Feedback requested about the CGC hosted grading contests. 4 4

[CGC Mike]

On 2/22/2022 at 3:13 PM, Math Teacher said:

I appreciate your hard work, Mike.

For me, I would have liked to receive a PM when the next round starts and another PM reminding me of the deadline. I saw the announcement for the fourth round, but I'm sure that something interrupted my train of thought (easily done at my age). I just don't have time to read all the forums every day. So I'm guessing that I never made it back to the HB,CYSPAG forum before the deadline.

 

Well, in the initial PM I sent there was a link to the first round, which gave people 4 days to get your grades in.  If you visited the forum once every 4 days, you would not miss any of the rounds, as I posted the next round shortly after the prior one ended.  It took me days to send out the initial 354 PM's.  Then, I had to record everyone's grades which took days to do, and I found it difficult to make sure I didn't miss anyone.  If I had to send reminders for every round as well, it would be nearly impossible to manage.  Keep in mind I have other duties to perform while I am doing the contest.  

[CGC Mike]

On 2/22/2022 at 6:00 PM, grendelbo said:

Here's what I posted on one of the other threads for this contest.

 

Allow tenured boardies in first and those who placed high in this contest (special invite).

Hire @zzutak to continue his excellent analysis of our opinions and the actual results from CGC.

Boardies step up to remind others of deadlines. So many excellent graders fell out of the contest because their grades were not submitted. I barely got mine in during Round 2.

Graders notes for all books!

Curve balls! Books that present perhaps a singular or unique defect. (Better to learn by.)

Maybe.. maybe an even or good mix of GA, SA, BA, CA and Modern comicbooks

Prizes for the Top 20 (because that's where I fell). And that'll be Top 10% if you're limiting the next contest to 200 contestants.

Pin each round temporarily to the top of the PGM page.

Special recognition in some way for @CGC Mike and those behind the scenes at CGC.

 

I like some of these suggestions.  It might be a problem for boardies to step up and remind others about their grades, as The would not know who has not submitted them.  Unless I added a helper to the PM's.  If I did that, the person would not be able to participate.

It would be great to see @zzutak do the commentaries after each round. 

Curve balls is a good idea.

I'm not sure about graders notes for all books but, maybe more books in the last contest should have had a few notes.  

We could try pinning the threads to the top of the page.  That may help those who had trouble finding them last time.

 

[Bird]

I don't like the everyone donate thing...cgc should provide any and all prizes. why would people donate prizes? I just don't understand that part for a cgc official contest. Winners should win, everyone else nada. Participation prizes, nah, just complicates the whole thing.

More rounds. I myself would prefer 5 rounds of 3 books each rather than 3 rounds of 5 books each. Draw it out.

3 days for each round

I agree, graders notes would be great

finish the contest or you have to start next contest with 1 point

[Math Teacher]

On 2/22/2022 at 7:21 PM, CGC Mike said:

Well, in the initial PM I sent there was a link to the first round, which gave people 4 days to get your grades in.  If you visited the forum once every 4 days, you would not miss any of the rounds, as I posted the next round shortly after the prior one ended.  It took me days to send out the initial 354 PM's.  Then, I had to record everyone's grades which took days to do, and I found it difficult to make sure I didn't miss anyone.  If I had to send reminders for every round as well, it would be nearly impossible to manage.  Keep in mind I have other duties to perform while I am doing the contest.  

Mike, I understand completely. I have no doubt that you put a lot of time and effort into this contest, and I think that all of us are appreciative of that. I do like the idea of pinning it to the top of HB,CYSAG forum. I think that would have been beneficial to me.

[speedcake]

On 2/22/2022 at 10:23 AM, jas1vans said:

I think it went pretty well minus the large number of people that signed up and didn't take part in the fun. Maybe (depending on interest in future contests) anyone signing up and not participating has to sit out the next or even next two contests.

 

I caught covid with flu symptoms and wasn't really up for it during the first round, so I vote no to this suggestion. 

[speedcake]

I'm also uncomfortable with the idea of boardies donating, or feeling any pressure to donate, their own books to the prize pool for an official CGC sponosored grading contest. I like the idea of CGC running a grading contest, I thought it was a good idea to get new blood on the forums, it was always going to have wrinkles to be ironed out. So nice job with this first effort.

But IMO some mix of grading credit and maybe actual comics donated by CGC themselves, a top five prize pool (or ten if the budget/generosity is there) I think would be fine. I think people would still participate.

I'm not sure this grading contest will ever have quite the same ambiance as a purely boardie run event (who knows, maybe), and I do hope those come back in the future, but I've also always thought more grading contests throughout the year would be great so there should be room for both!

Edited February 23, 2022 by speedcake

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 2/22/2022 at 1:21 PM, CGC Mike said:

I don't believe I have ever seen a grading contest here where everyone was required to donate.  This is something I would not be in favor of.  

Yeah, I have been in contests and have not donated a prize for entry. There was 1 time when I did donate a prize, but there were so many options that nobody picked mine.

[Cat]

On 2/23/2022 at 12:50 PM, speedcake said:

I caught covid with flu symptoms and wasn't really up for it during the first round, so I vote no to this suggestion. 

I had an illness during the contest time and had to drop out, and also had to deal with my aunt who had COVID, so the last thing I could do was the comp. I let Mike know as soon as I could, but I'm still fine with the idea of pushing us down for the next comp. mess happens to us all and we all have to deal with it, but otherwise it may simply be too much for Mike to keep track of. Easier to just drop us all down a notch, two if you didn't let him know. 

[CGC Mike]

On 2/22/2022 at 9:50 PM, speedcake said:

I caught covid with flu symptoms and wasn't really up for it during the first round, so I vote no to this suggestion. 

 

On 2/23/2022 at 7:45 AM, Mecha_Fantastic said:

I had an illness during the contest time and had to drop out, and also had to deal with my aunt who had COVID, so the last thing I could do was the comp. I let Mike know as soon as I could, but I'm still fine with the idea of pushing us down for the next comp. mess happens to us all and we all have to deal with it, but otherwise it may simply be too much for Mike to keep track of. Easier to just drop us all down a notch, two if you didn't let him know. 

Here is what will be posted in the signup thread for the next contest.  Note the bold part.  I will add that people can contact me after the fact.  Some may be too sick or have real life issues, and not able to contact me during the contest.  Besides you guys, another person contacted me after the contest was over, telling me he was in the hospital.  

"If you don't intend on playing until the end, don't sign up.  For the people that fail to finish the contest, I will put them on a list, and they will not be allowed to enter the next contest.  They will have to "sit one out"  An exception will be if someone contacts me with a legitimate excuse.  354 people signed up for the first contest.  218 people dropped out.  It isn't fair for the people that were turned away due to the set limit of people allowed to sign up.  It's also not fair to the organizers that spent countless hours coming up with a list of people in the sign-up thread, adding them to the spreadsheet, and sending them a PM." 

[jas1vans]

On 2/22/2022 at 8:50 PM, speedcake said:

I caught covid with flu symptoms and wasn't really up for it during the first round, so I vote no to this suggestion. 

Sorry to hear, I hope you've made a full recovery.

I meant it more towards those whose first and only post on the boards was to enter the contest, only to occupy a spot and not participate.

[sckao]

Hi,

I would suggest installing a distribution list component to your message board that will allow you to send an email blast to the participants for each round. It could remind them of the entry deadlines. Since you're not culling people from each round, you wouldn't even have to link it to a database of remaining participants.

Or have an option for people to sign up for automated SMS notices. They could also have the option to OPT OUT any time of course.

All of these things are relatively simple to do on a project-by-project basis. 

[CGC Mike]

On 2/23/2022 at 1:00 PM, sckao said:

Hi,

I would suggest installing a distribution list component to your message board that will allow you to send an email blast to the participants for each round. It could remind them of the entry deadlines. Since you're not culling people from each round, you wouldn't even have to link it to a database of remaining participants.

Or have an option for people to sign up for automated SMS notices. They could also have the option to OPT OUT any time of course.

All of these things are relatively simple to do on a project-by-project basis. 

Great suggestions.  Thanks.  

[CGC Mike]

It's been decided that there will be just CGC prizes in future CGC hosted grading contests.  Also, we will be improving the quality of the  scans and providing larger images.  Graders notes will be posted when we reveal the CGC grades.  If there are any hidden flaws, notes to reflect that will be posted with the raw scans.  

[grendelbo]

On 2/25/2022 at 6:55 PM, CGC Mike said:

It's been decided that there will be just CGC prizes in future CGC hosted grading contests.  Also, we will be improving the quality of the  scans and providing larger images.  Graders notes will be posted when we reveal the CGC grades.  If there are any hidden flaws, notes to reflect that will be posted with the raw scans.  

[sledgehammer]

Is there a ballpark idea on @ when the sign up will start?

 

[CGC Mike]

On 2/27/2022 at 12:57 PM, sledgehammer said:

Is there a ballpark idea on @ when the sign up will start?

 

I would guess mid April.