As you must have heard with the latest Tliff and Naut announcement, between our official contests, there will be some side quests in the Vault section.
The principle of these side quests will be quite similar to the normal contests: you will need to vote and solve the shots and the best rated shots and best solvers will be rewarded The difference lies in the content of the quest. We will not ask you to upload any new shots. The side quest master will decide on what this quest should be about: it can be that he/she will upload a all new serie or that he/she will chose a theme and pick up pictures in the new Feature Film part and move them to the vault.
If he/she chose to pick up shots from FF, It is important to know that if your shots get chosen, you will lose your upload point, you will not lose a point for solving it however. But instead, you will get a contest point and the possibility, if your shot gets in the top 10, to get rewarded. We actually made a new agreement with Naut which I'm sure will make some of you happy, these are the new rewards for contests:
I'm sure you want to know who will be the Side Quest Master, well, to start with, this week, I will be your master :) but you never know, we might decide to reward some of you in the future and give you this awesome temporary privilege!
I have already decided of a theme so do not be surprised if some of your shots desapear from the FF in the coming days, it may be because it has been chosen for the contest, I cannot tell you the theme just yet :)
Another thing I would like to clarify because there was some questions before regarding the risk of dupes: if a shot has been uploaded for a contest or moved for a side quest, the same shot can NOT be reposted in the new submission, these will be considered dupes and will be deleted. Naut and Tliff will soon update the uploading page so that these shots also appear when you try to add a new shot.
I don't really like the idea of shots disappearing from FF and then going to the vault for some contest. All the efford into getting a shot accepted first & then see it removed from the main section just seems wrong. I rather see dupes there. Or just fresh shots.
It wont disapper completely, remember you have a row of images for your contest shots in your personal gallery now, so you can easily see them that way.
How many shots are you roughly gonna pick? I wanna know my chances to win, since you have taken one of my shots I believe, but can't remember which :P!
I think this is a good way to reward the uploaders. There will always be other users in the top 10 and if a not-so-active user makes an awesome shot with good ratings, he earns awesome uploads for this. Also, if you finish on a high position with uploads in the contest, you proved to know what a good shot is all about and deserve those uploads.
I think it's different for the solvers though. People with a huge movie knowledge will always end high in those contests and it will be the same 30/40 people over and over again. Example: CW ended the first three contests first, fifth and fourth. In the new contest she's on third position. I now presume she stays third in this contest. This means she would earn 24 awesome uploads with those four contests (if the reward system was already in use). Next contest she'll probably end high again, this way she can upload whatever she wants, because she will get more and more awesome uploads over and over again.
@CW, no offence to you, you're just an example here.
That's a very good point Zythux and that's also a concern I have, this side quest is just a test, we might reconsider the way we do the rewards to solvers in the future!
Now that the first sidequest started I'd like to make a suggestion:
I'd like a better overview for the Vault where the contests and the sidequests are seperated. Later, when there are a lot more contests and sidequests in the Vault it would be better to have two seperated lists instead of one list where everything is mixed up. The Vault should be categorized somehow imo.
Maybe you could put underneath each other Contests: -... -... -...
Sidequests: -... -...
or beneath ech other Contests: Sidequests: -... -... -... -... -...
Edit: I wanted to have more space between the two columns but apparently this isn't possible by typing blanks.
I will be honnest here: I'm really desapointed to see how people are voting in the side quest. It is obvious that many of you are rating shots just tactically and in a very unfair way, the highest shot has a 7. Come on! When I picked up these shots I think the lowest rating originally was a 6.5 I suggest all of you reconsider a bit their votes! There is really no need for a contest if people vote that way nor there is the need to reward anyone with such an unfair way people are voting...
Yeah, ratings are really weird. In the beginning of the contest they were still reasonable, three shots above 8, the other 7 top shots all above 7,5. Now the end is coming closer it really looks like people start rating tactically. 10 for their own shot and 1 for every other, dont know why rating could go down so fast on another way.
'Maybe people who uploaded shouldn't be allowed to vote at all, just an idea...'
Don't think will work, I'm sure most users who are really active on the chat, the forums and so on are fair with rating. (deviant, chrisy, m00ch, Asmodai, LordMyst, you and many, many more)
The shots have like 40 votes in the contest now, say that 20/44 uploaders rate the shots, that means there are only 20 votes left who should decide the winner? (with uploading contests there are even more uploaders). I think the rating should be hidden in contests, if this doesn't work all I can think of is to appoint a jury, but I really don't like that at all.
Not sure the public votes would be a good idea, and would just cause arguments and bad feelings. I dont think tactical voting is a good thing for sure, but voting is subjective after all. 1 person's 2 is another person's 6 etc... as we all have different criteria for scoring images.
If you all believe tactical voting is an issue (and I am firmly "on the fence" as we have nothing but anecdotal evidence) then the only fair way would be to hide all votes/scores/leaderboards until contest is over. Not perfect, but it would help. I think *most* people vote fairly tbh. Both of my images have popped into top3 and out again, but it doesnt concern me too much :) Que Sera, Sera
look for best rated pictures, you'll find the best tactical voters... marisk8, you'll be thrown in the pit of despair, chained to kaylua and toffetomas... seriously, I don't think that tactical voting is so important, why should we care if rates are low, as long as there is a winner? winning the 100m with 5/1000s seconds is still winning, no?
You don't understand the problem. It's about people giving there own shots a 10 and all other shots a 1, because it raises there chances to win those awesome uploads. it's possible to get your shot 0.1 higher this way, and other shots 0.2 lower when solved. So that totally makes sense in the end ratings.
I think the 3 that are shot at first are not there simply for tactical voting ... moreover, they are very different shots that are there for different reasons, I believe ...
I tried giving my own shot a 10 and all other shots to 1 and ended up not making much difference (even more because I hit very few shots), and also did not feel good about myself, do not think that was fair, then reevaluated all the shots again - even if it costs me some awesome uploads ...
To avoid this posture (poor, in my view) in the next contests will be interesting to hide all votes/scores/leaderboards and perhaps shorten the duration of the contest ... Or maybe not allow change their vote - if that is possible.
@ zythux: sorry, but I understood what was tactical voting :/ , I was just saying it was not modifying so much the ranking in 10 first places in my opinion, or if it really does, it's easy to see who is guilty for.
Hide the hall of fame and votes for the contests is a good idea but not to avoid the tactical vote. Because the tactical voter continue to put 1 to all shot and 10 for his own to raise his chance to win.
Forbid the uploaders to vote on their own shots? Then they may still give every other shot a 1, but if every "tactical" voter does that, and every normal voter votes for awesome shots, the top 10 will still be more or less as it is supposed to be.
@checknorisk, sorry, little missunderstanding then.
'Forbid the uploaders to vote on their own shots?' Would not work I think, I confess I vote all my own shots a 10 but I think most uploaders are, but there are many others I give 8s, 9s and also 10s.
'Because the tactical voter continue to put 1 to all shot and 10 for his own to raise his chance to win.' I think there are also tactical voters now, who don't think their own shot is that good. When they now see it's on the 10th position, it's more likely they think to have a chance winning something and tactically voting makes sense (for them).
Active users are the ones that check the contests and also the ones that upload shots. Less active users normally concentrate on the Feature Films. In big contests probably 80% of the voters has uploaded at least one shot.
It was a suggestion, not a comment on a previous post ;) I suggested to make it impossible for people to vote on their own shots, and in my eyes that would decrease the effect of "tactical" voting by 50%. That, together with keeping the ratings invisible untill the end, should make things much better, in my opinion.