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How can we improve this contest for 2013?


Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf

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As we close the 2012 Top Sims Contest, I'm curious if anyone has suggestions for improving the contest for 2013?

Are there any suggestions on getting more people involved in each round of voting? Ways we can cut down on the number of sims people have to vote on/read each round?

Are there important changes that we have to make to ensure the contest is more fair, or more representative?

Let's hear your thoughts!

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I don't know about improving, I made a comment when just arrived about it and now have to say I strongly believe it would be very wrong to implement it, because it would get even less people to post the sims.

Question is can we have everything - better participation from all the ships and less to read. We can't have both, and I vote for better participation.

I believe that each ship has at least one writer who is active on the Forum, so that one should be in charge of reminding shipmates of not just Top Sim Contest, but everything that is going on on the forum and remind them to visit here more often.

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An inherent problem with the top sims contest is a lot of times the sims are removed from a storyline in progress or a mission and the reader has trouble connecting with its they feel like they missed a whole bunch of other things.

I mean, why would I read about a character having a problem and I don't know who this person is?

I don't know how to fix this except maybe having a OOC description of the situation and a link to the character bio?

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Would it help to form a committee on each ship to choose the top sim from their ship each month to submit? They could have an OOC vote on which sim was best among the players, then submit only for one each month. That way all ships are represented equally every month.

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An inherent problem with the top sims contest is a lot of times the sims are removed from a storyline in progress or a mission and the reader has trouble connecting with its they feel like they missed a whole bunch of other things. I mean, why would I read about a character having a problem and I don't know who this person is? I don't know how to fix this except maybe having a OOC description of the situation and a link to the character bio?

My comment in last year's topic about improving the contest was to ask those who are proposing the sim to explain the reasons. That way we would be also introduced to the story behind the sim - to that "personal" resons, or character development side of the sim.

Would it help to form a committee on each ship to choose the top sim from their ship each month to submit? They could have an OOC vote on which sim was best among the players, then submit only for one each month. That way all ships are represented equally every month.

How? How would you get writers to apply into that committee?

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I would tell the players that I have some OOC work that needs to be done, then ask for volunteers for the committee. Those wanting to advance in rank would be interested in extra OOC work they could do toward that end.

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I would tell the players that I have some OOC work that needs to be done, then ask for volunteers for the committee. Those wanting to advance in rank would be interested in extra OOC work they could do toward that end.

Sorry Captain, misunderstanding - you are talking of how to accomplish less reading while I'm trying to get ships that don't participate in the contest attracted to join.

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Would it help to form a committee on each ship to choose the top sim from their ship each month to submit? They could have an OOC vote on which sim was best among the players, then submit only for one each month. That way all ships are represented equally every month.

How? How would you get writers to apply into that committee?

I was answering the question you asked me, but it would increase the number ships involved too.

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I agree with the captain here, if a workable sollution can be found. In essence if each ship submitted only 1 sim decided upon by a vote (secret ballot) that would in theory mean an even number of sims to read per month. I personally don't think it would be much to ask for fleet members to read those sims in their own leisure however, I understand that a lot of members have very heavy r/l workloads.

I'm sure there is a viable sollution in the community somewhere to up contest participation and voting participation. It's just getting to that sollution.

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On the Tiger we have a Top SIM of the week. Are you speaking of doing the same on each ship and then choosing one to place in the top SIMs for each month?

There are 2 things I have issues with here. Who will choose what is best and what isn't so good? I find this way too subjective. If one person from a ship chooses the "best" SIMs, two things may happen. 1) If they choose their own SIMs, or their friends' SIMs on a regular basis it may look biased, or the opposite. 2) A great SIMmer that has to make these choices will avoid their own SIMs to not look biased.

However, if placing SIMs for individual ships for voting on a monthly basis is done by anyone on that particular ship, and then voting takes place, and one SIM per month, per ship, is placed into the top SIMs category, and then one SIM is chosen from there...and then...and then. To me it just seems way too complicated and the results end up almost the same.

Personally, I kinda like the way the Top SIMs contest is now. The top three SIMs that were in the final round were excellent and deserved to be there. As participation increases, inevitably, so will the numbers of SIMs. As such, anyone can nominate any SIM from any ship they wish if they come across one that stands out. If ships choose not to participate, they should be free to do so. If the number of SIMs nominated increases dramatically, we can always run it bi-monthly in order to keep the number of entries easier to manage. Then hold a runoff for the top two for that month, if necessary.

Increase participation, but lower the number of entries. To me at least, that doesn't quite seem to go hand in hand. Unless a set of rules and regulations would be created to qualify a SIM for the top SIMs contest. As such, I wouldn't even know where to begin without angering quite a few people.

So at the end it comes down to, in my opinion...if it ain't broke...

My two cents

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I have a problem with creating another committee...there are a lot of teams we have now that don't have enough members or high enough levels of participation as it is. Creating something else that requires a group of people is only asking for other things to be put by the wayside. I'd much rather keep this the way it is, with the runoff rounds like we had this year, and see officers participating in the Publicity team, podcast team, training team, or the new Social Media team (or any of the other teams), all of which are going to help the fleet expand and grow.

To reiterate what was said before, if it's not broken...why try fix it? Let's not cut off our nose to spite our faces...

I realize more participation in the voting would be nice, so maybe we can work on publicizing the voting periods or something like that instead of tying up more resources in another committee?

And that is just my thoughts. =) Not saying the committee wouldn't work or is a bad idea, but I just don't think we have the resources in people and availability to swing that as it stands...

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I am not quite sure how to improve it. I just have been looking through the rules and they are pretty simple itself. One thing though I noticed when looking through the dates of the submissions, that from November to January seems to be a gap? Or is that all submissions from November go to January where round 1 states Submissions: through 01-05 ? I get a little confused by that since December itself does not seem to have any submission period with the finals. Could someone clarify that?

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Another thing that might need to be done if it is so hard to generate interest is to just get rid of the Top Sims contest all together if people are just truly not interested in helping out. It is one thing to submit a story, it's another to get the participation to vote for it.

So, here is what I see as possible choices:

1) Drop the top sims all together.

2) get someone, maybe a LtCmdr or an up and coming Lt, to monthly remind their crew mates on the OOC group of their ship to participate in the voting.

3) create some type of incentive to help out? Don't know what or how it's the only other basic thoughts I have.

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Another thing that might need to be done if it is so hard to generate interest is to just get rid of the Top Sims contest all together if people are just truly not interested in helping out. It is one thing to submit a story, it's another to get the participation to vote for it. So, here is what I see as possible choices: 1) Drop the top sims all together. 2) get someone, maybe a LtCmdr or an up and coming Lt, to monthly remind their crew mates on the OOC group of their ship to participate in the voting. 3) create some type of incentive to help out? Don't know what or how it's the only other basic thoughts I have.

In answer to these ideas. 1) I don't think this is a good idea. I may be wrong, but I am under the assumption that alot of potential new recruits read these SIMs and may even use these as a basis as to whether to join or not. Either way, the top SIMs contest, in my opinion, makes for a wonderful selling point for the group as a whole. Get rid of it, and we may lose potential new recruits. 2) I'd have no problem doing this on my ship. I am certain each ship could find someone to do this as well. 3) I'm curious about this incentive. Perhaps some sort of contest where the ship with crewmembers who vote the most get some kind of award at the end of the year?

As an afterthought, we may be able to lower the amount of SIMs in the top SIMS category if we make it so you cannot nominate your own SIM?

Again. Just a suggestion.

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Thank you, everyone, for chiming in with your thoughts. Community participation and brainstorming is what helps make things better :)

Just to be clear, we have no plans to drop the Top Sims Contest, and there's not really any impetus to radically alter the program, either. I was merely asking if anyone had anything in particular that was vexing them about the contest that we need to fix, or if there's any great ideas for increasing participation which we haven't thought of yet.

Please feel free to drop other thoughts into this thread!

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