Follow up

• -100

  by cow2face
  on 2022-04-02 17:29

• +20

  by A Adorable Skeleton
  on 2022-03-29 07:16

• +300

  by DiscardedStatue
  on 2022-03-28 09:28

• -20

  by Walicia
  on 2022-03-28 08:14

• +50

  by catlandia
  on 2022-03-27 20:02

• -300

  by Satrium
  on 2022-03-25 21:20

  One of the best things about the challenges is the community interaction - Receiving feedback and engaging with other community members. Hiding who liked and commented on an article, would completly remove this part of the challenge.   Additionally this assumption is just flat out wrong. Liking all challenge entries will barely get you any likes in return. Even commenting on every single article won't give you a huge advantage.   In all honesty comments like this always play down the effort that goes into each and every entry on the shortlist. It's not just people "farming for likes". People are spending hours upon hours creating an article and then even more time on polishing it with the feedback they get.

• -300

  by dre569
  on 2022-03-23 17:39

• -200

  by A Frightened Dryad
  on 2022-03-23 01:54

• -10

  by Hanhula
  on 2022-03-22 04:46

  I've won a fair few things through challenges, though I don't typically enter those outside of SC/WE due to personal time constraints. I have never gone through and mass-commented. My CSS is relatively simple, as is my formatting.   I would like anonymous likes, but only if they do not count towards challenge participation and don't actually require a login. Anonymity breeds easy abuse - it would be far too easy for those accounts to be faked, and I guarantee the WA team would be forced to check through far more than currently.   I think you're better off working on marketing your work better. Make friends and connections, post on Twitter, become a known face. Present your work well and chat to others about theirs, and they're more likely to acknowledge yours.   Also: Is this really the best avenue for discussion on challenges? I would think it'd be better to discuss with the community in the Discord instead.

• -10

  by A Rambunctious Orc
  on 2022-03-19 03:59

  I don't participate in challenges or in the WorldAnvil community in general, all of my worlds are for the benefit of myself and the people I role play with so believe me when I say I have no stake in this debate. But this is probably one of the most unnecessary, childish, and downright rude suggestions I've ever seen on the feature voting page. It very much comes across as the rantings of someone who isn't doing as well in challenges as they would like to who is blaming the system itself.

• +50

  by AuraGuard
  on 2022-03-16 18:18

• -300

  by IdleMonochrome
  on 2022-03-16 18:06

• -300

  by SiobhantheWriter
  on 2022-03-16 16:04

• -300

  by shyredfox
  on 2022-03-16 15:54

  This is just plain insulting to those who get on the short list. :( Please think about how what you say will affect others. While I too would like to see some reform, your approach is rude and hurtful. The articles I read that were on the short list this last round were great. And I was very proud of mine that made it on the list.

• -10

  by A Fierce Dryad
  on 2022-03-16 03:40

• -300

  by amelianite
  on 2022-03-15 23:23

  I 1000% agree with what Melior64 said about what the word "winner" does mean to those who fail to make it into a league. No matter how many times I have liked articles or commented, I barely get 0-4 likes on a challenge article, so I never make it to either of the leagues and feel exactly like a loser and that I'm not good enough because people don't like my content, so why should I even bother? That is not what WA is supposed to be about. WA is supposed to be a place that encourages people to make content, not discourage people because they're not getting enough likes or comments.   I also agree with Melior64 about getting a participation badge for everyone that did the challenge so that EVERYONE is a winner and that every entry (that fits the criteria of what the challenge is about) gets entered into a raffle to win random prizes.   Oh, and another thing. The WA team has ALREADY said that they're working on ways to make challenges more fair.

• -10

  by Kefkejaco
  on 2022-03-15 22:53

  I do understand where this is coming from. Yes articles should be based on their 'merit' and every challenge there are great ones that not make the shortlist. But that does not mean that the ones that do make it are bad. Those articles really do deserve to be there. Are they the best 10 ? perhaps not but that is always a risk, we can't expect judges to go through 200+ articles.   But I can't help but feel a little offended by the statement as someone who commented on a lot of articles and it feels like it is a bit directed to Amélie and me. It would suggest my work is only on shortlist due to commenting and not due to quality. A statement which I think is false for many of my fellow commenters. Many prime commentors also won during world ember or summer camp and even nomination (including me). None of these even have a shortlist or amount of likes taken into account.   "most people feel pressured to reciprocate by liking their admirer's submission" is not true to the degree you assume in my opinion. Commenting on other people's work does make your articles and your world more visible. My main reason for commenting is because I enjoy reading and like to get some ideas for improving my own work from others. Reading other articles also does improve your own work significantly. Of course getting more followers for my world is a nice added bonus but that is something everyone on world anvil aims to do.   If I were to put in numbers what amount of people also like my articles after I commented on them the results would not be that great. The highest comment/ like ratio of reciprocation I got was about 1/3. Most of those however where before my commenting even started and done by sharing on discord an other channels such as streams. It was actually I who returned the favour first in many of those cases. If I were to exclude those that commented or liked me first I would be left with a 10% comment/like ratio which makes it an extremely bad method to get many likes. The best way to get likes remains advertisising it on discord and other channels.   The first challenge I participated in and also commented a lot on helped get me a lot of new followers and also got me connected to lots of members of the community. It was a great way to connect with people and start talking to them on discord. Making likes and comments anonymous will not allow new people to find the amazing WA network that easily and I think it would be a shame. It most likely will also hinder people trying to make their world popular in order to get traction for an rpg release or such.   Another thing we will lose with anonymous comments is the unofficial challenges that are starting to pop up. For example nnie and myself want to try to have people create new ideas in a less stressful, less win minded, challenge. These are very fun to do and would be impossible with anonymous comments.   So in short I do agree with the shortlists needing to be based on merit but the suggested method will not achieve it in my opinion and only hinder other aspects of WA.   Also because Dimitris and the rest of the team are already working on a solution I think it is only fair to give them time and easy of mind to come up with something. That is also the reason why I give it a -10 as I want to give them the necessary time.

• -10

  by Kros!
  on 2022-03-15 22:23

  I don't think this will change anything. But I think melior64 is onto something. Let's do without the winner and just give participation badges and a raffle ticket. People deserve to be able to have fun in a challenge without being accused of misterious advantages. Let's leave all to luck.

• -300

  by A Mischievous Skeleton
  on 2022-03-15 21:10

• -50

  by A Lusty Goblin
  on 2022-03-15 20:33

• -10

  by melior64
  on 2022-03-15 20:20

  I disagree with your suggestion to make likes and comments anonymous for challenge submissions for the following reason:   There is no prompt _{(nor pressure)} to reciprocate engagement recieved by other members of the community, and anonymising this engagement would hinder the growth and connection of the WA community.   To me, receiving an anonymous like would feel like a meaningless statistic.   I give much greater value to likes, compliments, and constructive critiques from people in this unique community whom I personally connect with and learn from!   I feel that comment engagement in particular really adds to the community spirit of not just the challenges, but worldbuilding as a whole.  

  ---

   

  My personal stance is this:

  I believe that the issue that some folks are having with bad vibes is that the word "winner" is used.   Twice (one for new winners in the regular league, and again for folks who've won before as participants in the premiere league).   The word "winner" (to some people) can imply that anyone who isn't a winner is either a "loser", or "not good enough" (either in the judge's eyes, or in comparison to other entrants/entries).   The aim of challenges has always been to encourage and inspire us to expand our worlds, and have more worldbuilding than we did before.   My solution would be:

  • everyone who enters the challenge gets a shiny participation badge for their effort to display proudly in their collection (if you completed the challenge, you WON!)
  • everyone who enters with a valid entry (public, published, min wordcount etc) is entered into a prize raffle
  • the raffle winners (not challenge winners, RAFFLE winners) will be drawn from a fair randomizer based solely on usernames
  • 1-5 people will get the grand prize (depending on the sponsor's generosity of prizes available)
  • in addition, a further X% of participants get Anvil Coins or smaller prize

    This way, it sticks to the core values of the challenges without removing any incentives or fun, and makes it completely fair for every worldbuilder who enters.   These are my own humble opinions and I don't have a degree in this type of thing, so please take them with the tiniest pinch of salt :P   I'm always happy to explore different viewpoints and workshop solutions further with anyone here :)

• -10

  by Naelin
  on 2022-03-15 20:02

  Most of what I said in Jacob's request also applies to this (Supressing of behaviour instead of addressing it, easy to game the system, people will move to the next best thing since unhealthy competitivity is not being addressed)   That said anonymous likes sound a little less damaging, but anonymous commenting may shield pretty nasty results. Rewards for liking submissions would just incentive meaningless mass liking.   Regarding the people commenting below:

  ---

  Eliora Yona's take on CSS: I am sad to see how this kind of critique flourishes in the community. It not only shows how little people are paying attention to the winners (especially of the regular league) to see how about half of them have very regular looking articles, but it is also incredibly dismissive of both the judges' and the writers' efforts.   I have seen this kind of critique take a million shapes, one more horrible that the other, from "People that do drawings have unfair advantage" to "X person wins too much and should be banned because I do not have time to put as much effort as they do" (Wish I was kidding).
  I hope people take 10 seconds to realise that all of us are trying to do our best, and that spending countless hours doing illustrations, maps, formatting and coding is not just some sort of ploy to win a shinier badge, and requires a lot of creativity that is, in the end, what is supposed to be the thing being judged.
  CSS is the smallest bit of all this: Most people's CSS are just their world's theme and maybe a nicer looking box instead of a generic aloud. The bulk of it is learning to format with bbcode which is at the hands of everyone including freemen.   Aim to learn from others instead of trying to knock others down. Almost all of us came here knowing nothing about bbcode or CSS, and learned by asking others.  

  ---

    Dylonishere: "I dont know a single person on WA who actually expects others to reciprocate"
  I unfortunately have seen several instances of both this and assuming that people that read a lot owe it to others to read their articles.
  That is, I think, one of the hugest symptoms of this issue, if not the issue itself: People moving their focus from doing an article to going whatever means necessary to get into a shortlist. Some of us have seen the extreme lengths that a user has gone to achieve that, and how the complaining about "the system" stopped once they won a challenge.   I sincerely do not know if regulating that (the "check my article" spamming and the harrasing) more harshly would help. Maybe it will. Definitely it would help the people being spammed and begged.  

  ---

    Opinion: From all the systems I've seen for competitions in the past 2 1/2 years, the last worldember and the last best of WA were the best in this regard, as there was both no pressure for like-farming, no overwhelming of the judges' times, and everyone had the same chance.
  I can see, though, how it is impossible to adapt this to the monthly challenges, but I think the WA team is doing a great job at finding ways to address the situation.

• +10

  by Everwild
  on 2022-03-15 19:39

  While I applaud anyone's willingness to put themselves out there and speak on something they're passionate about, the timing and execution of this suggestion is tone deaf. There is an *imbalance* in the current flow of the challenges and Dimitris has already acknowledged and said they -- developers and volunteers alike -- are looking into ways of addressing it. Being a well-known, long-standing participant or community advocate does not then make people guilty of contriving the likes they've EARNED during competitions. TIME and repetitive participation just exacerbates it. They are high profile. They've been together, some --if not all of them-- literally for years. They will naturally gravitate to each other because they are the known quantities.   But, it's not out of some premeditated malice.   Yes, articles *should* be judged based on their merit; I agree. I don't think anyone would dispute that with you. However, making a bold declaration that they *are* judged on something besides their merit is your opinion and inflammatory; it helps nothing. Suggesting something like blind submissions and removing AUTHOR identity (please don't, because it's just an example) would have been a far more symbiotic way of skating in here on Jacob-W's coattails. It would have demonstrated some deeper thought process beyond "It's so not fair!"   It's one thing to say "This is starting to feel more like a popularity contest than it should," vs. the accusation: "This is nothing but a popularity contest." One ascribes a malicious intent that just isn't there. In the future, I hope you'll consider how you word your suggestions.   As for the suggestion itself, I think it's redundant. It may have been useful to pop it into the other suggestion as an addition to the discussion, but I'm not sure it warranted a whole new vote and only --what? -- two days after Dimitris made a good faith post about addressing the previous suggestion and its commentary. There are over a million accounts on WA and (I think) just a handful of developers and volunteer helpers. If even only HALF of those accounts are active, that's a lot of opinion and feedback to sift through and act upon, or dismiss as is deemed.

• -10

  by A Revolutionary Mimic
  on 2022-03-15 17:05

  In the future please check your post for grammar, spelling and tone. I am marking you down for that as much as the over all sentiment which I deem to be childish.

• -300

  by A Thundering Devil
  on 2022-03-15 15:51

  It's an insult to other writers on the site to say their articles have not won by merit, but only because of some nebulous social engineering. Have you ever stopped to consider that those articles won because they're better?

• +50

  by UnknownWriter88
  on 2022-03-15 11:51

• +10

  by Uruschk
  on 2022-03-15 11:47

  Voting positive simply because I believe your intentions are well meant. There seems to be fairly widespread agreement that there are problems that need solving in how these challenges are structured. Dimitris has said as much in his response to the previous suggestion. He wrote extensively and thoughtfully in that response and I believe we owe it to him and his team to give them the time and space to implement solutions and evaluate their effects.

• -100

  by A Sneaky Goblin
  on 2022-03-15 07:29

  It's sad that you use another persons feature request title like this. And it's like you said their's was well-ment. yours is just negative complaining. Couldn't you just comment on theirs?
  
  Btw all those who think Naelin's trick helps. No, Jacob's request said you always see your own like count, just not that of others.
  
  Also Dimitris response clearly states that they are working on things. And you come right back with this. It's your good right, but it is a bit like "you know what I know better even".
  
  Finally may I ask what you base your theory on? that people feel forced to like back? Did you do any research? got any data? or is it just a hunch you got?

• +10

  by Adcheryl
  on 2022-03-15 05:45

• -300

  by A Glamorous Orc
  on 2022-03-15 03:44

  Stop whining. A challenge is meant to be difficult, it is meant to be a bit stressful and it is meant to have winners and losers.   I haven't won a single one so far, and I still take part. It is the challenge that makes you better and connects you with others under a common cause.   If you do not like them - do not take part. Nobody is pushing you.   I am really worried that after we have bombarded Dimitris and the World Anvil team they will just say "Fuck it, no challenges!"... is that what you want? Because, they will be right at this point.   As Naelinar said on the previous suggestion, this will not work because simply, someone can choose not to submit the article to the challenge until the last minute. So this idea is dead from the get go..

• +10

  by Dylonishere123
  on 2022-03-15 02:14

  I think I'll adopt graylions stance in downvoting. Much respect there. I definitely understand where this is coming from, but there are some major issues that others have already commented on. Making likes anonymous would kind of defeat the purpose. There is a very deliberate push to reciprocate. When you look under the list of likes you have on any article, it literally says "Go give some love in return!" I can easily see that being there because so few actually do reciprocate. In fact, I'd put money on it. That being said, I definitely understand not wanting to be pressured and to be honest, I dont know a single person on WA who actually expects others to reciprocate. We hope for it, but by no means would we impose that on others. The problem with this is that this is a community and every community, now matter how big or small, has it's own expectations and pressures. It comes with the territory. By making it anonymous, your not only barring potential connections, but your also making it virtually impossible to to reciprocate in the first place. I follow quite a few worlds, and the likes I see help inform me of who gets priority. If someone is actively reading and commenting on my work, I want them to get my time before anyone else. It would be unfair to those who do put that effort in. They aren't doing just for likes, but even if they were, that's a lot of time and effort spent doing somthing that technically isnt helping you. I mean from a competitive point of view, the community spends a lot of time boosting their competition. I dont see that as a problem. Now if you're talking about just those who dont even care to read the articles and just like them, then again, you're not solving the issue here. All you would do is dissuade that specific behavior. The number of likes go down, but no one has actually changed where they fit when it comes to the shortlist or the challenge at large. It hasn't been said here, mind you but I've seen alot of talk on the discord about these challenges being about popularity and not solely focused on quality. That's a really slippery slope to be on cause it directly implies that low quality articles get on that shortlist and maybe even win, which frankly isn't true. Reciprocation is the easiest way to get new readers and many of us here want that. It's not about likes and it is a little insulting to those who just enjoy reading other people's work, though I sincerely doubt you intended it to be. You can post on the discord channel, sure, but that doesn't help you in the future. Lasting, meaningful connections are often best built in the trenches if you catch my drift. Not everyone is on WA to network and connect though. Alot of us are here for fun. However, by that logic, the argument can be made that since only around 250 people out of over 1 million users even participate in the challenges to begin with, it wouldnt make sense to change something that only applies to a relatively small and isolated group, a handful of users. I hope that makes sense. Concerning another comment on here, I also understand frustration regarding CSS. As someone who judged before back in world ember, I barely even looked at the CSS. I actively avoided it, reading the entries on mobile as I built my shortlist. Css won't win the challenge, quality does, assuming the judge is focused on that. Some may just pull names out of a hat. You gotta keep that in mind. Getting on the shortlist is a much more complicated issue and css is FOR SURE a clear advantage. The problem there is two fold. The advantage of css isn't just about looking pretty. It actively makes the work easier to read. You can guide the readers eyes, give them a break between blocks of text, and use more appropriate color schemes, font sizes, and other elements that make a huge difference in how accessible the writing is. It gives a psychological advantage. If we eliminate it, we would basically eliminate a paid feature, money that keep this site going, for the benefit of those who are not paying or paying below the threshold of having that advantage. Not a huge deal, as I agree, content should be the main focus, but eliminating that advantage takes away the eas of reading. As much as wel love it, reading takes time and effort. Your not just evening the playing field by removing css, your also making it harder on the readers who are focused on quality, the ones who actually read. The second issue with it is it doesn't matter that much. There are plenty of users with minimal CSS that have made it on shortlists. The challenge I judged had a runner up that had not a shred of css on it, just the basic formatting all users have access too. Does it matter? Yes, but not much. There are many other factors that go into it and css is just one of those variables. It's a good idea though. I imagine with more volunteers, we'd be able to do significantly more on the challenge side of WA. We should definitely look into that. Sorry for that tangent but back to feature suggestion, I don't think we've hit the solution here yet. It's a good idea though and I second praising you for the courage to actually put it forward. It just only benefits a small group of people and hinders another. On top of this, it would only work as a bandaid. The anxiety and pressure is definitely there but the way to handle that is about self healing. It's a personal problem, and I dont mean that in a disrespectful way. A personal problem needs personal solutions. Those expiriencing a decline in their mental health due to these challenges would benefit far more through self care. They need to take breaks, decompress, and find the comping mechanism they need to move passed it. The response on the previous feature this one is named after expresses it best, if a bit blunt. If these challenges are stressing people out to the point where they cant function, they really shouldnt participate. Why do that to yourself when you could just do you? The challenge prizes are great and all but they're not worth one's mental health. It doesnt get you noticed more as much as one would think either. I do hope this didnt come off as too rude cause really I get where it's coming from and its so cool to see people in the community who really just wanna help each other out. Gives me hope for our species, you know?

• +10

  by Graylion
  on 2022-03-15 00:45

  First I will vote +10 because I set a rule for myself that I will never vote negative on these suggestions, even if I disagree. I agree with having the discussion and examining this from many angles, getting feedback from everyone. Thank you Dimi for giving us this space to hold these discussion.
  
    I have met and interacted with some of the people that have liked / commented or I have liked / commented over articles, so loosing the opportunity to connect with like minded individuals of our trade and hobby by placing them behind a wall of anonymity would not appeal to me at all. In example I recently met a RPG game designer and publisher, spoke with him on Discord for almost and hour and was linked to his product on DriveThruRPG. This is amazing and one of the reasons I enjoy WA. I have submitted Summercamp Articles, World Ember Articles and a few challenges that fit my world design. Every time I get a like or comment I feel honored because I am not a very good writer, but I hope I am getting 1% better with each attempt. I do however consider myself an excellent game master for RPGs which is how I ended up choosing WA. Unfortunately I don't know what the solutions is and unfortunately I maybe don't see the problem as clearly. I was petrified the first time I submitted an article to summercamp because of how good some of the writers are, however I came to terms with the fact I am only competing with myself for improvement. I also firmly believe that these types of discussions that we are holding now are the key to understanding one another. Thank you for having the courage to hold a discussion.

• +300

  by Eliora Yona
  on 2022-03-14 23:10

  Challenges Challenge   Challenges, for a growing period of time, have become more - shall I say - challenging. These challenges, to the best of my knowledge, are meant to get writers inspired and build their world. That means we should all, as a community of World Anvil, should be reading through the lens of who has written their best article for the specified challenge - and not how pretty it looks. Yes, I agree that some formatting is needed to be able to read with ease, but that does not mean the flashiest article automatically gets in the shortlist either. As much as I love a beautiful appearance myself, do the words within the article reflect back more life?   That being said, I propose this: We, as a community of World Anvil, should enlist volunteer readers for challenges/competitions for the purpose of writing rather than CSS/BBcode use. Or for the sake of sheer competitions, from now on articles that have the least amount of CSS/BBcode - so it is fair for everyone no matter their Journeyman, Master, Grandmaster+, +, ranks. If this is possible to implement during competitions, I think would be a great test to see if this would work. Personally, I think CSS should not be used at all during competitions.   Maybe even shorten the word count for these challenges might be graceful since not a lot of people are reading them to get into the shortlist (not sure how that all works). Perhaps there is a loss of sight to these challenges as they are meant to be used specifically for building a world. I’m just throwing out ideas here, not accusations.   Also, a big thank you to those that brought World Anvil to life, so that we also may build right along with you! You have done so much even for the community as a whole - and are still bringing it! How you find the energy is beyond me, but thank you for keeping it going.   So… What say you, Faces of World Anvil and community about this proposal of volunteer readers? What about shortening the length of the articles? They can either volunteer themselves or be hand picked some where, some how. If to be volunteered, then count me as first. I will set aside some time to read and help out.

• -300

  by Michael Chandra
  on 2022-03-14 21:43

  As someone who has mass-commented on a lot of articles in multiple challenges, I can attest that the 'most people feel pressured to reciprocate' claim is completely false. Quite frankly, I find the claim offensive, as it both insults those that happily compliment and provide feedback, and denies the agency of the recipients of their positive attitude.

• +300

  by Sodose
  on 2022-03-14 21:30