QFE

Count me in regarding confusion why this is still regarded as being about artistic ability.

I really like the set up. Being able to vote bit by bit without having to try to figure out where I'm at is great. Gives me the incentive to actually really look at the entries.

That said, there are a couple of issues.

1. I would appreciate more than 1 entry per page, maybe 5 or so. But if I had to choose, I much prefer 1 entry per page rather than a mishmash of everything on the same page.
2. Things that blatantly break the rules - stock photos for example really should have been removed. I get that you don't want to waste staff time, but people who simply uploaded a stock photo should not get the reward.

Artistic ability keeps being mentioned because (I think?) some people were hinting that they want staff to remove the "low effort" ones before voting starts. That was pages ago but people are still responding to it, yeah.

I was only saying that there's no way to prove how much effort someone put into something, because everyone is on a different level when it comes to art. A fantastic artist might be so skilled that they put little effort and it still came out great, but no one questions the effort there. A poor artist could have worked their butt off and some people are still saying it looks "low effort" and therefore should be removed.

I said this on the first page and I still stand by it of course. This contest was about the idea of the house, not how well you could draw it, and "effort" in the art shouldn't be a factor, because once again, it's subjective. It's about creativity, which is also subjective - that's why people vote for different things. Some people find the fantasy food-themed houses uncreative while others do.

:) I brought up my lack of confidence in my own abilities, but that doesn't mean I was talking solely about artistic skill. I also meant my ability to come up with an awesome idea. My idea already seemed bland to me before voting started, and especially now that it's up against everyone else's better ideas. I included a quote from someone else that happened to mention artistic ability, but I included it because the idea is the same. If it weren't for the participation prize I wouldn't have tried to enter anything, because I don't think my idea is that great and don't expect to win.

I don't know if I can express what I'm trying to say very well. But I think a lot of us really are on the same page, just everyone is putting their 2 cents in and wording it differently: remove entries that honestly break the rules (stock photos, game screenshots etc), and keep "bad art" entries that do not break the rules. ? :)

oh boy, A double post

You're misunderstanding what people mean by low effort. We're not saying low effort in terms of the physical piece of art. We mean low effort in the sense that the description is empty or "a house" and the picture is a stock image/brown square/whatever. Meaning BOTH aspects clearly took 3 seconds. Again, I upvoted a bunch of entries that had really interesting descriptions, but "bad" art.

I'd appreciate it if people stopped pretending otherwise

No, I do understand. I just don't think those entries should be removed unless they're breaking the rules. Stock images are not allowed but if someone drew a brown square in paint, whatever, really. That kind of entry will just be unpopular and people will not vote for it, and just move on. And I don't exactly recall seeing dozens of those (maybe I'm wrong?) so it seems like the majority of people want to make a better effort than that. I don't know how staff would make a rule against this though?

There's at least a few complaints about "bad effortless art" in the news comments. Maybe some people here didn't make those comments and maybe they even voted for "bad art" but the opinions are out there. A paint drawing of a box should be allowed, that's all I'm saying. Instead of saying I'm butthurt or misunderstanding, either agree with that or not and move on.

I'm not defending things that are against the rules. I'm defending the right to do the bare minimum and to not have things subjectively removed from contests.

even if someone put in 5 seconds of effort into their brown box with a triangle for a roof it's still teq. within then the rules and no problem with them participating. so what? people are not pretending anything, we have eyes. the low effort thing is not a problem.

the fact that people WILL vote for it over stock images and screenshots of other games is. you should be voting for something you like or think deserves to win not just whatever falls under "within the rules" or "the lesser of the 200 evils" which is what I've found myself doing after about 20 images, I just started upvoting whatever was actually made over whatever should not have been there in the first place!

At this point I don't care about how much effort was put into the entry as long as the entry followed the rules. I don't understand why staff appears to not care that about 1/3 of the entries broke the rules. There's still time to remove those entries!

I agree, there is so many entries that can't even be called a home and that those shouldn't win anything! I know that staff wanted to open the contest to everyone, but seeing that person that used that flower picture as a 'home' for Oats win something...

Subeta staff are lazy. They want to hold contests, but aren't properly prepared and don't vet entries, letting copyrighted material, entries that break their own rules, and pictures of random shit go through. And the voting is still tedious.

Yet the users are lazier still. You know the rules, yet you submit this shit anyway. I've seen some entires that are beautiful, some that are creative, and some that are inspiring. But an oatmeal box or bowl or three random lines are the height of laziness. And a goat does not need a house that is underwater, on fire, a doghouse, a shelter obviously not fit for winter, or a giant Skyrim-like castle.

I think that participation prizes should be discontinued.

Listen the brown box with a triangle is totes breaking the rules, okay.

A brown box doesn't have a door, if there's no way in how can it be a house? Ijs.

... that said, yeah vetting. I haven't made it through all of these (i probably won't... my interest is fleeting, and I've upvoted enough that I'm confident Oatmeal will not be homeless for much longer), but I've seen more than a few that were like "... really?" like if the description is "this is for the prize" and it's literally a square (if it doesn't have a door then it isn't a home) then yeah, it should be removed. if it at least has a stick roof/walls/door then it can stay.

My biggest "I can't be bothered because clearly staff can't be bothered either... and I ain't getting paid to do this" was really the 10 cans of oatmeal/bowls I saw. And the pic of someone's dog house. Don't get me wrong, that's a fine dog house but Oatmeal has 10 foot high horns they couldn't even get inside of it I'm not falling for that.

unless those are really not to scale, those look like normal-sized goat horns and idk if they'd really be a problem. are those reasons things should get filtered out or just reasons not to vote for the particular entry? I really don't think staff should get too picky on what they get as entries other than the obvious completely unrelated images and things that break rules. Otherwise, if you don't think something should win, just don't vote for it.

tl;dr We should stop having participation prizes for contests.

I think it would be worth having a contest without participation prizes to see if the amount of people who participate would really decrease that substantially. (I doubt it but who knows) And if you want to mass distribute a "prize," maybe you can give it for participating in voting instead.

And unrelated to what people are talking about now... :'D

I just went and checked the contest page. Although I know I voted for all of the entries when the contest opened up, there were more entries for me to check out. I think I saw staff say that there was a problem with those entries' upload. For their sake (I didn't enter and I don't know anyone who did), I think it'd be nice if there was a little news post to ask people to go through and make sure they got all their votes in... It sucks that something happened and these last two entries might get shafted just because they weren't included in initial round. This is the first time I've ever gone back to the voting page once I finished -- once I've spent my time on voting, I'm good with the whole contest until winners are announced -- and I would bet that I'm not the only one.

Although, maybe to bring back to the topic of vetting... vetting would be nice on both sides: not just weeding out entries that are clearly invalid, but also make sure that there's nothing wrong with how the upload went and that the site didn't eat some entries. Having any issues addressed up front so that when it's time to vote, everything is 100% ready, would be nice. For both the voters and for the contestants.

If they literally built that dog/goat house for this contest, then yeah obv it should be included? That couldn't be less of thr point I was trying to make?

The point was, from the photo it 100% looked like a pre-existing/not newly created dog house that'd been outside. Nothing lef me to believe it was created for this event (ie: to accommodate for goat horns, hence my mentioning it) (also Oatmeal appears to be looking up imo, so the horns sgould be taller if they were looking forward) so it should have been disqualified as I'm pretty sure the rules said don't submit things thatve been created not for this event?

I don't recall reading that in the rules. I think having more clearly defined rules would benefit future contests but I don't think we should make up rules afterward and blame people for not obeying them.

Do people not realize it is not against the rules to make a fun entry? Aside from the obviously copyright breaking/stock photo oatmeal canister entries there is nothing wrong with the cans and bowls. Those entries should not be banned and removed just because you personally hate them. Obviously other people like the idea.

And again, silly buildings are a thing on Subeta already. Those entries are not "lore breaking" or whatever.

The Food Market was literally housed in a cereal box. Most of the main shop images used to be like that. I can only find this screenshot from wikihow, but yeah that's not really that outlandish. And why can't people be funny?

's post above illustrates better why I am also against additional vetting by staff, except for entries that break the rules.

Even if they don't go by art quality alone and only try to approve entries based on the idea as a whole, that is still way too subjective to be fair. And that's exactly what the user voting is supposed to be for! They could have chosen to design something for Oatmeal on their own without even asking the users for ideas, but they didn't do that. And now as a group we're voting on what we like and don't like, so they can put together some of the popular ideas and make something really nice that people will enjoy.

There weren't even that many entries, so I guess I just don't understand why some people seem to be so upset about having to go through a lot of "bad" entries and feel like they're wasting their time. Again, we have 2 whole weeks to vote. That is enough time to get through 200 entries even if you only do like 10-20 per day. Lots of people even got through all of them on the first day, so that shouldn't even be an issue at all.

Take the time to vote for the entries, or don't vote. But I do not understand why some people are so up in arms about staff allowing certain entries when they didn't break any rules.

I think that the point is (or at least my point), is that having seen how wishy washy the rules were for this particular contest, the next one is going to be full of entries that clearly don't give a crap, because they're just doing it for the participation prize. They're going to say that technically they're within the rules, so what does it matter if they spent 20 seconds on their entry if it TECHNICALLY meets the requirements? Gimme prize now! So we're all going to have a super fun time sifting through twice as many entries, probably twice as many 'don't give a shit' entries, and it'll cheapen the whole thing. I don't get why there needs to be a participation prize. There's enough free shit on this site already, and things are basically handed to us during events. Do away with it for everyone, and instead give out a participation prize if an entry got "5" votes or something. If any effort has been put into it, it'll at least get 5 votes, and they can claim the prize.

I know it doesn't affect me in any way if someone gets a stupid virtual item, I know I shouldn't care, but it's the principle. I don't agree with doing things just for the prize, or doing the bare minimum and being rewarded for it. It's a Motherducking contest. It's competitive. Not everyone wins something, and if you do, it shouldn't be for just showing up. Other people showed up AND tried really hard. If y'all are talking about fairness, then how is it fair to literally treat all entries the same regardless of skill, talent, time, effort, concept, design, etc.?

(It's possible that I need to find a better use for my time than arguing with strangers about a house for a virtual goat named after a breakfast food).