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84 Spaces Contest. 84 Spaces Contest begins![All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Anonymous wrote on Thu, May 2, 2002 12:26 AM UTC:The editor handling the contest, Fergus Duniho, hasn't been available to work on it of late. But there's plenty of time, and it will be caught up eventually.
Anonymous wrote on Fri, May 3, 2002 03:38 PM UTC:Good ★★★★I know of three other entries that have been submitted, and one more in playtest. I presume that Fergus is simply backed up for now.
Tomas wrote on Mon, May 20, 2002 03:44 AM UTC:Good ★★★★I've submitted an entry and I think that perhaps, just perhaps, they should remove the competing entry that's up there until they start adding new ones...just to be fair. Just a thought. Regards Tomas Forsman
The ignored contestant is right.
If the moderator of the contest has insufficient time to handle the contest, then he should remove himself, replace himself with someone who can.
David Howe wrote on Tue, May 21, 2002 02:58 PM UTC:Sorry about the lack of response. I have unlisted the one existing entry. Hopefully Fergus will publish the submitted entries in the near future.
I am very anxcious about this contest and I am eagerly awaiting it's opening. Perhaps some of the not so bussy editors could help out and get the submissions up. I want to playtest =) Tomas
David Howe wrote on Mon, Jul 1, 2002 02:16 PM UTC:I have emailed Fergus. Please be patient and we'll see what the situation is in a week or two. Thanks.
We are now closing in on the deadline for submissions on the 84-square contest. Will it perhaps turn up at that date? I'm sorry if I sound impatient, I just want to see if people like or dislike my entry =) -=Tomas=-
David Howe wrote on Wed, Jul 17, 2002 12:08 AM UTC:I have contacted Fergus. He indicates he will resume working on the contest in July sometime. So it should be two weeks from now (at most).
Can anyone tell me how many entries there are? I just submitted one, and I'm curious how busy I'm going to be with evaluating the others. I mean, if there are 3 others that's very different from if there are 30 others.
I now know about six entries (yours and mine included) and that probably means there are a lot more. You could go back to older competitions to see how many there use to be. A guess would be 20-25 but it's hard to say. Could be less since it hasn't been active and no entries have been shown so people can think 'I can do better then that' ;). Let's hope for plenty. If you want someone to playtest them with (using Zillions) give me a shout at tomas@it-designer.com -=T=-
Tomas, do you have one or two entries? Add Mark's, Jean-Louis's, two from me...did I miss any who have announced? Oh, and Tony Quintanilla's got one in the works too. Six or seven, anyway. Might be a lot more, might not.
Well, I counted those who had written comments and the one that was up there for a while. I only counted one from you so now it's one more. As you say, can be many more or not. We'll see =) -=T=-
There will continue to be some delays in getting the entries up, but I expect to be able to have everything up by next week. When I ran last year's contest, hardly anything in my life changed during the whole year. The biggest thing was finishing my Ph.D., but I remained in the same place and continued my graduate student lifestyle. This year, everything has changed, and this has created several distractions and obstacles to keep from working on this contest as much as I worked on the last one. In early April, I accepted a job offer to teach at SUNY Plattsburgh, and a couple days later, my father died. Between grieving for my father, going to his memorial service, and choosing textbooks for my courses, I had no time for this contest. During the middle of May from I moved from Rochester to Plattsburgh, into an apartment above my mother's bookstore. To save money, I have been borrowing a phone line from her store to get on-line, but it is available to me only when the store is closed. On top of that, I have been working for her in her record store across the street. So my mornings are busy getting ready for work, my days are spent working, I'm sometimes tired when I finish work, and I'm even more tired when I can finally get on-line at 9:00 PM. Besides all this, I learned of a radio program called Coast-to-Coast AM, a.k.a. the Art Bell show, and I have been listening to this regularly. It airs for 4 hours 7 nights a week, and I record it each night on my VCR. Trying to keep up with this show takes up a lot of my time. This weekend, I will be moving again. My mother wants to rent the apartment I'm in now to 3 college students, and I will be moving across the street. As far as this contest goes, the significant thing about this move is that I will have to get my own phone, because I will no longer be able to borrow a line from my mother's store. Once I have my own phone, I will be able to get on-line at more reasonable hours, and I will more easily be able to get the entries up.
i notice that if you go to the contest rules page, it says that all voters will be anonymous, but it doesn't say that the designers of the games will be kept anonymous during the voting period. i think this would definitely be a good idea.
Don't sweat it Fergus. We all appreciate the work you are putting into the competition just to get it going. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the submissions and I hope that your move goes well. -=T=-
I vote for 'no pressure on Fergus' regarding deadlines. My experience is that the first year of teaching (really the first few years) is VERY time consuming. You'll be doing very well if you can keep up with the Art Bell show. But as for keeping the authorship of the entries secret -- er, I didn't see any reason to keep the game I submitted secret, and haven't done so ... If there's a decision that we should, I don't see how I could follow it now. Also, I don't think I see the purpose of such a rule.
I think that we're all just glad Fergus is OK, and when the entries get posted they get posted. :) I also agree with Mark in that I see no need to hide the designers' names.
well, it's not a big deal, but hiding the inventors' names helps prevent voter bias. to think that this won't occur seems optimistic to me. in addition to people who might deliberately vote for their friends and against anybody they don't like, it's also easy for people to honestly believe that they're not doing it and do it nonetheless without being aware of it, and somehow rationalize the results. when i judged to 40 square contest, there wasn't anybody i didn't like, but i had to constantly remind myself not to go easy on my friends. <P>
there's also the problem that an inventor with a reputation for excellent games may be judged more critically because people expect more from them - any musician or author who has had a bestseller is acutely aware of this problem. <P>
those of you who were around for the large variant contest and read the yahoo board may remember one of the finalists openly admitting that he simply had all his friends and family members vote for his game without even reading the rules. actually, hiding inventors' names wouldn't eliminate this problem, but it makes the point that honest voting does not always occur. <P>
fergus has largely eliminated this problem by requiring voters to vote on more than one game and to put in meaningful comments. it looks like fergus upgraded the comments requirement, possibly in response to the comments from the large chess variants contest. i read through the comments to this contest today and some of them are insightful but some of the commentators obviously couldn't judge their way out of a paper bag and don't understand the concept of objective judging. i looked at the 100 square contest comments too tho and they seem a lot better.
Those are good points, I hadn't realized such problems had arisen in the past. Hopefully the rules as given this time will help. I suppose we have to figure that any publicly-judged contest will have somewhat limited significance. How would this work, for future contests: in order to submit a judgment you also have to submit the ZSG of one game that you completed (or played till one side resigned, or till both sides agreed to a draw, as long as those decisions appear rational). I would consider playing at least one game to be the minimum effort required for passing a judgment. Or would others disagree?
Well I disagree a little bit with that. I will probably play all games that have a zillions file but the rest I probably wont play but I'll read through the rules and pass my 'judgement' at all games. I'll have comments for those I haven't played as well based on my past experiences with similar rules or what I think of the games inovativeness (if that is a word). I think that the comment thing helps a lot since it alteast forces the voter to read through the rules and get a grip about the game. In my humble opinion I think that judges are better then public voting though I think that comments from players and testers should influence the judges as well. -=T=-
the problem with requiring everybody to play at least one game is that you may be forcing people to play games that are so bad as to be nearly unplayable. these are less likely to be submitted as large variants, but it's possible; i had several in the 40-square contest and i admit i either didn't play them or didn't finish a game. <P>
but i still stand by claim i made about judging to 40 square contest - the number one thing i learned from that experience is that you have to play the games. i am highly skeptical of any claim from anybody that they can completely, accurately, and consistently judge games in an objective-as-possible fashion without playing them. not only do you have to play them, you have to play them a lot. playing one game is like doing a national survey of one person - it's often not very meangingful. when i did the 40 square contest i had 'black holes' on 2nd place in my list for a long time; it was only by playing many times - i probably played about 30 games - that i was able to determine that the game was too likely to end in a draw. and realizing that, i then had to give the other games that i had in the top 5 the same treatment to make sure they held up as well.
In order to make quality judgements, one does need to attempt to play the games. But there are some games that it doesn't take a full game to realize it's unplayable...and without a Zillions file, there are others that it is much more difficult to set up and try to play. It's a nice idea, but not necessarily an enforceable nice idea, although Mark does try to lay down a way to do it.
Perhaps adding a checkbox (Have played the game x number of times). Ofcourse this will lead to some lying from voters but with the comment too I think the rulers can decide the weight of each vote. Haven't really thought that much about this idea but it's just an idea ;) -=T=-
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