State of the Contests Update

[Tarkur]

@Tarkur

Lastly I want to address an issue that TTV can’t really do much about but I feel like I have a neat enough idea for what they can do to counteract that as much as possible. Now there is no rule against vote brigading and as the staff has said before there does not need to be one for this contest however another issue has cropped up very closely related to this I think.

This is that a lot of people only vote in the semifinals and finals of each contest because they do not care to keep up with the contest.

Keep in mind none of this is TTVs fault and that’s not what I want to say. I know in the past that TTV, more specifically Meso and Eljay, has wanted to highlight the creativity of the community through these contests. So keep this in mind as you read along, now what’s the problem with people only voting in the finals and semifinals? and what are we going to do about that?

To answer those questions we can’t do much to stop people from voting only in the final or semifinals but the main issue I see is not necessarily that people do this but that it’s affecting the goals of these contests. By having only a small percentage of people vote in the earlier stages makes for unreliable results while also hurting smaller content creators. There is no denying that well established mocist or artist are gonna have an inherent advantage in contest like these. The problem however is because of the small percentage of voters most votes in the early contest goes to these larger mocists and artist earlier effectively shutting out lesser known creators and highlighting just the same mocs that every other platforms highlights which makes the goal of featuring community creativity redundant because only a small percentage of the entries will actually be shown to the large amount of casual participant and that being mocs from creators they are already familiar with so they have no incentive to really vote for anything else but that which they know. Which in turn means that community creativity is no longer focused but how much you can ride on your mocist/artist career. Don’t believe me we can see this already happening where lesser known creators models are already forgotten in the public eye or never there to begin with because the votes are naturally skewed but also because the early voting isn’t big enough to make any lesser known creators model stand out.

How can we change this then? I think the easiest and most effective way to highlight contest entries would be by doing moc and art spotlights for the contests in a slideshow format similar to the format of the recent self moc spotlight TTV made on their channel. Why? Well first of its free advertisement for the contest letting people know they’ve started. It’s also a good opportunity to simultaneously vet entries and make sure they are all following the rules. Models that slip through the cracks could more easily be pointed out before the voting starts officially. More lesser known creators works get featured and maybe reach a new audience it couldn’t before and in doing so fulfilling the purpose of these contests. It may also split up votes from larger creators and could lead to less biased results in turn making the contest more fair to all participants.

Here is a suggestion I posted in the rules topic a few days back

[Seuss]

i mean but also that just forces ttv to have to go out of their way to cater to people who could not manage to follow simple rules

[Synnova32]

I suggest assistants that can “fact check” entries assigned for different factors!

E.g.

Assistants for Lore Discrepancies(Lore hounds)

Assistants for IO File Checking(Studio experts)

Assistants for Rule Compliance(anyone with general attention to detail)

Having teams of individuals like these would be beneficial, I believe, as it would speed up the contest process significantly.

[KDNX]

I would really like to be a lore hound.

[Seuss]

bro im imagining someone putting these titles on their resume and applying for a job and just LOL

[TheJerminator]

@Chud

Information about a TTV contest should not be limited to discord.

I’m not saying that it is. The Discords were brought up with the claim that the “anti-TTV” groups that you wanted to know about were active on said Discords, to which you replied that that information was being “withheld”. I’m saying that it’s not being withheld by anyone, since it’s just community members talking about the contests on a forum that anyone can join.

I am not saying that TTV is posting official contest information there.

If I misinterpreted what you were saying, please clarify.

@Chud

And being “toxic” isn’t a reason to ban people.

Again, my understanding of events is that the ban was a result of actions taken to delay, compromise, or otherwise inconvenience the contests, rather than just general bad behaviour. More details can be found in the Reddit post that I linked above, though I cannot personally verify any of the information in it.

[Seuss]

It really is a shame we have to talk about bans that are not going to be reversed and not focus on like the actual state of the contests themselves

[Payinku]

Aside from the frankly depressing mismanagement of the contests by literally everyone involved from every site.
This is my biggest problem with them, they’re supposed to be a community canon contest that affects the entire community, but not only are they only in english, they’re exclusive to the ttv boards, where ttv can ban anyone they don’t like, whether deserved or not, from being a part of a contest that is much bigger than these boards.

@HewksDKowlihad

it may have been a mistake to host this contest on the ttv boards exclusively

agreed
.

@ToaArcan

I don’t feel like people should be above reproach for their actions just because they made a cool action figure for a contest. People should still have to play nice with others, and should still get hit if they don’t.

I don’t care if you don’t like someone, this is a community contest and if the community doesn’t like someone they won’t vote for them if they’re that biased.

@Zadent

Just because someone won, doesn’t mean there isn’t also a significant number who dislike said person, but maybe appreciated something they did anyway.

This is a contest for canon depictions of bionicle characters, not who’s the nicest community member.
.

I don’t care about double, I’ve never spoken to him, I didn’t vote for him, I don’t care about him.
.

I hope my frankness doesn’t make me sound like a Detractor, though honestly at this point I’ve been driven far away from the entire bionicle community due to everyone’s behavior so I’m not sure I care anymore.

[Komrad]

The only thing that these contests have managed to do is wither away what little amount of parts were left on BL (see metru torsos, blue pakari) and divide the already small community even more, so in short, self cannibalization, and I for once cant wait for the community to be dead so maybe parts arent as much of a pain to come by without having to stalk BL or whatever marketplace.

[HewksDKowlihad]

i find that to be a tremendously slippery slope

[KDNX]

I find that to be a logical fallacy

[Brod]

The man is a mixed bag. He can be either pretty cool, chill, and funny, or an ■■■■■■■. It really depends on the day of the week.

[Gyara2]

Literally how

[KDNX]

How is the slippery slope fallacy a logical fallacy?

My guy…

Slippery slope

[Gyara2]

My bad, misinterpreted

[KDNX]

I thought so. No problem. To respond to your comment specifically, I’d say I don’t want to interact with him. I have no interest in finding out how he is in person because all of the conduct from him I have ever witnessed has been negative. He can build a very nice MOC, I’ll say that much.

[Brod]

I get his booting. I don’t 100% agree with it, but I understand it. I feel like there are much bigger fish to fry in terms of this set of contests and the issues they have though. Kini already said most of said issues quite eloquently.

[Kakapo]

You don’t want it to get to the point members start digging up stuff of others now that the precedent has been set

[ToaArcan]

Yes, all continued discussion of Double will do is convince TTV that they made the right choice with the ban.

[KDNX]

I mean, if someone did something unsportsmanlike or bigoted, inside or outside of these contests and within recent memory, I’d totally be on board with banning them from further contest participation. Also, Double’s banning was not over something “dug up”, it was over stuff he did during the contest.