This was a close contest.
Hello, everyone. Thank you for your patience during this process! Today we are finally ready to reveal the results of the first portion of the Helryx contest, the MOC contest. First, allow me to discuss the situation.
As many are probably aware, a great deal of controversy has brewed from the inclusion of a MOC known by many names - Bendryx, Hoseryx, Bendy, etc.The MOC in question was entered and perceived by many to be a joke entry and likely due for disqualification. A member of our staff even removed it at one point thanks to our “no joke topic” rule. I made an executive decision to reverse the order and allow the entry, citing that I was willing to make an exception in good faith and that it followed all of the rules of the contest. I stand by that decision, as from it, plenty of good fun, humor, and enjoyment stemmed from the disturbingly frail Helryx.
Unfortunately, a vocal group of participants in the community saw it fit to allow their discourse to unravel and become hostile. It genuinely disappointed me to see so many people so willing to take sides on a subject that was not worth fighting about. There is always merit to a creation, and at the end of the day it is not appropriate for anyone to be judging the rationale behind voters who want to see their favorite - for any reason that may be - win in a contest.
Another part of the discussion were the individuals ready to write the contests off entirely because they were tired of the discourse, they were exhausted, they felt it wasn’t worth it because of the fighting. To these people, I say: Be patient, but also understand that it is very, very easy to not fight. Do not participate. Step back and look on and wait. A good way to defuse a situation is to exit it.
This first contest was not perfect.
We learned a lot about better ways to conduct this process and we’re eager to put it into practice next time. It was bumpy and we apologize to all of those who feel frustrated with the handling. We did our best to act quickly and listen to everyone willing to offer their thoughts and recommendations in regards to how it should be run. We will be implementing improvements during the art portion of this contest.
Now, why the delay in revealing the results?
Unfortunately, during the voting process, starting with the second brackets, we began to receive votes from accounts that were made with the intention of skewing the numbers. These were accounts made using generated email addresses made to be disposable, or were duplicate accounts made to boost their favorite entry’s numbers. These accounts came from many places in the community and were not merely the effort of one group or another. So when the final portion of voting ended, we knew we would need to sit down and audit the poll results to determine the reality of the situation.
What we did was manually go through every account that voted and vetted it to determine whether it was legitimate or not. If it had a dupe account associated, we reached out to the account to inquire about the nature of these accounts. There were other factors we considered during this process to best aid us in weeding out fraudulent accounts that we knew were made to intentionally sway the numbers for one entry or another, though we’re hesitant to clarify all of our criteria in hopes that doing so will prevent fraudulent voters from working around what we have set in place.
And let me be clear: With the exception of Entry 1, every entry received fraud votes during Poll Doce.
This was a process we took great time and care to do to determine the most accurate numbers. And we understand that no matter what, there will be people unhappy or displeased with the outcome. We can only do so much to provide our findings and move on to the next stage. This process was not handled hastily, nor by one person. We did everything we could to be as fair, honest, and thorough as possible. That being the case, please be understanding and accept the final results, as we are entirely confident these are the most accurate numbers we have to present to you today.
So without further ado, allow me to present the final numbers for the entries in Poll Doce, as well as the winner of the Toa Helryx MOC contest.
Expand for the results
Name Final Count Percentage
Entry 2 357 35.07%
Entry 6 338 33.20%
Entry 5 141 13.85%
Entry 4 88 8.64%
Entry 3 56 5.50%
Entry 1 38 3.73%
Total Votes 1018
Winner: Helryx (Canon Contest #1: The First)
By TheUnderscoredDouble
And that does it. Congratulations to the winner, and to all of the hard work done by all of the entrants! We will be working to start the Art portion of the contest in the next day or so, so be on the look out for that.
Once again, thank you to everyone for their patience and understanding. We understand this wasn’t perfect, but we will continue to strive to do better. Thank you.
-Eljay
