Fillable Form

[Sean McGowan]

cwslyclgh wrote:

note that if Paizo was truly worried about these issues they could simply auto-reject any item that didn't include the correct BBCode tags... I think that the general voters perceive a lack of bolding certain words as a much more serious problem with an entry than it really is.

The lack of bolded words, or non-italicized spell names, or the various other cosmetic problems aren't my concern. They're flaws, I don't really understand how someone can miss them when there's a cut-and-pasteable template provided, but I won't spit on an entry for that. But come on. If you've been voting at any length (and you have), you've seen entries by now that bear absolutely NO resemblance to the template, not just in the fine tuning but in broad strokes. Items that don't have a listed slot. Items where the market price and the construction cost are apparently two randomly selected digits that bear no relation to one another. Items that put all the aura/slot/cost information at the bottom with the construction requirements. Items that misspell their own name in the title. Items that somehow manage to ADD sections to the header field like 'Grand major magical'.

This is what I'm talking about when I talk about entries that I just don't even feel the need to consider. It might not be an auto-reject from Paizo; fortunately, I'm not Paizo and can have my own auto-reject criteria. They're a minority of the total entries, thankfully, but there's enough of them that they're not statistically insignificant. And that's fine. Let them keep being submitted and I'll keep ignoring them. But the notion that people are asking Paizo to take a further step and eliminate that by providing a fillable form that will CATCH all that? Hell no. The argument that a form would make voting easier has been brought up; let me counter with the suggestion that having a clear way to see at a glance who's not ready for the contest makes voting MUCH easier.

[cwslyclgh]

Note that I never suggested that a fillable form was a good idea... I just pointed out that knowledge of BBCode was not a very good test of the typse of skills that Paiso should be testing for, and that they seemed to know it (by not auto disqualifying items that don't use the correct BBtags) so people just need to calm down and not make that one of the main criteria when voting (which in this case is akin to judging a book not by its cover, but by whether it has a dust jacket or not).

Not using the correct BB codes is not the same as lacking formatting altogether, having the 'random' formatting with the slot placed down in the requirements section (which is missing) or something like that.

[Sean McGowan]

cwslyclgh wrote:

Note that I never suggested that a fillable form was a good idea...

Yes, but you were a perfectly good vehicle for a piggybacked rant, and so I couldn't resist. :-)

For myself, I really had just wanted to make it clear to one and all that being opposed to this thread's proposal does not mean that those opposed are simply BBC code/formatting nazis who cackle with glee every time an entry fails to capitalize a feat.

[Cthulhudrew]

Sean McGowan wrote:

The argument that a form would make voting easier has been brought up; let me counter with the suggestion that having a clear way to see at a glance who's not ready for the contest makes voting MUCH easier.

Sean hit the nail on the head here. You may have the greatest idea in the world, but if you aren't able to express that idea effectively, and in the format requested, then I'm not going to upvote you over another contestant whose idea may not be the Second Coming, but who is creative, demonstrates an economy of words, and shows that they understand and are capable of the basic level of professionalism that they would need to have to proceed to the next level of competition, and perhaps beyond.

To the guy who isn't yet ready, there is always the competition next year, or the next. There are other publications and opportunities for them to succeed as well. Not everyone is there yet, and it isn't ultimately the publisher's (and your employer's) job to elevate you to that level.

[pH unbalanced]

Sean McGowan wrote:

The lack of bolded words, or non-italicized spell names, or the various other cosmetic problems aren't my concern. They're flaws, I don't really understand how someone can miss them when there's a cut-and-pasteable template provided, but I won't spit on an entry for that.

The reason there are so many non-italicized spell names is because italics for spell names was not in the template provided. There's no real excuse for making that mistake, because they talked about why that had been omitted (because each spell needs to be italicized separately, and the template can't provide for that since they don't know how many spells you will have) but anyone who simply pasted things into the template without doing more research will have missed that.

[Jacob Kellogg]

As a voter, my pipe dream is that the "Submit" button wouldn't even exist until after the contestant had already clicked the "Preview" button at least once.

[Feros]

Jacob Kellogg wrote:

As a voter, my pipe dream is that the "Submit" button wouldn't even exist until after the contestant had already clicked the "Preview" button at least once.

Now THAT is a good idea. You have to see the item as it will look. It's still a little "riding with training wheels," but given that getting new and relatively inexperienced talent is part of this competition that could work really well.

[Jacob Kellogg]

Feros wrote:

Jacob Kellogg wrote:

As a voter, my pipe dream is that the "Submit" button wouldn't even exist until after the contestant had already clicked the "Preview" button at least once.

Now THAT is a good idea. You have to see the item as it will look. It's still a little "riding with training wheels," but given that getting new and relatively inexperienced talent is part of this competition that could work really well.

And it might have saved Mr./Ms. Additionally. I feel really sorry for him/her; who knows how awesome that item might have been?

[Bobson]

Jacob Kellogg wrote:

As a voter, my pipe dream is that the "Submit" button wouldn't even exist until after the contestant had already clicked the "Preview" button at least once.

I was actually going to suggest this exact thing as I read the first page of the thread. Unlike a form submission, it'd (probably) be a relatively trivial thing to implement, it wouldn't force any particular format, but it would also let people catch the "oops, I have an extra space in my closing tag" problems. Minor effort for significant gain for the submitters who care, and it makes the people who don't care easier to weed out (they may not even read the theoretical big red letters saying that your item hasn't been submitted yet).

[Liz Courts]

cwslyclgh wrote:

To be fair though, I have never gotten a writing assignment that required me to format anything with BBCode... and I seriously doubt that anything that paizo asks a freelancer to write will need to be formatted thus... thus I am not sure that testing a potential freelancers ability to correctly bold crap on a message board is really a good measure of superstardom.

I have. While it may not have been BBCode, I have received assignments that required me to tag files in a particular way for layout. Providing material in the specified format to the publisher is just part of being a professional writer—them's the shakes. Fortunately, this is something that is easily corrected on the writer's part (sometimes tedious, to be sure, but fixable).

[cwslyclgh]

I am a professional writer... and yes clients do sometimes request specific formatting and/or forms be used (not bbcode, though in my experience)... however I stand by my statement that I have never gotten an assignment wherein I was first tested about my ability to provide writing formatted in a way that would not be part of the actual assignment.

[Joseph Kellogg]

I have seen publishers ask for manuscripts in non-standard formatting, and explicitly say that it was to make sure the submitter could follow directions. Because if an author can't follow simple directions, it's going to cause a lot of headaches for the publisher.

[Cthulhudrew]

Van Halen used to have a rider in their contracts stipulating that they have a jar of M&Ms with all the brown ones picked out waiting for them in their dressing room.

If they saw a bowl of M&Ms with browns still in, then they knew the venue didn't read their contracts closely enough and they would need to second guess all of their other- more important- considerations.

...

...

...

I like M&Ms. :)

[Kiel Howell]

But do you like Van Halen?!

[Cthulhudrew]

I like Van Halen.

As I get older, I find myself enjoying Van Hagar more. Maybe it just wore me down.