Paper Shaper Meta Thread

[Kafuuka]

So the first edition of this contest is over now. I think I've learned a couple of things while being part of the jury. Among others that I think it's time to update my own papers. Some of the comments I made on other people's papers and bad marks I gave, made me go: 'Damn, mine fail in that aspect too.'

I also consider the contest to be a success. We originally stated that if we got more than a dozen of participants, we'd give an additional prize to the category winners and we did get 17 valid entries. Sadly we did not reach the 25 mark. I still believe that for a first edition 17 is a good number and that it merits a second edition. Logically that would be held 90 days from now, since then we should have all fresh people in the [10, 100] range. What follows are my observations while organizing and should be helpful to whoever organizes a similar contest in the future. (not saying that I don't want to do it, but three months is a lot of time, and if this ever sees a twentieth edition...)

One thing that should change is the score system. We originally thought using 1-5 marks would work, but we soon ended up with a three way tie for first place. After reevaluating those three, we managed to get a winner, but second place got tied. The odds of getting a tie should decrease a lot by simply using larger numbers: at least 1-10, maybe even go for 1-20 marks. (of course you could say that we could've used decimals, but who ever gives a score of 3,14159265?)

Secondly, the roleplay and purpose category. This one is extremely hard to remain objective. Papers are supposed to add to roleplay, so this category does make sense, but it is hard to judge roleplay through papers alone. Some people none of the judges ever met, others we all knew, even though we didn't really knew each other all that well. Actually, in general I don't think it is possible to make perfect categories at all. Each set of papers is different and serves a different purpose. A mysterious character will inevitably have more obscure papers. I'd like to think our categories were as good as it gets and well, no one was forced to participate.

The profile rule... this made an awful lot of sense to me at the time, a lot of people were hard to find online, especially if all four of us had to hunt them and review them in game. However it seems this rule also caused a bit of confusion, and sadly in a couple of occasions things went wrong with the automatically generated profile.
One example is the use of the same script on each page, depending on which browser you use this might crash it, while looking at a single paper in game it works perfectly fine. We noticed it, we found those persons online, happy ending.

Alts. If anyone submitted an alt, please raise your voice in a triumphant 'hah I fooled you' way. If you did not win anything, I'll reply with 'suits you sir.' We were worried about it, but it doesn't look like anyone bothered to write papers for a few silver coins. In order to win you would've needed quite an amount of effort, and in some ways that would've made me care little about the usage of alts. Part of our fear for alts came from the idea that veteran players might feel cheated or ignored. If this were to become a regular contest, it might be fair to also hold one for veteran players because there was none when they were the required age. (And before someone mentions the best paper award at the festival, there are a lot that are too old for the paper shaper, yet young enough to not even have heard about it.)

In any case, we made decisions and stuck with them, but now is the time for people to say 'I could've done it better'. Worst that could happen: I refute your claim, or I make you do it next time.

And finally, I'll take this opportunity to thank my fellow jury members. It was nice working with you!
Kafuuka

[Kriskah Arcanu]

[quote name='Kafuuka' post='33755' date='Jun 17 2009, 05:42 PM']I also consider the contest to be a success. We originally stated that if we got more than a dozen of participants, we'd give an additional prize to the category winners and we did get 17 valid entries. Sadly we did not reach the 25 mark. I still believe that for a first edition 17 is a good number and that it merits a second edition. Logically that would be held 90 days from now, since then we should have all fresh people in the [10, 100] range. What follows are my observations while organizing and should be helpful to whoever organizes a similar contest in the future. (not saying that I don't want to do it, but three months is a lot of time, and if this ever sees a twentieth edition...)[/quote]

It was a succes considering the contest had almost none publicicty.
I want to thank King Bull, pamplemouse, stormrunner and everyone who pm their adepts to inform them about the contest.

I am sure next one with better publicity will get many more contestants

Just a few ideas for next contest:
About the score system. I don't see a problems with decimals if you can correct the total sum at the end (I dont know the expresion in English, is when you, for example have a result of: 8.6 , that goes to 9.... and 8.4 will remain as 8 )
For evaluating roleplay, which I believe is quite complicated, there could be a anonymus jury to meet the contestant and evaluate them on regular conversations without them knowing.
I am not sure about a new contest for veterans, it will have to be very different from the one from the festival, with many categories as well. I'm sure if it is presented in an original way it could be great

Anyway,
Awiiya, Intrigue, Willhem and Kaf, I know you work really hard on this, so all I have to say is thank you for that, I trully hope we can do this again

K

Edited June 18, 2009 by Kriskah Arcanu

[Kafuuka]

[quote name='Kriskah Arcanu' post='33838' date='Jun 18 2009, 05:03 PM']It was a success considering the contest had almost none publicity.[/quote]
We did our best to spam the chat. I even saw one of the contestants encourage a friend to enter, so I don't think there was almost no publicity. There is room for improvement, but as time passes it will become something that people look forward to, based on rumors about the previous one. (eg reading the papers of the winners and seeing the trophy picture should increase awareness)


[quote]About the score system. I don't see a problems with decimals if you can correct the total sum at the end (I dont know the expression in English, is when you, for example have a result of: 8.6 , that goes to 9.... and 8.4 will remain as 8 )[/quote]
It's unconventional to give marks like 8.6 / 10, while giving 86 / 100 is normal. Mathematically there is no difference, but psychologically there is. And none of us expected there would be a tie. I'm still guessing at what the odds are, it's a bit tedious to calculate since the marks are not uniformly distributed. (if they were it would be less than one in a billion chance)


[quote]I am not sure about a new contest for veterans, it will have to be very different from the one from the festival, with many categories as well. I sure if it is presented in an original way it could be great.[/quote]
What I meant was to use the same rules and format we used now, but change the age requirements. That way nobody could complain about being left out.

[Kafuuka]

*casts necromancy on his own thread*
It's been about 80 days since the first edition. I think now would be a good time to comment about a next edition? The new Q functionality will certainly ease the publicity part.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

So, is there going to be a veterans one? And if so, could I compete?

[phantasm]

the paper contest was by far one of the best contests i ever competed in Kafuuka. I encourage you completly to do this again and would be more than glad to be a judge in the next one. I think that the idea of 100 or under days is the best idea. Veterans have had mass time to figure them all out and you truely see the inner side of a person and thier character if it is well written in the firt 100 days. It also encourages those new people without papers to write papers and find new ways to make interesting and original characters to this realm. (drunk so im sure im repeating) awsome job with the last one and hope the best and willing to do anythign to help with the next

[Kafuuka]

[quote name='Guybrush Threepwood' date='09 September 2009 - 02:02 AM' timestamp='1252454551' post='41275']
So, is there going to be a veterans one? And if so, could I compete?
[/quote]
I ask myself the same two questions. I'd like to compete too, but then other people should organize it. If there are a couple of regular instances first, we'll have a number of people who don't qualify for the veterans contest yet might feel up to organizing it. The September edition is my current worry though.
I expected people to post tons of comments. eg. The nature of grading papers, by using categories, is prone to favoring certain styles. Which is ironic since we want to promote creativity and originality. Influencing the categories changes which styles are favored and hence the odds of certain entrants. It really amazes me no one tried that. (Maybe I am paranoid, anyone know a good psy near Antwerp?)
Naturally, if it stays quiet I'll assume it best to stick to the previous set of rules and categories.

[dst]

Newcomers will rarely state their opinions moreover, they will not state if they disagree with something.
Make a contest for vets and then watch the fight . You should do it just for the show that will follow

[Guybrush Threepwood]

How new are newcomers? I was happy to state opinions when I was under 100 days, though I probably started somewhere between 60 and 100.

[Shadowseeker]

Close due to inactivity.