Strange Old Man's Rant: Games and Life

Contests 4K Game Competition - 2007
#1

I’m not that good (yet) at writing 4K games but at least I can write words so here goes a rant on the current state of affairs regarding the judging:

I. Strange Inscriptions
There are some who misunderstand the concept of rules.

Rules
An aid to the Judges to ensure that all entries are of the same type. In other words, its a way to constrain the type of entries.

In this case:

There’s not much more to say regarding this: the rules did NOT change!

II. Strange Feelings
After a month of silence, to hear that the judges are going to change is a bit of a disappointment and anti-climatic. However, you do not start "threatening/boycotting/withdrawing"tm things in life when you are disappointed. That’s immature.
[Edit]
The withdrawals did not take place due to the change in Judging System. Contact the people who withdrew to get their reasons.
[/Edit]

III. Strange Ticking Sounds
When you volunteer to do something it is expected that you will give your (full) attention to it. However, many times in life you just cannot get to the commitment you made, sometimes due to time being an issue.

Saying [quote]“I’ll put a PHP script whenever I have the time 'cos I have a job and go to school”
[/quote]
is not the same as what woogley said: [quote]as soon as I finish writing a silly php script for it
[/quote]
If he was working on the system until the very end of March and ran out of time then we can just be a little more patient, especially since he got a new job and whatever.

IV. Strange Warm Sensations
Saying that when the public votes that you probably would have written less or no games is against the spirit of game programming.
You make a game for yourself, if someone else likes it then it’s a bonus.
This competition is also a test of your OWN skills. If you are capable of doing "Extreme HardCore Things"tm and nobody apreciates it, well then f*ck them. You know what you’re capable of. [Edit] Subjective [/Edit]

V. Strange Systems: The Eternal Problem of Voting
Having a set group of judges ensures EVERY entry gets judged by EVERY judge.
Having only the public vote creates exactly that problem. There’s also no way to ensure that the person actually plays the game or that they are objective. To prevent completely random users from doing this woogley said only users registered for a certain time may vote. But this still doesn’t completely remove the problem.
The public can drop their opinions irrespective of whether they or a panel are judging.
So I’m not 100% sure as to why public voting is better but I don’t start "threatening/boycotting/withdrawing"tm things because I don’t like the way entries are judged.

VIVIVI. Strange Burning Hellish Letters

[quote]And about flaming (AKA “criticism”)… I’ll let Harry Truman answer that one : “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”.
[/quote]
The same to you, if you don’t like the competition then off you go. But the heat woogley is receiving here is not part of his job description. He is being shouted at because of how the judges rated.

[quote]I entered the contest fully aware that I might receive opinions like “this game has too many problems” (no further explanation given).
[/quote]
That’s not at all the same as being Flamed. Criticism is lifting out faults. The people who flame woogley are not lifting out faults, they are Flaming him because they didn’t accept [quote]opinions like “this game has too many problems”
[/quote]
Inconclusion
I’m done and I don’t remember why I wrote this or what I wrote. I feel old. And Strange.

I think I should rather write more 4K games.

#2

I do not agree, but since woogley’s probably going to censor out my messages like he has done before, it’s worthless even trying to reply to the points you raise, which neither reflect what I said nor what happened. If you are genuinely interested in the whole story, you can ask me like others have done. Judging things on the basis of edited-out messages doesn’t seem very wise to me.

#3

Im almost sure that I read the messages before they were edited by woogley.

What Im doing with this post is trying to say why some of the REACTIONS are wrong - or at least as far as Im concerned.

As far as judging schemes are concerned Id rather not speak much as Im not entirely sure about the issue.

PS. I dont want this thread to be a continuation of the one woogley locked.

#4

ahristov, if I reguarly censored topics, you would not see many topics at all (that are usually eventually locked anyway)

what I DO censor is personal matters that I asked you to keep in PM, but you didn’t

I censored out from your message which was not needed on a public forum. I kept your original point: “I’m withdrawing my games”

if you are withdrawing from the contest, which you are, then leave it at that.

I appreciate malberts for professionaly pointing out some positive AND negative points about public voting. this is exactly how opinions should be presented, as it helps me to see how YOU see it. so thank you, malberts.

#5

What you censored out was not personal, and you know that perfectly well.

#6

On the topic of judging schemes. I may be repeating previous messages but this is a summary of them all.

Fixed Expert Panel
A limited amount of judges are chosen based on their knowledge. All entries are reviewed by all judges. Public can still give their opinions but without affecting the scores.

Fixed Volunteer Panel
Same as Expert except that the public volunteer. A screening process is required to see who is capable. This is basically a constrained Public Panel.

Public Panel
The public judge the entries. Those that would volunteer themselves are still part of the public. Therefore they will vote irrespective of the system. This system also allows the non-volunteers to review AND effect the score. This system is a bit contradictory (as far as I am concerned) because only those with enough time to go through all the entries should be counted. Thus these people with time are really those that volunteerd in the first place. Though there might be a few lurkers who would judge everything.

Public Hits/Votes
The people only vote for their best entries. The lower entries will then have little to no votes. But this doesnt require criticizing (which is what we want). I think many of the reactions are based on the fear that this will be the only system.

So what I would chose is to have a bigger volunteer panel which in effect is a public panel to provide the main scoring. A Public Choice, as others mentioned, can be based on the hits for favourite game. This can be IP restricted to prevent abuse. And if someone tries to abuse in other ways, well, you must have a really sad life.

So basically what I think is happening is that woogley removed the Fixed from the panel so we now have the unfixed 5(?) judges + some more. As long as the extras judge everything we will be fine. Their scores can be checked to see that they werent being erratic. The scoring system can even be modified so that you can look at your scores without a certain persons score included.

If anyone (dis)agrees please say why and maybe we can determine the best solution for following competitions.

So lets give the new system a try and remember - you have to fall a few times before you can walk correctly.

#7

Very well said, malberts. I couldn’t agree more.

That is, I agree that there’s no point in starting a flamewar over this. ahristov, userek, I respect what you’re saying and the games you’re trying to make, but consider the fact that woogley is doing this in his spare time. I fully agree that there should be judges as well, as I’ve said all along, but yelling back and forth will not achieve much of anything.

I implore you, woogley, to ask the judges to do what they volunteered to do in addition to the public vote. Then again, I won’t get mad if you don’t.

I implore you, ahristov, userek, to stay calm. This contest is an ongoing “hobby-project”, so to speak, run by woogley and by extension by the members of this forum (those who contribute most of the games), not something of life and death.

EDIT: Fixed a grammar error.

#8

I’m calm, don’t worry ;). It’s just that I have very little tolerance towards people who insult and censor those whose views they don’t agree with. My decision to withdraw has nothing to do with the unfulfilled commitments or rule changes.

#9

I just wanted to add something, despite the whole discussion that has been going on as of late. You guys need to remind that this contest is done entirely by people who dedicate their free time - which they could have spared doing something completely selfish, but they don’t :wink: - and they receive absolutely nothing that could be considered material reward in return; Only the simple joy of doing it.

When woogley was out asking for help (trying to find a manager for the contest), I suggested CaptainJester, who’s a friend of mine, and Capn’ gladly accepted to make part of it. I regret to see his and woogley’s work criticized like that, after all they have done for this community, and I simply wanted to declare my utmost respect for them, and the role they have in this community.

To make it short, you should show these developers more respect; No, they’re not “failsafe”, but they try their best. If you want a real, outstanding, “earth shattering” contest, then be prepared to put (a lot of) money on it.

As far as I know (and I can be mistaken =), Sun does not show a likely support for this community. Respect the ones that do.

#10

Yes I agree with you. Especially if the volunteers already have started, it’s more than a month sincle compo closed. But I expect something went wrong somewhere, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

Sadly, I don’t think that is what Woogley is planning.

Woogley:

[quote]the public voters will simply vote for the top 5 games they like the best.
[/quote]
From the censored thread

#11

I know I’m late to this party, but I feel that I should throw my two cents into this conversation anyway.

I’ve done my fair share of the cat-herding that is trying to organize things on the internet, so I’m not entirely unsympathetic to Woogley’s situation. On the other hand, to put it bluntly, deciding now- a month after judging supposedly began- that there isn’t going to be any judging after all is weak.

I realise that this is a laid-back contest, and I honestly don’t have a problem with waiting a long time for judging or having only a handful of judges. I have the same complaints about popular-voting that I did last year, those being that (a) it favors ability to mobilize people to vote for you over quality and (b) it gives very uneven feedback compared to having actual judges- someone like me who never seems to get many downloads gets basically nothing in terms of feedback or responses.

  • HC
#12

my 2 euro-cents:

As others have said, judging, like the development of the games, is a labour of love. Even more so as the judges gain nothing from their work. The participants have the prospect of winning. A judge gets mentioned and might get a few unhappy mails because they did not rate the game to the developers liking.

Ever wonder why no one wants to be a judge, jury or referee? You get bitched at by every side, even from the audience, and can surely never do anything right.
Ask the refs at kiddie-soccer or pop-warner.

Think about it for a minute.

I think it is a shame that in this community resorts to this kind of behaviour over a bloody contest.

BTW: My offer still stands to help with the judging and/or organisation.

#13

As woogley stated, the rules did not change… but it did go against people’s expectations after having put alot of effort into their games. The call for judges on the forum and one month wait both fed into those expectations.

The judging requires alot of effort to organize and actually perform the scoring, as did the entrants who created the games that have been entered.

At this point, I think the best course of action is to get on with the scoring system and let the chips fall where they may. Whatever happened to the “judging” situation hasn’t pleased anyone, but there’s still a chance to at least give people some sense of finality and resolution to the contest.

Give the situation some sense of closure and move on.