Changes to next year's Top Sims Contest?

[Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf]

Hello everyone,

In an effort to ensure that we are as fair as possible, I'd like to open the floor to everyone to post their suggestions or comments about how the contest works. Are we doing this right? What should we change? How can we make it better? How can we ensure that we have the best sims?

Please feel free to be open and honest. I cannot guarantee that we'll use every suggestion or change everything commented-upon, but we will carefully consider everything mentioned.

Please be sure to e-mail anyone you know who participated in the contest and direct them to this thread, especially if you know they had gripes about how it worked!

[Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf]

*bump*

Everyone's happy with the contest the way it is?

[Toni]

I'd like to see a better cross-section of the Fleet represented. The way it is now, if you have a ship that does not participate on the forums much then they do not have a fair representation, and I know that all our ships have noteworthy writers who put out excellent sims, but do other things rather than frequent the forums.

Also I don't think anyone should be criticized on this forum for following the rules and entering their own sim. The rule should be either changed to not allow anyone to enter their own, or anyone saying anything about someone doing it should be banned from participating in the competition. Sorry, but having been subject to that criticism, I wouldn't want to see anyone else treated so badly.

[Salak]

Personally, I'd like to see self-nomination banned, but still...

[Nimue]

I'm against banning it as long as there are ships where majority of simmers read only sims specifically tagged to them in title. Everyone know when produce really good sim and want to be recognized for that, and not many people from all ships participate in forums.

There's actually nothing wrong with rules. Every ship is different, as people on them are. And seeing rules wrong because people from one ship participate much more on forum and propose more of their sims and vote for them is nothing wrong with neither rules nor them.

Call more actively people to participate in forums.

[Guest]

I'd also like to see more ships submitting sims. But I'm not sure how to encourage it. Command staff can push for it but some people simply don't use the forums.

As for self-nomination, I don't like it personally. But having said that, people vote on the strengths of the sims, not who submitted them. I say keep it as it is, but if someone's flooding the competition take the same attitude as a ship that's vote rigging.

[AlexV]

Rules aside, I've personally always shied away from self-nominating - though I have no problem with others doing it

I also agree with Jhen, there's not a whole lot you can do if people simply aren't using the forums. That said, however, I'm thinking of trying a few gentle nudges to try and get more Indria simms nominated - even if I have to do it myself

[Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf]

Issue of getting more people involved, what if we used a form on the website, instead of requiring people to start a thread on the forums themselves. Right now, we have a way to create a form on the website and have the results show up in a thread on the site. Each person would still have to log on to the forums, but as long as someone has the "remember me" function turned on, then it wouldn't require them to log in specifically to use the form.

As to the issue of self-noms, I think this is a difficult issue that I'm not sure there's too much of a solution for. The only solution I can think of is using an anonymous system of nomination, where everyone just submits sims to an e-mail box, and then they get put up on the site by volunteers.

[Guest]

With regards to submitting by form - would you need to copy and paste the entire sim, still, or could you paste the link to the sim instead?

Another option - if there's at least one person from each ship on the forums & willing to do it, could we have each ship nominate sims on their own OOC list and then a volunteer from the crew posts them to the competition?

It wouldn't be a chore to nominate that way and hopefully we'll get sims from all ships.

[Salak]

I think Ursa tried that early on... it got a bit messy if memory serves.

I still feel that nomination should be to praise those around you for their good writing, which self nomination flies completely against...

[Toni]

With regards to submitting by form - would you need to copy and paste the entire sim, still, or could you paste the link to the sim instead?

The problem with that is, all the tags have to be filled in, and that can't always done with a link to the sim.

I'm just leaving it to the ones who dominate the forums.

[Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf]

With regards to submitting by form - would you need to copy and paste the entire sim, still, or could you paste the link to the sim instead?

Another option - if there's at least one person from each ship on the forums & willing to do it, could we have each ship nominate sims on their own OOC list and then a volunteer from the crew posts them to the competition?

It wouldn't be a chore to nominate that way and hopefully we'll get sims from all ships.

My fear about that is having it become something dominated by one or two people. If you allow any sim to be nominated, as opposed to having a "gatekeeper," then there's more chance for better sims to rise to the top.

As to open tags, I suppose we'd allow it either way: you can submit a copied/pasted sim, or a link to a sim, if there are no tags.

I still feel that nomination should be to praise those around you for their good writing, which self nomination flies completely against...

Salak, with all due respect, you're interpreting the competition in a certain way, without taking into account the actual purpose of the competition. Yes, we encourage people to use it as a way to praise others for their work, but the purpose of the contest is simply to find the best sim of the year -- that's it. If you hold your own personal bias for what you believe the competition should be, you're not helping to fulfill the intended goal.

[Salak]

I know, I just don't see why people would want to nominate themselves really, and know quite a few people (the majority?) wouldn't feel comfortable doing so anyway...

Though I tend to not even read the name of the nominator now.

Edited January 2, 2009 by Salak

[Guest]

Just as an aside, as I've just submitted a sim to the 2009 competition, shouldn't we have a January submission period? Although I'm aware this time of year is pretty busy!

[Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf]

Just as an aside, as I've just submitted a sim to the 2009 competition, shouldn't we have a January submission period? Although I'm aware this time of year is pretty busy!

Put them in the "End of 2008 Submissions" forum. We'll start that in a week or two.

[Toni]

I know, I just don't see why people would want to nominate themselves really, and know quite a few people (the majority?) wouldn't feel comfortable doing so anyway...

Though I tend to not even read the name of the nominator now.

Then you are not only cheating yourself, but them as well. Not everyone has an active ship on the forum, and as long as they followed the rules that was nothing wrong with self-nomination, and there was no reason to treat them like they were cheating. I didn't see a thing said when someone else did it, and one who even spoke out against it too.

Edited January 8, 2009 by Toni

[Nerreht]

I think self-submitted sims are not a problem. It's quite alright for someone to be proud enough of what they write to want people to read it. And as it as been pointed out, not every sim is as proactive as others in terms of OOC contributions, either on the forums, on the wiki and even award nominations. So if there are some good sims that are left on the side lines because nobody on that sim gets involved enough to submit them, why should the writers be ignored? Only problem I would see is if someone submits several of his own sims. If someone submits one of theirs, they should only have the right to pick a single one per submission period. That way should be fair enough for everybody.

As for advertising, I think people just aren't reminded enough. Myself, I keep forgetting about the Top Sims contest because nobody talks about it. Might be a good idea to advertise a bit more often on the OOC groups to remind people about it.

And perhaps we could encourage each group to select a few of their own posts, vote amongst themselves for the best one of their group and then have someone submit it to the contests? That way we might have some representation for every sim in the fleet.

Edited January 18, 2009 by Nerreht

[Toni]

Only problem I would see is if someone submits several of his own sims. If someone submits one of theirs, they should only have the right to pick a single one per submission period. That way should be fair enough for everybody.

I agree with what you said Nerreht, except for the above. My question is, why limit anyone, as long as they follow the rules? The rules say you CAN submit your own (this is not a direct quote, but it doesn't lose anything in the translation). There are no gray areas in that. You either do or you don't; will or won't.

You spoke of being proud of your work. Everyone should take pride in their work, especially if they do it consistantly.

[Jordan aka FltAdmlWolf]

I agree with what you said Nerreht, except for the above. My question is, why limit anyone, as long as they follow the rules? The rules say you CAN submit your own (this is not a direct quote, but it doesn't lose anything in the translation). There are no gray areas in that. You either do or you don't; will or won't.

You spoke of being proud of your work. Everyone should take pride in their work, especially if they do it consistantly.

But what stops someone from swamping us with 10 sims?

[Nimue]

But what stops someone from swamping us with 10 sims?

The fact that they'll be ridiculed by a Group! And most probably ignored for same reason.

[Sakorra Jefferson Reed]

I agree on that. There is nothing wrong with being proud of your own work and wanting others to read it, though I agree there is a certain perception involved with that. I would never nominate myself because for the most part, a person is their own biggest fan, but if others want to, they should be allowed. After all, perhaps they are on a ship where no one nominates, but they've been told their sim was so awesome and wonderful and beautiful and someone should nominate it for the top sims contest...but no one does.... And it is really hurtful when a person put a lot of work into something and it isn't recognized.

[Salak]

And it is really hurtful when a person put a lot of work into something and it isn't recognized.

Story of my life... *grumbles*

Edited January 24, 2009 by Salak

[Cura1]

I think I'll chime in here. I think that self nomination should not be a problem as some have already said. I believe that people will not litter a submission period with several of their own sims for fear of being ignored and I believe it should be rule that if you are to self nominate, then it should ONLY be one sim. In this way you nip the other possibilities or overwhelming the competition.

I believe that someone from each ship should be appointed to take care of the TOP SIMS from their own ship. Or even better a committee of a few people from one ship to pay attention to the sims of their own ship and nominate them. A list of who these people are could be kept. I know, sadly, with the Indria not many people use the forums, which is why there hasn't been many submissions from the Indria over the past 4 to 5 months. I think it is really up to the Captains to either encourage their own crew to participate or have someone to submit the sims from their own ship. Then again, the ship that does have more participation on the forums usually winds up dominating the contests. And this is why some of my crew says its rigged. I don't agree with that and I have said that it only means that more people from each ship should participate.

I have mentioned the TOP SIMS to my crew on the ooc list a number of times. I wil try to do it more so over the next year and with Della's help, we should get more the Indria crew involved. I mean, it's been like pulling teeth to get people to submit posts to our own Indria thread on this forums let alone any other threads. .

::Grabs frying pans.:: When the going gets tough, the tough get frying pans! (kidding) Anyone who know me knows about the frying pans. lolhehehe

Edited January 26, 2009 by Cura1

[Toni]

But what stops someone from swamping us with 10 sims?

I was just pointing out that it would be discriminatory to limit one and not everyone else. But I agree, they should be limited to keep from getting flooded.

[Tal Tel-ar]

Talk about a lot of opinions and very good ideas.

After haveing read what everyone else suggested I was tempted to keep my thoughts to myself. However I am attempting to become more involved so here I go.

I think only 1 submission per writer per sim contest should be the limit. That would keep down the number of submissions and ensure that only the best make it to the contest for consideration.

Also as there are a number of people who are not active here on the forums why not have 1 or 2 people, say the command staff for that ship nominate a sim when they think it is worthy of notice. That way even people who are not active on the forums can get the recognition they deserve for a well written sim. This way all the crews would have the same chance of representation.

As for the question of self nomination. I have posted a few sims of my own in the last part of last year. I had a hard time doing so and probally will not do so in the future as I really think being nominated should be based on the reactions that your sim has garnered from your fellow crew.

Writing stories for the writing contest is more than enough chance for you to showcase what you think is your best efforts.

I think the Best Sims contest should be a chance for your fellow crew to advance what they think was a very well written post. A chance to showcase the best sims from your ship and crew during that contest period.

Regardless of how this contest is changed in the future. It is still an excellent chance to expose the Fleet to the writting abilities of some of the better sims.