Some Ranting About the Contests

[TwilightDeku]

In my eyes, the April contest was a disaster. Some other members and I have agreed that the contests need to stop. Why? Let me explain:

Problem #1: The objective

From what I understand about the contests, they are designed to attract new members to the forums. I will agree that lots of new members DO join during the contests. Key word: "During". Many new members come here and get to 100 posts, then they leave never to come back again. Besides the annoying amount of innactive users, this shouldn't be a problem. However it does become a problem with problem 2.

Problem #2: The requirements

The contests require that each member have 100 posts total and 50 posts in April. New members that join the forums during the contests have to get to 100 posts in order to have a chance to win. So most new members just spam there way to 100 posts. I have seen one too many three word replies. Come to think of it, I have also seen many ONE word replies too. You know something is wrong when the "top-poster" has 30+ posts in ONE DAY!

Problem #3: The aftermath

After the contest is over, the forums calm down and are not as active. The giant storm of new users spamming there way to 100 posts has passed. The forums are filled with inactive users and many repeated threads for the mods to sort out.


Quality vs. Quantity:

All these problems come down to one thing: quality vs. quantity. The contests are entirely quantity based and have no regard to quality. If you demand a high quantity, you are going to get low quality. When you just set a quantity goal, people are going to throw quality in the trash. People could just post 100 one word responses to everything and still be eligible. The contests could become a good thing if you flipped the foundation upside down. If the contests were quality based instead of quantity you would get rid of the spammers and get a bunch of willing and devoted new users. I have some ideas how you could do this.

Ideas:
•A contest for the best artwork
•Best article
•Best Zelda-themed musical composition
•People who do the best in some Zelda-jeopardy type game
•ANYTHING THAT IS NOT QUANTITY BASED


The end of the june contest was a relief for some of our members. Including me. But when I saw the MAY contest, I was all like:

Please Mases, stop encouraging people to wreck the forums. Please conceder my ideas to attract more willing and devoted users. That is my rant for today, thank you for reading.

~Twilightdeku

 

[RedDekuScrub]

I agree completely. Veteran Mmembers don't seem to have propbelms, but the shear overflow of new members during every contest devistates the forums. The contest is supposed to promote forum activity, and although it accomplishes that, it goes about the wrong way of doing it. As you said, When the contest is active everything is chaos, then when it ends things go back to normal. It just goes to show that most of the new members that appear when a contest starts are not there to join the community, but there only to try to win a prize.

 

[Vanessa28]

Well the problem is whenever you hold contests there will ALWAYS be members joining for the contest only. Even if you do it totally different. I do agree we have a problem with people spamming and also a lot of members who joined and were active and posted good quality posts suddenly disappear. But there are also cool new members who are staying around. I think we cannot have it both ways. If you want activity you have to do something at least to make it happen

 

[fredfan11]

That's a good idea spamming has always annoyed me. I know Mases means well with the contests though.

 

[A Link In Time]

I disagree with this thread. While it is true that some new members do spam profusely, that is not true of all and such a stereotype is not appreciated. We were all new members at some point on this site and many of us grew to become established in a matter of months. For some, for example myself, that came at the cost of learning what a good post was and why to not spam threads with noncontributing posts. Today, it would be crazy for me to post the same content I did in August and September.

The reason the contests are always based on quantitative post count is because Mases wishes to encourage increased activity on the forums. As cruel as I may be in saying this, it is true that Mases has some financial interests in these contests. On the other hand, he's doing a great service to those members who have stuck around for awhile as well as the forums in general. It's nice to be rewarded by a site's webmaster once in awhile and as a winner of the December 2011 contest, I can testify to that.

The best thing we can do as established members on this site is to set a precedent for those who have recently joined. While it is true that some new additions have extremely high quality posts, many do not. By posting high quality replies in threads, we can encourage new members to do the same. Not all will do so obviously, however, that potential to convert some is the greatest victory the forums can experience now. It's time for everyone to start posting as though they were a Hylian Knight.

 

[Ventus]

Firstly, I don't think anything is wrong when someone has 30+ posts in one day. IIRC I reached higher than 50 in a single day over the summer!

Today, it would be crazy for me to post the same content I did in August and September.

You posted in Aug/Sep? :O

I agree half with the OP, half with Vanessa. On one hand, yes we have so many members just coming in for contests then deucing out. However, we do have some members that come for contest and stay, though I cannot name who those are simply because I don't hang around the contest threads enough to find out who (also rarely view the Member List).

I suppose there is no median line for this. With contests comes spammy posts to win those contests if they're based on quantity. If based on quality, you'll get many members who will complain about not being the best (me, for example), so on and so forth. But you'll still get those quality posters every once in a while. Maybe not Majora's_Cat quality, but regular ZD "high quality member" quality for sure (e.g dem Mods). I'm not sure the mods or Mases even can do anything about this besides remove the spammy posts.

 

[Big Octo]

I disagree with this thread. While it is true that some new members do spam profusely, that is not true of all and such a stereotype is not appreciated. We were all new members at some point on this site and many of us grew to become established in a matter of months. For some, for example myself, that came at the cost of learning what a good post was and why to not spam threads with noncontributing posts. Today, it would be crazy for me to post the same content I did in August and September.

The reason the contests are always based on quantitative post count is because Mases wishes to encourage increased activity on the forums. As cruel as I may be in saying this, it is true that Mases has some financial interests in these contests. On the other hand, he's doing a great service to those members who have stuck around for awhile as well as the forums in general. It's nice to be rewarded by a site's webmaster once in awhile and as a winner of the December 2011 contest, I can testify to that.

The best thing we can do as established members on this site is to set a precedent for those who have recently joined. While it is true that some new additions have extremely high quality posts, many do not. By posting high quality replies in threads, we can encourage new members to do the same. Not all will do so obviously, however, that potential to convert some is the greatest victory the forums can experience now. It's time for everyone to start posting as though they were a Hylian Knight.

While I do completely see the point you're trying to make, one key fact you're missing is that the members will leave once the contest is over, still no regards to their posting quality.

Even if we, as active forum members, tried our hardest to set an example for the newcomers, and even if it did work, then our efforts would be in vain. Why? As I said before, after the contests go, the majority of those who joined because of them to as well. Connect this with the quality over quantity argument; members join and and try as quickly as possible to get a qualifying post count. It's no lie that they pay attention to quality posts, but some of them frankly don't care or just shrug it off. Their eyes are aimed at the prize, not being members of the community or contributing to wholesome discussion. And again, once it's over, they leave. Would what you say really work? Doubtfully so, in my eyes.

 

[LPZeldaGamer]

While I do agree, I feel they should still have the contests... Maybe they could have a minimum requirement of Having a few sentences per post? Or something to counteract it. I mean, I enjoy entering contests, because I feel that it's very enjoyable and fun to get antsy when the winners are announced. :/ But that's just my opinion. As I am one of the people who wants to be in the contests. But I do my best post honestly in the forums. ono

~LPZeldaGamer

 

[TriforceHunter]

I somewhat agree. It's not that the contest is bad is just that some new guys are abusing it and spamming the Dungeon to death. However I like the way it is, it gives everyone a chance to win.

I guess a way to regulate the rules of the contest would be to bring back the 30 character limit(only in contest time, though) to avoid single word replies, just to make it so that if you got something to say then you better speak. Another good choice would be to only allow users that have been lurking the forums for a few moths, it wouldn't be fair for the newcomers, but such is life, and hey it would drive people that join for contest only away.

Those are my suggestion.

 

[donpedrox]

I must confess I was a long time ZD lurker and never joined the forums until Mases announced a contest however I didn't spam mostly because it is annoying to do so and time consuming. As a new member I hardly find anything useful to post and therefore don't quite meet the requirements for the more recent contests but that doesn't motivate me to spam my way into qualifying it motivates me to post more to meet the requirements for next month (and hope it is a bit of a lower post requirement).

 

[Mikau94]

I feel that you have a point. A lot of people are spamming and making hasty poorly written posts but I haves seen hundreds of new members that are adding a great deal to the forums. They have new ideas that keep things fresh. I think the contest could be differently but it seems that the Zelda Dungeon is trying to make sure everyone has a fair chance at winning. Maybe next time their could be two contests, one for the best article and one for the best piece of artwork.

 

[Triforce82]

I really love Zelda and I wanted to get more involved in the ZeldaDungeon community. I started to get into commenting on the forums and wanting to add more content. When the April contest came it just gave me more incentive to delve further into the Zelda series. I always try to make quality posts in which I add to what has already been said. It was a cool little bonus that I was one of the winners this last contest, but it would not have detoured me from posting quality posts if I didn't win anything.

I got the 2nd place prize and requested for the collector's edition of Zelda on GameCube instead so that I can contribute in more detail about those 4 original Zelda games.

I am one example of someone wanting to become a more quality poster because of the contests.
1) It gave me more incentive to explore more about Zelda
2) With a minimum post count it allowed me to think of new things
3) I have made some new friends from seeing the more quality posters, whether I agree with their side or not

 

[Krazy4Krash]

I encourage contests and enjoy taking part. The fact that the entry requirements are so lenient (that is, just a certain number of posts) is so anybody and everybody can enter and take part. If an article or artwork contest were to take place, this would not be the case at all. Many would not even consider entering, due to them knowing they wouldn't stand a chance against the excellent artists and article writers throughout these forums.
If a contest were to occur and only veteran members could enter, this would destroy the purpose of the contest, to encourage an increase in forum activity for new members.
As it has been stated many times through this thread already, quality is what needs to improve. How this would happen, I don't know, but contests should cease until a better system is found. Countless spammy posts is not worth very few amount of members actually sticking around.

Regarding only personal matters, I myself have had an account for almost two years now. At the beginning, I was a lurker and my posts were very limited in number. Afterwards, there was a period in which I never even logged on. About the time of the first contest, which, mind you, only required 10 posts, I very quickly started being an active user. I have stuck around since then, have entered all the contests for fun and they haven't changed my posting pattern at all (which is what it should be like).