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Proposed Changes to Site Events and Feedback


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Poll: Proposed Changes to Site Events and Feedback

Would you like to see site events continue?

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Which of the current site events would you like to see continue the most?

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Which of the current site events would you be most likely to submit to or participate in?

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#16 Mani Kanina

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Posted 24 March 2024 - 07:30 AM

I think this is the biggest problem plaguing these sorts of contests - people don't know what sort of critique to give in fear of "empty words", while others feel less compelled to enter because they're not getting feedback on work they submitted. It goes both ways - what point is there sharing work you've done if all everyone's going to do is vote and be done with it? That's not to say you have to give a response every time a new Screenshot of the Week/Map of the Month/etc is out, but any contribution makes a difference.
 
I think that's also part of the reason why Year in Review did not succeed at all. Asking people to give their thoughts on what was good about 2023 - rather than just a list of nominees to vote for - was potentially a step too far for the community at this point in time.

I can't speak for anyone else, but personally I've been poised to just not leave feedback at all. Generally when I've done so in the past it has not been appreciated and I see no value in it for anyone should I continue then.

As for the year in review, I think two major factors lead me to not even bother submitting any nominations.

1. I simply didn't engage with much here during 2023, and not all that much happened. This left me with little that I could even justify nominating for the majority of categories.
2. Nominees demanded a justification or prompt, which is good in theory but I simply couldn't muster the motivation to write anything.

Past Superlatives have also kind of set the stage. I personally tend to find that they amount to little more than a popularity contest; something which I don't derive any value from. It might be prudent to ask other community members of something like this is even wanted, considering turn up was so low. But then, that's what this thread is for.
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#17 Taco Chopper

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Posted 24 March 2024 - 08:24 AM

You're quite right about the Superlatives being a bit lacking in quality, which was why we tried moving away from the popularity contest format. Like I said earlier in the thread, it was a mistake to try and reinvent the format when we hadn't consulted the community on it at all - which is exactly why this thread exists now.

 

That said, as previously mentioned by David, we'll be looking to place focus on the Monthly Feature anyway, which would've essentially been what Year in Review aimed to be anyway (except it's a monthly retrospective instead of yearly), except that the finer details will be handled by staff rather than asking the community why they think x quest is good.


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#18 Hergiswi

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Posted 24 March 2024 - 02:04 PM

i think i would echo a lot of what has already been said in this thread. people (including myself) love the idea of SotW et al., but clearly we don't love it enough to actually contribute to it and make sure it's thriving. it would be a shame to see it stop, but it might be a bigger shame to see it limp along until we have to put it out of its misery. somebody mentioned that people don't care about the competition aspect as much anymore, and i think that's probably true. it's not necessarily a good or bad thing, i think it's just indicative of the way personalities and site culture have shifted. if we had a swarm of zc newbies show up who were super competitive, it'd probably make for a fun weekly competition. however, people are probably more into just seeing content at this point in time, not necessarily ranking it against other content.

 

again, to echo what's already been said, i think there are probably ways we could adapt SotW (and other competitions) into something newer. 90-95% of the voting takes place within the first 24 hours of the contest being posted, so maybe there's a way to leverage that. or maybe there could be some kind of incentive to actually provide thoughts/commentary instead of just clicking a poll option. i feel like zelda classic has enough of a critical mass of quality content at this point that we don't have the same need to push the envelope of quality as we did, say, a decade ago. now we can sample different quests of different styles, both graphically and playstyle-wise. i don't know what the answers are right now of how we could leverage this stuff, but i'm sure we could brainstorm something as a community. obviously nobody here (or at least most) don't need to be convinced of the validity of still using a forum in the year 2024, so at least we don't have that hurdle.

 

my gut reaction to all of this is to be sad, because it's how things have been for over 2 decades. however, upon a little bit of reflection, it doesn't have to be a sad thing. change can be good and although i'm like most people in that i resist change, sometimes it's just better to usher in new things and let the past be a healthy memory.


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#19 Twilight Knight

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Posted 24 March 2024 - 04:58 PM

Out of curiosity, do you have any ideas as to what integrating the contests with Discord could look like?

I didn't read any of the following posts (me wants to sleep), so unsure if someone made the same suggestion already.

 

I have zero experience with Discord plugins or bots, but I'd assume they can also do some API calls. So being able to vote on the contest in Discord is one of the things I'd imagine.
So: the contest gets posted there; you can vote for a screen and possibly be prompted for some feedback; and the vote registers in the PZC forums as a real vote by an API call.

 

Just now I think that'd be pretty hard to keep secure, how to prevent people from voting twice (once in Discord and once in the forums itself) for example? And it'd be a lot of work too, as the forums are surely not compatible with increasing votes by some API call. Still, it'd be supreme and a dream world  :awesome:

 

I'm sure someone else has some more sensible suggestions here.

 

 

Edit: how about an even more simple version that we'd just place the contest in Discord (so f.e. the screens submitted to SotW/Screen Rebirth, or the quest for Quest Club, the enemy concept for EotM etc) and subsequently a link to the PureZC forums? :-p
It might get more reach that way


Edited by Twilight Knight, 24 March 2024 - 05:01 PM.

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#20 Mani Kanina

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Posted 24 March 2024 - 05:05 PM

somebody mentioned that people don't care about the competition aspect as much anymore, and i think that's probably true. it's not necessarily a good or bad thing, i think it's just indicative of the way personalities and site culture have shifted. if we had a swarm of zc newbies show up who were super competitive, it'd probably make for a fun weekly competition. however, people are probably more into just seeing content at this point in time, not necessarily ranking it against other content.


That's a good point I hadn't fully considered.

Both, SotW and MotM could just be converted into one singular Display Showcase or something. With more of a focus on promoting what you're working on. That could also open the door to having a gif or a short video of the thing you want to show off as well.

Well, food for thought anyway. I'd be nice if more users chimed in here (on the topic in general).
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#21 coolgamer012345

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Posted 24 March 2024 - 07:30 PM

After having read through some of the other ideas here, here's my schizo contest suggestion for SotW (ideas in descending order of importance):

 

- Have the voting done on discord, since that is where the vast majority of community activity is taking place now. There are discord bots that allow you to do polls, so I'm sure something could be rigged up in like a day to get this running.

- Post the contest no sooner than one week between getting a certain number of entries (e.g. 3-5). If activity picks up, this sorts itself out to being weekly. If it stays quiet, then nothing much is really lost. If things are very quiet then a reminder message could be sent out occasionally, just less frequently than when contest organizers currently request more entries.

- Merge SoTW with Screenshot Rebirth, but the theme is completely optional. A theme gives people some structure to build on, but since both contests have kind of been dry, pooling them together might help with more activity.

 

If the contest is ran through Discord, then it might help to have a thread on the forums that is updated with the winner, for archival purposes.



#22 Taco Chopper

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Posted 24 March 2024 - 08:58 PM

i think i would echo a lot of what has already been said in this thread. people (including myself) love the idea of SotW et al., but clearly we don't love it enough to actually contribute to it and make sure it's thriving. it would be a shame to see it stop, but it might be a bigger shame to see it limp along until we have to put it out of its misery. somebody mentioned that people don't care about the competition aspect as much anymore, and i think that's probably true. it's not necessarily a good or bad thing, i think it's just indicative of the way personalities and site culture have shifted. if we had a swarm of zc newbies show up who were super competitive, it'd probably make for a fun weekly competition. however, people are probably more into just seeing content at this point in time, not necessarily ranking it against other content.
 
my gut reaction to all of this is to be sad, because it's how things have been for over 2 decades. however, upon a little bit of reflection, it doesn't have to be a sad thing. change can be good and although i'm like most people in that i resist change, sometimes it's just better to usher in new things and let the past be a healthy memory.

A few months ago, I wasn't sure about the possibility of letting SotW be retired but I'm definitely more at ease with it now than ever. That said, I have the suspicion that SotW has been limping to an end for a few years now. I think the first four or five months that it was back last year wasn't necessarily a false dawn, but rather people genuinely enjoying that it'd come back after nearly a year in purgatory, while other factors that happened in the community have contributed to it reaching this point of a proposed retirement of the contest. It was pretty disheartening to see SotW 800 get 12 entries one week, but only to have to delay SotW 801 due to a lack of submissions the following week. For me that doesn't scream "I'm submitting because I want to be part of Screenshot of the Week", but rather "I'm submitting because I want to be part of the Screenshot of the Week milestone".

 

As you said, it's a shift in site culture and the personalities that are around here now - and maybe that's something people that have been here forever (like you and I) have to accept. Change sucks. Resist change always.

 

- Have the voting done on discord, since that is where the vast majority of community activity is taking place now. There are discord bots that allow you to do polls, so I'm sure something could be rigged up in like a day to get this running.

- Post the contest no sooner than one week between getting a certain number of entries (e.g. 3-5). If activity picks up, this sorts itself out to being weekly. If it stays quiet, then nothing much is really lost. If things are very quiet then a reminder message could be sent out occasionally, just less frequently than when contest organizers currently request more entries.

(this is also a response to Twilight Knight bc discord stuff)

 

I think a lot of using Discord for these kinds of events would also depend on whether anyone would use them to begin with. The event dropbox has seen some activity, but I'm unsure whether that's a case of it being utilised as often as we would have expected it to be? We also have the Event Announcements role set up, but aside from myself and David, only nine members of the 400+ users on the PureZC server have that role assigned. The ping roles themselves are underutilised, but I also assume people dislike being pinged and would rather see announcements in their own time.
 
I suppose what I'm saying is... a Discord pivot could work, but it's also incredibly likely we'll be in the same position now a few months down the line. I hate being negative about these ideas being put out here, but I'm skeptical that it'd bring a massive change, if any. 

 

I don't think changing the schedule would benefit it at all either. Through one reason or another 2021 only had five contests, with a big factor in that being lack of entries. I would expect that to be consistent if we moved SotW to a "whenever we have the minimum entries" schedule. 

 

- Merge SoTW with Screenshot Rebirth, but the theme is completely optional. A theme gives people some structure to build on, but since both contests have kind of been dry, pooling them together might help with more activity.

 How would you feel if Screen Rebirth stayed over SotW but the schedule shifted? The bar for entry is a lot lower with the base screen, and everyone who enters would be working off of the same baseline as a result.

 

again, to echo what's already been said, i think there are probably ways we could adapt SotW (and other competitions) into something newer. 90-95% of the voting takes place within the first 24 hours of the contest being posted, so maybe there's a way to leverage that. or maybe there could be some kind of incentive to actually provide thoughts/commentary instead of just clicking a poll option. i feel like zelda classic has enough of a critical mass of quality content at this point that we don't have the same need to push the envelope of quality as we did, say, a decade ago. now we can sample different quests of different styles, both graphically and playstyle-wise. i don't know what the answers are right now of how we could leverage this stuff, but i'm sure we could brainstorm something as a community. obviously nobody here (or at least most) don't need to be convinced of the validity of still using a forum in the year 2024, so at least we don't have that hurdle.

I do wonder what the incentive would be to get people to just even provide thoughts, be it positive, constructive or otherwise. The users who do use the forums know their way around them and what they want to say, but just what would they feel comfortable with in terms of providing any sort of commentary or feedback?

 

Both, SotW and MotM could just be converted into one singular Display Showcase or something. With more of a focus on promoting what you're working on. That could also open the door to having a gif or a short video of the thing you want to show off as well.

That's precisely what we're aiming to do with the Monthly Feature if we retire SotW and MotM. It'd focus on the work that the community's done, rather than any sort of competitive angle. The way forward is looking more like being through content curation rather than contest curation, but it's also a matter of the community wanting to engage with it as well. There's no point shifting to a new focus if people just aren't interested in engaging.


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