Is it wise to judge create-a-line contest on votes?
I know that there are all sorts of rules stopping the utterly WRONG making it into the game as a result of the current contest running...
... but when the top two entries are suddenly from someone who goes by the name 'The Silent Man', which were nowhere to be seen before... well...
What I'm trying to say is that it suddenly seems as if the winner will be the person who somehow manages to badger enough people to click on the Vote button (or cheat - not that I'm accusing anyone of that) rather than the person who actually has the line that everyone thinks is the best.
Those top two lines are not TERRIBLE by any means, but either I'm missing something and that guy has managed to create the TWO funniest lines in the contest which everyone loves so much that they've both suddenly rocketed to the top out of nowhere, or there's something else going on here.
Thoughts?
... but when the top two entries are suddenly from someone who goes by the name 'The Silent Man', which were nowhere to be seen before... well...
What I'm trying to say is that it suddenly seems as if the winner will be the person who somehow manages to badger enough people to click on the Vote button (or cheat - not that I'm accusing anyone of that) rather than the person who actually has the line that everyone thinks is the best.
Those top two lines are not TERRIBLE by any means, but either I'm missing something and that guy has managed to create the TWO funniest lines in the contest which everyone loves so much that they've both suddenly rocketed to the top out of nowhere, or there's something else going on here.
Thoughts?
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I think it would be a really, really fine and awesome idea if we all agreed on what the absolute WORST entry is, and all vote for that one. When Trial and Execution is finally released, think of the smug satisfaction we'd all get. Mmmmm.... Smug Satisfaction.
I would propose that the contest was more of a lottery, in which the selected entry was simply chosen at random. I mean one persons comedy is another persons tragedy.
My brother and I enetered a similar contest once. Instead of a line, we had to do a short clip. No more than 3 minutes long. Of course, some competitors didn't read the rules and posted clips of several minutes.
Every clip had to be posted on youtube, then on the site. The winer was the one that gathered the most clicks. You could only vote once/computer. At the end of the contest, a single clip (that was 7 minutes long...7 boooring minutes) had about 2000 clicks. Okay, let's say fair enough! It had the most clicks, and the contest organisers ignored the three-minutes rule.
BUT THE CLIP HAD ONLY 900 VIEWS ON YOUTUBE!
Do the math.
900 views compared to 2000 clicks.
They totally cheated, as I don't believe that a couple of kids actually had 2000 friends which they all convinced to vote for their clip.
Sad, but true. We could've won 1000 bucks.
(I agree though, seems a bit unfair)
Hmm... instead of continuing the complaints (which we have a lot in this forum), do anyone have any better and logical suggestions to conduct contests in a fairer manner?
Let me just say, I'd rather not have George Bush jokes in my Monkey Island.
But back to the issue at hand. Yes, online votes are always prone to spamming and there's not a whole lot you can do about it. You can analyze IP address ranges, try your luck with tracking cookie, but in the end it's just a matter of knowing how the web works.
Giving $1000 away based on votes seems like a pretty stupid idea, but since this vote is sufficiently "unimportant" enough we can at least hope that nobody will bother to start a really elaborate attack.
$1000? Is that the prize? Where does it say this?
The one that's on the top of the leaderboard right now is:
"He insulfeated me in a major sword fight by claiming that my fighting skills were equivalent to George Bushes language skills."
Pirate, please.
Ah, I see it now. Whoops
I'm casting my vote for you, just because of the effort you put in for your post.
buh-ludd!
*Edit* Funny, Jake wont let me type in all caps haha!
That said, it's one line, it's not going to ruin the game no matter how terrible it is, so what's the harm.
Well the community isn't only on these boards (or any board, actually). I guess lots of fans heard of the contest and came because, well, what MI fan never dreamed of contributing a joke in one of the games ?
When you have 3000+ entries to the contest, there is just no way everyone will agree on one - or even five - lines. Because we all come from different places and have different opinions on what is funny and what isn't. So yes, there is a chance the winner will be a line that you, personnally, don't find funny. That doesn't mean it isn't. I know there are jokes in the various Monkey Island games which are very specific to the american audience and that I don't always get – and as such, don't find funny at all.
Exactly. I asked all my friends to vote for me, of course. Most of them are videogame geeks, and most of them replied : "There is a new Monkey Island game ? Cool, I didn't even know !" So I think it's very interesting for Telltale to do such a contest.
I agree, that would probably make the contest look fairer to some. Maybe for the next one ?
You seem to be missing my point. I wasn't trying to make a value judgement on the two lines that were occupying the top spot at time of posting (they seemed to be pretty standard fare in my opinion but that's by the by). I was saying that it seems rather ... well, spectacularly unlikely that out of nowhere one guy suddenly gets -two- lines rocketing to the #1 and #2 spot purely on the merit of the contributions, rather than due to his access to enough voters willing to click on his link.
I was suggesting that maybe having a free voting system is not the best approach because it rewards the most resourceful contestant rather than the one with the line most people genuinely liked.
One way to partially remedy this would be to enable voting for registered TT members only, so that they can't just spam the link everywhere... though I can see why they don't do this from a marketing perspective
So I think the best compromise they could make at this stage would be to take the top 10 lines by votes and then use a panel of TT judges to pick the winner out of that.
Maybe, but that's actually the whole purpose of the contest : to get as many people as possible to vote for your entry, even outside the MI fanbase.
I did get your point, and that's why I'm saying there's no such thing as "a line most people genuinely liked". There's simply too many contributions and too many different tastes. So yes, the most resourceful contestant will win. And however, that doesn't mean his/her line won't be liked by many people.
Actually, when you think about it... What would Guybrush do if he wanted to win such a contest ? Would he try to win fair and square or use any resource at his disposal ?
Of course there's such thing as a line that most people genuinely liked. It's not like what is funny is completely RANDOM, that's crazy talk! There are lots of varying tastes, it's true, but there's still room for general consensus. To suggest that there's no way of telling what lines the most people find the funniest is ridiculous.
For example. Say there were 10 lines plucked completely randomly from that list, and 1000 people were asked 'which line is funniest?' Are you saying that it would just be completely evenly spread, about 100 votes for each? Of course not, it's far more likely that certain lines would be more popular than others because more people found them funny.
Note that when I say 'most people found funny' I don't necessarily mean 'most of the people', I mean 'THE most people', i.e. more people compared to other lines.
Hey, no need to become agressive. As a matter of fact, I do believe that universal humor doesn't exist. After all, as Pierre Desproges used to say : "You can laugh at everything, but not with everybody". Of course, it is only my opinion. Yours is different, OK, I respect that. That doesn't give you the right to call my opinion crazy or ridiculous just because you disagree.
However, that was not what I was trying to say in my previous post.
If there were 10 lines, yes. But there aren't, so what does that prove ? I said it before : there are already more than 3000 entries in the contest.
What I was trying to say in my previous post is there is no way ONE specific line will emerge from those 3000 and satisfy everybody. And whoever wins, there will always be people who didn't like his line to imply he won only because he was resourceful or whatever and not because his line is funny - regardless of the actual opinion of people who did vote (which we have no way to know).
Anyway, Telltale won't change the rules of the contest halfway through, so for the best or worse we'll have to do with it.
Again, you are missing my point. I hate to go over it again, so I'll try to explain myself properly this time.
Let me use an example to make my point: Some people say that morality is not universal just like you are saying about humour. Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong. But even the people who say that will agree that if you go around and ask people what is moral and immoral, there will be some disagreement but also quite a lot of agreement. So if you ask enough people you can spot patterns and identify the sorts of things people find 'good' or 'evil'. Let's say that less than 1% of people asked think that shoplifting is an okay thing to do. Now let's say (for argument's sake) that 25% of people think that it's okay to pirate games. Even though in those two (made up) examples most people put shoplifting and piracy as 'bad', you can still identify a trend showing that more people THINK one is bad than the other. Even though some argue the truth of the matter might be that neither are universally good or bad.
So it is with you arguing there's no universal humour. That may well be the case, but that doesn't change the fact that there are certain trends to what people find funny.
As another thought experiment to illustrate the principle, imagine that the contest is ending and there are two lines that are way ahead of the others, Line A and Line B.
Let's say someone went around randomly and asked 'is this line funny?'. Let's imagine 25% of people asked found Line A funny and 5% found Line B funny. Now imagine that Line B is currently winning because that person got their link out to more people. In both cases, most people didn't find the lines funny - as you say, humour is like that, it's very subjective. But it would still be significant that 5 times more people found A funny than B, yet it got fewer votes.
I was using a simplified example to illustrate a principle, like I did above. This is a perfectly valid thing to do, in fact it's essential for our understanding of concepts. The fact that there are 3000 entries doesn't change the general principle that a greater number of people will tend find certain lines funnier than others, something which is likely to become obfuscated by peoples' resourcefulness in getting votes.
What I WILL agree on is that it's unlikely that the winning line will satisfy everybody (and yes, when I used the phrase 'the line everyone thinks is the funniest' casually in my first post, I thought it was obvious that I meant 'the line more people found to be the funniest than any other line'). Like in my above example, maybe only 25% of the people will like the line, and some of the rest of the 75% will complain - but that's the internet for you. It doesn't change the fact that it would seem ideal for a line to win because more people thought it was funny than other lines (even if 'more' only amounts to 25% or something)
What I am saying isn't controversial, it's just basic statistics.
Yes, there are better ways of selecting winners. Selection by committee is one of the best way to gauge a winner, but the process is lengthy, usually taking weeks, if not months to decide. For a weekly contest and a large volume, selection by committee is just not economical.
Here's my proposal as a compromise - put all the entry number in a hat, and get someone to draw an entry. If you don't win, just blame lady luck. :P
The problem then is what do you do with all the entries that aren't even the right sort of line because they didn't read what they were supposed to be submitting? How do you judge if a particular line reaches the standards of quality mentioned in the competition rules? It could get messy.
I can't remember if I proposed this before - I think I did - but wouldn't it be easier to take a certain number of the top entries, say 10 of them and then judging by committee? It's not perfect, but at least it raises the chances of ending up with a line that fits the tone of the game.
Incidentally I'm not saying all this because I think I should be winning. I -have- submitted two lines so far, but I don't think either of them are particularly worthy or unworthy of winning. I just don't like the idea of a line getting into the game because some guy managed to get lots of people to click a link. I know -why- it's done that way, it just bothers me that that is the potential consequence.
So yeah, I hope ultimately the line that ends up in the game is something hand-picked by Telltale.
Again, voting mechanism doesn't take into account of the quality of the candidate. It just take into assumption that people who did vote for it have weighted their decision before casting. The assumption is the premise for the voting mechanism to work.
Even though the premise/assumption have proven time and again that it doesn't always work, you would still have to rely it if you are using the mechanism.
It's like using '1 + 1 = 2' as a premise in arithmetic. You can't question "why must 1 + 1 = 2?" if you are interested to use arithmetic to add things up. Similarly, you can't institute a voting mechanism halfway, and start questioning the premise of people make their weighted decision for voting.
For all the evils popularity contest may post, you will still have to admit that sometimes it work.
Again, selection by committee takes time. How long will it take to determine the shortlisted entries to be judged by the committee? And how are you going to arrange for the committee to agree on the criteria in judging the entries? And for weekly contests the turn-around can quite rapid. Will the committee have time to decide on this? Is it worth all those effort to go through so much just for one line?
Let say that we use the voting to determine the 10 most popular entries as shortlisted entry for the selection by committee. That is possible. But again, you have to state that selection out-front. If not, the repercussion could be that the most popular entry may create an outcry of unfairness or discrimination against his/her entry.
Hmmm... wait. I could be wrong. I think there is a selection by committee, as stated in the rules:
"5.WINNER SELECTION AND NOTIFICATION
Odds of winning depend on the total number of eligible entries received. Telltale will post Submitted Material from certain Contest entrants on its website, telltalegames.com. From all Contest entries, Telltale reserves the right to select only a limited number of entries that may be posted to the website or to select no entries. One winner will be selected from among the entries submitted that week based on the highest number of votes received. Telltale may advise prospective voters of criteria upon which selection will be based. Additionally, Telltale reserves the right to select a different weekly finalist or no weekly finalist at all from among the entrants to the Contest that week if Telltale determines that such finalist's Submitted Material does not meet Telltale's quality and creative standards for written material in its games, as determined in its sole discretion."
Hey! We should just stop the whining and get on with life! :P
Please be reassured, I did get your point the first time around. But I disagree with it. It's not because someone doesn't agree with you he necessarily didn't understand, you know
However I think humor can't be compared to morality because every civilization shares a common ground to what is seen as right or wrong (giving to the poor is "good", stealing is "bad"...). Without those moral rules, civilization cannot exist. On the other hand, humour depends on education, historical background of the country, the person's life, and so on. When an american do a joke about lawyers, his fellow americans will find it funny (or not) but at least they will get it. A french or british or german, where the legal system works differently, will just rise an eyebrow.
But what you seem to overlook is the fact that only works if people can read all the entries *at once* (i.e. same chances for every entry).
From the moment people have to do a bit of research to read more entries, those entries have no way to win (because, as marketing teach us, people are lazy, and on the internet they are lazier.)
The basics of statistics is also to have the same conditions for everyone. In the current form of the contest, it is not the case.
As I said earlier, I agree with that idea, but as I said you don't change the rules of a contest halfway through, that would be unfair. However, as someone else said in this thread, it would be nice to have actually two winners : the "telltale choice" AND the "popular choice".
I have no idea what "buh-ludd!" is supposed to mean, but that's not it. I give you a hint: It has something to do with Nazis and a joke (and before anybody complains about Nazi jokes: I AM German)
I'm not saying humour and morality are conceptually similar. The analogy is intended to illustrate that just because something is subjective doesn't mean that opinion is evenly spread about it. Even though there is a high level of disagreement about what is funny, there is also a good level of agreement. For example, more people find Monkey Island funny than Schindler's List.
I understand that there is a wide level of cultural difference which informs the sense of humour (moreso than morality) but that doesn't change the basic fact that more people will find some lines funny than others; it isn't just completely random what people find funny. That's why in threads like 'What's your favourite line in Chapter 1?' there are lots of different lines suggested but SOME lines come up over and over again.
Actually, that shouldn't make TOO much of a difference. The way it is set up at the moment, on the left hand side of the screen a bunch of random entries appear, until you refresh them. Because which ones appear is random, all of the quotes get about the same amount of exposure - each of the 3000 lines has about the same chance of appearing. This is, statistically speaking, a fair way to ensure that each line has a decent chance to be voted for without having to make the visitor trawl through them all...
So as far as browsing entries via the contest page goes it IS the same conditions for everyone (except for the top 5 which are always on display, which could skew things a little, but nowhere near as much as a resourceful guy with lots of places to spam his link)
The only way to win popularity contest is through marketing and publicity. Why do you think the presidents of the US are always from the big parties that could afford to spend to promote their candidates in the media, and not from independent candidates or candidates from smaller parties?
Well yes, exactly. My whole post is me expressing doubts that a popularity contest is a good idea when the prize is for the line to appear in the game. In other words, run a popularity contest by all means but maybe the prize should be something which doesn't impact the final game.
A similar thing could be said about the presidency, I guess, but at least they have to go through SOME due process to get elected.
Hahahahaah~! This really cracks me up.
Anyway, just to rehash from my previous post, Telltale reserve the rights to determine the winner as stated in the rules. So there is really no point in continuing this argument.
As I said in my previous post, I don't see how it could be easily resolved, although as was pointed out in the terms, Telltale do have the final say, which makes it a slightly more legit process given that they are still not going to go through them all, which is understandable.
Extremely good (and subtle (and relevant)) point.
If the rabbit appears, then everyone lose.