Zoria: Personally, I think you're looking at this from the wrong angle. You seem to be suggesting that best thing if you try another contest is to be more controlling. You had this particular idea for how things should look, and you're frustrated that it didn't go according to plan. I can certainly empathize with you there. But you also should be thinking about a format that isn't too constricting and allows people some freedom to be creative. It seems to me that the contest would be most successful if you had many entries from people excited about their projects, rather than people wondering if it fit the theme.
I should mention here, that my intent for the contest was to inspire people to make quests based on this kind of theme. That was the entire point, and if it was more of a general thing, (1) I would not have been likely to host it, and (2) I would have had far fewer concerns about fairness.
There is quite a lot of thought that goes into adjudication on rules for something that's themed from the onset, and I did my best to be fair to all participants, not allowing too much deviation, but allowing enough for it to be interesting.
In addition, I think you misread, or misunderstand my intent. It's not about being stubborn, or refusing to consider a rules challenge: It's about sticking with my initial decision, and walking away from endlessly debating the point. When I arbitrate other matters, I listen to the arguments, and make a decision. The decision stands, and I don't modify it.
That is what I failed to do here.
That may not sound very...democratic...but I think we all know my views on democracy and endless, circular argument.
I'm not frustrated over the number of entries, or whether it went 'according to plan' though. I'm frustrated over the whining, and bickering, from both sides. Some people pestering me to keep this extension, and others wanting me to retcon it back to the original specification. I should have fixed it to 7th February, as I originally wanted. Caving to requests from participants is what caused this debacle. Once I made the decision, it was already too late to remedy it.
It also bothers me that the primary complaint about a deadline concession, is coming from the participant to whom I granted a major rules exception from the onset. This alone makes me wish to avoid any other major rules offsets in a future event, as clearly members can't comprehend that by granting an exception to one person, I may choose to do likewise for someone else.
The category of exception may feel different to you, but a rules modification, is a rules modification. It affects different people, in varying ways; and may feel unfair to some participants. That's the nature of approving a requested exception.
That's what I was referencing too... I had to weigh if by allowing some people more leniency in
theme, people that stuck with the original theme who wanted me to keep the later deadline were owed that concession. I feel that they were.
Why do you need a formal participants list? Shouldn't people be able to submit to the contest if they feel like it, and back out if they feel like it, without you needing to keep track of it?
Simply because people wanted me to list them, apparently to match the standard PZC contest format. I didn't really care about it, until I was asked why I didn't update it. I thought the thread would speak for itself, and I'd list the participants at the end, once I received the entries. That was the simplest way to handle it.
Why do you feel the need to control this so closely? Wouldn't it make more sense, and be much less stressful for you, to take a more hands off approach? Start the contest topic, keep people appraised of any major changes, and then just host the polls and announce the winners?
Let me see... Until two days ago, that is precisely what I did. I posted changes in the thread, and let people do what they wanted. This, is the result.
As someone who's hosted my fair share of events here on PureZC, I can't help but feel like you're so focused on your expectations for the contest that you're overlooking the fact that your participants are here to have a good time. You should be trying to facilitate that, rather than getting in the way of it. I feel you should be granting exceptions happily and enjoying the process of watching your contest grow into more than you expected, rather than trying to force it to conform to something that not everyone enjoys.
...which is precisely what I did. It's simply impossible to please everyone with the same decisions.
Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but I recall granting a few exceptions for you during the Fall Expo, so I know you've been in the shoes of those asking you for accommodations.
Correct. I also made it clear that if you didn't wish to permit the entry, that was fine; and if you wanted me to submit poll questions (despite being somewhat out of scope with the standard fare), that I would submit them. If you ruled my entry as invalid, I would have been fine with that; and not spent a few days debating the decision.
I also handled it
privately.
This could likely have been solved with a PM formally objecting to the change, rather than debating it in the thread. Once it is made public, everyone involved has a hand in my ultimate decision. it didn't help that I had the added confusion of multiple project participants asking for different rulings.
I didn't know at the time that they were arguing for different entries, and in fact, I'm not sure I would have encouraged multiple entries from one participant at all; but I never made a ruling on that, as I wasn't aware that anyone wanted to submit more than one quest. I still had to rule in favour of the majority, in the end.
As far as the deadline thing goes ... Is it really so hard to understand the perspective of those who worked hard to finish the quest within an allotted time, only to have it extended?
Part of the fun here is time management, and this feels a bit like punishing those who worked within the allotted time and made design choices based on it, while rewarding those who didn't manage the same feat.
Sure, I understand. What people who argue this don't grasp, is that I had some of the same complaints about theme exceptions. People felt punished for not being able to do other things from the onset. I figured it was a reasonable trade-off, to be lenient. I recall that around four participants wanted/needed the extension. That's about half of those I know to still be involved.
It wasn't simply a snap-decision, that I made because I felt like doing it. I spent a couple
days considering every ruling that I had to make for this event...thing, before posting my decisions.
Adding an extra third to a month long contest is far from insignificant. If the extension were made clear earlier, it would have benefited everyone and not been such a problem, but with the communication issues and the late announcement I can understand why some people are frustrated.
Extra third? It's an extra 9% over the correction that I had planned to make. I'm also willing to bet that it won't amount to very much. If it does, it allows this to be a contest with more than three finished entries. I thought that would also be important.
That's my two cents, anyway. I do hope that in spite of everything that's happened here, the contest ends up being fun in the end for those who are still participating. And for Zoria or anyone else who's thinking of hosting similar contests, why not look at this as less a failure and more of a learning experience?
It certainly is that; and I never said it was a failure: Those are the words of others. I said it was a train-wreck, but that isn't the same thing at all, at all. It is an automatic success if even one decent quest was created purely to enter the event; whether the event itself was a smooth process; or hellish to manage.
That's the real victory: Something new, and unusual for people to play, and enjoy.
Edited by ZoriaRPG, 05 February 2016 - 08:18 AM.
