Our 2023 Holiday Event is Here!

[Croconaw]

I wasn't aware of any of this but on another forum anime related some people were openly cheating for a badge and called people who wanted to play fair and square "pompous" "arrogant" and "gatekeepers". ???! Can we just keep having fun?

Reminds me of when I was the only cashier at my store who didn't want to take part in "receipt reprinting and uploading other peoples' purchases to the Fetch app for rewards." They all turned on me for being ethical and putting a stop to their games. I don't work there anymore.

 

[cornimer]

I def support keeping the votes hidden so that nobody knows if they're close to winning. I also think we should go back to removing names from entries. Some people will be able to tell art styles sure, but a lot of people won't (personally I'd have no idea which entries were which if there weren't names on them as I never look at people's art outside of these contests).

 

[Alolan_Apples]

I mean, given the nature of the site in the past that doesn't surprise me. (2012-2016 era, to clarify) It does, however, surprise me that it happened today.

More like 2013-2017, with 2015 being the worst year of TBT. The drama that caused the original What’s Bothering You thread to explode and get locked was the main catalyst, but there were other problems as well. 2014 wasn’t that good either.

I remember back when I went to this Sega forum there was this voting event and some of the nominees went to other sites to get randoms to vote for them. It back fired because the randos registered and voted against them lol.

This reminds me of how Undertale won Best Game Ever on GameFAQs. They allowed unregistered voters to vote in the polls, and said that rallying from other sites like Reddit and Tumblr was acceptable.

 

[seliph]

sorry if this should have been a CTS but if there were multiple offenders, only removing one entry was inevitably setting up that person to have fingers pointed at them. either everyone involved's entries should have been removed or no one's.

 

[Aniko]

Of course. I don't mean that it's impossible, but I've noticed it on a few of the events that something seemed off. Like favoritism was in play (or in this extreme case manipulation and bribes) Because there would be amazing pieces that didn't get many votes and or weren't nominated because they didn't get enough likes in the submission thread.

For example how are we to know that this issue didn't happen way before during the submission thread? I don't know, I never thought people would stoop this low for digital trinkets. All of the nomination threads have had some entries cut out and the ornament one had the most because it was halved. It's a shame not only for the people who worked hard to get nominated, but what about the members who worked really hard and could had gotten nominated if foulplay wasn't involved? I always work hard on my entries. Granted I know I'll never get nominated, but it still puts a damper on the whole situation regardless if I have a chance or not.


This issue also resurfaced memories of members messaging me about this very situation from like 2020 or 2021 before I was serious about the forum or the events. I just ignored their messages and didn't think anything of it. So this has probably been an ongoing issue and no one was caught until now. I apologize for not bringing it to the staffs attention, because I honestly forgot until now.

I've always thought that even the submission threads should be private until the deadline. I don't know, I feel like not everyone is going to continuously look at the submissions so people who submit later seem like they'd be at a disadvantage. Just my two cents.


Overall its a messy situation, but the staff handled it very well.

Yes in the cases where the community is voting for the first selection, the first entries get more votes than the last ones because they get more exposure, then people go work on their own pieces and miss what other posted, there are also hours where the forums is less busy and in events like camps, the whole thread disappears when we change of location, so people who posted at the last minute don't get any likes. That's how awesome works get less likes, people working hours on their pieces won't be the first to post.

I have only noticed one work missing but the nominees for events like the ornament were chosen by mods and likes didn't affect the selection, there are works that got a lot of likes that didn't make the selection, and some with less that made it. Nothing changed here.
It's not community vote so they couldn't manipulate it.

I never got any messages of that kind here so I don't know if I'm just lucky or unpopular lol but seeing how everybody in this thread is mad and disappointed, I would think the majority is fair in their votes.

 

[Alolan_Apples]

Question to the staff: when will the leftover raffles open up?

 

[boring]

Despite my time on this forum I seem to have missed the instance when this happened before and was unaware this was a rule. When I received a message asking for my vote I took it in good faith but I was a little surprised admittedly... no one had ever asked for my vote before. I did vote for the person who messaged me, but I question that now and want to emphasise the point of how private messages put a lot of weight on people, especially those of us who might have issues with asserting our actual feelings on something. Its hard to say no, especially when a message comes from a friend or peer who you like or even respect.
For what its worth I think its a good rule to have, as I have always worried if I ever enter events I will lose not because my entry wasn't good but because people arent kushy with me like that.

I must admit, I do think favouritsm happens in voting and I have always disliked how TBT chooses winners when the general community gets to vote. I am specifically talking about 'liking' posts in normal threads to nominate them for some kind of final. I think what puts me off that method of voting is a mix of favouritism and first-few-page heavy voting. Like if I enter a contest after maybe 20 people I feel like there's no point. I can't prove thats how it goes, and there will always be things that suggest thats not the case... but there have also always been some things that suggests it does happen. I guess I kinda assumed this always happened on the down low.

EDIT Re: the post below me: Campaigning or bribing people based on a dislike of somebody else's entry is insane, and it ruins the fun for the rest of us :| I sure hope this is a lesson learnt.

 

[Jeremy]

One thing I'll add is that this situation was not as straightforward as it may seem. While we discovered multiple users participating in some form of manipulation, there were a lot of different factors that affected how we dealt with each case. For example, it was more common for users to ask for votes on behalf of another person's entry, not their own. In some cases, it could have been because they were excited for a friend, while in others it could have been because they disliked another entry and wanted it to lose. There were additional factors that made this more complicated and we had a very lengthy and thorough discussion about how to handle it. We did not think it was right to disqualify someone when another person campaigned for their entry.

After we realized how messy everything became, we decided it would be best to redo all of the polls. Hiding poll results is not normally possible with the forum software, which is why we didn't do it until now, but we found a way to make it work after seeing how beneficial it could be. We also think the voter disclaimer above the polls will help prevent this in the future because the vast majority of people who were asked to vote for a specific entry did not report it. Many of you even mentioned this here after the announcement was posted. Hopefully, we're now all on the same page about how seriously the community treats event voting. We'll continue using the voter disclaimer and hidden results for future events, but we need help from the community to see when it happens.

For those of you who asked for votes during this event, whether you knew it was wrong or got too carried away, I hope you learned something and will take this very seriously next time. For everyone else, let's not be too hard on them. Everyone makes mistakes and this is not our first time dealing with a situation like this. Nothing will come close to Easter before we changed the rules a few years ago.

 

[LambdaDelta]

mfw disliking an entry

I mean uh, ok sure, I guess. opinions be opinions and all

 

[mogyay]

i know it's a complicated situation but requesting votes because you don't like another users entry is even worse than asking for people to vote for your own entry wth lol, i'd hope they'd get disqualified for that as that makes me feel so uncomfortable and not keen to participate in future events if that's the case with some people

 

[-Blue-]

Yeah the whole disliking thing feels more like it's directed against the member and less about their art piece. Really gross.. I got to agree with mogyay that kind of stuff turns me off from wanting to participate in future events. (I still will, but you know it makes me think about how off-putting some of the aggression during space camp was.)

 

[Mokuren]

Come on now - voting so someone else don't win because you don't like their art or the member? That's the worst reason to fish for votes tbh.

 

[LambdaDelta]

makes me feel so uncomfortable and not keen to participate in future events if that's the case with some people

yeah, it can already be stressful enough to put oneself out there, especially if you're not confident in your artistic abilities, without even taking general community social politics into account

which ofc that isn't gonna ever go away so long as this remains a social website, but the part of people undermining others because they don't like them or their work is far beyond worse than any usual perceived favoritism another member may receive by the community or whatever

really, anyone is free to vote against another based on any personal grievances or whatever, regardless of reason. as there's strictly no way to determine exactly why people did or did not vote for whomever they did, but that'd only be in the case of the disliker voting against their dislikee. once you campaign for others to do that as well, then you've clearly crossed a line

 

[Jeremy]

Well in some cases it could have been because they assumed the other votes were manipulated and thought this would be a good way to fight against it. I'm not saying this is what happened because I don't actually know the motives, but by Sunday morning it was clear things were snowballing into a mess either way, which is when we decided that redoing the polls would be the best way to clean this up.

 

[LambdaDelta]

uh

well it's been dealt with, but it should be plainly stated that if one feels a vote is manipulated, the best and only course of action is to just message staff in the cts board. even if you don't have any direct evidence of wrongdoing

I mean even if your perception is for all known purposes, wrong, it's not like you'll get in trouble for it (unless you keep pushing it, then maybe)

 

[Alolan_Apples]

For those of you who asked for votes during this event, whether you knew it was wrong or got too carried away, I hope you learned something and will take this very seriously next time. For everyone else, let's not be too hard on them. Everyone makes mistakes and this is not our first time dealing with a situation like this. Nothing will come close to Easter before we changed the rules a few years ago.

I agree. We all make mistakes. What’s worse than vote manipulation is mob mentality. And that is nigh impossible to forgive. There’s been multiple instances of this in real life, and I still cannot forgive them. I’m willing to forgive everyone who wronged another member or the community on this forum. Even the worst of the incidents on this forum have been forgiven.

As for voting against someone I don’t like, I agree that campaigning against them is too extreme. But if my least favorite person made my favorite art, I would do this “like the art, hate the artist” mentality and vote for the art. If I were to vote against them, it’s not because I’m trying to avoid them. I’m trying to vote for my favorite one.

 

[Aniko]

It's like fandoms wars

I'm so glad I missed all that drama now and before, it would have spoiled my mood and motivation in participating in events.

I'm a little mad for Easter though, I like that event very much and suffer a lot to find a bunch of eggs, MY bunch of eggs and knowing that some were cheating, and I'm not talking about accidentally cheating, make the eggs taste bad.

About collectibles, we are the ones giving them value. if a collectible is not rare, nobody wants it, and sometimes nobody wants it even if it's rare, It's hard to determine which one will make people go crazy for them.

 

[Croconaw]

As for voting against someone I don’t like, I agree that campaigning against them is too extreme. But if my least favorite person made my favorite art, I would do this “like the art, hate the artist” mentality and vote for the art. If I were to vote against them, it’s not because I’m trying to avoid them. I’m trying to vote for my favorite one.

I think one of the things I like most about this forum is regardless of how someone may feel about a particular member, if there comes a time you have to communicate, both parties are cordial about it. I think that requires a certain level of maturity not many people seem to possess.

 

[LambdaDelta]

so out of curiosity, since it was mentioned that the remaining gumdrops being distributed as well as the end of event raffles opening up shortly: can we expect them to be out before the community voting polls were initially set to close or around that initial closing time?

 

[Zane]

who remembers when the votes on these polls used to be publicly visible lol the pressure for friends to vote for each other was real