My Estranged Item: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cull

[Jacob W. Michaels]

Except looking at the numbers (and again, I'll have some more detailed breakdowns Tuesday), fatigue/disinterest has set in to a far greater degree in the last two years than any year beforehand.

[James Casey]

Jacob W. Michaels wrote:

Except looking at the numbers (and again, I'll have some more detailed breakdowns Tuesday), fatigue/disinterest has set in to a far greater degree in the last two years than any year beforehand.

Any guesses as to why? I thought there was a very big dip last year from 2013.

[Cthulhudrew]

James Casey wrote:

Jacob W. Michaels wrote:

Except looking at the numbers (and again, I'll have some more detailed breakdowns Tuesday), fatigue/disinterest has set in to a far greater degree in the last two years than any year beforehand.

Any guesses as to why? I thought there was a very big dip last year from 2013.

Without more in-depth analysis, any guesses are going to pretty much be just that, but if that's the case, my own (spurious) guess would be the drop is because of the first round shifting from an only judge advancement to a public voting advancement.

My reasoning being that, when the judges selected the top 32, at that point it was strictly up to the voters (with admittedly, some judge commentaries adding voice) to advance the finalists. With the public voting, even though the judges decide the final 32, the public has already begun to compile their favorites and picks to win, but once many of those don't make it, they then lose interest, feeling their vote has less meaning than it did when they were voting on a strictly narrower field of already screened candidates.

Again, pure speculation, but based on a lot of the talk about the Cull and people losing interest and being disappointed that their favorites have already been cut, etc., that's what fuels my speculation.

[Monica Marlowe]

Cthulhudrew wrote:

Maybe we should have a "Pit Crew" forum or thread or something as an ongoing (ie, not solely confined to RPGSS) place. I know there are already forums here where people go for that kind of feedback, so perhaps a sub-forum in the "Advice" forum or something?

You can't really do something like that publicly on a Paizo forum, at least not for RPGSS. The whole point of asking someone privately to make sure you spelled all your words right and you "Englished" correctly is that RPGSS is an anonymous application process. There are several threads on the forums to help out designers, Anthony runs one and there are others that I cannot name off the top of my head. This is only an issue because there are individuals who feel wronged by the cull, which is regrettable, but not unexpected given the history of the voting process.

I am confused as to why we are try to solve a non-issue.

[Jacob W. Michaels]

I'm not 100 percent sure why. I think Cthulhudrew's idea is partly correct.

I also posited that part of it could be the last two year' Round 2s were both fairly rules/mechanics heavy.

That meant that people who are less interested in the mechanical bits were less inclined to read right off the bat instead of sticking around and maybe developing a favorite or two in the early round that tided them over through the longer/more mechanical entries. Last year, 32 monsters were a lot more to read than 16 and if you weren't invested, I definitely could see having had trouble getting through them.

Compare that to 2012, when the Round 2 was a 400-word fluff-heavy organization. I understand why that wasn't a good design challenge for Paizo, but I think it helped show some creativity without a lot of mechanics.

[R D Ramsey]

As far as pit crews go, people with a "fan base" in this community will fare better in each round than people without one. That's just how it is when there's public voting. It's definitely made a difference in some rounds in past years. Given that such popularity is built into the entire contest, I see nothing wrong with a pit crew for the first round, even if they just vote as a bloc. It's how the competition works.

And as far as community engagement (which is, after all, where most of the benefit for Paizo lies), the week of no public activity is a killer. Allowing "keep list" discussion or some such would be a good move there. As it is, it's totally dead time for the community.

[Clay Clouser]

When most people say pit crew they mean maybe 2-5 close friends helping with edits and formatting. Being popular on the forums is not an edge up in any way. Sounds to me like we should just not allow the "so far I've seen" threads so that people can't get upset about the cull. And can just keep going on with the contest. If you're upset about the downtime between weeks and want to post your item somewhere for critique go for it. But do so with the knowledge that if your item does somehow get picked you will have disqualified yourself.

[R D Ramsey]

The less discussion is permitted, the lower the community interest will be.

[Anthony Adam]

Okay, by Pit Crew, I am referring to the review circle we all havem our gaming buddies, our friends, our family.

I don't just get my pit crew to review my submissions, I get them to review everything I write (some see more than others depending on NDA I am under).

Now let's look at some figures...

My voting circle numbers around 10. Of those 10, on average we all voted 800 times, (some less, some more). So that's 8,000 votes. My item was seen by a pit crew member... 4 times, - just 4 out of 8,000 votes, so any pit crew "preference" is already massively squished to non existence.

Lets also look at that again, 4 out of 10 voters saw my item. 40%. That means, if there were 1,000 voters, on average only 400 voters saw it. So using a review circle improved my writing but has little to no effect on the vote outcome. The numbers prevent that.

Some voters only vote till they see their item, some see it really quick, some don't. So there isn't any way you can really affect the vote totals enough to swing things in your favor unless you get a 1000 plus circle voting for you - even then, those 1,000 plus voters would still have to vote on everyone elses items as they search for your.

I have no issue with people having any size pit crew, if it helps improve their design and their design skills, that surely is better for us all.

What does concern me, like many others have hinted at, is the "so far" thread.

When we see someone post "ack, so many xyz", then they are swaying votes away from xyz, when they say "earthbreakers are awful, there are no good ones", some voters will simply see earthbreaker vs anythingelse and hit anythingelse.

We all need to learn to say what we think about the items we vote on without classifying / identifying them. We should not comment in such a way that we dissuade/influence voting for particular item types and categories. Some items this year got very dangerously close to identifying specific items. "It has a really long name" for example.

This is why I didn't post a great deal in that thread and why I read it only after I had finished voting - I didn't want my voting influenced adversely in any way.

So pit crews? - fine by me, comments during voting? - hmmm, we need to be a lot less identifying.

[Maria Smolina]

Anthony Adam wrote:

What does concern me, like many others have hinted at, is the "so far" thread.

When we see someone post "ack, so many xyz", then they are swaying votes away from xyz, when they say "earthbreakers are awful, there are no good ones", some voters will simply see earthbreaker vs anythingelse and hit anythingelse.

We all need to learn to say what we think about the items we vote on without classifying / identifying them. We should not comment in such a way that we dissuade/influence voting for particular item types and categories. Some items this year got very dangerously close to identifying specific items. "It has a really long name" for example.

Finally somebody says that.

I consider the whine-and-hint thread behaviour very toxic kind of a discourse-former. It basically suggests people to get emotionally involved with people giving bad names to certain ideas or behaviors. This is the basic mechanism of stygmatizing and bullying group behaviors ("if a group memeber calls it bad, just hit it, you'll be safe and have group support"), that most definitely affects voting results in projects like the one we are talking about.

[James Casey]

I agree with Anthony and Laik, but the skewing and bullying only occurs if the anonymity of items is compromised, which I believe happened this year.

The voters, especially those who vote a lot, do need a forum to vent, which is what that forum was originally for. So there is a balance somewhere.

I have heard some people say contestants need to have a thick skin. What they should be saying is prospective designers need to have a thick skin, and then they need to remember that not all contestants are prospective designers.

Just because someone enters and participates in the contest doesn't mean they are interested in becoming a designer.

[frank gori]

Our attempts to self manage failed. I know Feros, myself, and others occasionally chimed in with that's getting too specific but the thread kept rolling on.

Too many names could have referred to at least 3 items depending on what you regarded as the name. There were 3 items that had 8+ words in the title line. There were plenty of examples from that thread that were way too specific and cited way too often.

On the other hand the frequent voters do need a place to snark... Taking it off Paizo would be a bad idea, but maybe like the critique my item thread this needs to be opened with a rules disclaimer and guidelines as the front post.

Have a few volunteers flag bad posts as a group

[R D Ramsey]

I agree there were some posts that identified some items a little too well, but the problem is starting to get overstated a bit.

I'd say it was a handful of items that could definitely be identified from particular posts. The vast, vast majority of posts just weren't that specific. And even then some of those were merely neutrally checking off an item -"I saw the one with the longest name ever!", which gives no indication whether someone is voting for or against it. It's just a milestone of sorts.

There's also a tendency, quite natural, for people to think even vague comments are referring to your particular item. Heck, there were plenty of snarky comments that may have been directed at mine. Don't think I didn't have fleeting thoughts that they were. But the odds are very strong that they weren't.

Having said that, there were a few items that were both clearly identified and an opinion offered. That sort of thing is out of place and should be called out when spotted. Let's just keep the amount of it in perspective.

[Nickolas Floyd]

James Casey wrote:

I agree with Anthony and Laik, but the skewing and bullying only occurs if the anonymity of items is compromised, which I believe happened this year.

Certainly there is a line here that people should be very careful not to cross. I made a lot of comments, but I was usually very vague to not actually ID an item. Most of my posts could apply to multiple entries. On the rare instance where I mentioned an item that could only be one unique item I did not say anything negative about it. Only that I saw it, and not whether I voted for or against it. Does even mentioning an item infer negativity? I saw my own item mentioned in the thread at least three times. Evidently there was one other item that had the same theme as mine. I never saw it, but we where mentioned together (i.e. I got two [redacted] items paired together) at least once and I suspect that the theme mentioned other times were at least once my item. Each time my item was mentioned, the poster only mentioned seeing it and not anything negative about it. I never felt like my item was being picked on. This is what we should shoot for when mentioning items. It is also fun to post in vague terms because our minds naturally see everything pertaining to us (I posted at least one joke post referencing this). Anyway, I see no problem with the rant thread as long as posters remain vague or at the very least don't say anything negative about the item when vagueness may be compromised.

[Brigg]

Sometimes, all you had to do was say "Corn" or "Fart" and people knew EXACTLY what item you were talking about.

[Anthony Adam]

I agree with the identifying, the question I was trying to raise was whether we are influencing the voting of others and whether we should.

For example, and this is total honesty here, so I am raising my hand. I read the thread, chuckling at first until the comment about earrth breakers. The next few votes passed and I got my first earthbreaker, I found myself looking at it not as "a new item" but as "another earthbreaker". I stopped reading the rant thread at the time because the way I was viewing items, and thus my voting on them, had been compromised.

This is the issue I wanted to raise.

Voters may want, nay, need to vent, I understand that but cant we strive to do so privately with our own circle of friends? Or saving the venting in a notepad document, then after reveal using it then - even as part of the feedback critiques.

It was just a wondering about the impact this thread has on how people vote, and I will admit it did affect mine - so I stopped reading it out of respect for everyone's submissions and for each entrant hoping to advance.

I guess all I am asking is you ask yourself before posting comments, have you been influenced by prior comments and are you influencing others. Treat every other entrant with the same respect and courtesy you wish to be treated with yourself.

I don't want to think we can only stop this with banning such threads - that is where I don't want to go. All I ask is we be a little more considerate. When I got grouchy, I left the keyboard, had a cup of tea, took a break.

I have been guilty and I have been influenced this year. I will not read such threads next year until after I am done voting. The realization of how much it was affecting my vote will not let me do otherwise. I want to be totally fair to every entrant new or old. I am taking this stance myself because I don't want to force actions on the forums either way.

[Coleman]

I agree with Anthony and the other folks about those comments. I think there were many comments that pushed things a bit. Sure, maybe there are 8 teleporting boots submitted this year. Even if a comment can't be narrowed down to which 1 of those 8, it still seems way too specific for me. I read most of the "so far I've seen" thread because I think it serves as insight into voters' mindsets, but I didn't really take part because I just didn't want to risk making a comment that could affect the voting.

In fairness, I think there were probably nearly as many "I like this item, it gets an upvote" as there were negative comments....it was a big improvement over last year....but the line seems very blurry.

However, given that no one from Paizo has restricted those threads seems to imply to me that, in general, they must not go against the spirit of the competition.

[frank gori]

Last year's rant thread was ugly, this year's thread was actually surprisingly positive... If you don't believe me read the old ramble thread sometime.

If we took that off paizo's board we take it off paizo's radar and take away consequences of those that clearly step over the "campaigning" line. The concern about conspiracies against certain items suddenly become valid if someone starts ranting and raving to 10-15 heavy voters on how much they hate the hot chocolate item* or how much they love the stone cakes item*.

Again I think this is a case where maybe the solution is on the first post add rules of the thread, make it clear the post is being monitored by say a couple champion voters who volunteer** to toss out warnings and flag really clear posts***.

It would also really help to have a link to a sub page in the rules announcement post about general forum behavior during the contest and maybe a recommendation against items that seem to cause volatility.

*, **, ****:

*Dammit now I want hot chocolate with a side of pancakes.
**cough cough Feros, and Thomas, and maybe me cough cough
***popcorn, farts, and xp item come to mind, last year it would have been the apology item and a few others.
****joke items, notes outside design that speak to audience, items that can be deemed offensive to cultures or religions.

[R D Ramsey]

If you voted a lot (more than a few hundred times), you would have noticed the number of Earthbreakers on your own. It stuck out, as did several other tropes that were both unusual in game terms but common in the competition.

You'd have gotten to that same "Oh, another Earthbreaker" place with or without the thread.

The trick is to not let that sway your vote, regardless of whether someone mentioned it or you noticed it naturally.

[Anthony Adam]

Clouds Without Water wrote:

If you voted a lot (more than a few hundred times), you would have noticed the number of Earthbreakers on your own. It stuck out, as did several other tropes that were both unusual in game terms but common in the competition.

You'd have gotten to that same "Oh, another Earthbreaker" place with or without the thread.

The trick is to not let that sway your vote, regardless of whether someone mentioned it or you noticed it naturally.

Aye, I did towards my 500th vote or so, but quite a few voters only make Star or less and might not have had that experience. I worry my few comments I did make may have influenced them. I know it wont affect the voter who votes a lot, but it could affect those who don't vote so much - that is where some of my concern lies. I suspect that there are more votes of Star level or less than there are dedicated or higher.

Not letting it sway your vote is hard. I had to read both entries real hard on that first pair and I had to let my determination not color any other earthbreakers that crossed my path. I didn't want to confirm the comment if you like.

All I can do though is modify my own behavior, and that is what I shall do. I leave everyone else to make their own minds up whether it really is a problem or not - it seems I am not alone in worrying about it, which gives me some peace of mind.

[Clay Clouser]

You guys are gonna feel real silly when next years contest is design a earthbreaker or torc.

[R D Ramsey]

I thought the thread that did real damage was the one about what to do with the "other 59 seconds". I didn't like the way it implied that voting was automatic.

Admittedly, it gets that way after a while, when you know the names and what you like and don't like about each one, but even then you should be thinking about the matchup for at least some amount of time.

[mplindustries]

I don't really understand how someone saying, "Ugh, another Earthbreaker" or anything else could sway voting. It's anonymous voting. I'm not going to vote like the crowd when the crowd has no way to know how I'm voting. And as a marathon voter getting pretty close to Champion, I never felt like there were too many teleporting blades or whatever--there being that many of them made me just think at least one deserved to win.

And Earthbreakers aren't even that weird. They're easily in the top 5 most commonly used weapons with Greatswords, Scimitars, Falchions, and Longbows.

[Thomas LeBlanc]

I liked quite a few of the earthbreakers. /me peaks at his keep list.

[Jarrett Sigler]

If I may weigh in as a first time voter and submitter, and as someone who only made Dedicated.

The "The things I've seen" Forum seemed mostly positive. As it was, there were alot of Identifing terms... but the terms were vague, UNTILL you saw the item mentioned. (I'm looking at you...■■■■■■■■■■■■■■). I didn't feel this was INHERENTLY a bad thing; except the fear that people are DQ'ing themselves for identifing items.

I didn't read the previous venting forums. That's my INITIAL impression.

I can confirm Anthony's suspicions, with the amount of Dimension Door items in this entry... and the amount of posts about that particualr ability wore on me.

T COUNTERPOINT THIS: I was reading the Forums to try to get a sense of what was going on in the minds of the voters AS THEY VOTED. For NEXT YEAR'S Compitition. This helps. I can't determine what EVERYONE is going to build next year, but, I can push myself to be a little more creative. To read the books a little more deeply, and find empty design spaces that need filling. (Looking at you Gang-UP Feat, and possibly combining it with a Bow, or goggles).

I want to know what to avoid, what angles to point out. I learned that Spells NEED to be Italizied, and so I learned the code to Italize Things. (Poor speling is a drawback feat I have.)

Provided that This was my first time, It was a valuable learning tool.
I learned the following:

1) Don't make an item that is a GM tool, OR a Player Tool. Make one for both sides of the table.

2) DO NOT MUCK UP FORMATTING. SERIOUSLY. Good ol' Template Fu is your freind. Listen to him.

3) Don't make an Item that's TOO powerful. Where this line is drawn is different for each person... but anything you'd expect a level 15+ character ot wield is dangerous territoy.

4) Camping Items are also dangerous territory.

5) Superstars break the mold. Don't Break the rules, Use them to focus your awesome in a new direction.

6) SUPERSTAR quality is the single hardest to define thing in the world. No one seems to entirely agree on it, becuase it's not definable. It's a feeling, in your bones, when you read an item and know.

7) This crowd is so diverse there is no playing to it. Seriously: Don't try to 'Cards agianst Humanity' this group. It won't work. They will see it coming.

8) Focus, relax, and be creative. Simple words, are sometimes clearer than the 10 dollar word you want to use.

finally and most importantly:

9) The community is friendly, and everyone wants to see you succeed. This is the opposite of MOST internet watering holes. This group is NOT xenophobic. Ask for advice, help, thoughts. Everyone here is straight forward, blunt, and while that MAY seem hurtful, it is intended to help you forward.

This was my take away. Sorry I ranted there a bit.

[Anthony Adam]

The earthbreakers was an example, it was the first comment that made me think that I was being subconsciously affected. To be clear, I have nothing against them myself, it was just the point I realised how I was viewing items was being affected by what I was reading.

Any negative comment, just like the positive ones, will have a subconscious effect on how people vote, all I am asking is to be careful and be aware of the danger of that.

[Anthony Adam]

Tothric wrote:

not a rant

Quite alright - it wasn't a rant - you were telling us how much you learnt.

But all I wonder is, could you have learnt the same from reading the thread after all voting was done. I suspect you probably could have ;)

Thanks for #2 :P

[quibblemuch]

Tothric wrote:

coolness

Great stuff! Save this post somewhere, and break it out again next year, after the announcement. It's clear, to the point, and may be very helpful for people entering for the first time (or possibly, for the nth time). Thanks much!

[Brigg]

Tothric wrote:

9) The community is friendly, and everyone wants to see you succeed. This is the opposite of MOST internet watering holes. This group is NOT xenophobic. Ask for advice, help, thoughts. Everyone here is straight forward, blunt, and while that MAY seem hurtful, it is intended to help you forward.

Tothric wrote:

9) The community is friendly, and everyone wants to see you succeed. This is the opposite of MOST internet watering holes. This group is NOT xenophobic. Ask for advice, help, thoughts. Everyone here is straight forward, blunt, and while that MAY seem hurtful, it is intended to help you forward.

Tothric wrote:

9) The community is friendly, and everyone wants to see you succeed. This is the opposite of MOST internet watering holes. This group is NOT xenophobic. Ask for advice, help, thoughts. Everyone here is straight forward, blunt, and while that MAY seem hurtful, it is intended to help you forward.

This must be reiterated ad nauseam. I was trying to find a way to put that into words a few days ago. Looks like Tothric beat me to it! ^.~*

[Jarrett Sigler]

Anthony Adam wrote:

Tothric wrote:

not a rant

Quite alright - it wasn't a rant - you were telling us how much you learnt.

But all I wonder is, could you have learnt the same from reading the thread after all voting was done. I suspect you probably could have ;)

Thanks for #2 :P

It actually was the mix of experiances. The frustration of facing the the text walls in voting, and seeing the formating errors after carefully intigrating my own formatting (and summarily realizing the mistakes I made) AND seeing the frustration mirrored in the community at the same time.

How do I put this; IF I was reading by my self in a vaccum, I would get mad. But I would have that lingering feeling of "maybe my anger is just mine."

Seeing the people get vocal about it made me feel "Hey, no, that's totaly a valid reason to be frusterated. They are too!"

Not that COMPLETELY untemplated or formated items are bad. No, infact, some of them are REALLY good. The formating just made it easier to read, en mass.

I could see the name, skip to discription with ease, read through it... balance pricing in my head... check CL's and think about the item in situations I would use it.

Without the formating, I had to look for clear tags and key-words to determine where to look. Through me off. Jarred me uncomfortably. It started the item off on the wrong foot.

Yeah the DD items were starting off on the wrong foot becuase I had a "Everyone made one" mentality going in. BUT, I was able to identify that, AND I tried to judge accordingly. Dimension Door is neat, but so is a weapon that throws people.

Throwing people around is JUST PLAIN FUN.

P.S. I used D.D. becuase it's an example of a Spell-In-A-Sword. Which EVERYONE AND THE JACOBS suggested agianst in the very beginning. I will formally state though, EVERY SINGLE D.D. sword I read in this event was very well written and EXCELLENTLY exicuted. You guys should be proud.

P.P.S. Quibblemuch, Anthony, thank you for your kind words. I'll be sure to post this next year! If I remember!

[pH unbalanced]

Anthony Adam wrote:

Tothric wrote:

not a rant

Quite alright - it wasn't a rant - you were telling us how much you learnt.

But all I wonder is, could you have learnt the same from reading the thread after all voting was done. I suspect you probably could have ;)

Thanks for #2 :P

Don't want to speak for Tothric, but for me the answer would be "no". A lot of the learning happens in the real-time interactive nature of voting, commenting, and reading other comments. I can't absorb things in the same way reading a 4k+ thread later.

[R Pickard]

I do think both posters should be careful about not getting specific about items. If you can identify the specific item from the person's post, even if it's just from one word like "corn," I think you're being too specific. I also think mods need to be more zealous about policing posts like that, but I think we should have the wherewithal to be able to police ourselves first.

Being able to recognize an item from people's discussion CAN influence how you vote--whether for good or ill. It makes you pay attention more to an item perhaps you otherwise wouldn't have. I KNOW there are items I looked at differently because of chatter in the thread, even if all I was trying to do was guess if it was one someone was talking about. Maybe it even caused me to look at it closer and vote for it when I otherwise wouldn't have.

And there IS a difference between getting sick of an item because you're seeing it a lot and because someone else is complaining about it. We're humans, social beings. How we process "what I think of this" and "what they think of this" can have different, powerful influences. I want to be influenced largely by the former.

I know this and the other threads are all in good fun. I know that no one intends to call anyone out to be cruel. I don't want to piss on the parade of people who've been calling things out. But I think this needs to be said. I'm sorry if your parade feels pissed on because of this post.

But I also think that always, always, discretion is the better part of valor. And that we here are all potentially mature enough to manage upholding that virtue. (You there, stop snickering.)

I think it is totally possible to post vague comments to vent or praise. I try to do that. If I do mention a trend, I still try to keep it vague. If I failed, I apologize.

I do think certainly the tone of the various critique threads is better this year than some prior. I distinctly recall one a few years ago turning me off so much I just stopped voting entirely (because I have a habit of reading the forums while the countdown goes down, so avoiding the forum meant voting got too boring). So things are certainly getting better.

[Thomas LeBlanc]

Tothric wrote:

P.S. I used D.D. becuase it's an example of a Spell-In-A-Sword. Which EVERYONE AND THE JACOBS suggested agianst in the very beginning. I will formally state though, EVERY SINGLE D.D. sword I read in this event was very well written and EXCELLENTLY exicuted. You guys should be proud.

I strongly DISAGREE with the above statement. Maybe half were well written, a handful excellently executed, and only 1 did something novel along those lines.

[pH unbalanced]

GM_Solspiral wrote:

Last year's rant thread was ugly, this year's thread was actually surprisingly positive... If you don't believe me read the old ramble thread sometime.

If we took that off paizo's board we take it off paizo's radar and take away consequences of those that clearly step over the "campaigning" line. The concern about conspiracies against certain items suddenly become valid if someone starts ranting and raving to 10-15 heavy voters on how much they hate the hot chocolate item* or how much they love the stone cakes item*.

Again I think this is a case where maybe the solution is on the first post add rules of the thread, make it clear the post is being monitored by say a couple champion voters who volunteer** to toss out warnings and flag really clear posts***.

It would also really help to have a link to a sub page in the rules announcement post about general forum behavior during the contest and maybe a recommendation against items that seem to cause volatility.

I very much agree with this. I also think that egregiously over-specific comments were more of a problem last year than they were this year.

Which doesn't mean we shouldn't have done better this year. There is still improvement to make.

The interesting thing about commenting on trends is this: If I don't like earthbreakers, I may just reflexively vote down all the earthbreakers I see. But if I see a comment saying "look at all these earthbreakers" then the first thing that I'm going to think is "whoa, some of these might be pretty good, I should make sure I scrutinize these more so I don't miss the good ones."

And, of course, it works the opposite way for a concept I'm biased towards. I know that I voted up the first 5 portal items I saw because they were "cool". But after that I started being a lot more picky as I looked for ways to distinguish them. That's something I did on my own before it was mentioned as a trend, but would have happened the same way if it had been pointed out to me before I noticed it.

Bottomline: For me, having a trend called out means that the best items in that trend are more likely to get an upvote than they otherwise would, and the worst items in that trend are more likely to get a downvote than they otherwise would.

[Jarrett Sigler]

Thomas LeBlanc wrote:

Tothric wrote:

P.S. I used D.D. becuase it's an example of a Spell-In-A-Sword. Which EVERYONE AND THE JACOBS suggested agianst in the very beginning. I will formally state though, EVERY SINGLE D.D. sword I read in this event was very well written and EXCELLENTLY exicuted. You guys should be proud.

I strongly DISAGREE with the above statement. Maybe half were well written, a handful excellently executed, and only 1 did something novel along those lines.

I should point out: that I read.

I can say with confidence I don't think I saw more than 25~30% of the items entered.

That leaves alot of room for others. Based on what I read, I got the impression the two or three I read were not all of them. Thomas, If that's the only thing you and I disagree on, then, I feel I'm on the right track.

[Coleman]

I suppose an important question would be does everyone view the ramble or "So far I've seen" threads in the same light as pit crews in the terms of influence on voting?

I can understand the urge to not influence voting through observations made by post....I held off on commenting for that exact reason. However, I think that reading a lot of those threads last year really helped me with my design this year. So in that sense, it seems an invaluable resource much like a pit crew.

In terms of influence, people have posted about how minimal the impact of an entrant having support of a pit crew is. Do we think that the rant threads would have more or less impact? Or about the same?

Do you guys all support both resources? Or do you want them both limited in some way?

[pH unbalanced]

Coleman wrote:

In terms of influence, people have posted about how minimal the impact of an entrant having support of a pit crew is. Do we think that the rant threads would have more or less impact? Or about the same?

I would think that the rant threads would have more of an impact, because of the potential for influencing a larger number of total votes. I think it is mathematically impossible for pit crews to directly influence the voting.

[Isaac Volynskiy]

Honestly, I'm sure the rant thread has biased me against some item trends before I personally would have noticed them.

[Monica Marlowe]

GM_Solspiral wrote:

Our attempts to self manage failed. I know Feros, myself, and others occasionally chimed in with that's getting too specific but the thread kept rolling on.

Too many names could have referred to at least 3 items depending on what you regarded as the name. There were 3 items that had 8+ words in the title line. There were plenty of examples from that thread that were way too specific and cited way too often.

On the other hand the frequent voters do need a place to snark... Taking it off Paizo would be a bad idea, but maybe like the critique my item thread this needs to be opened with a rules disclaimer and guidelines as the front post.

Have a few volunteers flag bad posts as a group

Dude, I was flat out called on the carpet and publicly flayed for suggesting the thread was getting nasty. The whole "self-moderation" is apparently only something part of the forum is aware of. There are too many posts and Paizo simply cannot read them all. This is what happened last two years and sadly I imagine it will happen again next year. I will continue to flag bad posts and speak up, but I would hope that we would back one another up when it gets ugly.

Maybe it is best to just keep your snark private among your closest friends and be done with talking about stuff here.

[Monica Marlowe]

Clouds Without Water wrote:

I thought the thread that did real damage was the one about what to do with the "other 59 seconds". I didn't like the way it implied that voting was automatic.

Admittedly, it gets that way after a while, when you know the names and what you like and don't like about each one, but even then you should be thinking about the matchup for at least some amount of time.

Did you actually read what we were doing? Many of us are quite capable of multi-tasking. I knit and game, read, listen to audiobooks, or any other number of things. I'm quite capable of throwing yarn, counting to 12 and reading a couple of items.

[Thomas LeBlanc]

mamaursula wrote:

Clouds Without Water wrote:

I thought the thread that did real damage was the one about what to do with the "other 59 seconds". I didn't like the way it implied that voting was automatic.

Admittedly, it gets that way after a while, when you know the names and what you like and don't like about each one, but even then you should be thinking about the matchup for at least some amount of time.

Did you actually read what we were doing? Many of us are quite capable of multi-tasking. I knit and game, read, listen to audiobooks, or any other number of things. I'm quite capable of throwing yarn, counting to 12 and reading a couple of items.

Agreed. Voting was easier before the cull. After the cull I used more time to vote, but by that point I remembered most of the flaws in items and had a personal keep list created.

[Eric Morton]

Anthony Adam wrote:

Now let's look at some figures...

My voting circle numbers around 10. Of those 10, on average we all voted 800 times, (some less, some more). So that's 8,000 votes. My item was seen by a pit crew member... 4 times, - just 4 out of 8,000 votes, so any pit crew "preference" is already massively squished to non existence.

Lets also look at that again, 4 out of 10 voters saw my item. 40%. That means, if there were 1,000 voters, on average only 400 voters saw it. So using a review circle improved my writing but has little to no effect on the vote outcome. The numbers prevent that.

But that's not how a pit crew could influence the vote. A pit crew could influence the vote by voting down their most direct competition. If they vote 8,000 times, they may only see their own items a handful of times, but they are seeing their direct competition thousands of times.

For example, consider a pit crew that submits 10 rings and votes 8,000 times out of 400,000 votes cast. Their votes make up 2% of all votes cast. They will almost never see their own rings, but they could realistically see other rings two to four thousand times. They can down vote those other rings every time they see them, skewing around 1% of all votes cast in their favor. That could be enough votes to bump off a handful of rival rings in the cull, rings that might not have been cut if not for the pit crew constantly voting them down.

(Actually, if this hypothetical pit crew is intentionally attempting to skew the vote in their favor, there is voting scheme they could use that is much more effective than the one described here, but I'm not about to give anyone ideas. I only describe the voting strategy appearing above because someone else already mentioned it elsewhere in this forum.)

[Mark Seifter]

It turns out that Condorcet pairing is a little more resilient than that.

With Condorcet, let's say that there are only three options, a ring, a staff, and a rod. Now, you want the rod to win. You believe that the ring is better than the staff, so you're most worried about that ring. If you vote Rod > Ring > Staff, well, that's your true feelings, so you haven't really been tainting the vote. If you vote Rod > Staff > Ring in an attempt to harm the ring and improve the rod's chance, you aren't actually hurting the ring's chance to be above the rod. You're only influencing the ring compared to the staff. So it's only when you get to vote with the rod included as one of the two choices that you are really influencing your own chances. You'd need a bloc of voters who saw their own items enough times vs non-bloc items to make a difference. Is it possible to make a noticeable difference? Yeah, if all the champions teamed up, it probably would be. But in the end of the day, it comes down to the judges. I know what my top choices are already.

[frank gori]

This is getting too paranoid for my taste...

[Alexander Bennett]

mamaursula wrote:

Dude, I was flat out called on the carpet and publicly flayed for suggesting the thread was getting nasty. The whole "self-moderation" is apparently only something part of the forum is aware of. There are too many posts and Paizo simply cannot read them all. This is what happened last two years and sadly I imagine it will happen again next year. I will continue to flag bad posts and speak up, but I would hope that we would back one another up when it gets ugly.

Maybe it is best to just keep your snark private among your closest friends and be done with talking about stuff here.

Moderation needs to be impartial. You might have looked at it as 'Hey guys calm down' but it was coming off as more 'Everyone shut up and stop being mean [to me? to people?]' It's hard to tell as you were part of the ongoing conversation.

I'm a moderator on another website and probably overstepped myself, but moderator alarms were ringing in my head - your posts were warning signs of someone pissed off for some reason and you were venting at everyone. Even when moderating, we look at it as a 'polite note' to remind people of the rules, not rant at the entire thread about how they are being 'nasty'. If someone is being 'nasty' you need to tell them in private, not make a spectacle. How often do you tell off strangers in public?

And either way, You shouldn't moderate* a conversation you're part of, because it means you're elevating yourself above the other participants. (yes, I kind of broke that rule). Self-moderation is where you calm things down before they become too heated and if they do anyway, you bring in the actual moderators to determine if any rules have been broken. As GM_Solspiral suggested, flagging posts, I don't know how the Paizo system works but sometimes enough flags suppresses the comment.

I still state the worst of the borderline rule breaking post(s) were the scavenger hunts. And the rant thread was no where near as bad as some of the other threads throughout the forum.
-Xander

*:

'moderate' used in this way would imply posting in a moderation capacity

[Chris Lambertz]

Hey guys, let's back off a bit here. If there are other threads or posts that you think have been problematic, or there are things that have been flagged that you think we've missed, please drop us a line at [e-mail]. We cannot help improve a situation if we're not made aware of it, as much as we'd like to. I get that there have been hurt feelings, and sincerely apologize if we've missed the mark, but let's move forward.

That said, we appreciate any feedback (including the negative!) on the contest, the voting process, and what we can do to improve the general feel around this forum during RPG Superstar season. This is obviously an indicator that we have work to do on that front, and I would suggest starting a new thread if you want to continue that line of discussion.

[Monica Marlowe]

Chris Lambertz wrote:

Hey guys, let's back off a bit here. If there are other threads or posts that you think have been problematic, or there are things that have been flagged that you think we've missed, please drop us a line at [e-mail]. We cannot help improve a situation if we're not made aware of it, as much as we'd like to. I get that there have been hurt feelings, and sincerely apologize if we've missed the mark, but let's move forward.

That said, we appreciate any feedback (including the negative!) on the contest, the voting process, and what we can do to improve the general feel around this forum during RPG Superstar season. This is obviously an indicator that we have work to do on that front, and I would suggest starting a new thread if you want to continue that line of discussion.

Sorry Chris, the comments in question were flagged, I can send you the specifics if you like.