[CONTEST] The Infamous Steve

[YellowFrog]

I would highly recommend you don't run contests through social media (or using it as a medium for entries), especially when that limits it to people that are on social media.

Instead, social media can be used to direct people to the site, where they can vote etc..

Perhaps a way to get more engagement with the voting would be a 'promoter prize', where a small prize is awarded to whoever best promotes the contest on other platforms. I don't know exactly how this would work, but I think it is worth some thought.

Or, voting could be conducted on social media as well, and then collated with the voting on here to produce a final tally.

[Mister Phes]

5 hours ago, YellowFrog said:

Instead, social media can be used to direct people to the site, where they can vote etc..

That's exactly what I've been doing for 3 months... do you not follow Classic Pirates on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr or the blog?

I've posted dozens of social media updates all directing people back to key topics in this forum.

Problem is;  most people on social media won't register a Eurobricks account because it's not convenient.

Forums are an old school form of communication that appeals to certain people, but certainly not the majority.

 

However, that's digressing for the actual issue relating to voting; participants of the contest who are active on the forum, yet still not making the effort to vote.

 

5 hours ago, YellowFrog said:

would highly recommend you don't run contests through social media (or using it as a medium for entries)

The aim is to run simpler contests that allow participation via both forum and social media.

 

5 hours ago, YellowFrog said:

Especially when that limits it to people that are on social media.

The Classic Pirate Facebook Group has 16,000+ members... substantially more than the LEGO Pirates Forum...  and then there's viral reach.

We're not tapping into that with these forum based contests.

[Horation]

14 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

A contest of this scale consumes almost 4 months of my free time.

I feel like next time you ought to split the work, maybe have some community members deal with some of the forum-stuff so you can focus on things like promoting the contest and moderating.

For example, I'm currently counting the votes unofficially, but next I could do it all by myself, or say you could nominate a community regulator to update the entries index, or some other splitting, so as to free up some time, because this is too much work for one person.

[Mister Phes]

11 hours ago, Horation said:

I feel like next time you ought to split the work, maybe have some community members deal with some of the forum-stuff

That is already the case.

@Yperio_Bricks takes care of the basic Pirate forum upkeep. @Captain Braunsfeld posts non-contest pirate frontpage updates. @Professor Thaum takes care of the basic Brethren of the Brick Seas forum upkeep.

And I thank them all immensely for contributing their time!

 

11 hours ago, Horation said:

 so you can focus on things like promoting the contest and moderating.

And that what consumes all the time. 

It's not just the contest management and planning within the forum, I also produce all the marketing collateral which requires a variety of advanced skills like graphic design, copy writing, social media management, web design, etc.

Unfortunately nobody else with these skills steps up to volunteer anymore.

 

11 hours ago, Horation said:

For example, I'm currently counting the votes unofficially, but next I could do it all by myself, or say you could nominate a community regulator to update the entries index,

I did ask Yperio Bricks if he would be interested in updating the Entries Index but he didn't seem interested.  Beyond him there's nobody else to ask!

But you've been a fantastic help!

And I'm sure we can find you a position within the Classic Pirates crew if you're interesting in joining.

 

19 hours ago, YellowFrog said:

Perhaps a way to get more engagement with the voting would be a 'promoter prize', where a small prize is awarded to whoever best promotes the contest on other platforms. I don't know exactly how this would work, but I think it is worth some thought. 

I did consider such an initiative but decided against because towards the end of a large contest I'm too exhausted to keep track.

I was intending to call it the "Shameless Self Promoter" challenge or something to that affect.

But the problem is social media promotion needs to be done in the correct way, and the majority of people do not have any understanding of the best pratices.

And no matter how clearly you instruct them, a good many of them will do the absolute wrong thing.

So it could easily result in encouraging spam and violating terms of service.

Further compounding to problem is keeping track of everything.

If a participant doesn't use the correct hash tags or tag the correct accounts, their posts will be missed.

Or even if they do tag correctly, now I've got to check social media 10 times a day so I don't miss a notification.

That's just too much towards the end of a larger contest!

An entire marketing team is required to manage something like this well.

However, in a smaller contest, with a singular objective, it may be more feasible.

Anyway, thank you for the suggestion - I don't think it's a bad one, but it definitely comes with numerous considerations to execute well.

[YellowFrog]

4 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

I did consider such an initiative but decided against because towards the end of a large contest I'm too exhausted to keep track.

I was intending to call it the "Shameless Self Promoter" challenge or something to that affect.

But the problem is social media promotion needs to be done in the correct way, and the majority of people do not have any understanding of the best pratices.

And no matter how clearly you instruct them, a good many of them will do the absolute wrong thing.

So it could easily result in encouraging spam and violating terms of service.

Further compounding to problem is keeping track of everything.

If a participant doesn't use the correct hash tags or tag the correct accounts, their posts will be missed.

Or even if they do tag correctly, now I've got to check social media 10 times a day so I don't miss a notification.

That's just too much towards the end of a larger contest!

An entire marketing team is required to manage something like this well.

However, in a smaller contest, with a singular objective, it may be more feasible.

Anyway, thank you for the suggestion - I don't think it's a bad one, but it definitely comes with numerous considerations to execute well.

That's perfectly understandable. I think the contest is a success as is, there is no need to further expand your workload.

18 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

do you not follow Classic Pirates on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr or the blog?

Exactly. I am not on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, etc., and this is why I don't want these challenges to be limited to social media. I support using it in conjunction with the forum, as long as the forum facet is maintained and users like myself can participate.

[Yperio_Bricks]

Since I am mentioned, I feel the need to defend myself. I didn't follow the contest closely due to the creative critics writing so many posts. Often I just marked the whole forum read because if the sheer number of their posts. So I didn't feel to be the right person to update the entry index because i would have probably missed something.

[Mister Phes]

3 hours ago, YellowFrog said:

I support using it in conjunction with the forum, as long as the forum facet is maintained and users like myself can participate.

Yes of course!

There is no intention of abandoning the LEGO Pirates Forum - it's the foundation of the entire Classic Pirates network.

It's more about expanding to better encompass social media.

 

58 minutes ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

Since I am mentioned, I feel the need to defend myself.

That wasn't meant to be an attack or criticism, but rather explaining to YellowFrog why it's difficult is to find volunteers for these tasks.

Nonetheless, your explanation is valuable because it illustrates the point - most people don't feel like they're the right person.

And again, I'm not complaining or criticising because you already make plenty of valuable contributions to the LEGO Pirates Forum, so thank you!

 

[Elephant Knight]

A contest's success should be judged on the number of MOCs submitted, not the amount of the votes cast. If a contest has 100 entries, but only 10 people vote for the winners, I would consider that a success. If a contest had 10 entries, and 100 people voting, I would not consider that a success, even if the 10 entries were all spectacular. Obviously the winner is picked more fairly if more people vote, but a contests success should always be based on MOC participation.

Just my two cents.

EKnight

[Mister Phes]

4 minutes ago, Elephant Knight said:

A contest's success should be judged on the number of MOCs submitted, not the amount of the votes cast.

Yes, you are correct... providing there are sufficient votes to determine the winners.

 

[Horation]

8 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

I did ask Yperio Bricks if he would be interested in updating the Entries Index but he didn't seem interested.  Beyond him there's nobody else to ask!

But you've been a fantastic help!

And I'm sure we can find you a position within the Classic Pirates crew if you're interesting in joining.

I sent an Email using the form on Classic-Pirates.com, but I never got an answer! I'd love to help, I have a flickr account and an account here, but no social media. 

1 hour ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

 I didn't follow the contest closely due to the creative critics writing so many posts. Often I just marked the site read because of the sheer number of their posts.

<<whistles innocently>> -Oh I made a lot of posts? Nah, I was quite reasonable, it was all the @Math Wizard and @YellowFrog's fault! (kidding, though all three of us combined made more posts than the rest of eurobricks combined during the contest, I think...)

@Elephant Knight, I partly agree and partly disagree, the more entries does mean the most sucessful, but if you have few votes, it means people aren't enthusiastic about the contest, which is quite bad...

Edited August 31, 2024 by Horation
added a post

[NOD]

Many thanks to @Mister Phes and his general staff @Yperio_Bricks, @Captain Braunsfeld, @Professor Thaum and also for the help of @Horation for this great contest!

 

We should all see the positive:

 

The number of Building Category participants and quality of the builds was excellent!

The number of Creative Critic participants and the responses were outstanding!

 

Eurobricks has many members, these are active in different forums.

 

The question is:

How can we motivate a member who is active in another forum to vote in the Pirate Forum?

 

An example:

You like Lego and you also like builds in the other forums. You look at the builds without reply. What would make you (Pirate Forum active member) vote for a build in the LEGO Train Tech forum?

[bingowaldorf]

I was very excited to participate in this contest and really enjoyed seeing what other people came up with. Big thank you to everyone who helped organize it! I don't think for any future contests I would ever participate in the creative critic. I don't think that feedback is a bad thing, I just don't want to be critical of anyones hard work. If you wanted to change up voting for future contests would having judges instead of voters make things easier? 

[Mister Phes]

14 hours ago, NOD said:

Many thanks to @Mister Phes and his general staff @Yperio_Bricks, @Captain Braunsfeld, @Professor Thaum and also for the help of @Horation for this great contest!

We should all see the positive:

Yer most welcome!

But why would we see anything overly negative? 

This contest didn't attract as many entries as the Return of the Classic Pirates Contest, but still attracted slightly more entries above the Eurobrick contest average.

 

14 hours ago, NOD said:

How can we motivate a member who is active in another forum to vote in the Pirate Forum?

Why do we need members from other forums to vote?

The concern with this contest was members active in the LEGO Pirates Forum who participated in the contest wasn't voting.

 

10 hours ago, bingowaldorf said:

Big thank you to everyone who helped organize it!

Many thank ye's for participating!

 

10 hours ago, bingowaldorf said:

If you wanted to change up voting for future contests would having judges instead of voters make things easier? 

That always raises the question of who these judges would be?

The previous Creative Critic was judged, and there were some who weren't pleased with the judging process, but on the flip side no else was willing to monitor the feedback for the entire contest.

Generally, in the age of social media, we unfortunately don't get as many volunteers as we did during the 2000s.

[YellowFrog]

I think the main barrier stopping people voting is the effort required to do so. To have a fair and accurate vote, you have to look through a fair few pages to see your favourites. Because of this, I nearly didn't vote (but of course the bonus points persuaded me). I guess the entries index solves this, but as a fairly new member to Eurobricks, I couldn't always find it.

If we had a shortlist of good builds, or if the entries index was linked in the voting topic, it might make things easier. (I tried to check if this was the case, as I'm not sure if it was already, but I couldn't find the voting topics either. I'm not sure if they've been removed, or I'm just incompetent.)

I think a panel of judges who have additional votes (maybe they can award up to 10 votes each) would be good. A panel of experts could be asked to vote, and I'm sure they would. The only question is, who here has contact with a Lego expert?

[Yperio_Bricks]

9 minutes ago, YellowFrog said:

I think a panel of judges who have additional votes (maybe they can award up to 10 votes each) would be good. A panel of experts could be asked to vote, and I'm sure they would. The only question is, who here has contact with a Lego expert?

How do we determine who is a Lego expert in the first place? How does one qualify to be a Lego expert?

[YellowFrog]

1 minute ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

How do we determine who is a Lego expert in the first place? How does one qualify to be a Lego expert?

To me, an expert means:

1. A winner of some prestigious competition
2. A set designer
3. Someone who works for the Lego company
4. Someone whose job is to build models
5. Someone who has written a book etc. on Lego building
6. Someone whose career is to build Lego.
7. Someone who is simply exceptional at Lego building
8. Someone who is great at judging Lego
9. A moderator or very prolific member of the forum who is confident in their ability to critique builds.

 

I guess when it comes down to it, an expert is someone who can make a decision on the winners, and we can all be confident that they have made the right decision.

On 8/31/2024 at 10:51 PM, Horation said:

<<whistles innocently>> -Oh I made a lot of posts? Nah, I was quite reasonable, it was all the @Math Wizard and @YellowFrog's fault! (kidding, though all three of us combined made more posts than the rest of eurobricks combined during the contest, I think...)

I did start with 16 or so posts before I signed up to be a critic, and now this is my 184th post... (and I have only posted 10 or so things outside the pirate MOCs subforum)

21 minutes ago, YellowFrog said:

If we had a shortlist of good builds, or if the entries index was linked in the voting topic, it might make things easier. (I tried to check if this was the case, as I'm not sure if it was already, but I couldn't find the voting topics either. I'm not sure if they've been removed, or I'm just incompetent.)

I've just managed to check, the link was there, but it wasn't obvious (I guess I am just incompetent). I guess the only feedback would be next time, make it more obvious (but I guess most people found it, judging by the format of the votes)

[Mister Phes]

45 minutes ago, YellowFrog said:

I guess when it comes down to it, an expert is someone who can make a decision on the winners

And the question I repeatedly ask; is where do we find these experts who will so kindly donate their time?

[YellowFrog]

51 minutes ago, Mister Phes said:

where do we find these experts who will so kindly donate their time?

Do you know any? If so, ask them. If not, I can try asking a few and we can encourage other members to do the same.

[Yperio_Bricks]

1 minute ago, YellowFrog said:

Do you know any? If so, ask them. If not, I can try asking a few and we can encourage other members to do the same.

Would the experience be better for the average Joe forum user and average Jane moc builder if we fly in experts for the voting? Experts that we otherwise never see in these parts of the forum. Will the experts comment on the builds and engage with the plebs or just vote?

Please don't get me wrong, I am not against the idea, but there will be implications that effect the contest in several ways. At least that is what i think.

 

[Horation]

1 hour ago, Mister Phes said:

And the question I repeatedly ask; is where do we find these experts who will so kindly donate their time?

That can be any quite active member on the forum. 

I agree with @Yperio_Bricks that you don't see much of a difference between this and a public vote.

So I think one solution is to have the judges pick, say the top 4, then the voters get to vote on the winning order for the entries, this makes it a) easier to choose b) less annoying to count votes for and c) facebook-poll friendly

[Mister Phes]

1 hour ago, YellowFrog said:

Do you know any? If so, ask them.

I wouldn't be asking if I knew.

All the MOC Expert I know who would be interest are already participating in the contest.

[Marooned Marin]

Thank you @Mister Phes for single-handedly organizing yet another Pirate contest.

 

My thanks goes also to all the pirate crew who in one or another way still find time and energy to help you maintaining the Pirates subforum on it's course; @Captain Braunsfeldon frontpage news, @Yperio_Bricks as almost omnipresent regulator and to all others whose work is invisible to general public.

 

This contest was a blast and thank you all for making it happen!

[YellowFrog]

20 hours ago, Marooned Marin said:

Thank you @Mister Phes for single-handedly organizing yet another Pirate contest.

 

My thanks goes also to all the pirate crew who in one or another way still find time and energy to help you maintaining the Pirates subforum on it's course; @Captain Braunsfeldon frontpage news, @Yperio_Bricks as almost omnipresent regulator and to all others whose work is invisible to general public.

I'd like to add my 'thank you' to the mix. Your hard work makes this arguably the most involved subforum on Eurobricks.

Fun fact: The poll for the Steve contest, asking which contest it should be, was what convinced me to sign up for Eurobricks in the first place. I must confess, I did not vote for the Steve option.

[Yperio_Bricks]

21 minutes ago, YellowFrog said:

I'd like to add my 'thank you' to the mix. Your hard work makes this arguably the most involved subforum on Eurobricks.

Fun fact: The poll for the Steve contest, asking which contest it should be, was what convinced me to sign up for Eurobricks in the first place. I must confess, I did not vote for the Steve option.

It's great to have you aboard

Where did you stumble across the poll or were you a lurker in this forum?

[Horation]

On 9/2/2024 at 12:17 PM, Marooned Marin said:

Thank you @Mister Phes for single-handedly organizing yet another Pirate contest.

 

My thanks goes also to all the pirate crew who in one or another way still find time and energy to help you maintaining the Pirates subforum on it's course; @Captain Braunsfeldon frontpage news, @Yperio_Bricks as almost omnipresent regulator and to all others whose work is invisible to general public.

Yes, I second this! All of the staff did a really good job, especially Mister Phes, who I think worked like a bee for this whole thing, but everyone clearly put a lot of effort into the whole thing.