Win Stuff! Get Famous! The Skullheart Resource Competition!

[Vadsamoht]

Because of the large number of new players joining the Skullgirls community since the PC version was released and the large number of changes in the latest patch, we're holding a competition to encourage people to create more resource threads on the Skullheart forums.

COMPETITION OUTLINE:
To enter the competition, all you have to do is make one or more threads that will be useful to the rest of the Skullgirls community.

If you can't think of an idea for your thread, feel free to ask for suggestions. I'm not going to provide a list of ideas to begin with because the idea is for people to make the content that they want to see on the site, rather than me dictating that we need threads A, B, and C made.

DEFINITION OF A RESOURCE THREAD:

• Threads aimed at providing useful information or advice to the other members of the SG community.
• Either fact-based, or uses opinion as a means of helping other members. So, a ranked list of which characters you think look coolest is not a resource thread, but both Mr. X's list of character palette references (fact) and Keninblack's Parasoul guide (useful opinion) are.
• Related to Skullgirls

COMPETITION RULES:

• The Competition will run from the time of this announcement until the end of October November, and is open to all members of the forum.
• All NEW resource threads (using the guidelines above) created in the competition subforum (here) on SH during that period are eligible. It does not matter if the thread is about the gameplay, art, lore, tournaments, or something else related to Skullgirls.
• An existing resource thread may be eligible for entry, provided that there is a significant amount of new content added/updates, and you clear it with us first.
• Copypasta from other forums such as Steam or SRK isn't allowed, unless you have the original creator's permission AND there's at least some effort to update/reformat/expand on the information in it.
• If a thread for a specific topic already exists, then you may not create a new one, unless you have something significantly different to share. For example, if one person enters a list of each character's frame data, then nobody else can enter a similar thread. However, if someone decides to make a guide for character X you can still make a guide of your own, because the advice you give will probably be different.
• Users can create multiple threads for more entries, but the emphasis is on quality/thoroughness rather than sheer numbers. You may not create a ton of threads in the first day and then slowly work on them one by one just to stop other people using those ideas. Work on one or two threads at a time.
• The winner will be chosen sometime in November.
• We reserve the right to not count a thread as an entry if we think it's content is inappropriate, breaks the competition rules, or he creator doesn't appear to have put any real effort into creating the content (though I'll probably send you a message near the end of the month letting you know that your thread needs more content). Also, announcement of the competition winner(s) is final and no correspondence will be entered into, etc. etc.

PRIZES:
Because we want to encourage people to create content for all sections of the Skullgirls community, there will be two identical prizes - one for gameplay-related threads, and one for all others.
The prize for both winners will be one of the following, chosen by the winner:

• $30 credit with the Sanshee online store (awaiting confirmation on this), OR
• a $30 gift certificate with EightySixed, OR
• $20 Steam Credit

The winner will be chosen by random.org and announced at the start of November December.

 

[Jason]

I guess I should have held on to my newbie guide for another month before publishing it. :(

Oh well, maybe I'll be able to come up with something else.

 

[Vadsamoht]

I guess I should have held on to my newbie guide for another month before publishing it. :(

Oh well, maybe I'll be able to come up with something else.

Yeah, sorry about that. Alternatively, if you can think of a way of updating or expanding on the guide, we can count that as well.

 

[Jason]

Yeah, sorry about that. Alternatively, if you can think of a way of updating or expanding on the guide, we can count that as well.

Unlikely because of the character limit on individual sections, updating it would probably require me to reorganize the entire thing. At this point some of the sections are so far over the Steam Guide character limit (some creative use of the image-insertion macro) that even fixing a typo takes upwards of 2 or 3 minutes.

 

[Money]

Jason does have a point. This competition appears to needlessly penalize those who have already created some very useful threads. Adding tangible prizes to the competition further exacerbates this. My opinion would be to INCLUDE those who have already created some extremely great guides, such as Jason's beginner guide, or worldjem's defense guide. Perhaps creating a second guide would allow them a second entry into the prize pool, but we really should not discourage those who have already given us such great information in the past.

Also, I would like to add that quality should matter somehow. This is a murky area, since quality is subjective by nature, but a very well thought out in-depth guide (ie Night Phyre's visual combo flowcharts) should have more weight over a single thread regarding a small subject (ie a single post about how to PBGC). As an off-the-cuff idea, maybe we can award more points to those who have more complete threads/guides, although "complete" is also itself subjective.

In any case, I understand that the goal of this competition is to increase the amount of resources available to newcomers, but I disagree with this method, since it does undoubtedly penalize our past contributors.

 

[Vadsamoht]

Jason does have a point. This competition appears to needlessly penalize those who have already created some very useful threads. Adding tangible prizes to the competition further exacerbates this. My opinion would be to INCLUDE those who have already created some extremely great guides, such as Jason's beginner guide, or worldjem's defense guide. Perhaps creating a second guide would allow them a second entry into the prize pool, but we really should not discourage those who have already given us such great information in the past.

Also, I would like to add that QUALITY should matter somehow. This is a murky area, since quality is subjective by nature, but a very well thought out in-depth guide (ie Night Phyre's visual combo flowcharts) should have more weight over a single thread regarding a small subject (ie a single post about how to PBGC). I understand that the goal of this competition is to increase the amount of resources available to newcomers, but I disagree with this method, since it does undoubtedly penalize our past contributors.

It doesn't penalize them - they made those guides without expecting a prize, so they don;t lose anything by not being eligible. We put in the section about being able to reuse content so long as it has been updated, but we decided that allowing people to get a free entry without having done any work during the competition was also unfair to those who do.

Similarly, we discussed ways of rewarding quality over quantitiy, but the problem is that some threads necessarily require more work than others. For example, if one user was to create a list of all of the charcter palette references then once the list is complete there is not much more work that can be done on the thread. Compare that with a character guide or something similar - more work can always be put in to make the guide more holistic, etc. That doesn't necessarily make for more quality, but it would always end up with the mod team having to make a subjective decision on the 'best' thread, which would not only be open to bias but discourage people from making some of the smaller but nonetheless important resource threads.

So, while I definitely see your point, if we were to change the ruleset things would just become unfair in a different way. The mod team discussed this for some time before announcing the competition, and we reasopned that this is the best approach.

 

[Money]

It doesn't penalize them - they made those guides without expecting a prize, so they don;t lose anything by not being eligible. We put in the section about being able to reuse content so long as it has been updated, but we decided that allowing people to get a free entry without having done any work during the competition was also unfair to those who do.

I would have to disagree. It is true that those who have made guides previously were not expecting anything in return; however, this is because there was no reward offered at the time of their authorship. The community created these guides not for a prize, but to genuinely help out newer people. Now that a prize HAS been introduced, I can't help but think that their sentiment towards the guides they made would be somewhere along the lines of "I should have held back my information". This is dangerous because now you are introducing a scenario of "Next time I make a guide, maybe I should wait for a competition first before posting". Of course that is an unlikely scenario given the attitudes of the community, but the meaning is there nonetheless.

As an analogy, let's say you've decided to dedicate a weekend to cleaning your room because it was super messy. You spend all weekend cleaning it, and come Monday, you have a clean room. Now on Tuesday, your mother comes and tells you and your siblings "I'm going to hold a competition; anyone who's room is significantly cleaner tomorrow than it is RIGHT NOW will get a prize!". As your thoughts naturally turned to "but...I just cleaned yesterday, it's not going to get much cleaner..." your mom says "yes, but you didn't expect a reward for it when you cleaned it, so no harm done, right?". I suppose that's a bad analogy, but I'm sure you get the sentiment I'm trying to convey.

Similarly, we discussed ways of rewarding quality over quantitiy, but the problem is that some threads necessarily require more work than others. For example, if one user was to create a list of all of the charcter palette references then once the list is complete there is not much more work that can be done on the thread. Compare that with a character guide or something similar - more work can always be put in to make the guide more holistic, etc. That doesn't necessarily make for more quality, but it would always end up with the mod team having to make a subjective decision on the 'best' thread, which would not only be open to bias but discourage people from making some of the smaller but nonetheless important resource threads.

These are some very good points. Being a (slightly less) newbie myself, I was mainly focused on threads and guides to better my play; I was not thinking of posts relaying information about other aspects of the game (ie lore, colors, etc). The point regarding bias is a good one too, though I did mention that I wanted a quality factor there but I do not know how to fairly add this factor in. I still stand by my point that quality needs to be a factor somehow, but I agree this is an extremely hard problem to solve without introducing bias.

So, while I definitely see your point, if we were to change the ruleset things would just become unfair in a different way. The mod team discussed this for some time before announcing the competition, and we reasopned that this is the best approach.

While I trust you have debated this thoroughly, I still disagree that it would be unfair in a different way (for reasons stated above). However, at the end of the day the mods are the ones providing the prizes, and the mods should hold the ultimate authority over how those prizes are distributed. I'm just voicing my $0.02. :)

 

[Vadsamoht]

I would have to disagree. It is true that those who have made guides previously were not expecting anything in return; however, this is because there was no reward offered at the time of their authorship. The community created these guides not for a prize, but to genuinely help out newer people. Now that a prize HAS been introduced, I can't help but think that their sentiment towards the guides they made would be somewhere along the lines of "I should have held back my information". This is dangerous because now you are introducing a scenario of "Next time I make a guide, maybe I should wait for a competition first before posting". Of course that is an unlikely scenario given the attitudes of the community, but the meaning is there nonetheless.

I certainly see your point, but we're not going to change the rules after already announcing them. I would like to reiterate, though, that anyone with an existing resource thread can update it or make some sort of modification in order to be eligible. We'll be pretty lax on this, so the changes don't have to be huge - just more than simply fixing typos.

EDIT: Also we'll reconsider the rules ahead of any future competitions based on feedback from this one.

 

[Nuuance]

Oh interesting this is the first time im seeing this. I'm guessing my 10 steps guide to getting better at fighting games might be eligable. good luck everyone :)

 

[Vadsamoht]

Oh interesting this is the first time im seeing this. I'm guessing my 10 steps guide to getting better at fighting games might be eligable. good luck everyone :)

It's definitely eligible. Have you already made the thread? If so, link it here and I'll add it to the competition section.

In other news, I'm planning to make an article with a list of ideas to get more people making threads - the competition has been a little slower than I had hoped for so far.

 

[Nuuance]

It's definitely eligible. Have you already made the thread? If so, link it here and I'll add it to the competition section.

In other news, I'm planning to make an article with a list of ideas to get more people making threads - the competition has been a little slower than I had hoped for so far.

Oh yeah definitely :) I actually have about 2-4 other videos planned too. Here's the thread link :) http://skullgirls.com/forums/index....ailed-steps-how2get-better-at-skullgirls.681/

and idk if this is as eligable, but a Squigly thread I made with all Squig tech I frequently update/post here: http://skullgirls.com/forums/index....hread-small-big-tips-strategy-you-notice.154/

 

[Vadsamoht]

I'll have to consult the other mods about the second thread, but I'll add the first one to the competition section now.

 

[Vadsamoht]

Competition now closed.

 

[Arcana]

it still says it is open at the top of the page

 

[Zidiane]

Possible to have one of these more often? Once a month, or bi-monthly, or something?

 

[Vadsamoht]

We're thinking of having semi-regular competitions, it's just a matter of getting the details right. I think we scared a few people off from this one with too many rules, etc., so the next one will be really easy to enter.