Voting Round 1: Draws! Read post first! (Multiple choice)

[Toogee]

To be honest, you can really tell that some people didn't make it through all three pages before they voted. lol

Note for next time: make sure title begins with the letter "A"

Edited February 8, 2016 by Toogee

[Tangerine]

Yes, it says how many people voted at the top, but it doesn't say who voted, and that's the purpose of having a tally. To monitor the accounts that are voting.

Some of the submissions on page 2/3 are reasonably popular, I'm guessing some people are just limiting themselves to only voting for their very favorites. In any case, next time we'll be better prepared to display this amount of submissions hopefully.

[Thor Odinson]

I recommend maybe using something similar to a lightbox library instead? Or at least some kind of quickview thumbnail system with easy scrolling. It wouldn't work with writing/misc but it'd be a lot better for the image-based ones.

I definitely feel pages 2-3 got comparatively less views too--there's several great entries I voted for that I feel definitely should be higher, if they were only on the first page. Alas.

[Tangerine]

I don't think the views directly translate to votes, at least not in a community event like this. Some of the submissions with significantly less views are contenders; Battlefield with half the views of Blossoms and Awakening for example, or Light Inheritor and Meteor Strike both on page 2. The SFS section overall has nearly 70,000 views in only a couple days of being open (which is fantastic for all of our artists and writers!), all of the views that submissions are getting won't translate directly into votes.

For the polls, I think only the people who took the time to view all of the submissions (or a majority at least) in a section will bother to vote, so the results of the contest itself is unlikely to be altered much. It's fairly obvious that a lot of the people watching/viewing the event have abstained from voting or are unable to, and I think there always will be people who enjoy just watching how things unfold and showing people their favorites. So the first page certainly gives more views, but I don't agree that it's resulting in more votes. I think some of the ones that are on the first page deserve more votes! It's a matter of taste/appeal, everyone who votes will feel their favorites deserve more, and when everyone has different criteria for deciding what their favorites are, feelings like that are sure to arise lol.

In any case, while I don't believe the polls are affected at all, I do think it's necessary to change the display method purely for the purpose of making sure all of the participants get the attention they deserve in terms of views - that was one of the goals of the event. By the time our next event rolls around we'll have upgraded our forum to a new version, and there's a feature we'll be getting that I'll probably toy around with for our event.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Tangerine

[CaitlynMellark]

My art is on the first page & it still has no votes, & other art on the other pages has votes, so xD

Either I am an unlucky first pager, or people also vote for the next pages. I have voted for a lot of stuff on other pages.

[Alex95]

2 votes! Woo!

At least I'm good enough to impress some people! :)

[RadiantDawnLord]

Power Master: 2 votes! Woo!

At least I'm good enough to impress some people! :)

I know how that feels. I've got 2 votes on my work, too. That, to me, makes it a stepping stone to do better at my art. I'm sure you could, too. ;) (This is meant as a compliment.)

[Jyosua]

With regards to a lightbox view for the draws: We could have probably made a gallery for Draws on the main site, since that uses lightbox by default.

As far as the pages: "You're what I believe" has only a third of the views of Awakening, but has half the number of votes for it. I think it is a good example of a work that would have more votes if it were on the first page. Three pages is... A lot. People also tend to become more choosy as they go through a large list the further they go in.

[LetsJam]

I was actually surprised by what a difference being on the first page made! Not in votes, the disparity in which you can blame on differences in taste or any number of other factors, but in views.

It's common sense to me to look at all of the threads, because I wanted to see all of the art and you can't actually do that without opening each topic on each page. Perhaps a relatively small difference in views between the first and subsequent pages would feel justified, but on average art on the first page has ~339 more views than art on the other two pages (~253 more if you consider the top three most viewed pieces as outliers). That number feels a little more significant when you consider that some art has less than 339 views ;;

I'm certainly not complaining (I'm sitting above average for my page and am glad to have an audience for my work at all!), but it's an interesting phenomenon to see in action. It'd be humorous to de-anon my work and have people find out I'm the artist behind a first page/popular work after all these words about it though haha

I do plan on de-anoning to address the lovely comments people made on my work after the first round of voting, but until then, once I have the free time I'd like to go around and comment on many of the pieces that were entered! I haven't done it yet mostly because I always sit down for a long time to comment on things and haven't had enough time to do as many of them at once as I'd like. So for now I'm just silently cheering on the pieces I liked best!

[Jyosua]

I have no stake in anything, I'm just bringing up a point that I think should be taken into consideration from now on. I think it's likely that the majority of the works that should move on will get enough votes this particular time, but the trend is very noticeable.

[Busterman64]

2 votes! Woo!

At least I'm good enough to impress some people! :)

Mine got one, but to be honest, I'm still happy. One person liked my stuff enough to vote for it. I can leave this contest happy now! :3

I can't wait to see who drew what...it'll be interesting to find out! ;)

[Xaos Steel Wing]

I went through every single submission today, and I have to say, I am amazed at the the talent and ability of so many of the artists here. It was difficult to decide on a top 25 to vote for. Narrowing it down to a top 10 will be excruciatingly difficult, to say the least. There are some truly wonderful pieces of art here, it's almost a shame that only 10 (or less, because there are 2 whole other categories) will receive prizes.

A round of applause to all our artists here. I really am impressed by so many of these.

Edited February 10, 2016 by XaosLogos

[Busterman64]

I voted for the drawings the other day and I tried to keep my voting to 10...but then I voted for 8 on the first page. Then I said maybe 20 votes...ended up picking 21. Then I just said screw it, might as well choose 25.......chose 26 instead. The very last one I had chosen , I was conflicted on picking, but...I didn't want it to be unappreciated (:3), so I picked it too (because dear lord I love these entries... all for similar and different reasons)! :3

[eclipse]

With regards to a lightbox view for the draws: We could have probably made a gallery for Draws on the main site, since that uses lightbox by default.

As far as the pages: "You're what I believe" has only a third of the views of Awakening, but has half the number of votes for it. I think it is a good example of a work that would have more votes if it were on the first page. Three pages is... A lot. People also tend to become more choosy as they go through a large list the further they go in.

I think I might have a theory regarding this.

The Writes subforum has the same issue. What I think happened is that people look at the poll results, look at what has a lot of votes, read that entry, and the come back out. I have more to say about this, but I think it'll be more appropriate once the competition is over.