Discussion of contest rules

[Keith Lake]

This thread is to solicit feedback and discussion on the rules for the monthly contests.

In the past...
Contest Awards - Input Needed
we've had great discussions on rule modifications.

Please keep it positive/respectful and let's hash this out as a community

Soniq

 

[onthe420train]

I think the rule should be
"NO new threads or posting in threads (besides your own) or signatures soliciting votes for you or other contestants"

eliminates the issue of overwhelming promotion for one contestant. It is a contest after all, which has entries and has a winner. It is more like a competition, and like all democratic competitions (voting) politics play a role.

there are people who are winning "because they go around announcing the contests in their posts and signatures," and people who are not winning even though they are doing that.

the way I see it gathering votes is like gathering readers - the more attention you bring to the forum and voting the more votes you gather (assuming your the clear choice) - however I also think it is important to see who votes for who so that there are not 50 new accounts with 0 or 10 posts voting for one member.

 

[Retired Three]

Bud and Plant contests for now on should be anonymous with the winner announced at the end of the contest. All contests should have a posting minimum for eligibility to vote in 420 contests (such as 100 posts on 420 by a poster) to prevent the possibilities of sandbagging with new/multiple users.

 

[onthe420train]

So that means if you are going to submit a plant picture to the contest you keep the plant out of your grow journal?

wot about people who post the pic in the forums saying "vote for my bud" is that no problem?

 

[Retired Three]

The voting Ballot should just show the 8 or 10 (or whatever) picture nominations side by side and the eligible 420 voting member can place there vote. It might create greater fairness if there isn't a name placed next to the pic on the ballot. I still think people can say vote for my bud or plant in the contest but the voter would have to look into specific grow journals to identify the entrants specific pics. Pics of the nominations grows in the contest thread would be limited to an Admin posted area only.

 

[onthe420train]

If your going to start the nomations over why don't you take the good avise and start the count over with new rules....if you want an answer to the problem.

Been here for 4 months over 1200 post
I have 496 rep point so i guess I know what im talking about...

What happened to my standing ...wasted months...

man its obvious you are frustrated but you really compromise yourself when you say things like that. especially with such large lettering.

demanding satisfaction won't really get you anywhere in this situation.

 

[onthe420train]

um/// confusing logic.

obviously it didn't occur to me he always posts in size 5 font. what difference does it make if I read your journal or not.

 

[Retired Three]

420magazine already requires 25 posts for members to send Personal Messages. My suggestion is in-line with the same philosophy. The 25 post criteria was established to prevent SPAM. Another suggestion could possibly be that the voter needs to be a certain age (such as 3 months old as a 420 posting member) (or 3 months old and a minimum of 25 posts) before they are eligible to vote in the contests.

It appears that there is a feeling among members that the voting in this months poll is not statistically in the realm of past elections. No doubt it would raise concerns about the fairness of the election and this election process.
__________________

 

[onthe420train]

yeah taht's what I was getting at but I also think Roseman deserves it, theres like a whole new section of the forum filled with people talking to each other - I don't really keep up with it but its there.

 

[Keith Lake]

Thanks to all for the respectful reasoned posts. I'd like to comment on each of the points so far.

"NO new threads or posting in threads (besides your own) or signatures soliciting votes for you or other contestants"

This is something that could be done. It would require a lot more moderation time because it's pretty engrained in the culture that it's ok to do this at present.

Maybe at the end of the discussion we'll run a poll and let everyone vote on the final ideas (we've done this before and improved the contests as a result)

Bud and Plant contests for now on should be anonymous with the winner announced at the end of the contest.

There's a couple problems with this but we can talk about it

1) No way to stop people from campaigning by PM
2) We all follow the grow journals and would know who's picture is whos
3) A lot more work for me

Still, we can talk about it and maybe vote on it depending on what other people think

All contests should have a posting minimum for eligibility to vote in 420 contests (such as 100 posts on 420 by a poster) to prevent the possibilities of sandbagging with new/multiple users.

We already have mechanisms to prevent the same person from taking out multiple user names and voting more than once. We've had to ban people for this in the past.

Requiring a membership period or post count minimum is certainly an option. This will require funding to pay the programmer to make the changes. If this become a popular option, I'll get a quote, maybe we can all chip in.

If your going to start the nomations over why don't you take the good avise and start the count over with new rules....if you want an answer to the problem.

We are not considering starting the nominations over for January, but February's contests will be posted as soon as I finish replying to this post .

We're trying to listen to the communities ideas for continuous improvement

I don't follow the logic of how starting the contest over would be fair?

The voting Ballot should just show the 8 or 10 (or whatever) picture nominations side by side and the eligible 420 voting member can place there vote. It might create greater fairness if there isn't a name placed next to the pic on the ballot. I still think people can say vote for my bud or plant in the contest but the voter would have to look into specific grow journals to identify the entrants specific pics. Pics of the nominations grows in the contest thread would be limited to an Admin posted area only.

This is a variation of the suggestion above and is more easily executed.

I can certainly list the contest photos by number and make the poll a number to vote on if people think this is a better way to go.

It's not a bullet proof solution for the same reasons as outlined above, but we can talk about it and maybe vote on it.

Since the whole debacle stems from members who can't even PM yet, but yet voted in the contest. Maybe something could be instituted for the voting also.

This could be done by programming, another reasonable comment

I do want to clear up the misconception that the vast majority of those that voted couldn't PM yet. This isn't accurate. In order to honor oldgrowerdude's request to be deleted I had to view the voters and there were only a couple names I didn't recognize

I have seen another forum- unrelated to 420- that has 90,000 members, have one member post something about throwing a vote. So all it would take is a response there to have possible 90,000 votes. Not that I would ever do it, but with the current system, it would be possible. So there needs to be something in place.

I'm not following you here, would you please elaborate by PM.

420magazine already requires 25 posts for members to send Personal Messages. My suggestion is in-line with the same philosophy. The 25 post criteria was established to prevent SPAM. Another suggestion could possibly be that the voter needs to be a certain age (such as 3 months old as a 420 posting member) (or 3 months old and a minimum of 25 posts) before they are eligible to vote in the contests.

This seems to be a popular suggestion. We're open minded. I will say I personally prefer changes that are one time in nature as opposed to those that require extra work each month. Great points though - please keep them coming.

It appears that there is a feeling among members that the voting in this months poll is not statistically in the realm of past elections. No doubt it would raise concerns about the fairness of the election and this election process.

I'm struggling to understand the fairness comment. The rules were followed and that should be the determinant of fairness - shouldn't it?

Every thread has someone, other than the owner of the thread shamelessly promoting themselves....and that should not be allowed.

We can discuss this and vote on it I will say that promotion of the contest has helped make them popular. Maybe it should be ok to promote the contest but not the members personal entry? This also seems a popular opinion, let's see what everyone else thinks and maybe include this in the poll.

Please ask your friends to join this discussion. We want to prevent problems in the future and if we can improve the rules to better suit the majority of the community that's what we want to do

 

[Tyrone Hamilton]

One thing that I think needs to be pointed out is the unique nature of THIS month. It's not every month that we get 70 new members, and there's bound to be a bit of indigestion as the cultures and personalities of the new and old members mix.

I don't like self-promotion, but I don't think it should be banned either. If someone really wants MOM that badly... then why stop them from saying so? Having said that, I did vote for OGD even though I was one of those who nominated Roseman. The self promotion was a bit too much for me, so it changed my vote, and I think if others think that self promotion is not part of the ethos they want here, then just don't vote for the guy who does it instead of making extra work for Soniq.

I think the 25 post min is a good idea, but let's leave the changes to a minimum based on this month... if it happens again next month... well, isn't 70 new 420 members a month a good problem to have? Fact is though, it's not going to happen next month; this a one of a kind situation, and to make generalities based on a one of a kind thing is usually not a good idea.

Finally, I hope anyone upset about the contests will smoke a bowl, then ask themselves - what am I doing here? Am I here to win contests? Do I need the admiration of others to function? Or can I find the reward in simply helping others grow weed? Contests are the icing on the cake, not the cake.

Sometimes, when it seems that something is unfair, the only thing that needs changing is one's own mind.

 

[420]

Sending everyone lots of love, respect and positive energy through the universe.

 

[KiwiKing]

I like the minimum post rule and the idea for an anonymous ballot box with the pictures of the plant/bud. Would not only make it more anonymous, but also make it easier to compare photos instead of having to scroll up and down the page.

I also think the campaigning is kind of fun but shouldn't blatantly hijack others' threads. I would think that campaigning would integrate the community allowing interactions between members that normally wouldn't get to know each other, resulting in a "larger and more open" forum. -- but this is just my opinion.

 

[onthe420train]

right on.

you're right it would require kind of a lot of extra moderation to do that.

 

[StinkFinger]

Don't shoot me, but have you ever considered just eliminating the Member of the Month poll/award?

Also, I'm down for the "blind numbering" for nugget and plant of the month. I personally don't like all the self promotion of the polls in people's signatures, BUT since I never know when the "contests" are going on, it does bring attention to them. Perhaps communicating when the polls are going on should be more of 420mags responsibility, as opposed to individual users. It would also seem to reason, that if 420 did the "promotion" either via email or Private Message to all users, or some other method that hundreds or thousands of more voters would actually take notice and vote, this magnitude of voters would help to "even" the playing field and make voting blocs negligible.

 

[KiwiKing]

^^ - I concur with the system emails.

 

[Keith Lake]

Don't shoot me, but have you ever considered just eliminating the Member of the Month poll/award?

I can confirm I've had that thought once or twice in the last 8 hours

 

[Keith Lake]

Don't shoot me, but have you ever considered just eliminating the Member of the Month poll/award?

We set this thread up as a auto-reminder

All you have to do is to subscribe and whenever the new poll goes up, you get a reminder

https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/monthly-contest-reminder.103641/

hat tip to WheeloFortune

 

[StinkFinger]

We set this thread up as a auto-reminder

All you have to do is to subscribe and whenever the new poll goes up, you get a reminder

https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/monthly-contest-reminder.103641/

hat tip to WheeloFortune

With respect.

Yes, I've seen that, but really it's not the same "Call to Action" that you're looking for. A private message (or email) will most likely increase voting exponentially, especially with a direct link to the poll. [I know I'll open up a can of worms here but,] you may even include a paid sponsor advertisement banner within the private message. "This month's poll, sponsored by".

This conjecture, of course, is based on the fact that you really do want to increase the amount of members that vote on these polls.

S.F.

 

[Keith Lake]

^^ great ideas man, we'll talk about this in the back.

+10