Base Contest Announcement!

[DawL]

36 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

This is what's playing inside this thread the moment that post went up.

EDIT: I should clarify this is about DawL's post of admission of trying to vote-bomb the poll.

 

 

Everyone who has a forum account has the right to vote. If they choose to give that vote for whatever reason, then it's not "vote bombing". Again I ask, do you think EVERY PERSON WHO VOTED toured every single base? I did. I personally looked at every single one of them. Did everyone I contacted go to the bases? Nope. Many of them told me they weren't going to. Some believe bases are, aside from basic transport ones, "a RP thing" and they aren't RPers. But does this mean they shouldn't be allowed to vote? I don't believe so. I suspect a lot of alt-ing was happening but not on the side you are accusing it of being. Hence the comment about the "alt" accounts not touring all the bases (except probably their own?). 

If you were worried about who voted for whom, why weren't YOU out taking folks on tours of bases? Which base did YOU vote for? Are you 100% sure NO alt accounts voted for that one? 

[DawL]

4 hours ago, Evercent said:

 

Just straight up admitting to rigging the vote and telling your friends to validate your choices, huh.

How exactly is getting people to get out and vote "rigging" the vote? Just because I asked them to support the base I thought most worth? OMG if that's "rigging" then any election held in the US is RIGGED! Because that's what campaigns do. It's called "getting out the vote," not rigging. In the end, I have zero control over whether those people voted for my suggestion or not. Did they visit any other bases? Did they even visit the one I was hoping they'd vote for? (Okay, I know some did because I showed them around, but I did not show everyone around). Yes, it was suggested that folks see them all. I personally know two people who voted for other bases because they knew someone in the SG (or the SG leader aka base owner, not entirely sure which). Did THEY tour all the bases? Who knows? It took a LONG time to go through every base, but I did it. Even the ones on Excel where I rarely play. So again, how is asking LEGIT PEOPLE who have LEGIT accounts to vote "rigging"? 

[Wravis]

  

12 minutes ago, DawL said:

Everyone who has a forum account has the right to vote. If they choose to give that vote for whatever reason, then it's not "vote bombing". Again I ask, do you think EVERY PERSON WHO VOTED toured every single base? I did. I personally looked at every single one of them. Did everyone I contacted go to the bases? Nope. Many of them told me they weren't going to. Some believe bases are, aside from basic transport ones, "a RP thing" and they aren't RPers. But does this mean they shouldn't be allowed to vote? I don't believe so. I suspect a lot of alt-ing was happening but not on the side you are accusing it of being. Hence the comment about the "alt" accounts not touring all the bases (except probably their own?). 

If you were worried about who voted for whom, why weren't YOU out taking folks on tours of bases? Which base did YOU vote for? Are you 100% sure NO alt accounts voted for that one? 

 

4 minutes ago, DawL said:

How exactly is getting people to get out and vote "rigging" the vote? Just because I asked them to support the base I thought most worth? OMG if that's "rigging" then any election held in the US is RIGGED! Because that's what campaigns do. It's called "getting out the vote," not rigging. In the end, I have zero control over whether those people voted for my suggestion or not. Did they visit any other bases? Did they even visit the one I was hoping they'd vote for? (Okay, I know some did because I showed them around, but I did not show everyone around). Yes, it was suggested that folks see them all. I personally know two people who voted for other bases because they knew someone in the SG (or the SG leader aka base owner, not entirely sure which). Did THEY tour all the bases? Who knows? It took a LONG time to go through every base, but I did it. Even the ones on Excel where I rarely play. So again, how is asking LEGIT PEOPLE who have LEGIT accounts to vote "rigging"? 

Did you bother to read the first post? If your friends weren't interested in looking at the bases, they had no business voting.

On 4/20/2023 at 3:06 AM, Dacy said:

Visit the bases, please, and then vote (once) on your favorite.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Wravis

[DawL]

5 minutes ago, Wravis said:

  

 

Did you bother to read the first post? If your friends weren't interested in looking at the bases, they had no business voting.

You're very focused on that quote. You emphasis the VISIT but you aren't even seeing the (ONCE) apparently. 

[Wravis]

10 minutes ago, DawL said:

You're very focused on that quote. You emphasis the VISIT but you aren't even seeing the (ONCE) apparently. 

No I see it.

You told your friends to vote. You admitted they didn't visit or look at the bases. You admitted to (then backtracked on) having friends alt accounts vote.

So you had your friends vote. Without VISITING. Not even once.

And by the way, the emphasis is Dacy's not mine. That's the way the post is written.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Wravis

[Strudel]

I guess I should've vote-bombed with all my alt accounts instead of having a sliver of integrity.

[rwmagpie]

i like talking in circles

 

anyway the bases were really cool, i hope to see another event like this with a larger turnout from basebuilders, theres a lot of talented people who make some of the craziest bases i ever did see

[ForeverLaxx]

Imagine being so full of yourself and your personal taste that you tell all your friends to blindly vote for your favorite thing while thinking nothing is wrong with that.

 

In a contest.

 

About who has the coolest thing.

 

With potential awards at the end.

Edited April 29, 2023 by ForeverLaxx

[Acanous]

So what goes on now? Do we redo the contest? Redo the polls? Put in some kind of vote tracker? Make the votes by post, open vote? Like "Hi I'm Acanous and I vote for Rampage and my global is @Acanous" kind of thing?

[Cloudless Night]

Honestly the only way forward in my opinion to preserve integrity is to say that because of vote rigging and alt brigade voting that the category be cancelled this year and admonish us all with a "Those responsible know what they did and hopefully next year this doesn't happen again."  Anything short of that says it's ok to campaign for specific bases.  And it's not the base designers that are being celebrated, it's the base owners.  The base designers win no matter what through exposure to their work.

[Strudel]

5 minutes ago, Acanous said:

So what goes on now? Do we redo the contest? Redo the polls? Put in some kind of vote tracker? Make the votes by post, open vote? Like "Hi I'm Acanous and I vote for Rampage and my global is @Acanous" kind of thing?

Apparently we need to do this, and also require a screenshot of your character IN the base you're voting for. Maybe then DawL's followers will be able to form their own opinion.

[Cloudless Night]

1 minute ago, Strudel said:

Apparently we need to do this, and also require a screenshot of your character IN the base you're voting for. Maybe then DawL's followers will be able to form their own opinion.

But an alt account can still log in and be in the base.  What is it proving?

[Acanous]

Well, on the one hand, a lot of us in the community know darn right who is an alt of whom. Secondly, most alt accounts have obvious alt names. Like let's say CX has CX, CX farmer, CX 2 and Abernathy as accounts. We all see pretty easy that he's doing shady business if he's posting on CX farmer and CX 2, and his friends know his Abernathy toons. Probably.

 

(Disclaimer if there's a person who took CX, I don't actually mean you, I don't know you, and I picked the letters at random)

[Strudel]

13 minutes ago, Cloudless Night said:

But an alt account can still log in and be in the base.  What is it proving?

The main point of this was there seemed to be a mass voting of people who never even looked at the bases. I'm saying they should at least be required to log in and look at the base they're voting for (and prove it).

 

In a perfect world, we'd be able to send in one vote per IP Address or something, so alts couldn't be used. (Clarifying that I know this wouldn't be a perfect fix, either.)

Edited April 30, 2023 by Strudel

[GM Impervium]

Things are being ironed out behind the scenes. Expect an announcement soon.

[Wravis]

23 minutes ago, Cloudless Night said:

Honestly the only way forward in my opinion to preserve integrity is to say that because of vote rigging and alt brigade voting that the category be cancelled this year and admonish us all with a "Those responsible know what they did and hopefully next year this doesn't happen again."  Anything short of that says it's ok to campaign for specific bases.  And it's not the base designers that are being celebrated, it's the base owners.  The base designers win no matter what through exposure to their work.

This.

No one is happy, but the integrity of the rest of the contest isn't damaged.

[Romeyn]

38 minutes ago, Acanous said:

So what goes on now? Do we redo the contest? Redo the polls? Put in some kind of vote tracker? Make the votes by post, open vote? Like "Hi I'm Acanous and I vote for Rampage and my global is @Acanous" kind of thing?

I dont know the answer but ive been around long enough to know there is no fixing internet polls like this, they are easily manipulated and turn into popularity contests based on personalities or campaigning and not on the merits of what is being voted on

Edited April 30, 2023 by Romeyn

[Evercent]

40 minutes ago, Cloudless Night said:

Honestly the only way forward in my opinion to preserve integrity is to say that because of vote rigging and alt brigade voting that the category be cancelled this year and admonish us all with a "Those responsible know what they did and hopefully next year this doesn't happen again."  Anything short of that says it's ok to campaign for specific bases.  And it's not the base designers that are being celebrated, it's the base owners.  The base designers win no matter what through exposure to their work.

 

Unfortunately I don't think this will really prevent anything like this from happening again. People that do this sort of thing don't just have a change of heart overnight because they ruined it for everyone else.

[Strudel]

1 minute ago, Evercent said:

 

Unfortunately I don't think this will really prevent anything like this from happening again. People that do this sort of thing don't just have a change of heart overnight because they ruined it for everyone else.

Sadly agree. The only lesson they're going to learn is to not post about it on a public forum. 

[RoboKnight]

This is so messed up.

[Dacy]

We would like to heartily thank all the participants in the Second Homecoming Base Contest, which was our first as Community Representatives! We also wish to thank all the people who went through the bases; we hope they enjoyed them, and were able to appreciate all of the hard work that went into them.

 

As to the Community Choice award, we are aware of the concerns about the voting that have been raised. We believe that, whether or not there is actually any problem with the vote that would affect the outcome, there is unfortunately some perception that the outcome has been tainted. Therefore, we would like to offer what we feel and hope will be a satisfactory resolution.

 

First, we are going to postpone the announcement of the Community Choice winner, because we want to offer the community a chance to confirm their votes. We are offering a chance for people to vote in person. Here is how it will work:

• The 5 bases from the Community Choice voting poll that got the most votes but did not win a category award on Sunday will be selected as the choices for a re-vote.

• CRs and judges will schedule times during which one of them will be at a given base. Dacy will also offer short tours of the bases (without commentary, but will be available for questions).

• There will be a schedule with many opportunities for everyone to visit and vote. The schedule will be posted on the forums and various Discords after the Awards have been announced.

• Visit your favorite base during the time when one of the judges is there (or any base during the time a judge is there, as permitted by your schedule).

• You will be given a game global email address that you will send an email to that contains your vote. Please also include the name of your character. Veracor will be in charge of these emails.

• Judges will note the global address of anyone who is visiting, and give them the email address to send their votes to, and CRs will cross check the globals to make sure no one votes more than once.

• Only those votes that match the globals, recorded by the judges as being a base visitor, will be counted.

• If, for some reason, you cannot find a time which matches your schedule in which to visit a base and vote, please contact CR Dacy at @Dacy, either in game or on the forums, to arrange a time.

• Votes will be tabulated, and the winner announced on Sunday, May 7, 2023, at 5 PM EST.

 

In this way, we are not changing any rules, and we are still honoring the voice of the community, but we hope that people will feel more confident in the contest results. We would like to reiterate at this time that this contest is meant to be about the merit of the bases, not any other factor. Please visit and give your honest opinion as a vote for the base that impresses you the most, and disregard anything that is not relevant to that.

 

It is our deepest desire to see this wonderful community feeling good about the amazing bases we’ve seen and toured, and we are hoping to see support and encouragement for all those who have worked so hard. Thank you!

 

Community Representatives
 Dacy      &     Easter Bunny

   And the Judging Team

[Cloudless Night]

I think the representative of each base should give a number and you have to have the full code in your email to verify you visited each base.

[Crystal Dragon]

16 minutes ago, Cloudless Night said:

I think the representative of each base should give a number and you have to have the full code in your email to verify you visited each base.

As a base builder that submitted to this, I'd like to make a point of response to this suggestion.

For one, most of us aren't on round the clock to hand out numbers to anyone, some of us are, for lack of a better word, more socially awkward and would much rather not interact with large numbers of people just to get votes confirmed. This would be just more time consuming than it's really worth, in my opinion.

[Invigilium]

Personally, it doesn't bother me in the slightest if a base in the contest was at some point worked on by a judge. If they worked hard on it, then they deserve that recognition. I really liked many bases for their ingenuity, and creativity. Some of them inspired me to do better on my own. I voted for Vaultluxe because I thought it was masterful, regardless of who built it.

 

I appreciate that the judges narrowed down the choices, because there is no way I could look at 70+ bases and spend the amount of time I took on each CC contestant. At the end of the day, community choice is chosen by us and not the judges and I think its completely fair if a judges base gets picked.

[Dacy]

As to ensuring voters have visited before voting: it's not a requirement, it was a plea and a strong suggestion. It's something we hoped would happen. Voting once, of course, is an expectation of a fair contest. And at this point, we have to assume, most of the voters who are committed enough to show up for an in person vote, will have visited the bases and already made a choice.  Perhaps next time, IF there is another Community Vote like, ever, we will make it a rule that the bases must be toured, and we'll have to do in person checks for that. That remains to be seen. IF there is another, things will be very different. But for this time, we did not feel that changing the rules and making up new ones was fair. We are definitely going to change a lot of things in the contest overall,  but changing mid-contest didn't seem right, nor did penalizing people who did not do anything wrong.

 

We are doing this re-vote using our own time and resources, and not asking more of the builders, who again, are innocent in all of this. I thank you all for your cooperation and support, it's been very appreciated. 🙂

 

-Dacy