So there's two main sets of data here. There's the data exclusively for Pencil Passports since it ran for just under 25 days. The other is for all events with favorites except Pencil Passports, since those each ran for 7 days. Now, to make this more informative, I decided to get the data from the last camp and make scatter plots from that as well, so that way we have something to compare this year's camp data to. Keep in mind that (1) last year's camp had 5 teams and (2) there was an extra event that awarded favorites. Still, it's pretty interesting to compare the two.
Also, apologies in advance to the Moon Bunnies, your color gets inverted since it was easier to do that than to redo the chart background color so the white would show up.
First up, here's the scatter plot for Tales From Our Travels favorites in CBT 2021:
Next, here's the scatter plot for Pencil Passports favorites this year:
So this was actually a pretty stark difference between the two. In 2021, only 25% of favorites came from entries within the first 5 days. This year? 80%, and even then those favorites past that 5 day mark only came from one team. I think the main reason behind this is simple, though. In 2021, multiple events started at the same time, so you couldn't focus all your attention on your postcard. This year, Pencil Passports was the only major event that was open for the first 4 days of camp. So I feel like a lot of people focused their energy on getting their passports done right away, resulting in a lot of quality entries within the first 5 days, and the raw entry numbers do support that to a degree. 40.8% of all entries for Passports came within the first 5 days, versus just 29.9% of all entries for Travels back in 2021.
Next up, here's the scatter plot for all non-Travels favorites in CBT 2021:
And now, the scatter plot for all non-Passport favorites this year:
That's a lot of entries! It does look to trend towards favoring earlier entries, so I ended up looking into the percentages. During CBT 2021, the entries that were named favorites within the first 2 days made up 66.4% of all these favorites. However, during this year's camp, that number actually dropped a fair amount to 56.86%. Now, before I expand on this further, I did think of something as I was looking at the data. The creative events and NH events did differ in the timings of when and how many people submitted. Like with UFOs, the coordination required meant that most people couldn't submit that quickly, as they had to wait until they were approved to post to avoid breaking their team's chain. Plus generally, it may take awhile for people to do up an art piece or a story. Whereas with NH, you could easily get an idea and execute it pretty quickly once the event started.
So I decided to break it down further. First, here's the scatter plot for all NH event favorites in CBT 2021:
Next, here's the scatter plot for all NH event favorites from this year:
Now, as you can tell, these do heavily trend towards earlier entries being named the favorite. In fact, despite there being the extra 48 hour window to vote for favorites this year, the stats tend to be similar for both camps. The amount of entries that were named favorites and submitted within the first two days of 2021 was 70.37%. This year? 71.74%. So while the extra window might've shuffled some placements around, it didn't seem to have made a huge difference overall.
I think one of the reasons why this is the case, as I touched on, is you can easily get an idea and execute it pretty quickly once the event started. Since there are ultimately limits to what you can do in NH due to the amount of items available and whatnot, it means that if a quality entry is posted early on, it's harder for a later entry to displace it even if somebody could make the argument that later entry is better than the early one.
Now, here's the scatter plot for all non-NH event favorites excluding Travels in CBT 2021:
And here's the scatter plot for all non-NH event favorites excluding Passports this year:
So this is actually where there's a huge difference between 2021 and this year. In 2021, the amount of entries that were named favorites and submitted within the first 2 days was 63.38%. This year? Under half, 44.64%. It looks more evenly spread from eyeballing it as well. Now, this is where I think the extra 48 hour window to vote for favorites made a difference, since it meant that people could put in more effort or creativity into their entries, submit later, and still have a shot at a top 3 spot, since their entries would be able to stand out more than the earlier ones and they'd have enough time to get votes.
Basically the whole outcome of the Cetacean voting for Obscure Observations is a perfect example of this. Initially, doing some quick math, the voting would've ended with me (12), @/Halloqueen (11) and @/seliph (11) top 3. However, thanks to the additional 48 hour window, @/mogyay's entry jumped up to 1st despite only being entered with an hour and 14 minutes left (it got 9 votes during the initial window, then 5 more during the added window). @/S.J.'s was similar, only being entered with roughly 14 hours left and jumping up to 3rd (9 votes during the initial window, then 4 more during the added window). Thus the later entries were able to pull ahead of some of the earlier entries (mine/Halloqueen's) and change how our top 3 ended up turning out. I'll note that I haven't bothered checking the other events, I just figured this one was the easiest to look into due to Mog's entry being that top right dot just barely to the left of the 7 days elapsed marker.
That said, though, I think it is important to highlight that not everybody would've taken advantage of that extra 48 hour window. People might've already voted before the window. They might've voted for some entries early on before disappearing, thus not being around when the window opened up. Or maybe they were around but just shrugged and went "I don't feel like voting". So it's hard to tell how much of a difference it truly did make versus just how the events ended up being set up between the two years. I do like to believe it helped overall, though, and not just because of the example I gave above!
So, that was a lot of words and a lot of scatter plots. What's the conclusion? Well, the basic question I asked at the beginning was "does an entry submitted earlier have a better chance at being named a favorite?" The simple answer is yes. However, the 48 hour window did appear to somewhat counter-act that, and even without that window, submitting early doesn't necessarily mean it's guaranteed that if you're one of the first entries, you're getting a favorite. You still need to put in the effort and creativity to make your entry stand out and have people want to vote for it!
I do wonder if not being able to vote for favorites until a 48-72 hour window at the end of the camp (like the extra voting window this year, just...that's the only time they count) would eliminate that advantage that early entries have. You could make the argument that it would give all entries a more equal shot, since they have equal time to be voted on. However, that also depends on how the entries are presented, since if we were to vote in the same threads again, then the early entries would still be the first ones seen, which (again) gives them a slight advantage over the other ones, especially if people don't want to go through 4-6 pages of entries to decide which ones are their favorite. Like crew-specific threads with the entry order randomized for a 48-72 hour window after the last area might be the best way of handling it, ideally in a single poll rather than as individual posts but idk if the staff can/would want to increase the poll size to 40+. Plus that's also more work for the staff and I can understand if they don't necessarily want to have to go through all of that effort just for community voting.
(note: I understand this paragraph is more feedback-y, but I'll just link to this post in the survey, nbd)
Like I said in the disclaimer, this isn't me trying to put any favorites down. I've glanced through a lot of them while compiling all this data, and there's a ton of good entries! The entries voted for favorites definitely earned their placement! It's more that I feel like while the community voting system itself is alright and a nice change of pace from the staff being the only ones voting for favorites (or picking which ones appear on a poll in the end), it is flawed and could be improved upon. I don't think there will ever be a perfect solution for community voting, mind you, but some tweaks here and there can go a long way.
Also, as one last comment, having to go through the 2021 camp threads did make me realize how much I appreciated the structure of this year's camp in some aspects, lmao.
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very much fun and for the times i participated i loved being divided in groups it was very nice interacting with you guys and seen how well organized we could be 
. Super fun!
