Post-SC Discussion and Ideas Topic

[Rigger in Chief]

So with the First Annual Elite New-Age Summer Contest in the books I thought it'd be nice to list things that went well and things that overall went poorly throughout the contest and how we can improve for SC 2017. Real quick: The streams stopped midway through the contest due to personal issues that were occuring at home. These problems WILL be rectified by next SC

Feel free to post any criticisms about the contest.

[sɐm]

11:37 Austinthegamer: inb4 Austin shitty contest host pls ban this guy

[T+]

11:37 Austinthegamer: inb4 Austin shitty contest host pls ban this guy

[Wodahs-Reklaw]

Voting should be required, or else you get a 50$ fine, for which if you don't pay you lose your Elite accounts.

[TheFlash]

Ideas for next time:

All matches start/end at the same time.  Designated backup host(s) w/coordination to avoid gaps/mishaps.  I'm not sure what the deal was this year but I found match start times extremely unpredictable and often delayed -- having a helper could have fixed most of this.

For auditability, there should be a complete record of all votes in an authoritative source.  At a glance, I noticed some match tallies posted on the bracket site differed from the board vote totals, I'm guessing due to some kind of out-of-band voting procedure.  All users should be able to see whether they voted in a particular match and who they voted for.  An admin should be able to see the full result in case any questions come up.  Ineligible votes should be filtered with a system in place rather than guesswork.

Real results posted with breakdowns (not just a video, definitely not text inside images).  It would be basically impossible to recreate the official results for every match just from the data currently in the forum (polls + results posts).  You can only go back and discover something 10 years later if the data was laid out in the first place.

Host doesn't run his own matches.

Can't vote in your own match.  Or if this is really desired for some reason, it should be crystal clear from the outset that it is allowed.

Vote of the day is 1 or possibly 2 hand-picked votes rather than just a splat image of them all. Also don't reveal who they voted for since some VotDs are easy to pin to a user on writing style or content.

Bring back spreads! Over like Grover!

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Also someone eventually needs to do the work to integrate this contest with our super awesome full historical record of all past Summer Contest matches, here:

https://contest.the-elite.net/

If you want to volunteer, shout it out!  It's a bit sad we didn't use the Vote Machine this year, it would have taken care of most of the points I made above.

[TheFlash]

Also, make First Vote a thing again. Hype!!

[OHMSS]

I actually very much prefer seeing all voters' comments instead of just an admin's irrel VotD selection (different people like different comments).

And regarding Thingy's anonymity concerns, come one, anyone can choose to write a comment in a way that doesn't reveal identity or write no comment at all if privacy is such a concern. The focus should be on fun, not on civil rights. #FullTransparencyAgainstTurncoats

I agree that the schedule and consistency of published results and threads seemed chaotic.

Thanks for hosting though Austin

[DYM]

A huge thanks to Austin for taking out the time and effort to organize and host this. There were a few problems, but overall it was run pretty nicely. Having said that, here are my complains:

- Jimbo revealed who one VoTDer was. While this isn't a big deal, I don't think it should be done in any circumstance.
- Some matches weren't actually 24 hours long. They were closed too early. If there's ever a real life problem that shows up, then don't close it BEFORE 24 hours pass. Close it AFTER.
- Use this again? It's more automated and gives better results. However what I do like about the current way of doing it was the table of VoTDs. That was great. I agree it shouldn't be "pick whatever the admin thinks is a rel VoTD".
- Make it worth celebrating when someone win ffs.
- There will be a Super Ace contest discussion show next year with some special guests.
- Stop rigging some of the matches.

[Jimbo]

-  Jimbo revealed who one VoTDer was. While this isn't a big deal, I don't think it should be done in any circumstance.

The vote of the day was causing some huge controversy and hurt feelings.

[DYM]

The "victim" of that VoTD said he wasn't expecting you to release it like that. You shouldn't do it no matter what the situation is. What if I pressurised you into releasing that one VoTD who said I was a dumb eliter? Would you have done that as well?

I was investigating this case and was pretty disappointed you gave it away like that. Even Austin didn't do it.

[SGT RAGEQUIT]

Either have some reward to the winner or get rid of it altogether

[TheFlash]

I actually very much prefer seeing all voters' comments instead of just an admin's irrel VotD selection (different people like different comments).

Vote of the Day was previously a competition.  At the end of the event a leaderboard would show who had earned the most VotD nods throughout.

If we're just sharing every comment made with votes, call it Vote Comments instead of Vote of the Day.

Alternatively, present all Vote Comments anonymously and allow people to +1 them to determine a VotD and a season VotD champ.

All the mini-contests attached to the Summer Contest:
First Vote
Vote of the Day
Predictions
Spread Betting
Iron Man
are great, because they let individual users feel like they are playing a game instead of just robotically voting.  Some people don't care about these at all, and are happy to just vote and move on.  For others, it is a good draw to bring them back day after day and care more about the result.

Most of the burden is on the host (or his designees) to keep the hype alive throughout the event.  Consistent updates with some flair goes a long way.