WAR SEASON II: Discussion

[monkeybard]

I'm bad at expressing myself, so I'll just say that I thought of teams in the WAR as secondary to the desire of winning a contest for myself. I joined the first team recommended to me in my Welcome Thread so that I can enter the pixel art competitions, did my best and decided I would try in the Drawn Art category as well seeing as I had time and I was curious as to how I would do and how I would be judged. The great thing about WAR is that I can treat it like a regular contest where I can pit my own abilities against other people. Despite this, there's still a sense of unity and shared pride when you see people from your team winning sections, and why I still felt a little disappointed that we couldn't take 1st place even though I participated for my own sake. And I think that's a really good thing! I'm fine with any changes you make as long as this feeling doesn't get taken away from the WAR :P

As for judging, I do like the idea of multiple judges (more insight and more commentary is great; I'd love to be a pixel art judge but I'm bad at making challenges and I'd want that second opinion!) but at the same time I wish there was a way to fairly have judges participate in the contests as well. I can't speak on her behalf for sure, but I'm positive that Speed-X would've wanted to try her hand at some of the challenges she put out and compete herself. :P At the very least, I'd want to see how a third party would rate my sprites against hers. I can see that doing a user voting system to allow everyone to participate would be great, but again, coming from someone that lives on the art boards of most forums he's ever been on, user voting never really works out that well. Especially with our Drawn Art board as stagnant as it is, it might work in the WAR season when everyone's a bit more active but I've seen forums try and make poll-based decisions before and I don't think it ever gets as many votes as you may want or even need.

In any case, I've been a member here for 2 weeks and don't really know anything, but at the very least I had fun and I hope something similar happens next year so I can have the full experience.

[Nekomata]

Okay, so I'll say a few things. Knowing me, this might turn a bit long.

First of all, it is my understanding that War is meant to be a team-based competition that is more about participating and having fun than being competitive. That said, I don't think it is quite living up to the potential it has to be a fun event. While I stopped participating after week one (long story short, got depressed/demotivated/etc.) I still lurked around to see what was going on in the various sections and saw some issues here and there that others were clearly upset over. I'd like to offer my thoughts on how to improve WAR to be a bit more fun and welcoming for everyone- even those who didn't score much during this year's war.

Judging:

First off, I must agree with several others regarding the judging. A panel of multiple judges would help tremendously. I hate to say it- and please take no offense- but everyone is biased. Whether or not they realize it, they're biased. I'm biased. It's just how people are. Now, I believe no one here was intentionally biased and probably tried their best to be as fair as possible- and it's not always easy.

That said, there's a reason most judging panels in almost every sort of competition that doesn't have a 'right or wrong' result (We don't need 3 judges to tell you 2+2=4 therefore you get points) has three or more judges. When it comes to creative stuff, one person may LOVE it, another may HATE it- there is no right/wrong in these sections. Just opinions. Yes, there are people who are better artists than others- that much is true- but when you have a handful of equally experienced artists- it's hard for one person alone to decide who gets placed higher. Artists have different styles- and none are necessarily better than another. Multiple judges would allow for people to more fairly rank these sections.

I'm familiar with how judging works because of my band days way back when. Region auditions were a huge thing- each individual student was expected to compete. The judges happened to be directors from various schools in the area- and thus, the auditions were undoubtedly corrupt. Despite not being able to see who was playing, some of the directors knew who their students were by certain warm-ups or how they sounded. After all- directors want their own students to succeed. Personally, I'm against judges being in teams because of this bias (again, not to say anyone here would do so)- but I understand we're lacking in enough people to judge as it is, let alone take them out of the competition.

So what I'm proposing- is we have three judges. Each gives their own score- then average the three for the final grade on each entry. Heck, if it's too much an issue to get 3 people to judge- allow judges to participate and just have the judge be unable to grade his/her own entry and leave theirs to the other judges.

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Time:

I also agree that one week is a bit short for not only the members- but the judges. Some sections require more time than others- so perhaps, instead of having everything end on the same day, make the different events end at different times to accommodate those that may need more time- and likewise, sections that require less time (such as a recolor in the spriting part) could have less time for completion. This would be easier on people since all the deadlines aren't all on the same day, so people can better manage the time spent on entries.

Sort of like a busy restaurant would handle reservations. Some restaurants make great effort to NOT take large amounts of reservations at once because it puts a lot of stress on the wait staff and kitchen- instead, they'd try to spread out reservations so that the kitchen/staff have time to finish one table before another arrives.

Also, perhaps, allow more time for judges to judge- especially in sections like create writing were entries get... long. Really long. They can post up the next prompt before they start judging- I just think it might be a bit much to have them try judging things in such a short time- especially if members want good critiques/feedback.

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Scoring:

Now, I know there's mixed reception on the fact that there was a 20 point gap between 3rd and 4th place. Some may see something wrong with it as part of the game is to get as many points as possible and the other teams just didn't put in enough effort. That's one of looking at it...

I, however, am concerned about such a wide gap. We want War to be a team event where /everyone/ can have fun participating, yes? And while 'it's just a game', some people still get very discouraged with such a huge gap- after all, what's the point of putting 5+ hours of work into an entry when there's a 0% chance of your team making it into the top three? I feel the gap in points contributed into declining participation rates in later weeks.

Likewise, another thing that may have participated people is never placing- or even being just ONE point from 3rd place. Never placing can be discouraging- it makes your efforts feel useless in the competition. Some people think it's fun to enter for the sake of entering- but this IS a competition and a lot of people want to help their team do well by doing well- and when they can't seem to get points- even after a lot of effort (some of the rounds were very close in 3rd/4th places, afterall)- it's so easy to just give up.

I'm not saying to LET people win rounds just to keep them happy- no. That's wrong. And I'm not for the idea of only allowing one person per team win points in a section- that would likewise discourage those who have trouble getting points. But we DO need a way to help balance it so all teams have a fair shot and all members are encouraged to participate, even if they don't think they'll place.

I spoke with Gigi a bit about this last night after finally breaking my silence on WAR stuff. I've got a proposed point system that may help encourage EVERYONE to participate and reward EVERYONE for doing so, thus encouraging more participation across the board- but still reward those with outstanding entries.

So, instead of just awarding points to the top three, everyone gets points. Wait, wait- hear me out! Let's say each section each week can give 100 points to teams (it's a nice number, so I'm using it). Let's also say that this is the drawn art competition and the judge/s can give players a score of 0-50. 50 being OMG PERFECT, 0 being no entry at all. After the judging is done, add up ALL the points given to each entry- let's say 8 people from 4 teams entered and had the following scores

A1: 50
A2: 10
B1: 20
B2: 30
C1: 40
C2: 20
D1: 10
D2: 20

Total points given via grades: 200

So, with the current system, only A1, B2, and C1 get points- everyone else might have put effort, but no points cause they're not top 3. This could discourage people like A2 or D1 from participating again- or teams like D2 if they fall too far behind in the scoreboards.

Instead of just giving points to the top three- add up the points each time got and find the percentage of the overall points they had. So it would be...

A Team: 60 Points (30%)
B Team: 50 points (25%)
C Team: 60 Points (30%)
D Team: 30 Points (15%)

Each team would get that percentage of the 100 points for that round- so Team A would get 30 points, B- 25, etc.

This rewards each member for participating- even if they didn't place at the top- it also rewards those who did really well by giving them more points. It would also help prevent such a wide gap in points by making it easier to get points instead of just the same people in the top 3 over and over. Yes, the teams that have those top 3 people will still get more points- but the gap in points would not get quite as wide and we'd likely see more participation as every feels like they're contributing something. This also means that person who BARELY got 4th place still gets rewarded for their efforts instead of that feeling of wasted time.

That brings us to the next section: Teams

The issue with the above scoring system is that larger teams have a huge advantage. Therefore, for it to work, there needs to be a limit on the number of people that can be in a team. I know this isn't a popular idea- but it would help balance the teams better. As it is now, large teams are already advantaged cause they have more opportunities to place- most systems will favor large teams. So, I propose a team cap- but no draft so people can still team up with friends. I don't know what the team cap should be- but it should be a balanced number- enough to have people with different talents in one team, but small enough so that not all the really active people end up on the same team and other teams are lacking in comparison. I'm thinking 5-7 might be nice, but I could be wrong. The above point system could also increase the overall activity- so there's that to consider too.

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Aaand, sorry if I offended anyone- I just felt like I needed to say this. I'd love to see War be what it COULD be, not what it is now. Right now it puts too much pressure on individuals and not teams as a whole- and I believe making it more team oriented could ease that pressure and make it more enjoyable for everyone.

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Edit: OH- and maybe have winning teams for each section then an overall winner. Cause there may be a team who does REALLY well in say... Creative Writing- but not so much outside of that. They should still be recognized for getting the most points in that section, even if they aren't 1st overall. This way some teams can go for winning in their specialized section even if they don't think they'll win WAR itself.

[Caite-chan]

The problem with all teams yes I said ALL is that everyone is gung ho about joining a team and by the time the WAR starts to the WAR ending half the team isn't doing anything. Team A starts with 20 people and by the end of WAR the team might have 6-10 people even trying to do anything. Don't waste a teams time if you'tr NOT going to do anything once the WAR starts.

[Morzone]

Well, I read through everyone's opinion (God, you people can write a lot some times) so I feel I should stick another 2 cents in.

For the whole putting limits on teams, there is many good points for doing that. I just want to remind people that who is on the team is just as important as how many people there are. Even if every team had the same number of people doesn't mean that they will be even. They may be closer to even, but I don't think it will really change a 20 point difference outcome. The prism league had 17 people and only 5 of us actually scored points. (credit and respect to all the other team members who put in entries, but didn't score, you guys are still awesome) With statistics like that, one could argue that a small team could do the same or even better than a large team. WAR isn't a game of chance, playing around with the numbers isn't going to even the scoreboard. That said, I also know it's impossible and immoral to control who is on what team via rules, so I'm really just reminding everyone that this isn't a problem with an easy answer.

I also have an idea for the judges, though it'd probably be even harder to do than getting enough judges for panels. What I suggest is this: judges who aren't part of a team. If the judges aren't connected or participating in any of the teams, then they can't really be biased toward them. Of course a panel of non-WAR-participating judges would be the most ideal, but I feel that's going a little too far into the realm of impossibility. If we scraped the bottom of the barrel this year, then maybe a better way of recruiting judges is needed. (idk who is in charge of this, sorry if it sounds like I'm saying you're not doing your job well enough, it's not what I want to imply in the slightest)

Finally: a note for people who felt discouraged in the early weeks due to differences in the overall scoring: Why do you care? The point of WAR isn't to single out who is good and who isn't, it's to have fun. I didn't look at the overall scores until WAR was over because I cared more about trying my best and having fun in the individual categories, as well as cheering for my team in areas I didn't join. Make friends! Learn and practice your skills! Try things you normally wouldn't! In this battlefield, the winners are the people who had the most fun. Happy WAR everyone.

[HKim]

I'm actually in favor of redesigning the entire concept. Since I was one of the people who helped create the War in the first place, I think it's both fitting and ironic.

War (as a general concept) was a lot more popular back in 2003 with the actual wars going on at the time. There was a sense of patriotism and unity in the face of terrorism. After all 9/11 was still fresh in everyone's mind.

These days, it's not quite as big a thing. Apparently people don't like getting involved in foreign countries anymore or something. Probably to our detriment due to the current success of extremism, but I digress. The point is, the general concept itself may be lending to more negative themes and feelings.

I'm more inclined to redesign the major summer event here as a sort of Olympics. We run the sections like that most of the time anyway and it might have a more positive message. Sections can, perhaps, be organized separately on their own time scale. After all, sections like Art might be better with a two-week time frame while URPG does okay with one week. And Roleplaying is going on continuously! Perhaps with this "Olympics", the sections would to be able to act independently without being as interconnected with each other as we have now (via the point system).

It's a little bit strange, I realize, to try and redesign everything from the ground up, but the War was developed on Pokemon Elite 2000 more than a decade ago. This is a new site now with a different community makeup. Perhaps we can create something more focused on what PXR is.

[SassySnivy]

Also may I add that only getting one point for judging per week is a bit ridiculous? A lot of responsibility is put on judges so only allowing them to win a single point is pretty ridiculous

[swiftgallade46]

okay so gonna preface this with an apology cause there was a lot of tl;dr for me (this post is going to make me a hypocrite for saying that; mostly because I've kept quiet this whole time) and I generally just had no interest in WAR so lol I am stoopid but uh yeah I do have some observations that you can feel free to poop on if you don't like but I wanna get 'em out there:

I think PTGi (I dont remember his username he's on another page lol he has a Mewtwo avvy) had a point when he pointed out the hostility of some of the people running WAR. I only became a judge to help out URPG and people who wanted it to be a part of WAR again. That's all I did in relation to WAR at all. There are a few reasons for this:

Some of you guys take this wayyyy too seriously, and to be 100% honest, some of you who were criticizing others for taking things too seriously come off pretty hypocritically lol. Please read this next part: I do fully recognize that these kinds of events take a lot of planning and discussion and hoopla. The "taking things too seriously" I am referring to is the extent that some of these discussions reach as well as some elitist attitudes among a few people who dismiss others quite quickly. It's not pretty, and it doesn't make me want to participate or contribute. It makes me want to not care because it seems like more trouble than it's worth.

This whole discussion of amount of members in relation to team success is also pretty silly. I think Neo came closest to a solution for this with the member ceiling idea (I did read some!!), but yeah gigantic teams clearly have massive advantages so why would we let that happen ?_?

Reiterating Elysia's point though: I am not criticizing all of WAR nor all of its organizers. If you need specifics, I think Dash and Speed were really on top of things (I dont really interact with many others though it would be nice to get to know some of u maybe idk join URPG) and they were generally nice to everyone.

So basically this: let's not scare anyone off with elitism and all this serious bizniss junk. I personally don't care about this (you can treat me like doodoo and I'll just toss it right back like a filthy monkey) which is why I'm posting--tralala--but other people do and are off-put by it.

Finally, yeah this has a very silly and nonchalant tone about it just because I'm trying to avoid drama and keep things light, but I do care and I want to see people have fun in the future. This is just my personal impression from a very neutral POV.

EDIT: Team Swiftgallade ftw mlm O.O mlm

[Neo Emolga]

I'm locking this because I think we've come full circle with the discussion and the WAR is over. If we do host another WAR or similar competition, then we'll talk things over.

Instead of continuing discussion on this, let's push this aside, close the book on WAR Season II, and work together to come up with new ideas, events, and redirect our energies and efforts into something positive instead. I think that would be better for all of us and the forum as a whole.

[Lord Celebi]

MOD THREAD LEGGO!

If there's another WAR (and as it sounds right now, that's completely out of my hands--I'd like a WAR III), I would like @PTGigi, @Nekomata, and @Felly to be WAR Leaders so that we can really see if these overly-complicated systems work or not. I'm open minded and willing to give it a chance if we can agree that if it doesn't work, WAR IV would be a normal WAR.

[SassySnivy]

Okay guys. So after talking with a WAR leader about this, I decided that I would post this under my name since I'm not a WAR leader and therefore there would hopefully be fewer repercussions. Their name will not be revealed for their sake. Apparently this information has been posted here but in case anyone like myself missed it, then here it is:

1. The suggestions and information is not being ignored, fortunately. The thing is, there will most likely be no more WAR competitions in the following years. I'm sure that if we all put our heads together we can think of something that can act as an alternative (I might in fact post a new thread for it to see what other things people can think of)! :D And also I'm sure that we will be able to use this thread as a reference for how things SHOULDN'T be done, and maybe even some things that SHOULD be done...much thanks to everyone who's contributed their thoughts and feelings!
2. As hinted at just a second ago, NO ONE has ANY idea of what we'll do as an alternative for next year! 8D So yeah, maybe we can make a new thread to discuss this kind of thing? I think it's awesome to have some kind of summer event meant to bring everyone together...even though WAR this year seemed to do the exact opposite, lol.
3. Let's face it: the WAR leaders--and I'm sure everyone else--are exhausted by the shenanigans brought forth by WAR this year. I think that before we come back to the idea of an alternate forum event to occur each year, maybe we should ALL just take a break and let our thoughts clear out! :>

So yeah, guys! Sorry that there won't be a WAR next year or even the next, but I can assure you that if we all pitch in we can think of something else to do that will be just as, if not more fun and less stress-inducing for next year. But until then, let's just all take a break, okay? Planning for forum-wide events can take a long time especially since we want to start from scratch, which is very likely what we'll be doing here...but it never hurts to just take a breather for a month or two. That being said I guess if there's still people that want to talk about something to do next year we could still make a thread for that? I dunno.

But after knowing this information and getting the a-okay to post it, I think that it's only fair that you guys all get some closure. ^^