[CONTEST] The Infamous Steve - Feedback on the Voting System

[BrynnOfCastlegate]

20 hours ago, Brickshipyard said:

I made my Imperial entry learning from all the issues my 2023 contest entry had, which was physical bricks and had some questionable build techniques.

I find it interesting that you thought this, as I consider physical bricks an advantage when choosing which models to vote for. I prefer physical models, so I would rarely vote for digital entries. Probably just me, though. 

[Yperio_Bricks]

16 minutes ago, BrynnOfCastlegate said:

I find it interesting that you thought this, as I consider physical bricks an advantage when choosing which models to vote for. I prefer physical models, so I would rarely vote for digital entries. Probably just me, though. 

My thoughts exactly!

[Yperio_Bricks]

Go check out the voting system of the EB Technic contest.

They are using an external site. There are 19 entries. You arrange the entries in a list with your favorite entry receiving 19 points, your second favorite receiving 18 points and so on. You least favorite entry will receive 1 point. If you are a participant, your own entry has to be the one receiving 1 point.

I don't know how complicated and time-consuming it is to set up such a voting system, but it looks quite good.

It's worth to take a look at the voting system and maybe it's something we might want to consider in the future.

But the voting systems also has its disadvantages -> check the comments.

 

[Horation]

6 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

Go check out the voting system of the EB Technic contest.

I saw that, I'd do it if it meant more votes, so we'll have to ask them at the end of the contest, how many people voted.

[YellowFrog]

On 9/10/2024 at 5:13 AM, Brickshipyard said:

Ask yourselves the question, would you feel inclined to vote if no one is voting for your entry?

Personally, I voted for both categories before I saw what the other votes were. Voting is not just about winning, it's about having your say - I vote for a ton of things fairly often, even though I hardly am in the running, let alone win, such as the recent Technic contest.

Side note: @Yperio_Bricks and @Horation, I don't think the voting system for the Technic one was particularly effective. The low-res images and no links made it hard to see what I was voting for, and the ordering every item made it take way longer than I would've liked, especially because I ended up weighing pairs of two bad builds against one another, neither of which would've won (and so I don't see much point into putting the time into ordering them).

On 9/10/2024 at 5:13 AM, Brickshipyard said:

The Subscription implies a bit of money involved and I think it goes a long way to deterring scammers and recent account creators because it would be costly for them to spam votes and to make the money appear to be coming from many people.

I don't think that fake accounts are much of an issue, the '10 posts and a certain time period' policy seems to work well.

On 9/10/2024 at 5:13 AM, Brickshipyard said:

I've seen it work recently in another Lego contest and the only way to vote was to be registered and subscribed members

Making people pay to vote is simply messed up, and it would drastically cut down on the number of voters.

With regards to your concerns about the number of votes on your build, what voters probably saw was a safe approach that seemed almost generic, perhaps a little boring. I'm not saying your build was bad, but I doubt it was anyone's favourite. Generally, people only vote for their favourite builds.

Also, like the others here, I am much more likely to vote for a physical build than a render. There were a lot of great entries, don't feel too disheartened if you didn't get a vote (although you could've voted for yourself if you really wanted one).

[Mister Phes]

(The follow responses are open statements to anyone who cares to answer, and not specifically directed at YellowFrog)

 

20 hours ago, YellowFrog said:

Side note: @Yperio_Bricks and @Horation, I don't think the voting system for the Technic one was particularly effective. The low-res images and no links made it hard to see what I was voting for

Was that a limitation of the voting system or just the way it was setup for the Technic contest?

 

20 hours ago, YellowFrog said:

I don't think that fake accounts are much of an issue, the '10 posts and a certain time period' policy seems to work well.

Only one vote fell into contention but it was the way it was addressed publicly that was the issue.

 

20 hours ago, YellowFrog said:

Making people pay to vote is simply messed up, and it would drastically cut down on the number of voters.

This would be my concern as well as we had difficulty getting people to vote for free.

Perhaps subscriptions work for traditional LUGs in which members periodically meet at physical locations, but in the case of an online community, people generally expect everything to be for free.

Also, LEGO Pirates is an extremely niche interest, and not in the same league as contest or community encompassing all LEGO themes.  So on that basis, there will be always less participation.

However, I'm quite happy to be proven wrong; so if there any niche online AFOL communities who approach contests with subscription based models, please provide further details...

[YellowFrog]

On 9/16/2024 at 3:37 PM, Mister Phes said:

Was that a limitation of the voting system or just the way it was setup for the Technic contest?

The voting system - each option to vote had a tiny thumbnail image beside it, which is sadly what I had to use to judge the entries. THere was also a higher-quality image at the top of the votign page, but it was also low-quality. I don't know if this voting platform limits the resolution, or if the organisers chose to upload low-res images.