Help Decide the Best August Articles

[Brad Jones]

Brad!
Item article #2 and article #3 are linking to the same article.

Thanks. Link is now fixed.

Brad!

[Brad Jones]

May I know why October 14th, why not the whole of October?

I figured all of September and half of October was enough. I can stretch this to the end of October if others agree.

Brad!

[DHillard]

That doesn't seem fair.

People who submitted an article in August only had to compete against one month of submissions.

Now you're saying if you submit in September, you are competing against two months worth of submissions.

I think if this is going to be an ongoing competition, the playing field should be leveled. It ought to be apples against apples.

[PeejAvery]

That doesn't seem fair.

People who submitted an article in August only had to compete against one month of submissions.

There are two sides to every coin. Yes, you now have to compete with two months. But August articles only had one month to get a good article out. Now submitters have twice the time to make an article twice as good.

[DHillard]

... Now submitters have twice the time to make an article twice as good.

I must remember that logic the next time my work deadlines are approaching. I'll be able to double my time, and get twice the accolades.

Brilliant.

[Brad Jones]

We are going to need to work a few kinks out..... So please give me a bit of flexibility while we do. For this round, we will not push the date out any farther that what I previously stated. If we are going to continue this, then we need to work out a few kinks....

There are a few issues - (Some comments for discussion)

There were few articles submitted the first few weeks of September, which is why I initially slotted October 14th.

Also impacting that date was the gap in time that it takes between getting an article and having it reviewed to be posted. If you submitted an article on September 30th, it likely didn't make it onto the site until October 1st or later. We said things had to be published in the date range, but that is not controllable by you, so that seems even more unfair...

I have to verify that I can get the money to continue to offer these incentives. I believe I'll be able to as long as it shows that more people are submitting articles.

Dealing with voting and such takes time. Doing it every month is brutal on my schedule, so to do it monthly, I'll have to get help with the process.

I've got ideas for smoothing this out, but they will take some time. I'm open to comments.

Brad!

[JonnyPoet]

Also impacting that date was the gap in time that it takes between getting an article and having it reviewed to be posted. If you submitted an article on September 30th, it likely didn't make it onto the site until October 1st or later. We said things had to be published in the date range, but that is not controllable by you, so that seems even more unfair...

I think for a competition the date of input should count all others would be a problem. What when an article which is cruel long needs more then one week from submission to be published and would be submitted on the 10 th of october but published on the 18th because the lectors had to much to do and did some shorter cycles in before. If you count the date of publishing, then this article would not be counted but the author had no influence on that time lag and would feel like betrayed of his chance. Maybe a two month cycle would be good. A competition can start when the last period has just ended. So when one period ends peple should have time to read the articles voting then can start 14 days after Closing day and the result of the votings could be published in the end of the next month.

To get a better picture an example: ( dd/mm/yyyy)
competition start 1.1.2008 deadline 20.2.2008 Voting start 15.3.2008
voting end 20.3.2008 results 31.3.08
competition start 28.2.08 deadline 20.4.08 voting 15 5.08 results 30.5.08
competition start 1.5.08 deadline 20.6.08 voting start 15.7.08 end20.7.08 results published 31.07.08

I hope you can follow my ideas about interlaced periods here. Basically this can be done in shorther cycles too, but thats depending on the money which is reservated for such an action. Basically if you want to do it regular whats not good would be periods in between wich doesn't count to any of the competitions, asmaybe in this time the amount of articles would go down. The other possbility would be to do it random..
In this case I think authors wouldn't wait for the next competition.

So this are my two cents about it. Hope there is anything useful for you.

[JonnyPoet]

That doesn't seem fair.

People who submitted an article in August only had to compete against one month of submissions.

Sorry I canot see any unfairness in it. One competition is gone the next starts. Every competionion has its rules and its time to fulfill it. And everybody aagin had the chance to get a good article out. There are thousends of themes available so there is no problem for anyone to write a new one. It would be a problem if some authors would have two month time and others oly one month - in the same competition. But this is simple a new game. New game new chance. Come on.

[DHillard]

Sorry I canot see any unfairness in it. ... Come on.

Well, let me help you see.

Assume, there are 3 winners per game "time frame".

One time frame is 30 days (the August contest)

The next time frame is 60 days (September and October)

We will assume there are 20 articles published each 30 days.

The first contest has 3 winners for 20 articles.

The 2nd contest has 3 winners for 40 articles.

Is my math totally screwed up or don't you stand a better chance of winning in the first contest? Come on.

[DHillard]

Brad,

I'm not knocking your contest. You need to run it as you see fit, and as time allows. This is not what I'm replying about. I'm replying to the ones who don't or can't see the two situations as unequal.

I'm done.

David

[JonnyPoet]

Well, let me help you see.
Assume, there are 3 winners per game "time frame".
......
The 2nd contest has 3 winners for 40 articles.
Is my math totally screwed up or don't you stand a better chance of winning in the first contest? Come on.

Mathematics especuially statistics could be used to proof everything. The first truth is, you simple do asumptions that cannot be proven. Who says that the double of time will bring a double amount of people publishing an article.
So it could also happen that we also have only 20 articles in the two month period. Or you could get 200 in one month because its just holidaytime and people have time to write an article like me last month.
In my case I could easily do this in August, but very much more difficult now, because the job needs work too.
So mathematics with variables used arbitrary just as they fits to proof an idea, is not good. The whole thing is only an idea, nothing else.
The truth is: All of us had a chance to write an article in August,some did, some not. Now there is again a possibility to write an article and again a chance to win, and again everybody has the chance to win.
If one has done the August competition he maybe would have had a better chance then in the next one, maybe not, nobudy knows. Maybe when there is another competition done at chrismastime lots of people needs to do family concerning things and have less time again. Is it unfair then to have a competition during chrismas time as there are less people doing an article nd that one who does have a better chance again. - Or maybe its to hot in Vienna to work on an article so it would be unfair for me to have a competition in that time.

No, none of that. If you have the same rules for all in one game then it is fair. You never in life get reallly the same conditions twice in life.
If you are playing games where the win is devided to the amount of winners. like in Bingo I think or here in Austria the national lottery. Sometimes they have a bigger win then in another time, sometimes they have one winner who gets all the mones, sometimes they have 10 winners and every of them only gets 10 percent of the win. Not fair ?
But maybe the 10 % are more then another win someone has had alone.

You are on the wrong track. The simplicity behind all that is. You have a game and you have rules, And you can choose to play the game or not, your decision. and you may win or loose which maybe a bit has to do with luck - thats what I can accept.

Doing an article within two month and having maybe more articles there reduces the chance for everybody who playes the game - and this way it is FAIR. As told from another one you have the chance to do a much better workout if you have more time and this way increase the chance to win, even when there are 1000 articles. May the best get the price. Next time - next try - next luck. Take it as a game instead of a calculation.

[JonnyPoet]

I'm replying to the ones who don't or can't see the two situations as unequal.

I can see that there are different conditions for every contest. Thats quite normal in life. But different conditions are not automatically unfair. Thats what I wanted to tell you. Different conditions are unfair when the different people in one and the same game have different conditions. Wheater goes bad during a skiing competition. This may be unfair for that one who got bad weather. When the weather is bad from the beginning for all people in the competition this isn't unfair as all have the same bad fog. It also isn't declared to be unfair, when the next competition has nice waether again. Nobody would say - this skiers have had better chances to win. In both weatherconditions simple one could be the best, thats all to that and in both competitions all had the same chance to win. OK ?

[exterminator]

I think the best way to deal with this is to make it a quarterly event. 3 months of publishing times, and the month next to that quarter be the open poll duration based on which you decide the winner. Keep it strict with the dates in that only the publishing date is considered and not the submission date to be included in that quarters poll. If it gets delayed by a day or two - no worries - have it considered for the next quarter rather than bend the dates to include them into the past one.

If you need to, you have various options:

1. Increase the winners (3 per month, so 9 for a quarter)
2. Keep the count of winners (3) constant and increase the individual award money.

Both should be okay. Since it would be quarterly based - you will have more article submissions to consider the best ones from (you might be having this on a monthly basis as well but it will be of course more than that).

Quarterly event would give writers to spend more time on their articles - you can pass them on back to authors on first review with enhancements or ways to better it etc etc. Or if the writers are confident and have got it good to go then they can have more submissions per quarter, no problems at all and their all submissions might get good enough to win something. Also, I think this way, it will be more manageable to for you and considering irregularities of members visiting the forums - will help nullify this effect to certain extent.

On the whole, I think it has more benefits.

[dglienna]

but, the contest was for best article in AUGUST. I think that the contest should stand without the added entries.

Consider new submissions since then eligible for a future contest. Maybe three months? November 30th?

[JonnyPoet]

but, the contest was for best article in AUGUST. I think that the contest should stand without the added entries.

I think there is no problem with the August contest. Its done. Brad is looking forward how to do for the future.

Consider new submissions since then eligible for a future contest. Maybe three months? November 30th?

I think considering new submissions since 1.Sept is also fine, brad has to decide for this contest where the deadline is. pllaced. In the moment he has said 14 th October I think. I'm not sure if submission date or publishing date is meant. IMHO submission date is something which can be controled by the autor. Publishing date is complicated that way, that you never know, if you will be within the contest or not. Whats when you submit on first of october a very long article and it needs until 16 th of oct to publish it ? Out of the game -not so good idea. Better you have a deadline and all which are submitted within deadline are in the contest, maybe some of them then are published some days after the deadline. But the lectors in that case also would not have to hurry and you get a good quality out. Telling people - ok you will be in the next contest is a good idea, but whats when Jupiter media decides to finish money for contests ?
You would have send an article within the deadline but would not have had a chance to be in the contest, for reasons you are unable to handle. all games I know are working with a submission deadline.