Contest Section

@ Kurtni
No, they would go submit an article/review/book.

Or maybe a user only has to do that three times and then when they've gotten passed each time, they don't have to do it anymore.

@ Kurtni

That's a good point. I think maybe instead of punishing people for not completing things, or requiring entrance fees, maybe the solution would be to just reward them when they do a good job (like potty training a puppy). A small reward could be given for hosting a completed contest and submitting an entry (maybe 5 points for hosting a finished contest and 3 points for submitting an entry, those points would be generated from the system and not come from a user).

@ KatieMosing
I think that approach fits in more with how points will work on every other part of the site (Ie, you'll get points for completed stories based on word count, points for poems, etc.)

Off topic for what you guys are discussing, but I think entrants should get notifications for important updates (say if it's a contest with rounds, when the new round is announced, or two days before deadline, when winners are announced etc).

But creators should definitely be made to finish a contest if they start one. I've written so many stories for contests that haven't been judged. Grumble grumble, heh.

I don't think rewarding users for entries/judging will discourage anyone not entering/not judging.

daisyfairy:

Off topic for what you guys are discussing, but I think entrants should get notifications for important updates (say if it's a contest with rounds, when the new round is announced, or two days before deadline, when winners are announced etc).

Actually I don't think we've talked at all about round contests, I'm glad you brought that up, because it may complicate how the system works.

@ Kurtni
I suppose it could simply be held as individual contests, as long as all the participants know what they're signing up for, so the organizer would make a contest as one comes to a close. But that really depends on whether people would stick with it. Unless there's a way of having them in their own category (like with prewrite contests, quote contests, picture contests, etc).

daisyfairy:

@ Kurtni
I suppose it could simply be held as individual contests, as long as all the participants know what they're signing up for, so the organizer would make a contest as one comes to a close. But that really depends on whether people would stick with it. Unless there's a way of having them in their own category (like with prewrite contests, quote contests, picture contests, etc).

That's an option, but it might be easier for the host if we can find a way to keep it all organized in one place.

Maybe there could be an option to have more than one entry and that would help with rounds contests.

@ KatieMosing
That should probably be an option regardless. A lot of contests allow users to submit more than one entry.

KatieMosing:

I mean, I get that their supposed to be fun, but I think, since it's a contest, it should be about more than just fun. There are prompts all over the site, so if people just wanted a prompt they could do that, or still use the prompt, but not enter. The contest section is for competition and I think people, especially hosts, need to be held responsible when they enter into something. I don't mean to sound harsh, but I don't think it's fair that people spend a ton of time writing their entries, only to never have them judged or even looked at by the host. I mostly think the point deduction should be given to the host, because it really isn't fair for them to leave their contestants hanging.

And I agree with that. I don't see the current system as too much fun, since so many contests don't get judged. And if you just want a prompt, either use the prompt section or take the prompt form the contest but don't actually enter the contest. People do need to be more responsible.

The only flaw I see here is that points being deducted from the host for not completing a contest could be bad, if we go back to the previous issues with including the point system. What if their grandma died and they forget about their contest? What if someone just lies that that happened to try and get their points back? But I'm thinking it won't matter if it's a small enough amount, and you can easily get them back by writing a short article or whatever. Small enough to not annoy people a lot, but large enough to make people reconsider not judging because they're being too lazy.

@ dru is the man.
I think new rules need to be implemented, especially regarding entering and hosting/judging contests. There's no point in moving the contest section, giving it a new design and adding new features when people will still abuse it.

@ KatieMosing
I like that better. The negative reinforcement would only be a stressor in the long run; positive reinforcement seems better. Users would have something definite to look forward to, instead of a (undeserved, to be quite honest) penalty.

These other suggestions for taking points away or banning from the feature for something that isn't breaking site rules just seem, well, cold if I'm being quite honest.

@ Takanori Matsumoto.
They're stealing and lying. They're a bad representation of what Mibba wants to look like and I don't think anyone is suggesting a permanent ban except in cases of permanent abuse.

@ dru is the man.
But we don't punish people for saying they're going to update a story and then abandoning it or offering to beta for someone and then backing out. Obviously not following through on a contest is a crappy thing to do, but I would hope a person would still get some value out of the process and product of writing a story, whether the contest they wrote it for is judged or not.

I like the idea of positive rather than negative reinforcement. Maybe in addition to points, people who've completed a certain number of contests would have their latest contest featured (whatever the equivalent of stickied would be)? Or that might be too unfair to new users, but maybe you could buy a featured spot with points only if you'd successfully completed X number of contests? I dunno, but I just think punishing people for something they could very well have a totally valid excuse for isn't the way to go about it; finding ways to reinforce good actions would lend to a better atmosphere, I think.

@ battalions
I agree with that; punishment after punishment is only going to make people bitter, and that doesn't contribute to the "writing community" feel that Mibba's supposed to have. And I think that maybe instead of having their contest be the equivalent of stickied, they can just have a higher rating as a host or something like that? Someone suggested rating hosts on a host basis - perhaps that could be something like "timeliness with results", "ability to answer questions from entrants", "quality of contest experience", or things to that effect, kind of how eBay has you rate a few points on how well they work as a seller.

It wouldn't be a system that gets personal with anyone, I wouldn't think - it would just be an overall rating of how well people liked the contests they host.

@ Takanori Matsumoto.
Yeah, I don't see anything wrong with giving feedback on a contest host. We can give feedback on stories an poems, so why not contests, too?

@ KatieMosing
Exactly. So contest hosts that really put time and effort into their contests would be rewarded with a lovely five-star rating, and hosts that never come through will show a lesser rating; it won't be against them as a person as a user, but it will just show that they have a little work to do before they can earn a higher rating.

Takanori Matsumoto.:

@ KatieMosing
Exactly. So contest hosts that really put time and effort into their contests would be rewarded with a lovely five-star rating, and hosts that never come through will show a lesser rating; it won't be against them as a person as a user, but it will just show that they have a little work to do before they can earn a higher rating.

Takanori Matsumoto.:

@ battalions
I agree with that; punishment after punishment is only going to make people bitter, and that doesn't contribute to the "writing community" feel that Mibba's supposed to have. And I think that maybe instead of having their contest be the equivalent of stickied, they can just have a higher rating as a host or something like that? Someone suggested rating hosts on a host basis - perhaps that could be something like "timeliness with results", "ability to answer questions from entrants", "quality of contest experience", or things to that effect, kind of how eBay has you rate a few points on how well they work as a seller.

It wouldn't be a system that gets personal with anyone, I wouldn't think - it would just be an overall rating of how well people liked the contests they host.

I think that's a really good idea. If we're looking to work it into the points system, perhaps for each contest you host - you'll get a point for each over-all star rating you receive. So if you're average rating for one contest is five stars, you'd get five points (or if we're giving ten points per star, you'd get fifty points).

Though I don't know how feasible that is.

@ Audrey T
That sounds good. Perhaps there's a gain of five points every timg your overall rating goes up? So the max gain would be twenty-five, but I think that's a sizeable enough reward for being a good host, especially when that's a valued trait among Mibbians.

^But then would you get twenty-five points if you hosted one contest and got a five-star rating?

If we do go with the rating thing, I think it should be very clear from the way everything's labeled that the rating is for contests and that it's for stuff like judging on time. And definitely I think we should go with Kurtni's idea of having entrants rate before they see the results to help with people giving low scores because they're mad they didn't win.

I do prefer visible stats though. Like just a little percentage generated, and somewhere on the contest page it would say "##% rate of contest completion" or something. And then you could get however many points every time you successfully complete a certain number of contests.