Help turn a popularity contest into a content-based contest

[Taylor Reid]

Greetings,

 

TL;DR : #LGUltraWideFestival is a popularity contest, so help fix it using some of my suggestions below. (See what I did there?)

 

As some of you may be aware, a video based competition was announced on LTT  youtube channel about a week and a half ago, #LGUltraWideFestival. It opened to submissions on Monday. Upon reading the FAQ for the competition, I was saddened to see that progression past the first level of the competition is entirely dependent on the number of likes a Youtube (or Facebook) video received, as what this means is that only those who have pre-existing channels, or are very active on social media, stand much of a chance of succeeding in the competition, regardless of the quality of their entry. 

 

So I urge you to help change this by spending a little bit of your time acting as a competition judge would. Go to youtube/facebook/instagram and do some searching by means other than highest number of views. You could see if any playlists have been created, take a look at the most recent submissions, or scroll to the bottom of the search results, pick a random page and then a random entry. 

 

What's more, if you are going to help turn this into a video contest instead of popularity contest, I suggest reserving any likes until after you have viewed several videos and then going back and giving a like only to the top 3 (or more if you watched more videos). If you find a video that you think deserves more attention than it has received, it isn't difficult to share the video link to your social media outlet of choice, and help the person who is likely suffering only from a lack of social media influence with a little bit of yours.

 

-Taylor Reid

 

Disclaimer:

Yes, I have entered a video into the contest. 

Yes, I don't have much social media influence. 

Yes, I think my entry is top tier, but still has little chance of success.

No, I'm not providing you with a link to my entry, what I want is for you to contribute an voice in judging the entries as unbiased by current view-count and as influenced by the content (be it creativity, style, quality or what have you) of the video as you possibly can. 

[Taylor Reid]

Have people found any favorites they think other people should check out? No posting your own videos! 

 

EDIT: Actually, I don't think we are supposed to post links to non LTT material on this forum, so scratch that... 

Just go look for good videos on your own. Maybe just writing the title is OK, but try not to self promote. This is about finding hidden gems, not throwing your gems at peoples faces.

[Ezzy-525]

I can already see this thread becoming exactly the opposite of your post.

 

It will shortly be people posting their videos with a "have a look at mine if you want" comment.

[DildorTheDecent]

9 minutes ago, Ezzy-525 said:

It will shortly be people posting their videos with a "have a look at mine if you want" comment.

what if I post a video of the ultrawide that I already own? 

[Zando_]

16 minutes ago, Ezzy-525 said:

I can already see this thread becoming exactly the opposite of your post.

 

It will shortly be people posting their videos with a "have a look at mine if you want" comment.

Change the OP to make sure people show off other guy's videos, not their own. 

[dalekphalm]

On 18/08/2017 at 4:15 PM, Taylor Reid said:

Greetings,

 

TL;DR : #LGUltraWideFestival is a popularity contest, so help fix it using some of my suggestions below. (See what I did there?)

 

As some of you may be aware, a video based competition was announced on LTT  youtube channel about a week and a half ago, #LGUltraWideFestival. It opened to submissions on Monday. Upon reading the FAQ for the competition, I was saddened to see that progression past the first level of the competition is entirely dependent on the number of likes a Youtube (or Facebook) video received, as what this means is that only those who have pre-existing channels, or are very active on social media, stand much of a chance of succeeding in the competition, regardless of the quality of their entry. 

 

So I urge you to help change this by spending a little bit of your time acting as a competition judge would. Go to youtube/facebook/instagram and do some searching by means other than highest number of views. You could see if any playlists have been created, take a look at the most recent submissions, or scroll to the bottom of the search results, pick a random page and then a random entry. 

 

What's more, if you are going to help turn this into a video contest instead of popularity contest, I suggest reserving any likes until after you have viewed several videos and then going back and giving a like only to the top 3 (or more if you watched more videos). If you find a video that you think deserves more attention than it has received, it isn't difficult to share the video link to your social media outlet of choice, and help the person who is likely suffering only from a lack of social media influence with a little bit of yours.

 

-Taylor Reid

 

Disclaimer:

Yes, I have entered a video into the contest. 

Yes, I don't have much social media influence. 

Yes, I think my entry is top tier, but still has little chance of success.

No, I'm not providing you with a link to my entry, what I want is for you to contribute an voice in judging the entries as unbiased by current view-count and as influenced by the content (be it creativity, style, quality or what have you) of the video as you possibly can. 

Good idea, but you should ask people to NOT post their own videos. Granted, we'd have to use Scouts Honour, but we already have one person basically trying to enhance their chance of winning (I don't blame them) by posting it here.

[Taylor Reid]

5 hours ago, Ezzy-525 said:

I can already see this thread becoming exactly the opposite of your post.

 

It will shortly be people posting their videos with a "have a look at mine if you want" comment.

Yes, I see the problem now... Not to mention I don't think any actual links to youtube are supposed to be posted in this forum, as that is against the code of conduct or whatever... 

[dalekphalm]

8 minutes ago, Taylor Reid said:

Yes, I see the problem now... Not to mention I don't think any actual links to youtube are supposed to be posted in this forum, as that is against the code of conduct or whatever... 

Not inherently. You're not allowed to self-advertise. What that means is you cannot link your own videos into a thread. You can however post them in Status Update and in your signature, I believe.

 

You can link other videos that you have no affiliation with. For example, when a new Last Jedi trailer is released, I can post a link to that in the Off Topic forum, without fear of breaking the rules.

 

In this context, you could (or I could) post a link to a YT Playlist of a bunch of the LG Contest entries, so long as either it did not contain your video, or your video was one among many and you didn't say which one was yours (and it wasn't super obvious, like your LTT username being the same as your YT Channel name).

[LAwLz]

15 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Not inherently. You're not allowed to self-advertise. What that means is you cannot link your own videos into a thread. You can however post them in Status Update and in your signature, I believe.

I don't think that rule is that heavily enforced.

I have at several points linked my own videos and never gotten in trouble for it. It seems to depend on how you do it. It is very transparent when someone posts a video because they want more views compared to when someone posts a video because it will actually help with the thread (such as showing an issue or solution).

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I don't think that rule is that heavily enforced.

I have at several points linked my own videos and never gotten in trouble for it. It seems to depend on how you do it. It is very transparent when someone posts a video because they want more views compared to when someone posts a video because it will actually help with the thread (such as showing an issue or solution).

Fair enough - there are lots of rules that aren't necessarily strictly enforced, and I think that's a good thing.

 

We should be honouring the spirit of the rules, not strictly enforcing them without looking at the context. That also helps to keep the rules simple, because the old CoC had gotten extremely bloated by trying to add new rules every time a new situation came up.

 

However, the rules need to be clear enough that it's obvious that someone broke a rule and why that was bad.