An apology to members

[brejna]

Contestants would have to submit via PM or some private means.

oh god no.

Polls can be set to not show the results. That's already a secret ballot.

This would be interested..

[alanp]

I was talking about voters not knowing the identity of the contestants.

Thing is, anyone who has posted a few builds here, you can guess who built a "secretly posted" entry.

You know exactly what my pedal builds tend to look like.

Timbo's are even more obvious.

Juan's stick out like the dog's proverbial (except Juan's builds you'd want to see.)

[midwayfair]

Contestants would have to submit via PM or some private means.

oh god no.

Polls can be set to not show the results. That's already a secret ballot.

I was talking about voters not knowing the identity of the contestants.

This disadvantages the people whose work is not well known around the forum, because theirs is the only work that isn't already known. Do you think if I submitted something everyone wouldn't know immediately whose entry it was? I would recognize anything done by Dave, Cody, Alan, John, and Jon (and others) in just about the same way a lot of people knew exactly which members I was talking about just now based on their first names.

You'd further have to tell people they can't enter something with their name/logo on it anywhere, etc. There is no way to have blind entries to vote on, never mind the extra work you're talking about creating for whoever's in charge of the contest, who has to corral the entries and post them all themself.

[Leevibe]

Yeah, I see what you're saying and I can definitely agree. Still, it might be a fun challenge for some of the more advanced builders with a signature style to see if they could fool everyone by going outside of their box.

Anyway, it was just a creative notion. I'm not married to the idea and I really don't know the first thing about the inner workings of a contest. I have a sense that it's way more work than meets the eye. And I really appreciate the work and effort some of you put in to make it fun for the rest of us. Thanks!

[davent]

Thinking about Dave's idea of withholding vote tally until the end. What if there were a full on blind vote? Contestants would have to submit via PM or some private means. After the deadline, submissions would be posted by a mod sans names. As a voter, it would be fun to guess who the builder is. In some cases it would be obvious, but there could be fun surprises too. This could also remove popularity from coloring the popular vote, if that's even a concern. I have no idea how hard this would be to administrate. Just a creative idea.

I like the idea of submissions held until all submitted. The big reveal, 24 hours for electioneering/digesting then a 24 hour period for voting.
Might be diificult to keep builder identities anonymous with build reports, posting on other forums etc. but if there's a way to manage it (simply)... yeah.
dave

[Vallhagen]

Funny, i completely missed the drama. Had to read up a bit when i saw this thread. Maybe proving again that my forum activity is... on and off. And i have been more into guitars than pedals lately.

This forum is great. Friendly and helpful. And fun. Let's keep it that way. Apologizes can take many shapes. I appreciate this threads' public address; its a (one of many) sign(s) of a very well and healthy administrated forum! Good things goin on, and good things to come, Brian.

The "drama zone" thread left me a bit sad though. There's still place for at least one more apology there. Not dipping my nose deeper into that.

***

When it comes to poll contests i actually like them completely open. You can follow the votes progression and keep a discussion in parallell. Much fun.

Just my 50 öre.

Cheers!

[morganp]

I've been thinking about the things that are fun about having a contest like this, and for me, they are a) getting inspired by everyone's cool build, b)getting to hear the judges' reasons for choosing builds (ie, looking back at the summaries from the spring contest), and what they thought important or impressive about each, and c) the motivation to make something really great.  Part of this motivation came from the time limit, some came from the steep competition, some came from the chance at a prize, and some came from the chance that I might actually win some recognition, since I felt somewhat encouraged (at least at the time I entered) about my odds in that new builder category.

In the interest of keeping all the fun stuff, I would propose:

1) a space for folks to talk about what they liked about/why thy voted for a certain build.  It doesn't have to be the poll thread; that would make the "hidden poll results" less hidden.  Not sure how to best implement this if we do keep voting secret.

2) less valuable prizes: this takes some of the emphasis off of winning, but I think folks will still be motivated to enter for the other reasons I listed above.  $15 credit?

3) multiple winners for each contest; I probably wouldn't have entered the fall contest if there was only going to be one winner.  If there are too few slots, folks might feel like "I'll never win, what's the point?", and if there are too many, folks might feel slighted if they don't win one that they feel they deserved.  Maybe top 3? 

4) also keeping in mind folks' different motivations and skill levels, I do sort of like the idea of having different rotating themes or constraints for each contest, like, best original circuit for one, or another contest where it's all multis, or something.  That would eventually give everyone a chance to show off what they do best. 

5) "poll voting" on the forum takes a lot of the work out of it, let's keep it simple.  We can even ditch the "theme" idea if that requires too much oversight or handling.  Or, hmm, maybe we could put the theme up for popular vote, before each contest starts.

If we keep it simple, and the prizes small, we could do this every quarter.   

[jkokura]

My two cents about the contests...

I have watched many contests over they years, and the majority of them have a season. The main reason they come and go is because of administration, and the expectations of the participants. At DIYSB we saw a rotating theme based contest that was monthly go to quarterly and then disappear. And, as I'm reading all your suggestions, I'm just imagining the nightmare of running any one of your suggestions. Either it'll be too little and become something along the lines of a popularity contest (not that it has been thus far, but it could), or it will be too much and then people will again be freaking out about how it's taking too much time and the judges will be overworked. Some of the suggestions here (like the private voting) are some good ones, but all the scheduling and rotating theme issues have been tried both here and elsewhere, and I don't think it's been shown to be a sustainable issue.

I think you guys have great suggestions, but my suggestion is to trust Brian with the decisions about it all. He will present the next contest as it should be, and then it will happen. All these suggestions, while perfectly fine in many respects, are setting us up for questions like 'why don't they do it like I want it done?' Essentially, I'm already seeing a tremendous diversity in opinion about what the 'contests' should be like, and it's been shown, quite obviously at this point, that you can't please everyone no matter how hard you try.

I think contests should happen as they happen, and they'll be like what they're like, and we shouldn't be worrying about it at this time right now.

Jacob

[brucer]

I think contests should happen as they happen, and they'll be like what they're like, and we shouldn't be worrying about it at this time right now.

This + pugdog = wisdom

Thanks Jacob.  Thanks Brian.  Thanks MB.

[GrindCustoms]

I'd like to apologize for my behavior in that contest thread... i'm a naturaly impulsive and hot-blooded guy.. but yeah... that spark totally ignited me and i'm very sorry about that, i think that i could have said what i was thinking but in a more sensible manner. The disturbance in the force was great at that moment... ...and it affected me profundly as i had never withnessed that since i'm a member here.

Communication and complexity of the contest where the main factor that have led to that situation, though.. it have now been thoroughly discussed and i have nothing to add about it, other than... let's keep things simple.

Anyway, i raise up the horns to Brian and Jacob for bringing this back on track, now that everything is as it was... it's time to enjoy this place as we always did.

Cheers!

Rej

[jimilee]

Hey, you guys want to go get a beer and forget all this??


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[bigdaddymrx]

Nursing a rum 'n' coke as we speak!

[Haberdasher]

Hey, you guys want to go get a coca-cola-classic-soda-pop-water-soft-drink-beverage and forget all this??


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An emphatic YES.

[AntKnee]

My thoughts...
I dont have any. I smoke them away.

Seriously... I don't know what went down, and I have no intention of going back through the threads to find out. I will say, though, that I haven't entered anything purely because the skills and capability of some greatly eclipses the ability of others (like myself). I don't know how you can even compare some of these apples to some of these oranges. I think you should have 2 or 3 categories and have the judges decidee which ones are the best, then have the winner decided by vote, like the "Idol" shows on tv. OR, have entries nominated by vote, then judged byba panel for the winner.
Basically, just copy a model that already works. Car shows, talent shows, art shows. Its all been done. We don't need to invent a new system for this.

[alanp]

This is what cabinets of homebrew are for.