WAR SEASON II: Discussion

[akdude]

You can keep the tokens forever! Its just the little Team Trainer banner under your avatar that gets removed after WAR :)

But...but...I wanna keep that too.... <.<

I have my reasons Sarah >.>

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

Haha I know, I wanna keep mine too xD But sadly it means there are just way too many usergroups to deal with for the admins. :( Plus that space can then be used for whatever fun event we have next! :D

[akdude]

Haha I know, I wanna keep mine too xD But sadly it means there are just way too many usergroups to deal with for the admins. :( Plus that space can then be used for whatever fun event we have next! :D

Fine! But I'm keeping the banner! =P

[Felly]

Firstly, congratulations to the top three teams and to everyone else for participating! Y'all showed some serious dedication to the forum here the past four weeks, and I think that's great.

While I'm here though, I'd like to make some suggestions for next year's WAR. I feel like I saw a few problems this year, and I hope they can be corrected for next year. I'm not trying to start any drama here, just bringing some things that I felt were issues to the table with the hopes that they'll be fixed in some way, somehow. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade here or get results changed or whatever, I'm just speaking my mind and hoping for resolution.

• Extend the weeks of WAR to 2 weeks instead of just one.
I feel like a week is way too short of a time to get things done. For me, I felt like I was scrambling to do several events during weeks 1 and 2 when I was entering a lot more categories (before I started feeling overextended), and I wasn't able to really put my best foot forward. If we extend each week of WAR to two weeks, we could have a Sunday to the following Wednesday entry period with the Thursday through Saturday to be used for judging. I felt like judges were kinda rushed this year as well and rushed to get results up. The extended time for entries would possibly result in more entries (or just higher quality entries) and allow people to enter more events, and the extended time for judging would give people more of a chance to judge entries and provide feedback and whatnot. We all have lives here, I'm sure, so we unfortunately can't dedicate loads of time to this like we may want to.

• Judging Panels
I don't think any of our current judges are accused of this, but I feel like a single judge can lead to bias. I'm not saying that any of this year's judges were biased and I'm not saying it has happened or will happen, but with a single judge, the possibility is there. A panel of judges, three or four, could not only allow the judges to enter the categories they're judging, but it also allows three or four different people to judge the work. There can be a head judge for each category, someone who's in charge of posting the weeks and gathering the scores of the other judges and tallying up the final results to be posted with the critiques of each of the judges. Might also prevent ties since the lowest score could be dropped.

• Not giving points to two people of the same team
Basically what happened here, here, here, and other places as well. Those are just the three I decided to link. In them, you see that two different people from the same team earned points in a given category. The way I'd like to see it is that three different people from three different teams score points. I feel like the fact that two people from the same team earned points in a category contributed to the 40.5 point gap between third and fourth place in the final results. (I feel as if that 40.5 point gap is appalling and disgusting, by the way, but nothing we can do about that.) By giving three different people from three different teams points, the large gaps of points may not exist. I also just feel like every team should have a shot at earning points, and with two people from the same team earning points in a category, it's just not happening. There should be reason behind it, of course. If there's a crap entry just thrown in for the sake of trying to get a point, don't give that person a place in the top three. If you have four phenomenal entries and two people that were supposed to score top three are from the same team, give the position to the other person instead.

Hopefully these are all reasonable solutions. The last one was brought up before WAR started, but I don't think the other two were.

[Elbub]

I'm in some level of agreement with most of what you've posted, @Felly, which I'll give my opinions, both pro and con, below.

I participated only as a judge, and sometimes one week felt too short, but I guess that's kind of the point of WAR too. Short and frantic, and yet so much fun.

And it would have been helpful to sound my opinions off somebody else, who could agree with or challenge my judgements. I do feel, however, that it shouldn't be obligatory to have panels though but if people want to judge as a panel, it shouldn't be dismissed either.

I like the idea and reasoning behind splitting points between teams rather than individuals (this is meant to be a team event after all), but then what happens in a situation like my last judgement? I gave three points to three members of the same team. Probably the biggest reason why? Because only four people participated, three of them all on the same team. I know that perhaps the ASB can be considered a bit of a wild card in that it probably saw one of the lowest participations across all the categories, but that doesn't mean that that issue is can't or won't happen for us again, or for other categories.

[Felly]

Comments in bold since PXR wants me to put text outside of a quote. ;(

I'm in some level of agreement with most of what you've posted, @Felly, which I'll give my opinions, both pro and con, below.

I participated only as a judge, and sometimes one week felt too short, but I guess that's kind of the point of WAR too. Short and frantic, and yet so much fun.

I think from a participant's standpoint, it's too short, and I puttered around the other sections, and I feel like some judges seemed rushed in their judging. I might be wrong there, but that was the vibe I got.

And it would have been helpful to sound my opinions off somebody else, who could agree with or challenge my judgements. I do feel, however, that it shouldn't be obligatory to have panels though but if people want to judge as a panel, it shouldn't be dismissed either.

I should probably add onto this that not every section may need a panel. The only two sections that come to mind at the moment are Showdown (provided it's done next year like it was this year) and URPG, both because they only counted wins/losses instead of critiquing something. Sections that are more subjective, like Drawn/Graphic/Pixel Art and Creative Writing and Humor, I feel should have a panel though since they're more opinion based rather than "okay you won 10 battles, here's a point."

I like the idea and reasoning behind splitting points between teams rather than individuals (this is meant to be a team event after all), but then what happens in a situation like my last judgement? I gave three points to three members of the same team. Probably the biggest reason why? Because only four people participated, three of them all on the same team. I know that perhaps the ASB can be considered a bit of a wild card in that it probably saw one of the lowest participations across all the categories, but that doesn't mean that that issue is can't or won't happen for us again, or for other categories.

In a case like that, it'd be understandable if the points went to people of the same team then. You can't give someone points for not participating. xD There should be some sort of reason to giving the points to three different people of three different teams, and in some cases, it just won't make sense, and that'll be fine.

[Neo Emolga]

@Felly - Nah, it's fine. Just a few things though.

There was talk to do away with the WAR and replace it with something else that feels uniquely different, but still incorporates a "something for everybody" kind of setup where writing, art, battling, and so on all contributes toward the event. But this kind of feedback helps when it comes to designing such a thing.

• Extend the weeks of WAR to 2 weeks instead of just one.

Yeah, I can back this one up. Things wouldn't feel as frantic and there would be bigger grace periods so that people could take their time and/or take part in sections they normally would have given lower priority. Instead of four weeks, we could make it something like six weeks, but have three rounds of submissions and judging.

• Judging Panels

This might be a possibility, but only if we had a bigger community and more judges. If you look at the judge application thread, we only had just enough to get by. But even if we had enough, I think two judges from different teams would make sense and would probably be enough. Three judges would be hard because now, in order to work out scores, everyone would have to be online at the same time to discuss. That's the tricky part.

• Not giving points to two people of the same team

I kind of need to disagree with this one. Using the Olympics as a model, it's possible for two people from the same country to get a medal for the same event.

First point I'd like to make is if you put this into action, if someone from one team makes a really stellar entry, it pretty much says buzz off to anyone of intermediate or beginner skill from taking part in the same section, and thus, kind of makes it an elitist event where even the newbies won't be considered. We definitely don't want that.

Second, you could have three great submissions from people all in Team A. Barely anyone else takes part except for Team B, which only has one trashy submission, and Team C, which only has trashy submission. Should those trashy submissions really get the points just because Team A already got their points? Doesn't seem right in my opinion. Also, it might cause people to start thinking "oh, only two teams are taking part, let me quickly slap something together just so I get the last point!" Points should go to the team that put forward the best effort, not the ones that found loopholes in the system...

Third, if you find the 40.5 gap "disgusting and appalling," well, the teams on the lower end of that gap probably either needed more members and/or needed to have more members taking part. We might be able to fix that if something like a member ceiling is put into place so teams are kind of evened out a little better (it'll probably never be a perfect balance, but it'll be closer. Still, if Team B simply just doesn't take part as much as Team A, should they really both have the same kind of score at the end of the day? Again, I think the target should be trying to find ways to balance teams to some degree so points and awards are still earned through great effort and hard work.

I think I'd be open to a member draft in the future, but only if all the teams that are involved are voted on and definitely show care and quality to their creation. The last thing anyone would want is to be drafted into a weird and awkward team that no one but the leader themselves likes. As for the way the draft is handled, I'd probably model a system like that based on the NFL draft, but beginning draft order would probably have to be randomized for that scenario. With six teams, there's a good chance they'll all get a good share of decent ones.

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

Firstly, congratulations to the top three teams and to everyone else for participating! Y'all showed some serious dedication to the forum here the past four weeks, and I think that's great.

While I'm here though, I'd like to make some suggestions for next year's WAR. I feel like I saw a few problems this year, and I hope they can be corrected for next year. I'm not trying to start any drama here, just bringing some things that I felt were issues to the table with the hopes that they'll be fixed in some way, somehow. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade here or get results changed or whatever, I'm just speaking my mind and hoping for resolution.

• Extend the weeks of WAR to 2 weeks instead of just one.
I feel like a week is way too short of a time to get things done. For me, I felt like I was scrambling to do several events during weeks 1 and 2 when I was entering a lot more categories (before I started feeling overextended), and I wasn't able to really put my best foot forward. If we extend each week of WAR to two weeks, we could have a Sunday to the following Wednesday entry period with the Thursday through Saturday to be used for judging. I felt like judges were kinda rushed this year as well and rushed to get results up. The extended time for entries would possibly result in more entries (or just higher quality entries) and allow people to enter more events, and the extended time for judging would give people more of a chance to judge entries and provide feedback and whatnot. We all have lives here, I'm sure, so we unfortunately can't dedicate loads of time to this like we may want to.

• Judging Panels
I don't think any of our current judges are accused of this, but I feel like a single judge can lead to bias. I'm not saying that any of this year's judges were biased and I'm not saying it has happened or will happen, but with a single judge, the possibility is there. A panel of judges, three or four, could not only allow the judges to enter the categories they're judging, but it also allows three or four different people to judge the work. There can be a head judge for each category, someone who's in charge of posting the weeks and gathering the scores of the other judges and tallying up the0 final results to be posted with the critiques of each of the judges. Might also prevent ties since the lowest score could be dropped.

• Not giving points to two people of the same team
Basically what happened here, here, here, and other places as well. Those are just the three I decided to link. In them, you see that two different people from the same team earned points in a given category. The way I'd like to see it is that three different people from three different teams score points. I feel like the fact that two people from the same team earned points in a category contributed to the 40.5 point gap between third and fourth place in the final results. (I feel as if that 40.5 point gap is appalling and disgusting, by the way, but nothing we can do about that.) By giving three different people from three different teams points, the large gaps of points may not exist. I also just feel like every team should have a shot at earning points, and with two people from the same team earning points in a category, it's just not happening. There should be reason behind it, of course. If there's a crap entry just thrown in for the sake of trying to get a point, don't give that person a place in the top three. If you have four phenomenal entries and two people that were supposed to score top three are from the same team, give the position to the other person instead.

Hopefully these are all reasonable solutions. The last one was brought up before WAR started, but I don't think the other two were.

I think it's a bit extreme to say the difference in points was "appalling and disgusting"... Why is that? I feel like this is the closest WAR in a long time, if not ever. It's very rare that 3 teams are in legitimate contention for first place during the final week. You can't really expect everything to be even when every individual has a different skill and participation level. Heck, each of the top three individual scorers on their own pretty much scored more points than any of the teams outside the top three.

I think the scores also prove the point I was trying to make before the WAR, in that the distribution of certain individuals is more important than team size if you are trying to make things "fair". If the top 3 individual scorers were on the same team, that 3-person team would have beat every other team's point totals for this WAR. It just so happened that they were all on different teams which made for a good race. That's not something that can be controlled, because no one knows who is going to have the time/put in the effort/like the prompts enough to win a good majority of events before the WAR starts that year. Last year's top scorers were completely different.

So as far as limiting entries to one scoring entry per team, I oppose that due to what Neo said. But also because if you wanted to place restrictions it would make more sense to limit individuals in that each person can only enter 1 or 2 events each week. That would also eliminate the need to extend the submission period for events from 1 to 2 weeks as there would only be 1 or 2 things for individuals to focus on rather than trying to enter 5-6 events.

Agreeing with Neo on the judging panels. It's a nice idea but we don't/didn't have a big enough memberbase or enough interested people to do it.

And yeah, WAR probably won't be happening again but it's good to get ideas for future events. :)

[Lord Celebi]

Since the WAR is finally over, I think I can speak a bit more freely.

Firstly, congratulations to the top three teams and to everyone else for participating! Y'all showed some serious dedication to the forum here the past four weeks, and I think that's great.

While I'm here though, I'd like to make some suggestions for next year's WAR. I feel like I saw a few problems this year, and I hope they can be corrected for next year. I'm not trying to start any drama here, just bringing some things that I felt were issues to the table with the hopes that they'll be fixed in some way, somehow. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade here or get results changed or whatever, I'm just speaking my mind and hoping for resolution.

• Extend the weeks of WAR to 2 weeks instead of just one.
I feel like a week is way too short of a time to get things done. For me, I felt like I was scrambling to do several events during weeks 1 and 2 when I was entering a lot more categories (before I started feeling overextended), and I wasn't able to really put my best foot forward. If we extend each week of WAR to two weeks, we could have a Sunday to the following Wednesday entry period with the Thursday through Saturday to be used for judging. I felt like judges were kinda rushed this year as well and rushed to get results up. The extended time for entries would possibly result in more entries (or just higher quality entries) and allow people to enter more events, and the extended time for judging would give people more of a chance to judge entries and provide feedback and whatnot. We all have lives here, I'm sure, so we unfortunately can't dedicate loads of time to this like we may want to.

• Judging Panels
I don't think any of our current judges are accused of this, but I feel like a single judge can lead to bias. I'm not saying that any of this year's judges were biased and I'm not saying it has happened or will happen, but with a single judge, the possibility is there. A panel of judges, three or four, could not only allow the judges to enter the categories they're judging, but it also allows three or four different people to judge the work. There can be a head judge for each category, someone who's in charge of posting the weeks and gathering the scores of the other judges and tallying up the final results to be posted with the critiques of each of the judges. Might also prevent ties since the lowest score could be dropped.

• Not giving points to two people of the same team
Basically what happened here, here, here, and other places as well. Those are just the three I decided to link. In them, you see that two different people from the same team earned points in a given category. The way I'd like to see it is that three different people from three different teams score points. I feel like the fact that two people from the same team earned points in a category contributed to the 40.5 point gap between third and fourth place in the final results. (I feel as if that 40.5 point gap is appalling and disgusting, by the way, but nothing we can do about that.) By giving three different people from three different teams points, the large gaps of points may not exist. I also just feel like every team should have a shot at earning points, and with two people from the same team earning points in a category, it's just not happening. There should be reason behind it, of course. If there's a crap entry just thrown in for the sake of trying to get a point, don't give that person a place in the top three. If you have four phenomenal entries and two people that were supposed to score top three are from the same team, give the position to the other person instead.

Hopefully these are all reasonable solutions. The last one was brought up before WAR started, but I don't think the other two were.

Dude, it's an Internet game. Chill. More bureaucracy is going to make the next WAR (if there's a next WAR) even more of a headache.

[Morzone]

As a War contestant, I personally think haveing only one week per is one of the best parts of WAR. Its a deadline, and the point of deadlines isn't to make you rush, it's to make you think. If you don't have time to rethink every choice or idea, you come up with more originality, more fun, more You in your entries. If you're having trouble because of to many things you have to do, then remind yourself that you're part of a team. You don't have to do every category.

I also disagree with the whole "not giving points to two people of the same team" thing. You can't do that. That's telling people that if someone on their team is a winner that they can't be a winner as well. You might as well only have one entry per team if you limit it like that.

I'm not a judge though so I can't really say anything about the judge panel thing.

Just my 2 cents.