SomeoneYouKnew

meh, I tried.
I did ok in one comp, but other ones I entered got cancelled.
I'm like bad luck or the kiss of death or something.
And my writing went sour.
Thank God I don't own a dog.
Poor puppy would have died just for fate to spite me.
lol, that's how you know they like you.
On the other hand, when they get out the cattle prod ... I think that part might actually enhance the use of the contest forum. As long as it doesn't leave too much of a "footprint", more activity in that forum might lead to more reads on the regular contests. And more votes on them. And more writers entering the regular contests.

But if there needs to be too many threads organizing things, and too many threads for the team contests, it might be counter productive to the regular contests.

With a little forethought, adding teams could probably be beneficial.

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Meadows

#1 synth

I think Mathieu's doing an excellent job as our third mod, so, uh, yay Mathieu!

speaking of Anton, where the heck did pooch get to anyway (and does anyone know how Troy is doing?)

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bassbeat77

The idea isn't that we have set teams full of only regulars. If someone shows up and wants to be involved with a team, then they'll be put on a team. Newbies can even be encouraged to join a team. But if they don't want to, then the contest forum will run normally for them and they won't really be affected. The only real difference to the contest forum would be that points are also recorded for teams (for those involved) and hopefully we'd get a few team comps going.

Meh... I'm tired and honestly don't know if this will work or not. That's why this is just being proposed as a trial run.

And agreed^ about Mat

#1 synth

I think there needs to be more flare in the layout of the forum. Anyway we can put like, pretty red colors or something somewhere?

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jiminizzle

red is all right.

And to hopes_downfall (name please?), i don't think anyone would be shunned. They could just ask to be included. It may even help people become better friends and improve comradery with newer writers. Maybe even if someone is good, it could play off the whole record thing and teams would try to "recruit/sign" writers??? dunno how that would go- opinions?

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hope's downfall

i'm ray. hi

and as long as there's an honest effort at inclusion, then it might be a cool idea. couldn't hurt to try??

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jiminizzle

that's what I was thinking. If it is presented as a friendly, open, no-real-pressure-besides-competitive-drive thing, it could be a nice addition.

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circular.parade

All right this discussion is really interesting. However, I see a few problems.

First, user implication. Everyone's pretty enthusiastic, but I doubt the contest forum is big enough to have, say, three teams of 5-7 players. I just set up the movie comp. And despite pushing the due date several times for people who didn't get it in, to a total of nearly a week an a half, I only had 50% of the entries in (6 out of 12). I see similar stuff happening all the time, exception made of quickie comps and comps that have short length requirements. Point being : We would need to make sure, for that to happen, to have about 15-20 active regulars in the contest forum, which seems kind of overly optimistic for now.

Secondly, the voting. We've had serious issues about that some time back and some singular cases still pop up every once in a while. A lot of people in S&L have egos and--(bare with me) without it being a bad thing at all--, it sometimes influence the voting. Being in "teams" or "labels" would, imho, enforce that pride feeling and void the voting. Then again, if we could have more votes that come from outside the competitors, it would help. I've been brainstorming about ways to get other people on UG to vote seriously in the contest forum, but the main problem could be people coming in, cross-reading pieces, and voting without really trying to understand them. Anyways.

Third, for it to be implemented, it would have to be in an existing forum (contests probably). Also, this is to double-check, but a secondary site would not be encouraged by the UG team here. For several loyalty and ad reasons, I believe, it would raise issues. Also, we'd need to find a way for : 1. people who don't want to be in this whole label/team thing to still be able to compete every now and then (occasional contestants) 2. new contestants to be able to join in whenever (tryouts?) 3.This thing to work without completely altering the contest forum as it is now.

Thanks if you've made it this far

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ZanasCross

I think we've already covered the first point you said. The idea is to make this an added "level" of competition for those who are here... so it wouldn't really involve ruling people out, and "free agent" writers could just participate in contests however they wanted... the only thing they couldn't do it team contests. I think one way to implement it would be to have certain comps that are "team allowed" in which team members can sign up and win points for their team and free lancers could just join and strut their stuff. Team members would just sign up with (*team name*) after their name or something. This allows new guys to compete against team members with no problems.

The voting thing is what I was worried about... I mean, how can we stop people from voting for their teams pieces? I say that you absolutely cannot vote for your teams piece... the team leader will know if you did and report it. Then it comes down to whoever got the most votes from the other team. Negative team points could be given for thjose who vote for a team piece. Problem is, this wouldn't work in 1v1s or finals of two pieces... so I'm stumped there.

As to the separate site, Think we could ditch that in favor of a UG group for tallying points etc. In a way it could be like the secret panel, in that people know it exist, but you have to be drafted into a team to get in. Each team could have a separate group for collaboration and general mayhem, then in the spirit of rivalry, the main group could be a place for smack talk and just "hanging out" with everyone involved. As long as the members don't get caught up in the teams, and still put effort into S&L main forum (which I don't see being a problem) everything should be cool.

I think "drafting" would be a neat idea. If someone comes in mid season and has some talent, each team could start talking to them... trying to get them to sign onto their team... so we would pick permanent teams at the beginning and then add on as we go unless things get too lopsided. Each team could do recruiting based on how they work as a team, their points and past championships, etc.. Then, at the start of the next season, everyone who wants in can make a commitment to a team or something. We could even work in player trades etc if gets to lopsided or whatever.

More later, I have to go now... but feel free to respond to what I've said.

EDIT: and yeah your point about numbers in the comps and voting is very valid Mat, I don't know how to work around that.

*Good Idea, Fred. You seem to have started a mudslide of creativity.

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The 2 problems I foresee:

We've tried groups in the past. It failed. However the pros suggested this time do counteract this to some degree. The proposed profiles for each group + the main profile page removes its existence from the contest forum, except for the elements of labeling certain people with a group during comp sign-ups and 'team' based comps.

However as mentioned the voting now comes into play, despite the trust and respect we all have for each other the contest forum is still taken slightly seriously, thus biased voting is inevitable imo. In a situation where 2 opposing teams face off in a final, they can't vote for their own, will not vote for the other team and as a result, no votes get cast. Or should there be a 3rd wild card entry in the final, not of the standard as the other 2, they would win since both teams would vote for them to avoid anything, or not vote at all.

I stated the obvious, but this is a serious drawback, find a way around this and it'd be worth trying.

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ZanasCross

Anyone solution-ize this? I'd like to see this happen, if not just for a couple months for a trial run... but I'm out of ideas that don't just involve a castration threat.

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hope's downfall

^^hmm, that's good in theory, but it would be slightly less effective on people like me. i.e. girls.

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roamingbard13

^ lets just say that isn't really true...and you should be more scared than the guys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oophorectomy

anywho, that is all.

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bassbeat77

I haven't thought this idea over too much yet, but...

Maybe it's as simple as having captains that can be trusted enough to keep an eye on this problem. We can set the rule that you can't vote for your own team, and if a captain notices that someone on their team isn't voting in other contests then they can mention it to them. If it continues to be a problem then they can kick that person off of the team.

Either that or maybe having one or two people who don't plan on competing to act as referees for the whole thing and keep an eye on people's voting habits.

I think the first option would be more likely.

That's all I've come up with.

samoo

(edit. i wrote this in a roundabout way the first time)

basically, why don't mods just edit the title of a poem, song, whatever when somebody reports the thread starter for not following the rules? the whole reporting and closing threads deal happens ridiculously frequently. why not give the new guys a chance rather than closing their thread immediately when they make the tiniest mistake? show some love.

my two cents.

circular.parade

^sometimes we do move the threads. Sometimes I do change the title when it's a minimal mistake. Whenever I see that the person made an effort.

Sometimes people don't even try though. Which is annoying. It's a forum, there are rules, and people that act "it's MY internet I can do what I want" wouldn't last too long around here anyways.

That's just me. However, seriously, the main point is that people who don't simply name their song correctly haven't read the rules. It's fair to think that they will also bump their threads, flame, etc. We've seen a lot of those and deal with them every day, believe me.

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The Hurt Within

Yeah, further to what Mat has said, I started to close the threads because it is a shock tactic, if we edit the titles and err on the side of niceness then perhaps the message wouldn't get through. Whereas if you close their threads they are more inclined to read the rules to stop it again, then they actually read all the rules instead of just saying, "yeah I get it" then obviously they don't. Hence why I also make a point of not stating what rule they broke when closing their threads, might seem harsh but it does work, very rarely do we have repeat offenders.


As for the team thing, I am willing to give it a go when Season VI starts. It seems the majority are for the idea. I personally am against it, I fear that the already low vote count will further be effected by the 'teams'.

The only problem with saying that team members cannot vote for their own team means that they would rather abstain from voting at all than vote for a rival team. I guess the only way around it would be to have a separate set of contests just for the teams, perhaps where the whole team helps write pieces etc...Regular comps still run on an individual basis and have no association with the teams what-so-ever.

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jiminizzle

that's sort of what I was thinking. As a side points system for pride that you can participate in if you want.

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bassbeat77

I won't be surprised if the whole thing doesn't work, but I figure it won't hurt to give it a try.