Anti-Trolling rule needs to take affect more?

[Vlad G Pohnert]

Well, The other thing them to consider is are we worrying about the small minority then?

Vlad

[XStylus]

I also agree that it would limit smaller cons on the number of entries they get. However at the same time the hope is to have editors start creating more videos and submitting new stuff, instead of relying on their old amv's that have won. I don't mind losing to the same editor, but when you're losing to the same video over and over again that has won multiple awards, there is no point in trying to enter a contest.

Editors only have so much time to invest each year into making a video. They'll generally make one, two, or three entries and circulate them to as many cons as are willing to play them, starting with either their home con or whichever con has the most prestige. If they are to take the extra time to make an additional entry uniquely for a specific event (especially a small one they might not have any local attachment to), what's in it for them?

On a broader level, if many cons were to implement limits to how many events they can submit their entry to, then they'll submit to just the top events. Or they'll quit. Some editors get their motivation from how many events they show at. Key word, show at. It's been my observation that many editors don't care (much) about whether they win, rather they care more about whether their vid made the finals and gets shown.

So the point here is "how can we not hurt the smaller con's and still have a contest be fresh."

I don't think you can, quite honestly.

Let's get to the core of things here. Every coordinator, myself included, is forever looking for some sort of magic way to encourage editors to make their event the one to send their freshest entries to, and unless you've got an event that has a lot of pull or some sort of schtick, that's extremely hard to do. Heck, that's hard even for me to do at a juggernaut like AX. Absent some sort of carrot (such as a cash prize or some sort of unique award that has gravitas or meaning), the amount of entries you get is the amount you get, and anything done to tinker with freshness rules or victory limits is going to reduce that, and at a small con that is not what you want.

Look, nearly every con has an AMV event, and many of them do them in the same format that every other con does. Get a bunch of submissions, whittle them down to a list of finalists, show em', vote em', award em'. If you've been to one, you've been to them all.

So do something different.

Small cons have a flexibility to experiment and do weird things in ways that big cons usually don't have. So what if your entries have all been seen a bajillion awards elsewhere. Make the awards presentation the real show.

I'm just randomly spitballing ideas here, but... consider throwing away the typical competition concept. Do something crazy like giving every entry a ridiculous award right after it's shown. Make it something fun. Give Piece of Toast the "Longest Spreadsheet" award. Give "Anime 101" the "Innovations in Anime Mathematics" award. Give some crappy drama AMV the "Most Dramatic Macroblock" award. Have your most comedic GOH be the presenter along with a faux panel of absurd judges that improv a debate on what kind of award to give.

Make the award presentation be the real show that your attendees want to see, with the AMVs being just a fun bonus. Do something that adds value to being there rather than just watching on YouTube. And I guarantee you'll still attract AMV submissions (and perhaps more) because creators will be curious to know what kind of weird off-the-wall award they'd get.

You can't fix the freshness problem, so attack the monotony problem instead.

[MatthewRoy]

I'd rather watch an excellent video for the third or fourth time (and see each time the audience reaction) rather than watching a not as good video that got the spot only because somebody else was forcefully excluded.
Also I'm quite sure that average guy from the audience doesn't follow the community as much as we do. So chance is, even if it's the same old video that won many trophies for us, for most of the audience it will be something fresh and new to watch

As I have stated, the more complex the rules, the more work and for the Coordinator and the more confusion for those who enter...

This, I can't imagine the amount of work it would take to keep track of results and then make fair decisions from it, without pissing off people

Also from the con point of view, you want to give the best show you can to the audience. The priority will always be there, so taking off the competition really good videos is nonsense (as long as they fit with the freshness rule)
IF you really want to reward those who submit fresh and new video to your con, then make an award just for exclusive entries. But creating rules to make sure that X video that wasn't good enough to be a finalist in many cons will get a spot in the next one by DQing better videos is a silly argument

[MaboroshiStudio]

I still say people are overreacting a tad bit... there are already plenty of cons with freshness rules. The 6 award max rule will only effect a handful of AMVs yet people act like it will gut contests. Possibly this year at MTAC I will just have the freshness rule and make note of how many AMVs have over 6 awards.

The separate category I don't see requiring more effort as it will be open to anything within the past year.

[MaboroshiStudio]

Actually due to the date of MTAC the freshness rule will be 8 months... anything that premiered after Sept 3rd 2014

I am still debating on the max award limit and creating a category for anything 12 months or over the set award limit. This way these videos will still get shown and be eligible for an award.

[BasharOfTheAges]

There's more to it than how it will effect your contest. Max award rules are harmful to OTHER CONTESTS too, especially smaller ones. They're antagonistic. They say, don't risk supporting the small cons, because when you win, you DQ yourself elsewhere. This is hostile behavior. If all the big cons followed the example set by Otakon in this regard it would be toxic to the hobby.

[MaboroshiStudio]

There's more to it than how it will effect your contest. Max award rules are harmful to OTHER CONTESTS too, especially smaller ones. They're antagonistic. They say, don't risk supporting the small cons, because when you win, you DQ yourself elsewhere. This is hostile behavior. If all the big cons followed the example set by Otakon in this regard it would be toxic to the hobby.

Otakon has a 2 max rule and anything outside of this is not eligible for anything... this is not what I am proposing. I think that is far too restrictive...

I am trying to find a happy medium / middle ground and again it will only impact a select AMVs which as I said would still be eligible for awards in the way I want to do it. I also think variety is good... and I am not advocating that all contests should have freshness / award limits.

[irriadin]

Otakon has a 2 max rule and anything outside of this is not eligible for anything... this is not what I am proposing. I think that is far too restrictive...

Actually... at Otakon, any video that has won any award voted on by multiple people is DQ-able as a troll. So it's just 1.

[MaboroshiStudio]

Otakon has a 2 max rule and anything outside of this is not eligible for anything... this is not what I am proposing. I think that is far too restrictive...

Actually... at Otakon, any video that has won any award voted on by multiple people is DQ-able as a troll. So it's just 1.

Thanks for the correction I forgot what the rule was...

[Vlad G Pohnert]

I think I have to agree, clamping down on the freshness rule a bit (6 - 8 months) seems to be the best happy medium I can see for now... I have had a 6 month freshness rules on several of my contests of my any years and I have had quite a few videos DQed for that reason. You do however have to stick to your rules on this one as a several contestants did not even know about the rule, and then there were those that argued with me, for example, that their YouTube posting date was wrong!

AND a selected few have argued that they had such a small amount of hits on their video so did consider it to be publically available (really?).. So yea, some of the stories I have had are quite interesting, but the rule has worked on flushing out people that keep sending in stuff for 8+ months.

For Sakura-Con, the freshness rule will be 7.5 months as the deadline is early in the year and Nov & Dec are a write-off for a lot of editors in making new stuff so, yea you do need to be aware of the "off season or slow time too.

And YES, I not saying this should be the universal constant that applies to every con or contest, just what I find ti be the "happy" medium that has worked for contests I run (And I do run a few...)

I'm just randomly spitballing ideas here, but... consider throwing away the typical competition concept. Do something crazy like giving every entry a ridiculous award right after it's shown. Make it something fun. Give Piece of Toast the "Longest Spreadsheet" award. Give "Anime 101" the "Innovations in Anime Mathematics" award. Give some crappy drama AMV the "Most Dramatic Macroblock" award. Have your most comedic GOH be the presenter along with a faux panel of absurd judges that improv a debate on what kind of award to give.
.

Actually, I kind of do that for Otafest's AMV contest.. I get the judges to come up with creative awards and names (we give out 8 of them). The audience loves hearing what we come up with at the awards ceremony, certainly a highlight of the show.

Vlad