Mad_Dach5und
07-12-2008, 01:42 AM
EBaum Contests - FAIL - Rant about it here
I'm staring a forum thread here because I don't see any significant response happening inside the site - based on the comments that I (and others) have posted on EBaums Contest Pages.
First - let me say I am a regular visitor to EBaums, and enjoy a lot that gets posted on the site - so much so that I decided to subscribe and get involved with the photoshop and Caption contests that ebaums makes available every week.
Since I have no idea just how much content gets shoved down the pipe by us ordinary Joes in each contest you submit, I have no idea how much effort it takes to regulate such content. I am sure there are item posted by users that are lame, obscene, and probably even illegal that have to be dealt with on a regular basis. I appreciate the effort you staff puts forth to allow Photoshop / Caption contests to happen.
THAT BEING SAID...
:preachon:
Rant #1: Content submission failures (Photoshop Images)
No matter how I try, I cannot upload any image to Ebaums. Every time I try, I get a 301 (-200) error. It is not MY operating system, browser, cookies, antivirus or firewall - I have tried all that: submitting from a Mac, Windows, At Work and At Home, I have used Firefox, Internet Explorer, even and old version of Netscape - they ALL get the same error. The latest image I made - I posted a hotlink in the comment lines and begged - someone else was nice enough to post it. WHY CAN'T I?
Rant #2: Photoshop Contest #27 - content is not visible
The most recent Photoshop contest is not being moderated or edited properly, and I have no idea why. The link to view user submissions goes to the right page, but each submission is goofy. There are many multiples of the same links to the same content - so that tells me someone is not doing their job of editing. Out of about 30 entries, only four or five go to visible links you can actually see. The rest of the links go to their labeled pages, but there is NO PHOTO there to look at! Even with the effort I made to create a Photoshop entry - I could care less if mine was the only one that failed - but it isn't - it's about 80% that don't work! Once again - I tried viewing with multiple computers, using different software from different sites - NONE worked - it's the web page!
Rant #3: Caption Contest #46 (and others) end in train wrecks
I believe there HAS to be a huge volume of caption submissions that should just never see the light of day. I'm fine with that. If my entries stink - they stink. So be it.
My main rant with the LATEST caption contest (#46), is that whomever stopped the entries and chose the "finalists" didn't bother screening anything. There was about a dozen captions to "Vote" on, and about HALF of them was LAME captions submitted by the same user! No way in hell that contest had been screened for 'good' captions. Someone just stopped it at a point and submitted the last 12-15 entries for voting. Fail!
Rant #4 - Caption Contest Voting - or Sabotage?
I'm sure these was a good reason for the 'thumbs up/down' voting method for the caption contests. The pattern that I am seeing tells me it doesn't work. Every submission, no matter how wise or clever, gets voted "down" almost immediately after it is submitted. (Like I said before - don't give a damn about my own) Every entry starts out with a negative score - EVERY ONE. To me that just screams that someone (or many) is manipulating the system - probably voting every entry they see "thumbs Down" just to piss us off.
I think its a good idea to have the ability to vote both ways, and that we cannot multiple-vote single entries to avoid ballot stuffing. I would just ask that voting be more controlled - maybe limit the number of votes on user can cast for ALL entries - so users are forced to screen entries better and vote more wisely.
Another idea would be to list the total number of votes cast per entry, so we can have a better idea just how many people even bothered to respond to our caption. Knowing whether or not a score of -14 came from 250 votes or 15 votes is a HUGE difference. See what I mean?
I pissed and moaned quite a bit about it in the #46 comment lines - for that I apologize. The contest got yanked, and I may have been a reason why - all I can say is 'Sorry'.
That's all I got for now.
I'm staring a forum thread here because I don't see any significant response happening inside the site - based on the comments that I (and others) have posted on EBaums Contest Pages.
First - let me say I am a regular visitor to EBaums, and enjoy a lot that gets posted on the site - so much so that I decided to subscribe and get involved with the photoshop and Caption contests that ebaums makes available every week.
Since I have no idea just how much content gets shoved down the pipe by us ordinary Joes in each contest you submit, I have no idea how much effort it takes to regulate such content. I am sure there are item posted by users that are lame, obscene, and probably even illegal that have to be dealt with on a regular basis. I appreciate the effort you staff puts forth to allow Photoshop / Caption contests to happen.
THAT BEING SAID...
:preachon:
Rant #1: Content submission failures (Photoshop Images)
No matter how I try, I cannot upload any image to Ebaums. Every time I try, I get a 301 (-200) error. It is not MY operating system, browser, cookies, antivirus or firewall - I have tried all that: submitting from a Mac, Windows, At Work and At Home, I have used Firefox, Internet Explorer, even and old version of Netscape - they ALL get the same error. The latest image I made - I posted a hotlink in the comment lines and begged - someone else was nice enough to post it. WHY CAN'T I?
Rant #2: Photoshop Contest #27 - content is not visible
The most recent Photoshop contest is not being moderated or edited properly, and I have no idea why. The link to view user submissions goes to the right page, but each submission is goofy. There are many multiples of the same links to the same content - so that tells me someone is not doing their job of editing. Out of about 30 entries, only four or five go to visible links you can actually see. The rest of the links go to their labeled pages, but there is NO PHOTO there to look at! Even with the effort I made to create a Photoshop entry - I could care less if mine was the only one that failed - but it isn't - it's about 80% that don't work! Once again - I tried viewing with multiple computers, using different software from different sites - NONE worked - it's the web page!
Rant #3: Caption Contest #46 (and others) end in train wrecks
I believe there HAS to be a huge volume of caption submissions that should just never see the light of day. I'm fine with that. If my entries stink - they stink. So be it.
My main rant with the LATEST caption contest (#46), is that whomever stopped the entries and chose the "finalists" didn't bother screening anything. There was about a dozen captions to "Vote" on, and about HALF of them was LAME captions submitted by the same user! No way in hell that contest had been screened for 'good' captions. Someone just stopped it at a point and submitted the last 12-15 entries for voting. Fail!
Rant #4 - Caption Contest Voting - or Sabotage?
I'm sure these was a good reason for the 'thumbs up/down' voting method for the caption contests. The pattern that I am seeing tells me it doesn't work. Every submission, no matter how wise or clever, gets voted "down" almost immediately after it is submitted. (Like I said before - don't give a damn about my own) Every entry starts out with a negative score - EVERY ONE. To me that just screams that someone (or many) is manipulating the system - probably voting every entry they see "thumbs Down" just to piss us off.
I think its a good idea to have the ability to vote both ways, and that we cannot multiple-vote single entries to avoid ballot stuffing. I would just ask that voting be more controlled - maybe limit the number of votes on user can cast for ALL entries - so users are forced to screen entries better and vote more wisely.
Another idea would be to list the total number of votes cast per entry, so we can have a better idea just how many people even bothered to respond to our caption. Knowing whether or not a score of -14 came from 250 votes or 15 votes is a HUGE difference. See what I mean?
I pissed and moaned quite a bit about it in the #46 comment lines - for that I apologize. The contest got yanked, and I may have been a reason why - all I can say is 'Sorry'.
That's all I got for now.