What Do You Guys Think?

[Bryant_Tsu]

As many of you know theory11 holds a weekly SNC (Saturday Night Contest). These contests usually present a goal or challenge of some kind. In the past, flourishes and tricks have been created from SNC prompts. The major issue is that there are usually multiple great entries (take this week for example where everyone brought something new to the table and all the submissions were good). Now there's always a first place winner (who receives some sort of tangible reward as well as some elite points) but the rest get nothing. There are usually a couple that come close and (like in this week's case) make it very hard to judge.

What if second or third place prizes were awarded? Say first place gets the grand prize, while second place gets 100 elite points, and third place gets 50 points (or 500 for second and 250 for third if you want to be generous). On contests that inspire creating something (pretty much anything besides random guess SNCs) maybe all entries get a mere 10 points, as a reward for trying (if submitting to the media section gets 10 points I don't see why creative individuals who had to think of a way to accomplish (insert SNC task here) shouldn't get something for the time and effort they put into planning, filming, and uploading.

What do you guys think? Does this sound like a good idea or not? Discuss!

(I do not represent theory11 in any way. I have no power or means to actually implement the ideas listed above. This thread is to gather opinions from other members to see if others (if any) find appeal in this idea.)

-Bryant

 

[zswim]

This weeks SNC was really good, but honestly didn't feel up to the challenge so I worked on some original effects. I'd think this would be a decent idea, or at least the 2nd and 3rd places, not too sure on the 10 points for everyone.. unless the videos were decent.

 

[Alz]

What about contests when u have to just guess 3 cards, or predict some football match score? For that kind of contest u dont need much time to write an answer , so giving elite points just for writing: "Three of clubs, 10 of diamonds, jack of spades" is kinda... well not right So this system could be more motivating only when contest include making foto or video imo

 

[leighelkins]

I think the prize system is great as it is, there generally aren't enough entries to warrant giving multiple places and you don't want the prize to be diluted for the winner.

What I would like to see changed though is for the contest to be announced earlier in the day so that those of us in different time zones may have a chance to see it Saturday night rather than not seeing it until possibly late into the day on Sunday if we don't check first thing in the morning. Ideally some time between 12pm and 3pm EST. Yes we would still be at a slight disadvantage but at least we then have the opportunity to think it over overnight.

 

[Claire.F]

What about contests when u have to just guess 3 cards, or predict some football match score? For that kind of contest u dont need much time to write an answer , so giving elite points just for writing: "Three of clubs, 10 of diamonds, jack of spades" is kinda... well not right So this system could be more motivating only when contest include making foto or video imo

I think Bryan was talking about photo and video contests only ;-) That's true it would be too easy to get elite points just by posting a guess...

As for Bryan's idea of creating second and third places, I think it would be great, but only if enough people are entering the contest and if the judges feel like the best entries are really close from each other and should all be awarded (this already happened in the past if I'm not wrong). So, I think it depends on the situation, but overall, it's a great idea!

 

[Justin.Morris]

They did do this for a while and then stopped. Not sure if the administration was a lot of work or not. They didn't say why they stopped.

 

[Lyle Borders]

We still do occasionally award 2nd and 3rd place prizes. It only happens in contests with really high participation levels, and in instances where we are really torn about who should win. If we do a "Guess the Card" contest, you can just about guarantee that there won't be a 2nd or 3rd place winner, but if we do a "Create a Trick" contest and we are blown away by the number of amazing entries chances are that we will be talking about 2nd and 3rd places.

All entries get 10 points? Sorry, not likely to happen. Elite Points are manually awarded for contests. Some of our contests have near to 100 participants. It is not practical to manually award 100 people 10 Elite Points each. Maybe it is for contests with only 8 entries, but if we make it the rule then we would have to do it for the big contests too. Besides, who is going to create a video to earn 10 pts? The real draw has nothing to do with 10 points, it has to do with a big 1st place prize and 1000 points for winning.

All in all, it is a contest. If you enter, you risk not winning. Most people won't win. Tis the nature of contests. We offer the contests free of charge every single week (and have done so since theory11 was created) for you guys. I don't even want to figure out the total cost of running every single SNC, it would be enormous. Doesn't really matter. We do this for you guys. It gives you a chance to earn some cool swag, to get recognized, and to show off your skills. If you win, it is just a bonus!

Thanks for the feedback guys!

// L