Updates Regarding Saturday Night Contests

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CaseyRudd

Director of Operations
Team member
Jun 5, 2009
3,393
3,801
Charleston, SC
www.instagram.com
Hello everyone. Unfortunately we have to make some changes to our Saturday Night Contests as we have become extremely disturbed with the amount of people that have tried to pass off old submissions as new, and try to curb the system. This is not what we want to encourage, and therefore we have to take some serious action. We like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and want to believe people are using this contest as a means to challenge themselves and honor the very simple rules we set. However, when repeated actions like this happen from multiple users taking advantage of this platform just to win a prize, enough is enough.

It brings up the question sometimes if doing video and picture contests is worth it if we keep on getting old entries submitted as new ones? We certainly don't want to stop these kinds of contests and prevent honest people from taking on the challenge to win a prize that they worked hard to have a chance to earn. It's definitely not fair to the great people that take these contests seriously and have been since the beginning.

We've even had to bring this up very recently in another contest, and we're tired of seeing it. We know all of you are tired of seeing it to. Of course, we don't remember absolutely every entry that has been submitted by every user ever and we don't have a file of every user's submitted entries to go back and check as that would take forever and delay the judging process. We usually look at time of upload for videos and photos on YouTube, Vimeo, and Instagram to determine whether or not a video or picture is old, but because we allowed a direct file upload as an entry instead of Instagram in our most recent contest, we couldn't detect that.

Going forward, all picture entries MUST be uploaded to Instagram only. If you do not have an Instagram account, it is completely free to make one. We can't have this issue happen in the future.

Every single entry in every contest before and in the future requires a NEW photo or video submission. There are no old photos or videos allowed whatsoever in any contest; past, present, or future.

Also going forward, each participant that is caught cheating will be permanently banned from any and all theory11 contests in the future. This includes Saturday Night Contests AND the Holiday Contest. We absolutely cannot and will not tolerate cheating of any form in our contests, period. We hope that these new guidelines and penalties will help curb the amount of attempted cheating, as we want these contests to remain a platform where you can challenge yourself in new ways and be rewarded for doing so. We love putting on these free contests for you every Saturday, and have been doing so for over 11 years. We want it to continue, we just ask that you respect our rules and guidelines. Let's work together to make these contests fun and fair for everyone.

As always, see you all on Saturday for a brand new contest!
 
Jul 1, 2018
56
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Totally fair decision! Im so sad of seeing this kind of change happens, but people are trying to be "super smart", so its totally fair to change rules to try to fight against this kind of action!
I love the pic contests, so I'm happy u guys are going to keep this kind of contest happening!
 
Oct 2, 2018
167
144
Thanks for the update and for taking quick action. Although I didn't enter this week, it's good to know T11 is on the ball and adhere to a zero tolerance policy. People who take shortcuts during these contests are probably taking shortcuts elsewhere, and are totally disrespectful of the art of magic and cardistry. I'd probably go a step further and ban them completely from T11 for violations going forward.
 
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Furrukh

Elite Member
Jul 24, 2010
780
679
Karachi,Pakistan
Though having a 2mp camera phone, I am always certain that I won't win a photo contest cuz of bad quality photographs but I still sometimes enter into these contests cuz they are simply fun to enter. Unfortunately I am one of those who have old phones on which IG is not supported. I guess I'm gonna have to forfeit myself from these photo contests. But I totally understand and stand with this decision.
Just plz don't stop these SNCs ever.

Now a request to make me( who will not be able to enter photo contest) happy. A round table discussion questions contest with calen moreli for this Saturday with Quantum as the prize :)
 
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Feb 12, 2018
207
176
India
even me, my phone camera is pretty bad but i always try to get good pic or i borrow my uncles dslr! and trust me, taking a dope photo and wining is way better than re-entering your one photo that was good....the point of SNC's is to challenge yourself and for seeing others and improving not only to get the prize! hope people stop this and start challenging themselves!!
 
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Tower of Lunatic Meat

Elite Member
Sep 27, 2014
2,435
2,029
Texa$, with a dollar sign
For anyone entering the contests, understand this:

The goals of the contest is first and foremost, and always will be, about pushing people to get out of their comfort zones and TRY to do something magic, cardistry, photo, etc. related.

The prizes are a carrot to get like-minded people to provide the extra push.

Theory11 have been doing these contests for A LONG TIME, all with the intention of pushing the participants to be better.

Even if you don't win anything, you CAN walk away with some experience of what to do for next time. Because there will always be photo contests.

I'm practically technology-illiterate, I've learned more about photography and studying a bit of what makes the winning photos "winners".

Even if you are entering a contest for the prize, that's fine. But when it gets to the point to where you'll win "at any cost", that's when it's become unhealthy and you need to bow out.

The contests are meant to be a fun learning experience, not a piggy bank to break.
 
For anyone entering the contests, understand this:

The goals of the contest is first and foremost, and always will be, about pushing people to get out of their comfort zones and TRY to do something magic, cardistry, photo, etc. related.

The prizes are a carrot to get like-minded people to provide the extra push.

Theory11 have been doing these contests for A LONG TIME, all with the intention of pushing the participants to be better.

Even if you don't win anything, you CAN walk away with some experience of what to do for next time. Because there will always be photo contests.

I'm practically technology-illiterate, I've learned more about photography and studying a bit of what makes the winning photos "winners".

Even if you are entering a contest for the prize, that's fine. But when it gets to the point to where you'll win "at any cost", that's when it's become unhealthy and you need to bow out.

The contests are meant to be a fun learning experience, not a piggy bank to break.

Hello good Sir,

I just started photography as a hobby, but have been collecting cards for about 6 months now. I went a little nuts and managed to grow my collection to about a thousand decks and a crap ton of uncut sheets and other card related items, but I'm new to the forum and the site in general. Could you possibly give me a quick rundown of the basics of the contest or maybe point me in the right direction to find the info? Combining two passions into one and possibly winning a prize sounds like a good time to me.

Thanks,

Mike
 
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Tower of Lunatic Meat

Elite Member
Sep 27, 2014
2,435
2,029
Texa$, with a dollar sign
Hello good Sir,

I just started photography as a hobby, but have been collecting cards for about 6 months now. I went a little nuts and managed to grow my collection to about a thousand decks and a crap ton of uncut sheets and other card related items, but I'm new to the forum and the site in general. Could you possibly give me a quick rundown of the basics of the contest or maybe point me in the right direction to find the info? Combining two passions into one and possibly winning a prize sounds like a good time to me.

Thanks,

Mike

Oops, I did not see this post.

For starters, every Saturday night (7:30 EST), a contest is posted, and it can range from: magic, cardistry, "arts and crafts", phorography, random guess, etc. So you won't know if it's photography-based until you check the thread.

The criteria for photography contests have a bit of direction, but left veague enough for artistic interpretation as well as having it difficult to pin down exactly what the judges are shooting for.

Over the years, I have seen some real professional looking stuff win, smart editing win, and some have won with a camera on a phone with some filter tricks from Instagram. So it'd definitely not a "who has the better photography setup", which CAN help, but it's not a make-or-break.

If you have an eye of what makes a good photograph, you're already in the right direction.
 
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Dtop

Elite Member
Jan 13, 2019
285
219
I know that there is a spread specifically for this, however this one is newer and I'd rather use this.

I have some ideas for the weekly Saturday Night Contests:

Idea #1) Design a Deck. The contest is simple, you have 24ish hours to create your own deck back, whether it be digitally designed, hand drawn or any other design process you design a deck based around a certain theme, or no theme at all. Judging would be something like Most Creative, relevance to theme, coolest design. To prevent cheaters the file would have to have the date somewhere within the picture. Example, on a sticky note off to the side or the drawn picture; the date somewhere on your rendered image.

Idea #2) Honorable mentions should get 50 Elite Points. Thats it.

Idea #3) Technological Application. Magic is ever expanding as new effects are created and routines released. Likewise so is technology. The challenge for this contest would be to apply technology to your magic trick. Such as making apps on your/the spectators phone disappear. Cut and restored phone charger (rope?). Making the spectators card appear within a picture they took. Anything that can be applied to technology is a go for this idea. Again, the date would have to be said or shown somewhere within the effect, on a phone screen, said out loud or on a sticky note.

Whether or not these ideas are implemented thank you for taking the time to at least consider them.
 
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