Moderating Unofficial Contests

[MarioHacker]

I think it should be up for the user to decide which contests they want to partake in. If a contest seems to be of low quality then people shouldn't be joining it.

[StrikeForcer]

The addition of rules isn't the same as "taking away the freedoms of non-staff users from making unofficial contests" mind you, it's helping those who have no idea of how to run a contest actually understand how a true contest should be made, pre-coordinated. You don't see the CC starting without any judges right? The rules, how make the levels, guidelines, everything is planned from the start and that's why it goes so well. What's bad about helping people understand how to make a good contest?

And yes, many of us don't participate in poorly-ran contests but we all know that people aren't going to stop trying to participate on many contests as possible, regardless of who runs it. Now would you take their freedom? Of course not, nobody wants that, but to put order rules are required. I think this's what PixelPest and the rest are trying to say.

Natsu, I would love to agree with this post if PixelPest's intentions for this entire topic were explicitly put that way to not restrict people on whatever contest they decide to run and/or be a general give tips on how to run a successful contest as seen in an earlier NSMBX link in this thread but that is not his intention nor what he is trying to say when you have a poll that asks "Should unofficial contests be approved by a staff member before they are posted?" which 57% of respondents say "yes" as well as PixelPest creating a rules proposal that is gaining more support at the time of this post so far that I find to be objectionable. Because again, when you create rules, yes it can help those who have no idea how to run things, but this one is setting itself up to be the absolute set of rule that future unofficial contests need to follow by, which I see that this is taking away the freedom of being allow to create your own contests that can still be successful without conforming to those rules (which in itself does not cater to the scale of the ideas contest makers may want to have) when the problem lies squarely within the individual users, not the community.

[PixelPest]

We're not taking away freedom. By sending a PM to a staff member, not only are we avoiding countless pages of criticism of the creator's topic and their resulting anguish, we're helping users improve. The staff is here to help, not put down. If your contest is not at standard, you'll not just be told, "lol you suck at making contests; I won't approve this"; you'll be told how to improve the post to make it successful, like, "If you extended your contest deadline one week ahead and removed the rule that disqualifies levels that don't use custom graphics, you're good to post this." Also, one thing that you seem to be missing StrikeForcer, is that none of the rules state what your contest is about. I never mentioned anything that restrains user freedom. If you want to make a contest about how well users can use custom graphics and say that levels with vanilla graphics only will be disqualified makes complete sense. This isn't about restricting freedoms, it's about taking an extra bit of time to help contests be successful, avoid pointless discussion and user anger attacks, and give contests proper and fair structure for their participants.

Also, how should we note that a contest has been approved by a staff member?

[Imaynotbehere4long]

@Imaynotbehere4long: That is a very good idea. How long should the max and minimum dates for judging deadlines be after submissions?

It should vary based on the number of submissions and (maybe) the types of levels that were submitted. It shouldn't take more than a day to judge a couple Basic Grass Levels, but if there are a dozen high difficulty gauntlets or levels filled with cheap shots, it could take more than a week for all of them to be judged. There's also a chance that an unofficial contest gets really popular and receives as many entries as an official contest, in which case it could take two or three weeks to judge all of them (maybe even a month).

Also, how should we note that a contest has been approved by a staff member?

Maybe you can have the staff member post the contest? You could also make a double post saying that the contest is approved and transfer ownership of the thread to the user.

Alternately, you could just post the rules and, instead of having users send PMs, just have users post the contest like they do levels and lock contests that don't follow the rules (like you do with levels that don't follow the rules).

Edit: also, regarding the requirement for 3 judges minimum, how is a user supposed to easily get judges for his/her contest, especially if said person is relatively new, without posting the contest and asking for judges? PMing others would get rather tedious after a while, and it doesn't account for "indecent judges" since users could simply ask people they know just so they can meet that requirement, especially if they ask others who turn them down. I'd rather have one good judge than three bad judges.

Maybe change the rule to say that it needs at least one approved judge instead of three whatever judges. EDIT 2: or maybe require a judging template?

[PixelPest]

I kind of like that second idea about moderating level contests the same way as levels, but as I said above:

By sending a PM to a staff member, not only are we avoiding countless pages of criticism of the creator's topic and their resulting anguish...

How about spoilering a copy of the PM (just quote) of what the staff member said to approve your post on the first line of the main post of your topic? What does everyone think about that possibility?

Example:

Spoiler: show

Yep. Go ahead with posting your contest. You're contest looks good.

Welcome to the winter level contest. The main theme of this contest is winter, so you need to create a level within that theme for this contest. The rules are as follows...
/example
(This is fake, Zeldamaster12 was just the first name that came into my head.)

[Fuyu]

@PixelPest: Looks good, I'd say maybe a screen-capture of the PM approving said contest would be better, right at the beginning within a spoiler.

Also, welcome Larry Koopa, finally at my 2000th post.

[Mivixion]

Or just say who approved it. If they lie about who approved it the person they claim to have approved it will have to shut it down or just say they didn't approve it.

[HeroLinik]

A minimum of three judges is required to run a contest and they must agree to their role as a judge. (Don't just PM someone and say they're judging your contest; they actually have to agree to it first.)

I need to also add that the judges should be actual level judges that have reviewed levels before (or even better, people that have judged community contests before) and not just people you're picking out of the blue. If you just pick random people then there's a chance you'll get horrible reviews that aren't in agreement with the other judges.

[Mable]

If you just pick random people then there's a chance you'll get horrible reviews that aren't in agreement with the other judges.

But thats where they can improve. Or yet have guideliness how to judge a level probably. Not all the official level judges would really have the time to judge one of those maybe.

If someone does horrible reviews people can tell him where to improve and he would need to accept the critic he gets and maybe get better at it.

For example PROX isn't really one but his reviews are pretty good imo.