[TC25] Technic Shrinking Contest - Information Topic

[JoKo]

On 8/12/2023 at 8:58 AM, SaperPL said:

 

I'm wondering now what will be the metrics for voting criteria of originality - is it only about build techniques/mechanisms implemented/how they are implemented or is it also about the set that was picked? Will contestants that picked the same set be penalised as unoriginal? Will the ones picking iconic well known sets be treated as not so original?

Yeah. I hope originality points are not about the model choice: We had to pick a model from a limited amount of models: big enough to have multiple function. There no real "thinking outside the box" in that.

@Jim

Do you already know how you'll pick the jury? How many judges? And people with good Technic expertise but not involved in the contest?

[Seasider]

So this is me officially pulling out of this contest. Due to life and work I’ve just not been able to spend any significant time on the model. The decision now is do I continue to try and finish it anyway, although I fear it’ll end up sitting on my desk unfinished and not progressing further.

I’ll look forward to seeing how this completion plays out with so many great entries.

And hopefully things will have improved in life so that when TC26 comes around I’ll actually have time I can commit to a successful build.

[Milan]

7 hours ago, Seasider said:

The decision now is do I continue to try and finish it anyway, although I fear it’ll end up sitting on my desk unfinished and not progressing further.

I fully understand the frustration when faced with limited time, while at the same time I am sure that we would all love to see the plane enter the contest.

[Seasider]

1 hour ago, Milan said:

I fully understand the frustration when faced with limited time, while at the same time I am sure that we would all love to see the plane enter the contest.

And I’d really love to enter it too. But I already know that work and life mean I won’t get build time between now and the deadline in about a week. Plus the model is colour vomit and I haven’t even started to work out what I’d want to order in what colour. 

[Akassin]

Does the image of the original set also have to be in the four allowed photos or can it be the fifth one?

[JoKo]

3 hours ago, Seasider said:

And I’d really love to enter it too. But I already know that work and life mean I won’t get build time between now and the deadline in about a week. Plus the model is colour vomit and I haven’t even started to work out what I’d want to order in what colour. 

I am sure we would all enjoy to see this plane finished even if it's after the contest deadline.

[Jim]

1 hour ago, Akassin said:

Does the image of the original set also have to be in the four allowed photos or can it be the fifth one?

You can use it as the fifth one if you want to.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

On 6/25/2023 at 4:12 PM, Jim said:

We do have a tight deadline to submit the request for prizes, so there will be NO extension.

Just curious, what does the request for prizes have to do with the winning entries. If not, can't they be handled indepedently?

[Jim]

20 minutes ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

Just curious, what does the request for prizes have to do with the winning entries. If not, can't they be handled indepedently?

Communities (i.e. Eurobricks) have activity support. We can request prizes for activities like contests. We can do this seven times a year with a certain budget per request. But every quarter we need to use two request or else they will expire (only one for last quarter). So we need to submit the request for this contest before a certain date which leaves us no space for contest a extension.

We used to request prizes and have them sent to me and I had to relay them (which costs money). Nowadays we wait for the contest to end and have the winners pick their prize and have TLG send them.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

I still kinda dont get it. You can send requests for prizes first and end contests later, why not?

[Berthil]

25 minutes ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

I still kinda don't get it. You can send requests for prizes first and end contests later, why not?

 

28 minutes ago, Jim said:

Nowadays we wait for the contest to end and have the winners pick their prize and have TLG send them.

 

[allanp]

28 minutes ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

I still kinda dont get it. You can send requests for prizes first and end contests later, why not?

Because it's better to have TLG post them directly to the winner, but Jim has to request the prizes from TLG by a certain deadline, which means the contest deadline must be before that. That's how I read it anyway.

[Jim]

31 minutes ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

I still kinda dont get it. You can send requests for prizes first and end contests later, why not?

Because I need to provide addresses where the sets need to be sent. I don't know the winners before the contest 

1 minute ago, allanp said:

Because it's better to have TLG post them directly to the winner, but Jim has to request the prizes from TLG by a certain deadline, which means the contest deadline must be before that. That's how I read it anyway.

Yup, exactly.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

I want prizes too but I dont know when the parts will arrive 

[Jim]

The voting will be 100% jury voting. The jury will consist of Milan, myself and several "Technic members" who know a thing or two about building Technic. And no, we will not disclose who they are, nor will we disclose the total number of judges. We will  provide a list of the top 3 with arguments why they scored in the top 3 in that order. We won't be publishing an elaborate list with scores, nor will we take part in elaborate discussions why the outcome is not fair  

VOTING CRITERIA
There will be jury voting and the voting will focus on originality, build quality, staying true to the original and the build being in the spirit of the contest. Shrinking the BWE by 1% and submitting a 99% sized version won't get you many points. 

Regarding the remark about originality; it's a fair point that there is a limited choice when it comes to picking models. So, we won't deduct points for duplicate models. 

[SaperPL]

4 minutes ago, Jim said:

We won't be publishing an elaborate list with scores, nor will we take part in elaborate discussions why the outcome is not fair  

But are you going to explain how the voting criteria were evaluated? Not by stating who got what score, but explaining what and how was valued for those criteria, because this:

6 minutes ago, Jim said:

VOTING CRITERIA
There will be jury voting and the voting will focus on originality, build quality, staying true to the original and the build being in the spirit of the contest. Shrinking the BWE by 1% and submitting a 99% sized version won't get you many points. 

Regarding the remark about originality; it's a fair point that there is a limited choice when it comes to picking models. So, we won't deduct points for duplicate models. 

still doesn't explain much.

About originality: For now, I can only see one entry that should get a score for originality which is the barcode truck, if we're talking about an original approach to implementing mechanisms. For every other submission (I think) it was just about solving the problem in limited space, but that was core requirement for the contest anyway. And also if you think about the barcode truck from this perspective, you could also treat it the same way, so we'd end up making it so that the originality is about uniqueness of the set you have picked and managed to solve its problems. I'd like to have it laid out clearly, if not in this contest, in future ones, so we know what's important and how to tackle this.

About staying true to original: How much penalty will there be if a function is not exactly working like in original full scale model? Will this be proportional to the total amount of functions in the set? How does it combine together with the looks though - there are set models that are more about looks and have less mechanical functions and there are models that have many functions but are a bit more messy in their construction because of that. Will this be somehow balanced between functions and look depending on how the original model was made?

About shrinking scale: Will the shrink ratio affect the score in a way that the smaller the better or is it just a checkbox that you need a reasonable amount of shrink there?

20 minutes ago, Jim said:

We will  provide a list of the top 3 with arguments why they scored in the top 3 in that order.

I would like to actually see where I end up with my submission if I'm outside of podium, even if I'd end up being sharing the same spot with multiple other contestants. I'd still want to know if I was going in a good direction or not.

[Jim]

...nor will we take part in elaborate discussions about the judging process 

Just be patient and let us do our thing.

[howitzer]

While I'm also curious about the judging criteria, I also understand that it's borderline impossible to provide an exact list of criteria with all the possible interpretations and reasoning laid out - in the end it's probably just as much gut feeling as formalized criteria. In my opinion these elaborate discussions about judging criteria also detract from the primary purpose of the contests which is to have fun. So whatever my position in the end, I'm happy to have entered and I trust the judges make their decisions fairly.

(But beside the top three it would be nice to know the runner-ups, even if the rest of the entries weren't laid out in order.)

[lcvisser]

What @howitzer said.

I think the contest was awesome: the small scale made it both challenging, feasible (in time, for me at least) and affordable.  For me it's a success in any case, I had a lot of fun!

[Saruzeufel]

I have to say I would also like to know my own score just for the sake of knowing how bad I did and where to improve for next time.

Other than that I fully agree that the contest was fun and very doable! Judging it will already be hard enough with so many good entries and tough decisions to make with scoring.

[SaperPL]

18 minutes ago, howitzer said:

In my opinion these elaborate discussions about judging criteria also detract from the primary purpose of the contests which is to have fun.

Well, I'm digging into this because for me what's detracting from having fun in the contest is the feeling that I'm making something that completely doesn't make sense from the moment I choose what I want to do, if I don't know exactly what the voting criteria mean. For me, the part of the fun in the contest is also the competition and trying to get better at each contest I participate in. But if I keep failing in contests that are constructed in a way that only afterwards you can figure out what would be valued the most, it's not a meaningful competition for me.

Note that there is no criteria about the amount of functions or size of the build, which means that if Jury were to stick just to this, winning should be possible with a model of this kind:

 

If it was representative of the set it was based on. My point here is that by the criteria laid out there picking a harder to implement model that had more functions shouldn't be valued higher.

 

On a side note for future contests - I would also like to see a refinement of the rule about discussion topic requirement that would make it clear whether entering the contest in last moment and laying out the progress in few days or even hours is okay or not. From the perspective of competition, this allows you to sit out and see what others are making and calculate what they need to do to top-up the existing entries. I know this leaves someone with less time, but again, for someone who has a sizeable collection of loose parts from various sets, it may not be a drawback. Also you could be making multiple potential models for submission and deciding last minute without others knowing what you're working on. I think this kind of behavior is against the spirit of the competition where most of us are openly discussing what we're making, and it should be regulated.

[Jim]

11 hours ago, Saruzeufel said:

I have to say I would also like to know my own score just for the sake of knowing how bad I did and where to improve for next time.

We'll see what we can do. I will aim for a full list with scores.

10 hours ago, SaperPL said:

On a side note for future contests - I would also like to see...

You want this, you need that, etc, etc. I am getting very tired of your constant kind of demanding things in order for you to be able to enter the competition. I have been running contests for almost a decade now and we have had very little issues with people understanding the rules and/or the competition. Basically, you are the only one constantly complaining about this and that. So, it's very simple; either you adapt to our way of running a competition....or you don't and you stop participating. I'm running these contests in my spare time and I love to do it for you guys, because I know you love it. I don't mind a questions or a suggesion every now and then, but the contstant flow of objections, remarks and demands are taking all of the fun away.  I'm done with it.

I think I made a similar post when we ran TC24 so consider this my final comment about it.

[SaperPL]

59 minutes ago, Jim said:

You want this, you need that, etc, etc. I am getting very tired of your constant kind of demanding things in order for you to be able to enter the competition.

I never said I demanded anything. I would like != I demand... Don't put words in my mouth that I didn't say.

1 hour ago, Jim said:

I have been running contests for almost a decade now and we have had very little issues with people understanding the rules and/or the competition.

I have valid arguments and you are always responding without anything solid except for "it worked so far", which is not an argument. It's like saying humanity survived for ages without electricity - that's true, but also "so what?".

What you are doing is organising contests in a way where rules don't matter and you always can arbitrarily pick what you like regardless of the rules, or maybe even you specifically make the rules in this way so they are not precise or even vague, so you can then arbitrarily pick something without a problem later on. That is why I'm so hell bent on the rules being stated and executed more precisely.

Also to prove a point - I've seen a few times already that you don't have a problem with changing the way of selecting winners between jury and popular vote or mixed even after the mid point of the contest time. Even in this contest you were considering it.

1 hour ago, Jim said:

Basically, you are the only one constantly complaining about this and that.

That's because you are never really improving with the rules nor having valid arguments about 

1 hour ago, Jim said:

but the contstant flow of objections, remarks and demands are taking all of the fun away.

Well, what takes fun in the contest for me is knowing that what I decided to build may make no sense in the end despite being a perfect choice adhering to rules, because there's a lot left for jury's or voters own interpretation.

1 hour ago, Jim said:

So, it's very simple; either you adapt to our way of running a competition....or you don't and you stop participating.

I'll probably stop bothering taking part in contests that are not proper competition with solid criteria for evaluating the entries.

1 hour ago, Jim said:

 I think I made a similar post when we ran TC24 so consider this my final comment about it.

Why should "this is my final word!" stop me from stating my opinion (again)?

[Seasider]

@SaperPL I’d recommend that you don’t continue down this path you’re on. 
 

The contests are meant to be for fun and inclusive for everyone. this sort of confrontational discussion isn’t what Eurobricks is meant to be.

 

[allanp]

@SaperPL the competition is run by Jim in his free time. You have some complaints which you feel are valid, fair enough, but please at least try to see Jim's side instead of being confrontational by saying things like "organising contests in a way where rules don't matter". I'm not sure how you got to that statement based on your complaints TBH.