Let's not reduce contests to a strictly logical thing, because the people who enjoy freedom and camaraderie will opt out and that can't be good for the site's future. And be nice to noobs dude, they keep this site alive.

 

[Murlocologist]

It's the same reason I was so critical about your review for that "noob" in that one texturing contest. Let's not reduce contests to a strictly logical thing, because the people who enjoy freedom and camaraderie will opt out and that can't be good for the site's future. And be nice to noobs dude, they keep this site alive.

Darling, go away with your delusional replies. First of all, I have never been a judge to any contest on this website. Secondly, you won't find a mod that had shown more patience with noobs than me.

Second point is the answer to your question: Interaction! Which can be done by giving/receiving feedback, posting opinons on each other entries, etc. The technical interaction proceeds along the thread as people post WIPs, and if the environment is comfortable enough, it consequently allows lesser interactions to flourish (people having small talk, eventually making silly jokes, etc). When Arowanna posted about the "cozy feel" he enjoys from our small community contests, I bet he's talking about this. Ofc this is very personal.

Feedback and constructive criticism were indeed something usual in contests so far. I said earlier that I don't find teamwork rule enforcement priority at this moment when it may have an effect on activity of already low active Arena. Teamwork rule always existed, however as a decoration to rules list, now difference is that it got more explicit definition. For me, unacceptable in a contest would be editing of participant's entry by someone else, publicly.

 

[Arowanna]

Feedback and constructive criticism were indeed something usual in contests so far. I said earlier that I don't find teamwork rule enforcement priority at this moment when it may have an effect on activity of already low active Arena. Teamwork rule always existed, however as a decoration to rules list, now difference is that it got more explicit definition. For me, unacceptable in a contest would be editing of participant's entry by someone else, publicly.

Then again, I'll refer to something like this and follow up with these questions one more time:

For example, the first example I gave in this thread was a paintover followed by some ideas and tips. People could interpret it as actual physical work as I have touched the posted work, not in the supposed way, but I've still touched it. Is this teamwork if the ideas are embraced and applied to the product? Where do I cross the line? I could suggest things with words, but art is damn hard to translate. Showing processes, giving examples and exposing flaws with examples is a lot easier.

If the example was pure code, could someone suggest improvements to code by posting edits to optimize the process, or would that break the rule? Could I purpose a whole different approach that would make the operation run smoother? Again, where do I cross the line of actual work?

I.e., where do we cross the line? What constitute substantial work - more examples if you follow the quote redirection - and when does that "work" translate to teamwork? When is something "work", what happens when "work" is embraced* by the participant?

*By embraced I do not mean that the participant out right "steals" the critiques work, but tries to reproduce the idea to the best of his or her ability.

---

And I will again ask, what exactly was wrong with the old, simpleton rule "• No teamwork allowed."? Of course, one can skew this wording in various extreme ways, but the zeitgeist has never been that of "Anything that can be perceived as any form of teamwork is considered teamwork.", nor has it been "Everything is fair game as long as you do not implicitly have two people actively co-working on a single entry.".

I'd argue that the zeitgeist, until apparently very recently, has been "Just don't be a fucking dick about it.". I can't personally think of a single example where this has been a problem. If you people have proof of the opposite, please redirect me to the source.

 

[Murlocologist]

I.e., where do we cross the line?

Crossing it exactly there. Making own version of contestant's entry and presenting it publicly for him and every other contestant to read is teamwork, regardless of helpfulness. It makes one instantly involved with someone else's entry, especially if implementation of paintover is traceable in final version of entry. Special attention towards one contestant such as that, most of the time, won't be viewed positively by those who didn't get that sort of feedback. Just because they maybe won't complain about it doesn't mean they fancied that other contestant was receiving paintovers of his wips, while their were ignored from that sort of attention. If one would include every contestant's posted wip in his paintover presentation, then it would be a different story.

 

[Arowanna]

Making own version of contestant's entry and presenting it publicly for him and every other contestant to read is teamwork, regardless of helpfulness.

Applying this logic, we should also stop public contests all together, as any interaction could be deemed teamwork under this interpretation. I know, this is hyperbole, but if this is the logic we apply to contests, rework them from the ground up to actually fit with this logic.

It makes one instantly involved with someone else's entry, especially if implementation of paintover is traceable in final version of entry.

I do not understand what you mean by this. Are you referring to the paintover? If that is the case, you are saying that anything that is embraced by a participant is "cheating", or I guess, teamwork.

And if this is the case, then again, we might as well turn contests into a to this. If we are this afraid of someone preforming better than they would inside a vacuum, without anyone pointing out their flaws, then why even keep these contests public? A one-way interaction between participant and host makes much more sense if this is the case.

Special attention towards one contestant such as that, most of the time, won't be viewed positively by those who didn't get that sort of feedback. Just because they maybe won't complain about it doesn't mean they fancied that other contestant was receiving paintovers of his wips, while their were ignored from that sort of attention.

This is conjecture. Unless we can prove that someone has won* a contest due to critical feedback helping a single contestant being pushed to the top, this point is moot. And do not assume that you know how people feel, you said it yourself when GhostThruster did something similar to you.

I will concede the fact that focused attention by someone on a single participant could be deemed unfair, but as we have stated before, there are easy ways outside of THW to gain this kind of feedback. Participating on, for example, Polycount as an active member can go along way to get help with all kinds of problems, all obscured from the eyes of THW. This is nothing we can police.

*Or use an other arbitrary limit, say "At least pushed to the Top 3 or the Runner Ups."; anything that can give this viewpoint some precedence.

 

[IcemanBo]

I'd argue that the zeitgeist, until apparently very recently, has been "Just don't be a fucking dick about it.".

Maybe then no such rules needs to be written out, if all is clear and self defining? Site Rules can simply note something, too, for attitude? Just don't be a dick, and everything is covered. As staff we need try to find a line between having everything required written out and not being too strict.

===

And also, if you ask again why such rule is needed and where is the sense I try to answer again. Why do we need such a rule at first place, and why is physical help not allowed actually, too?

1. We want not allow physical touch for the sake not allowing physical touch.
2. We want not allow physical touch for fairness and as restriction in support within the competition.

if anything makes sense, then the second. Our goal of having such rule is kind of regulation of support one can give, to achieve some fair competition, and not just for not allowing physically open some entry. For me it seems clear that banning physical help has only this upper goal in background, to achieve fairness.

Now, when I want to argue very the same, that I want feedback allowed until people feel it's unfair, then some guys take this very personally as it would be oppression of people and free speech, only because it's recognized not only "physical help" per se is banned now, but that support should be kept fair. Then now I must ask, where exactly is the problem? Why is it argued so much with the methodic of physically helping, when I practically can give someone deep reviews, instructions, or what ever to push his entry in other ways, too. I can make a slight physical change, and in the end it's maybe worth less than good reviews.
Why do you argue with "it always was for me like this for many years" with relying on keeping physical touch banned - "people should not be dicks", as it would be logicially convincing.

 

[Devine]

Darling, go away with your delusional replies. First of all, I have never been a judge to any contest on this website. Secondly, you won't find a mod that had shown more patience with noobs than me.it got more explicit definition. For me, unacceptable in a contest would be editing of participant's entry by someone else, publicly.

I must be mistaken you for someone else then? What's the matter with you? Darling? Delusional?
Try to contribute instead of being so fucking salty and aggressive. You completely ignored my point there.

Edit: I mistook you for The Panda who judged. You were hosting that contest, which is why I linked that to you. Icon contest #15, where the noob got nearly 6 times less points from the judge than the winner (12/75 vs 66/75). He didn't compete in #16. I wonder why. Maybe it's because the arena isn't competitive enough?
Hmmm fun!!!!!!!!!

 

[Kyrbi0]

So much to say, but first:
1- let's tone down the personal attacks, guys. Not necessary.
2- try to keep the discussion of Teamwork & the definition thereof to it's dedicated thread .

 

[Hantoo]

to stroke my ego

 

[Murlocologist]

Applying this logic, we should also stop public contests all together, as any interaction could be deemed teamwork under this interpretation. I know, this is hyperbole, but if this is the logic we apply to contests, rework them from the ground up to actually fit with this logic.

It is common sense. Are you going to start denying that editing someone else's entry is teamwork? Are you going to start arguing that editing entries between participants in a competition should become allowable norm? Well, simply put, that won't happen.

And if this is the case, then again, we might as well turn contests into a to this. If we are this afraid of someone preforming better than they would inside a vacuum, without anyone pointing out their flaws, then why even keep these contests public? A one-way interaction between participant and host makes much more sense if this is the case.

If you have read anything I posted, you would be able to realize that I am not against interaction and communication on contest subject matter between participants. I clearly stated what I find unacceptable. I am not sure what your point is by repeating same arguments over and over again. They have been addressed a number of times by now and as IcemanBo said:

Our goal of having such rule is kind of regulation of support one can give, to achieve some fair competition, and not just for not allowing physically open some entry. For me it seems clear that banning physical help has only this upper goal in background, to achieve fairness.

I will concede the fact that focused attention by someone on a single participant could be deemed unfair, but as we have stated before, there are easy ways outside of THW to gain this kind of feedback. Participating on, for example, Polycount as an active member can go along way to get help with all kinds of problems, all obscured from the eyes of THW. This is nothing we can police.

Why would we be concerned what will happen behind the curtain when it comes with feedback on someone's entry, when it happens in public we react, when we find out it happened behind the curtain, we react. Cheaters will always cheat. If we find out an entry wasn't made by the participant who posted it, he gets disqualified. That's all. And that had precedents as well.

 

[Shar Dundred]

@Ralle: I want you to read this thread and tell me this:
How is this any different from the time before ZT?

You were all about making "less decisions behind the curtain" as far as I remember.
What's the point of you making such statements when some (not all) members of the staff
obviously do not share your point of view?
Not to mention that some apparently are COMPLETELY OUT OF TOUCH to the rest of the community?

Do we NEED ZT to happen again to make this stop?

 

[Arowanna]

It is common sense. Are you going to start denying that editing someone else's entry is teamwork? Are you going to start arguing that editing entries between participants in a competition should become allowable norm? Well, simply put, that won't happen. If you have read anything I posted, you would be able to realize that I am not against interaction and communication on contest subject matter between participants.

Off-Topic
Well, if you want the second coming of Zero Tolerance, be my guest. This clear disparity between moderators and the actual community was the thing that triggered it the last time, and you are on the verge of crossing the Rubicon.

Another ZT is nothing we desire and THW took a heavy punch from it the last time it happened. I would strongly suggest that you drop that authoritarian persona and actually consider what the community is saying. Sure, the moderators and Ralle have the final word, but remember that the forum is useless without members.

And before you continue to insult my intellect, I am reading everything that is being said about this topic and I am truly trying to understand where this new viewpoint arrived from and why. But all this passive aggressive and mightier than thou crap is making it increasingly harder, especially when people refuse to listen to each other.

Back to Topic
And now, if you let me repeat myself again; in the given example, I did not touch the actual product. I simply provided a paintover of the posted WIP with ideas. And again, if that is too much and you guys have established it as too much; then so be it. I would again suggest that if this is the case, rebuild contests from the ground up. The current format does not make much sense if this is the new status quo.

Just know that I did not touch the actual product in any way, shape or form. The receiving party - Misha in this case - would have to reproduce it himself if he felt like the ideas were solid or desirable enough. And whilst he did not take all my advice, rightfully so, some of it was translated to the following WIP.

 

[Marcraft22]

50% of both, gaming without fun is pointless in a stressed life (half-time job + career).

 

[Naze]

Guys calm down please.

@Shar Dundred, Ralle was against this new wording of the rule since the very start. But 3 other staff were in favor of it, and thought it made sense, so they won by vote, and then the new interpretation was put in practice.

So he was won in a quick placeholder discussion and by a democratic vote method. Still, what you say here is true:

You were all about making "less decisions behind the curtain" as far as I remember.

Yes! That's why I brought this discussion to the public.

 

[deepstrasz]

I simply provided a paintover of the posted WIP with ideas.

That's pretty technical. I mean, it'd be unfair for only a few of the participants to get that kind of feedback. I have nothing against everyone being treated the same though, as I've already mentioned that mafe gave totally fair comments to all (his) contenders in the prized melee mapping contest ([$100 Prize Pool] Melee Mapping Contest - 1v1).

 

[Devine]

Can we just, you know... be friends again? We used to be so close.

I have a great idea. Let's drop the controversial rule for this one (or something that's formulated properly):
Collaboration is forbidden, feedback and fun is definitely not. If someone feels at a disadvantage because another contestant got unfairly intricate feedback he can take it up to a moderator who will then use his own common sense to assess the situation. If said user was fairly warned about his behavior but persists, penalties could be neg-rep, disqualification, and eventually temp ban from the arena.

First of all we need an actual complaint from a contestant (preferably more than 1 actually), there needs to be a discussion about the situation between the parties and if there is a clear case of unwillingness from said user, there should be penal action. Every situation will be very different, so it's fair to say that leaving some room for the moderators to interpret the situation is in place, instead of generalizing and simply saying all objective feedback is forbidden.

Also, you can't punish a contestant because someone else is giving him feedback for obvious reasons, so there is no way to fix anything during the contest. There is only the possibility of trying to avoid unfair feedback from happening again in the future by talking to each other and by using common sense. It's safe to say moderators are quite capable of make these kind of decisions, and that they don't need a super tight rule set.



TL;DR: the moderator should be able to decide whether or not someone is being a whiny bitch when he's complaining about unfair feedback, or if the situation actually requires some action, instead of banning all "objective" feedback.

 

[Murlocologist]

And now, if you let me repeat myself again; in the given example, I did not touch the actual product. I simply provided a paintover of the posted WIP with ideas. And again, if that is too much and you guys have established it as too much; then so be it. I would again suggest that if this is the case, rebuild contests from the ground up. The current format does not make much sense if this is the new status quo.

Just know that I did not touch the actual product in any way, shape or form. The receiving party - Misha in this case - would have to reproduce it himself if he felt like the ideas were solid or desirable enough. And whilst he did not take all my advice, rightfully so, some of it was translated to the following WIP.

First part of your post I won't even be commenting on, if you have concerns regarding staff, address them in a proper subforum instead of bringing up the drama and escalating the unrelated thread.

Second part of your post I already commented on. Paintovers are in my opinion teamwork that are especially problematic for fairness aspect when they are not equally distributed. Giving paintovers to only one contestant is both bad mannered and can be viewed as teamwork when wips of other contestants don't get the same type of feedback. As I said earlier, if paintover presentation would include wips from all participants, it would be different story when it comes to fairness.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Please, move any conversation regarding Teamwork and the definition thereof to the appropriate thread. While you're at it, consider leaving the attitudes & personal attacks behind; no one needs that drama. These aren't meant to be contentious, emotional issues.

~~~

I have Edited the 2nd post in this thread to provide some greater insight & clarity as to this Poll, the choices presented, and the reasoning therefrom.

I encourage everyone to Vote & Post, but especially the dedicated few who (somewhat prematurely) posted in the discussion topic for this Poll:

@LordDz
@Chaosy
@deepstrasz
@KILLCIDE
@Keiji
@GhostWolf
@Freddyk
@Rui

(You guys could even just copy/paste your posts into this thread, for posterity. Simple as that.)

Thank you for your time & patience.

 

[GhostWolf]

Not only do I not vote to change the meaning of words by a popularity contest, but also this thread is pointless and has nothing to do with site discussion.

There are now three threads filled with tens of post. I still didn't see a single practical definition of the team work rule, or any reason for it to exist. Just a lot of sidestepping the issue by asking arbitrary subjective questions.

 

[Flux]

Why do we get 3 votes? It should only be 1. If I voted 100% Comp and 100% Fun, does it end up being 50% Comp & 50% Fun? I think the options already covered a wide spectrum so I don't see a reason having 3 votes. Also won't this mess up the count? A user voting 3 times have more say than a user only voting 1 time.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Not only do I not vote to change the meaning of words by a popularity contest, but also this thread is pointless and has nothing to do with site discussion.

There are now three threads filled with tens of post. I still didn't see a single practical definition of the team work rule, or any reason for it to exist. Just a lot of sidestepping the issue by asking arbitrary subjective questions.

I would urge you to reconsider. I reiterate; this is not about defining the word 'Contest' in any way differently. Yes, ultimately they are

"events where people vote for supremacy in a particular skill or quality"

If it helps, consider it phrased differently: "With what general philosophy shall we adjudicate future Contests"?". I can testify to you that this is an important concept, that is central to discussing ways to improve Contests going forward.

Take, for example, Judging vs. Polling. We can't have a really substantive discussion about which is more important, or how it should be featured in any given Contest, because some of us are more on the COMP end, and others on the FUN end, and they (in many ways) are diametrically opposed, philosophically.

~~~

Moreover, I am concerned with your obsession with objectivity. Believe me, I'm right there with you; I much prefer to deal with the objective rather than the subjective. However, the reality is, in this realm, there's really not a lot of objective "fact" to talk about; it's a lot to do with philosophy & opinion & sociology & psychology.
If that's just not a conversation you're up to having, fine. But don't complain that this conversation is "excessively subjective"; there's no other way about it.

 

[Ralle]

So far it’s pretty clear that fun is important. Shocker. I think I like the rule to strike somewhere around actually improving someone else’s entry. As in actually doing their job. But feedback? Man, feedback is the best. We have contests to get better. If you can get better during the contest because you’re in the spotlight that’s an added bonus. All I ask for is that you made the entry yourself.

I think that should be the rule. That you must have done the work yourself. In full. That also seems very tangible.

 

[Freddyk]

I do not see how competition and fun are opposite things, to me they are 2 different topics (competition vs community / fun vs serious).

I'm personally against competition in all aspects of life. I don't get the point of making things better than others. The point is to make things good, and to improve as much as you can for the greater good. Fairness is important though, I feel normal to reward people relatively to what they personally offer to the community. So in my opinion contests on Hive should not aim to competition, but to making great resources. And in the mean time they should provide a fair environment for that.

Regarding contests here, my suggestions are:

• Do not offer rewards based on rank, but on score:
  • Total of points you get from judge and poll = the rep you got.
  • This way beginners can see their own progress by increasing score, even in they are not in top 3.

• Don't be strict on deadlines, extensions are fine:
  • After all not everyone has the same amount of free time, so deadlines are not fair to begin with.

• Don't prohibit feedback, just limit feedback to words:
  • Post on forum, giving ideas, link to public art... is fine.
  • Providing custom concept-art, direct paint-over, direct instructions... is clearly teamwork (unfair in contest environment).

• Don't prohibit reviews on finished entries, but instead make them hidden to public until contest results:
  • This way moderators could gather reviews if judges fail (which we know happens often...).
  • I think it's not important to have a single judge review all entries (the aim is not to rank entries but to note them independently).

• Make a contest plan (every 2 or 3 months ?) and appoint moderators to make them actually happen:
  • The old way of making a poll for theme suggestions is fine, we just need to have someone in charge to launch contests regularly.

 

[Ralle]

Agree in full. Will try to make it happen.

 

[Rui]

Very good post @Freddyk. Agreed with your proposals.

I'll add, regarding extensions: just recently, a contest was held and some people did not participate because the deadline was short, with no promise of extensions. Then it got extended. Contest hosts could be more realistic and flexible about this.

 

[LordDz]

... Why can I choose 3 options?
"What the point of a contest... Hmm I think it's having 70% fun, 80% fun and 80% Competitiveness."