Hair contest: petitioning

[Adire]

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Why wouldn't they? Surely they should care about all their community's opinions at least that much.

It's only time consuming in how long the process takes. It's not time consuming in how much time SE has to spend working on it. And it really doesn't even have to be that time consuming. Make each bracket bigger if you have to. Many larger, more complicated tournaments are conducted in a much shorter time than one month. And between patches, SE has a few months.

This would have been far better to do that SE just picking a few random ones and pigeon holing the community into voting for what we like most out of what they like most. We were given very limited choices that were still strongly dictated by SE, that's a poor attempt at getting the community involved.

Honestly, even letting the community pick the finalists and SE pick the winner would have been more fair...

[KasKatta]

If we are discussing better way to handle the contest, how can SE possibly satisfy everyone?

As suggested by Adire, and several others, the way the voting was conducted and the finalist count needs work. Whether it be a tournament style (which can work, and is really only more complex than what we have now with the amount of time needed to vote on each bracket), or simply giving us a bigger pool to select from in general. A bigger pool means more chance for varied and diverse designs, therefore, appealing to the widest possible number of people. You have to take into consideration: if SE received 1000 entries (as an example) then 25 of that number is less than 1%, even combining both categories for a total of 50 chosen is less than 1%. There's something wrong with that picture.

All in all, this whole contest seemed rushed on their part. With the amount of work required to implement things in game, vote, and then even before that, design, the turn around was much too quick. It allowed for an entry that did not adhere to the rules to slide in, reason enough to consider the way this whole thing was conducted was troubled.

I'd also suggest considering more categories instead of just male to female. Long, short, up-dos, even a category for SE character tributes like what we see in the Quistis entry or the Warrior of Light entry, whatever. Variety. Variety is always better.

And in actuality, this method lightens SE's load. Because they spend less time narrowing down the entries, and leave the brunt of that to us, the community, as part of a community-driven event.

[DawnSolaria]

I personally dont think its realistic to hope for a hair style tournament. The Rising event, which includes tons of easter eggs and tons of in game model for developers, only lasted for a week. Why would they spent months just to make one single hairstyle? And if this small of a contest can spark this kind of protest, then imagine one lasting for month and have tons more entries. You would have people complaining duplicate even more, plagiarism based on similarity. Basically everything in this thread but a new one for every single bracket...

[Glasya]

If SE aren't willing to remain impartial, are uncommitted to enforcing that impartiality, or aren't technologically competent enough to set up a discrete voting website for similar events within the finalfantasyxiv.com domain, they probably shouldn't bother with more competitions in future.
Saying, "show us your creativity" then picking a minuscule fraction of finalists (the approximate 1% mentioned above) from the massive pool of entries, displaying a significant degree of homogeneity, is only going to show that your grading system is flawed or that the examiners themselves are biased by their own tastes; and that will piss people off either way.

[KasKatta]

...

Why does the contest have to be rushed? In any business or studio there is a constant flow of content-related work. Just because the Rising event only lasts a week for us, doesn't mean it lasts a week for them. The difference with the hairstyle contest is that they are letting us be a part of that production of the content. So, again I ask, what's so bad in conducting it in a different manner and cover as many bases as possible? More bases covered, less complaint and unrest. Covering bases requires time, sure. But nowhere is there a rule that limits a contest time-frame.

[Adire]

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They wouldn't have to spend months making the hairstyle. The contest would possibly last for months.

And did you notice how quickly the actually plagiarized styles were picked up on and shamed by the community? I imagine the same thing would happen again. And if a plagiarized style got the most votes, all SE would have to do is remove it and count the 2nd place design as the winner. It's not that complicated.

As for similar but non-plagiarized hairstyles...that would not be a problem. Because the community would have the CHANCE to pick completely unique styles. If the community did not, then no one could complain like we are now, because the community would have at least had the chance to get something different from the norm into the game.

The only reason we're complaining about the lack of diversity is because we did not even get the chance to vote for completely unique, non-normal styles for the game. If this contest was completely open, we would not be able to complain about that and would have no reason to.

[DawnSolaria]

..... The difference with the hairstyle contest, is that they are letting us be a part of that production of the content. So, again I ask, what's so bad in conducting it in a different manner and cover as many bases as possible? More bases covered, less complaint and unrest. Covering bases requires time, sure. But nowhere is there a rule that limits a contest time-frame.

I seriously doubt there would be less complain. Most of the complain point in this thread is that choices lacks creativity and are similar to each other, issue like that would just be more common if they showed all of the entries. Moreover, imagine the chaos it would cause if people start claiming plagiarism on other people's work, just because it looks "similar" to theirs. For the sake of keeping this community in one piece, I hope they would never do something that chaotic.

[DawnSolaria]

If SE aren't willing to remain impartial, are uncommitted to enforcing that impartiality, or aren't technologically competent enough to set up a discrete voting website for similar events within the finalfantasyxiv.com domain, they probably shouldn't bother with more competitions in future.
Saying, "show us your creativity" then picking a minuscule fraction of finalists (the approximate 1% mentioned above) from the massive pool of entries, displaying a significant degree of homogeneity, is only going to show that your grading system is flawed or that the examiners themselves are biased by their own tastes; and that will piss people off either way.

And would not bother with more competition in the future is exactly what they would do based on this event's feedback...

Before they did this event no one said a thing about in game hairstyle. Now an event to involve community earned them the title of "unfair". If i were the Devs i sure as hell would not want to hold another one.

I want more hair contest, but if we are going to start things like this every time i really dont think SE will be willing to do another.

[Adire]

I seriously doubt there would be less complain. Most of the complain point in this thread is that choices lacks creativity and are similar to each other, issue like that would just be more common if they showed all of the entries

So, you think more diversity in the voting pool would make people complain more about a lack of diversity....?

More entries means more options. More options means less reason to complain about a lack of options...

[KasKatta]

...

I personally don't understand how the chance for more diversity would lend for more complaint? I see what you mean with the chance to have similar styles, but look at it this way. Say, 17 people submit a variation on hairstyle A. The community, if given the chance to vote, would weed out 1, 2 or none of hairstyle A they like best. The way SE has the system now, is that all 17 of those variations would remain so long as it appealed to the mystery judges that selected them. This limits variety, and variety is good, as I've said before.

In relation to the plagiarized or similar concepts between people, again, refer to the weeding out reference above. If all the entries are posted at the same time, there's no way to legitimately plagiarize each other, and again, all similar styles will be selected or not selected based on community vote.