1. There needs to be at least one or two staff members going through these entries to make sure the entry actually meets the requirements before the voting stage.

In the last avatar challenge, there were HA entries that didn't fit the theme/were completely naked/were unfinished and not only did we have to sort through those extra HAs during voting, but those people presumably still got the participation prize. If you can't bother to try to participate in the actual challenge, then you don't deserve a participation prize. This is what I'm talking about:

how is this a "home" for oatmeal?

2. Going through one entry at a time:

For a contest with a lot of entries, going through one at a time is extremely tedious. This might be better suited for a smaller pool of entries or a different type of contest? But with a contest like this, I feel like the method of "here they all are, vote for your favorites" works best.

3. "Down-voting":

I really like that "down-voting" is not actually detrimental to someone's entry.

4. Status/Progress bar?

Knowing how many entries are left when you're only viewing one at a time would be nice. I feel like I've been voting forever and with no end in sight, I imagine a lot of people might just get bored or frustrated and quit before they've seen all the entries. :/

Well to have all on one page was i think a no/go from last voting. Since that caused pages to freeze up

So put like 6/8/10 on a page and have multiple pages. We don't have to do everything in extremes.

I'm ok with going one by one IF there's some kind of counter saying how many there is. I don't have time to mindlessly click here and wonder if I have 5 or 500 till I'm done.

Second, yes to pre-voting evaluating the entries by staff. Someone didn't bother with actually trying to do something nice, why should I bother with seeing that...

I actually like the 1 per page system. For something like HA's, it would be absurd and tedious, but for this type of contest, I don't mind. I also really like this upvote/downvote system. It's nice to not just have to choose 10 and that's it. I like the idea of having a "middle ground" where you can like/dislike as many as you want.

I don't like that I have no idea how many entires there are to sift through, though. And I definitely don't like that these clearly haven't been vetted in any way and we are getting some ridiculous entries. I get that not everyone has build/drawing skills, and those aren't the entries I'm talking about. Even if you can't draw, effort can be seen.

I'm talking about the generic stock photos that have oatmeal slapped on top of the picture, or the literal bowl of oatmeal, or the generic MS paint square with a triangle roof in primary colors. Those entries should be removed prior to voting because lets face it, nobody wants to vote for all 500+ entries. Narrow it down to just the serious entires and let those be the only ones that are allowed to be voted on. Give everyone a participation prize, I don't care, but don't make us sift through those garbage entries to find the ones that put time and effort in and deserve a vote.

I think I fell asleep halfway through. I definitely agree about the counter. Having no end-goal made it hard to keep going.

I like the system of voting for this contest. The HA contest was ridiculous with loading times. But, having only a few entries at a time on each page would work as long as there are image and text size limits.

I do think it is ridiculous that the flower photo got though. Some sort of filtering system would be good. Though, the Quaker Oats entries are amusing... But, I wish I could give a vote up to the amusing entries without them counting towards the serious vote. Perhaps a third voting option, like "funny"?

I agree there needs to be an indication of how many there are left while voting... I've been clicking and sifting through for who knows how long, I lost track of time wondering how many entries there are. I don't mind that it's one entry per page because then I'm not distracted by other entries and can look at each one..

And I do think the entries should have been looked at by staff first. The image of the flower is not acceptable for this contest.

Also maybe it's just me, but I think that "vote down" should be worded differently. Even though it says there's no negative effect on the entry, I still feel weird pressing it because of the connotation of "vote down". Maybe next time it could say "Don't Vote" "No Vote" or something.

Seriously, whoever sent this is going to get prizes effortlessly and...well, I am not okay with that, obviously. Can the entry be removed?

On a serious note:

A user can upload a NSFW picture (p***n for example) and it'll go through to the voting! The stuff must review everything before they start the voting for a contest.

I'd really like a 'flag' button. Having to ticket the s stretched out entry and now the duplicate I found[/s]((edit 2 since I see people questioning these/bringing them up: both are fixed now)) is a bit annoying (edit: just in that there isn't a better way to do it/point staff at the right entry). Luckily I was already going through the entries twice of my own volition. Would be nice for the blatant copyright issues too.

I'm ok with 'downvote' being neutral, but there really needs to be something beyond that for the rare instances where it's warranted. I'd be ok with like 'Thumbs up' 'neutral' 'down' and 'flag'. Then save/skip.

Also, I counted on my 2nd go through and there appear to be 199 (+/- ~3) entries. A counter/progress bar would be really nice. That is a LOT.

I'm okay with it being one at a time, but a counter of some sort would be nice.

I already mentioned in the news comments that it would also be nice if we could do a rating of like 1-5 for how much we like each one, instead of just a yes or no for each entry. Because there were some entries that I liked, but I didn't vote for them because they weren't quite as good as some other entries I had seen.

I also agree with staff reviewing before voting and removing entries that are blatantly not following the rules or spirit of the contest, or anything otherwise inappropriate for the site.

I totally agree there should be a vetting process. Warning: totally blunt possibly unpopular opinion time

In addition, because I don't see participation prizes going away, there should be two participation prizes -- one for everyone entering and one for all the folks getting past the vetting process.

The process should consist of making sure entries aren't things like stock photos and copyrighted materials or like mentioned nsfw.

I realize not everyone's great at art. I'm one of those people! But effort means going beyond a simple house. It was design a home for Oatmeal for a reason. If staff wanted a simple home, they would have simply made one themselves.

So what if the vetting process is more rigid? It's better that way because the way I see it there are a couple of people voting on just any unique idea to beat out the plainer ones and that is not okay. We shouldn't have to go through over a dozen entries to get blown away by one. We should be critiquing the good stuff, not be exhausted by the time we reach it or worse - give up before we reach it. :x

Sure, I may be stepping on some toes here, because who knows - your design might have taken hours to complete - and I'm not saying a plainer design is automatically lazier. Not good enough =/= lazy (although I bet you if there WERE two tier participation prizes, people might be less inclined to submit err.. some of the entries we got) There will always be winners and losers. Let's not have to pander to special snowflake syndrome.

I don't agree with strict vetting because with that comes a big gray area. It would be subjective on how staff picks which are deemed "good" enough to get past the bar of effort. If you don't think something is good enough for your vote, don't vote for it. I don't like competitions as it is because the winners are going to be artistically talented and I'm never going to have a chance at winning. By kicking out "bad" art, staff potentially will kick out people like me who don't have any talent and think it's just fun to submit something they may or may not have tried on. These competitions have gotten more and more inclusive and by kicking out certain entries because they aren't "good enough" really would be a few steps taken backward in terms of inclusion.

If you have to ask if it's good enough, chances are it's not good enough. General rule of thumb. ;)

Was this not meant to be anonymous? I've come across three entries already where people signed their usernames. How is that fair?

Why should this be a competition strictly for people with talent though? Having some variety in talents is hurting no one. Leaving it up to staff to pick and choose who is good enough will lead to people feeling like it's unfair. At least this way, everyone can feel good knowing they won't be rejected as long as their idea is remotely related to the contest.

I think the reason why there were so many low effort entries in this contest as opposed to some of the others (including my own entry, lol) is because of the participation prize that also happens to be a book. And the fact that this one just happened to be pretty easy to submit a silly entry for anyway.

Previous contests like the pumpkin carving or ornament decorating or whatever it was actually required some effort just by the nature of what the competition was asking for. But for this, anyone can do a bad digital drawing in like 5 minutes and submit it.

I'm not saying that those people shouldn't have entered or that their entries should have been removed. But if staff would prefer more serious entries in the future, maybe they should consider only giving out a participation prize for the voting element.

This contest wasn't an art contest, it was an idea contest. I voted for some very amateur art because I liked the idea, similarly, some very well done/cute art I did not vote for because I didn't like the idea. Presumably staff will be drawing the house idea that wins, so voting for something because you like the way it was shaded or something doesn't make sense to me; that art is not the art that's going to be used in the final product.

If someone drew something, even if it looks "bad", I don't think it should be removed. If you don't like it, just don't vote for it. "Badly" drawn images that follow the rules should be allowed.

Entries that break the rules should be removed, including off-topic, removing anonymity, using images from google... etc.

but it's not a question of good enough or not.. it's about the unrelated entries.. a photo from google search, a real goat, or a product shouldn't get a prize. What will happen if in the next competition a user will troll and upload a penis pic? can you imagine the outrage? We are just asking to check before that everything is correct and by the rules.

I voted for some entries that were not perfectly drawn because the idea was great and original to my taste..