Oh, and every entrant would still get a full review by the judges in a dedicated forum thread. I would probably ask Ex to sticky it for the duration of the contest.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
I would love to be a judge for this if you need some. I have been running the MA arcs since it came out, and there are very few with actual stories (without knowing which ones to go straight too.) I would love to be able to have the good ones listed for me to experience.
[ QUOTE ]
So here's my revised plan: both the entrance fee and the judges' compensation is measured in arc plays. In order to enter, all you have to do is play one arc by one of the judges. PM the judge of your choice the title of your entry as well as some detail of the arc you played to confirm you played it, and you get in. Note that rating the judge's arc isn't an enforceable requirement, but the rules would ask (via the honor system) that entrants give what they feel are fair ratings to the arc they played.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think the contest idea is a great one, but that entrance fee idea seems inherently problematic.
If I'm reading this correctly, you are proposing that the entrants play a judge's arc before the contest and the judging of their own arc takes place, as the entrance fee.
If you're going to use this sort of quid pro quo system as an entrance fee, then I really think you should have some sort of double-blind on it.
Having the judges know which entrant is playing their arcs beforehand (possibly even guessing, rightly or wrongly, as to which recent rating came from an entrant) and having the players be able to pick which judges' arc to play... There's a lot of potential there for either conscious or unconscious bias.
To keep the judges as impartial as possible, they shouldn't know anything about which entrants are playing their arcs (and especially not what they've rated them, let alone more specific feedback, which is always more valuable than a "naked" rating). A judge could also be favorably biased towards an entrant for a bad rating if it also came with constructive and useful criticism.
You could have the entrants "pay" after the contest, but then that opens the judges up to "revenge ratings" if they lose (or positive bias by the entrants if they win).
Better if you have some sort of entrance gate that doesn't create the potential for beforehand bias between the judges and entrants, and also allows the judges to benefit from full feedback instead of just an anonymous rating.
EDIT/P.S. I do have a suggestion for a double-blind process that could be applied to this, but need to run shortly. I'll post that in a follow-up in a few hours.
CoH Codex : Demo Models/FX/MOVs : Demo Info
Arc 111022: "Doctor Geist and the Scientific Method"
Sounds cool! I'd be interested in either playing or judging. 
You can find samples of my review style in this thread.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
MA is basically a massive story contest.
If you did a themed contest - re-write the Positron TF, or do a single mission of Trolls - that makes sense.
But a general story arc contest is basically redundant.
KeepDistance,
So here's a suggestion for a way to go about it that'll reduce the impact from the foibles of human nature a bit. Use or not at your discretion.
Apologies if this is TMI/TL;DR. My brain just went off on this for some reason.
<ul type="square">[*]In addition to your pool of judges, have one person (or more) act as a non-voting facilitator.[*]Assemble your pool of judges in advance and have them give their arcs they want rated/reviewed as payment for their services as judges.[*]Post this list of arcs and anyone who wants to enter the contest must pick one of the arcs to play and rate. They should be specifically instructed to rate the arc anonymously (no comments/feedback posted through the in-game system).[*]The entrants then send a PM to the facilitator (not to the judges) saying which arc they chose, and that they have played the arc, and giving their own arc info for entry into the contest. Entrants should be strongly encouraged (required?) to provide feedback/criticism on the arc they played as their entry requirement so that the judges get the benefit of more than just a "naked" rating. And also as their proof of payment just like you proposed. Be sure entrants are instructed to do this through PMs to the facilitator and not post their entry fee picks on the boards.[*]The entrant comments/feedback about the judges' arcs are then passed on to the judges anonymously by the facilitator, so the judges don't know which entrants played which of their arcs. That prevents any bias on the part of the judges, however inadvertent, from knowing which entrants played/rated their arcs.[*]Optional: If the entrants make lopsided picks about which judge's arc they play for their entry fee, some judges might get short-changed. You could keep a running post on the boards of how many plays each judge's arc has received and instruct entrants to pick the one with the fewest plays. You could assign judges arcs to players, but that creates an extra cycle of required communications, so easier to use a method that lets entrant choose up-front.[*]If you also want to protect the judges from the possibility of "revenge ratings", the judges could give their reviews to the facilitator to actually post to the boards without the name of the judge for each specific review. I don't know if that's necessary, but a quick glance through the boards will show that a number of people are concerned about other players deliberately marking down their arcs because they provided feedback/constructive criticism. Maybe leave it up to the judges to decide on that point. And hopefully, with the facilitator being non-voting, no one takes anything out on them.
[*]Also, although the facilitator is non-voting, I'd say it's fair for them to include an arc for review in the entry fee pool along with judges, since they'll be doing work too. 
[/list]
CoH Codex : Demo Models/FX/MOVs : Demo Info
Arc 111022: "Doctor Geist and the Scientific Method"
[ QUOTE ]
MA is basically a massive story contest.
If you did a themed contest - re-write the Positron TF, or do a single mission of Trolls - that makes sense.
But a general story arc contest is basically redundant.
[/ QUOTE ]
If the MA review system worked to everyone's satisfaction, I would agree with you. But it doesn't; I'm not speaking just of my own opinions here, but those I've read on these very forums (phrases like "5-star bandits", "1-star bandits", and "rating system is basically worthless" get bandied about all the time).
That's really the main reason to do this: a significant part of the playerbase is not happy with the current rating system. If you're in the camp that the current rating system is fine, more power to you; I'm trying to offer options, in a way that will hopefully be fun and constructive for all involved.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
[ QUOTE ]
If you're going to use this sort of quid pro quo system as an entrance fee, then I really think you should have some sort of double-blind on it.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's a good idea. And in fact, I was thinking of placing myself only as a coordinator in this and not doing any judging at all (and therefore getting none of the quid-pro-quo arc plays out of it, but that's OK, I'll take one for the team).
So I could be the gatekeeper of the entrants, and help coordinate with the Scoop staff and Ex on the promotion of the event, while leaving the actual judging/critiquing to the panel of judges.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
Even if an arc doesn't gain dev attention, having mention made of it by the city scoop could create a lot of attention.
I think that MA judging contests is a great idea, and could be something which is done on a regular basis. It lends itself very well to holidays and special events. Example- around Christmas time, there could be a contest to judge who has created the best MA holiday arc.
Having organized contests before (the RL kind), here are a couple of things to consider so to avoid huge headaches:
1) All judges need to be using the same criteria to judge. This criteria needs to be made available to people (before or after the contest). People need to feel that there is a rhyme and reason behind who is selected winner besides a couple of selected people thinking it is best.
2) A judge should not be leaving feedback, save a simple note to inform that the arc has been played.
3) The perceived quality of judges will have a direct effect on how many people decide to enter. Asking people to play a judge's arc does an excellent job of two things at once with also providing judges with compensation.
4) I think it would be a good idea to add other categorie;. like best costumes for a custom groups. This isn't a suggestion to dilute the overall winner, but to also recognize other aspects of the MA.
Feel free to kick those around, and do whatever with them.
Hey folks,
I raised the idea of a story arc contest in beta and it was generally well received conceptually. However, one thing that was a sticking point: I had envisioned an entry fee (in inf) to prevent floods of entries from people who weren't really serious about creating good content. The fee was regarded as onerous by many commenters.
Having seen the MA live, I think my concerns were valid: there is a lot of cruft in the system, and anyone with anything halfway decent has to fight to get it noticed. However, I think I totally missed the ball in one regard; inf isn't the right gatekeeper. If my own experience is any indicator, people wanting to have their stories noticed couldn't give a fig about inf, which makes it not only a poor choice for a contest prize, it's also no incentive to become a judge. And finding good judges has been a problem; my call for judges garnered exactly no responses.
So here's my revised plan: both the entrance fee and the judges' compensation is measured in arc plays. In order to enter, all you have to do is play one arc by one of the judges. PM the judge of your choice the title of your entry as well as some detail of the arc you played to confirm you played it, and you get in. Note that rating the judge's arc isn't an enforceable requirement, but the rules would ask (via the honor system) that entrants give what they feel are fair ratings to the arc they played.
This makes it very compelling to be a judge, because you'll likely get a lot of plays from prospective entrants.
We also need to address the contest prize; inf doesn't seem like a great award anymore. So my v2 reward is that all of the top three finalists get dedicated review space by the judges in the City Scoop, with a lengthier review of the grand winner a week later by the combined judging team. In addition, the winner would be formally recommended for DC examination to the devs, either by PM or by the dedicated recommendation thread mentioned in Moderator08's thread. (Though I haven't been able to find the latter; was it ever set up? Regardless, PM would probably work.)
Thoughts on this rev? If this goes forward, I will need judges. I will also want to move on this relatively soon, as my schedule will become overwhelmingly busy in early June.
Criteria for judging:
- You have to have good writing and critiquing skills. The whole point of the contest is to provide quality feedback to aspiring authors.
- You have to have enough time over the next three to four weeks to critique 15-20 story arcs. That's quite a few arcs.
- Preferably you'll have play time slots available for US West Coast evening play, so that we can run some entry arcs as a team, but that's not a hard requirement.
EDIT: Can't really recommend DC status, just that it be played/considered - reworded.
EDIT2: Reposted criteria for judges from my earlier thread.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines