SASO Referees (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
referees) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sportsanime2016-08-27 04:44 pm
referees) wrote in sportsanime2016-08-27 04:44 pm
SASO 2016: Talkback
The mods still plan to reply to the topics listed at the bottom of the post.
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This is not the final wrap-up results/etc. post—that's coming in a couple of days. But while the mods tabulate final scores and create prize graphics, now's a good time to look back and reflect on your SASO 2016 experience.
Please leave comments giving us feedback on the event this year! What did you like? What did you dislike or find frustrating? What can we improve for next year, and how can we improve it? What was your favorite part of the event? Least favorite? Would you participate next year or not? Why? If you could mention your team when making your comment, we'd appreciate it.
If you would prefer to submit your comments in private, you can e-mail us at anime.espn@gmail.com or send us a Dreamwidth PM. We would prefer it if you'd put "Talkback" in the subject line.
Here's what the mod team plans to improve for next year:
- Voting program reliability. We'd like to apologize again for all of the server dowtnime, and definitely plan to make it much more stable for next year. The voting system in general, though, will remain the same.
- Bonus round program reliability. We think we got most of the kinks out during this year, but want to keep it stable for next year too.
- Dreamwidth capability for NSFW cross-posting. We didn't have time to implement it this year, but next year it should be ready to go.
- Clarifying the rules, especially on what "popular culture media" is acceptable to include in SASO work.
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Mod Replies: (updated 12:55PM EDT 8/28/16)
Please note that inclusion of a topic on this list indicates that we're going to address it, not that we've made any decisions on judging/implementing or not implementing it.
Voting:
(frozen comment) no subject
We're going to fundamentally disagree because as soon as you say "what's worth points" you lose me. Not everyone has the same skill level, and I really love that SASO is an event that makes itself accessible to people who might be new to writing fic or drawing fanart, as well as to "seasoned veterans." I find the idea of arbitrating quality and telling some people they "just weren't good enough" to be given points when what looks phoned in to you might genuinely be the best they can do to be elitist and really disheartening.
IMO the points exist as motivation, and not a lot more. You get literally nothing for winning the event. To place more value on the points than accessibility and fun with the event is, imo, a mistake.
(frozen comment) no subject
like i said before, im p sure someone else can properly articulate on how to better the BR comments/fills. its feedback and good and bad should be seen. If the mods make something better or choose not to do anything, that is their choice completely. it's just a suggestion that i made, nothing more or less.
I know i can't eloquently word out what my brain is trying to say, and this is certainly not an attack on the fillers who worked hard to meet the max goals.
This is why i didn't touch or elaborate on it at all in my original post. As an artist, i know that skill levels vary, as well as skills in writing (writing is hard too, im amazed at how many words got pumped out gj guys)
a tldr of what i meant originally is:
prompter has a prompt> did it meet the prompt? y/n? y it gets tallied, n it doesn't.
but yes, agree to disagree, this is something for mods to make a final decision on if its an actual issue, if not, i'm not going to question it further.
(frozen comment) no subject
Some people are getting very heated in their opinions, it feels like, and while these are things I feel strongly about I think it's also really important to express oneself calmly and thoughtfully. Easier to make sense of suggestions and feedback that way too, tbh.
IMO "did it meet the prompt" is too subjective to be enforceable. The benefit of the current system is that a computer program CAN verify a word count, or an image size, and what is required of the mods is overseeing the program and checking tags. In an event producing hundreds upon hundreds of works a round, hand-checking something subjective (versus a yes/no question like "is this really 400 words" or "did a character die and the poster didn't include a major character death tag") requires a number of man-hours which is frankly OBSCENE to ask of volunteers.
And I'm aware one response to this issue is "hard caps, then it's less to check" but the mods have done that in the past. The mods have hand-checked fills in the past.
In the end it is a subject mods will make a final decision on, I just figure you might like to know that some of these things were in effect in previous versions of the event and worked VERY BADLY, and so these things were taken out for that reason.
TBH the thing I'd most like to see with BR fills isn't less of them, but some sort of indexing. I think it's a lot to ask of the mods but Karahashi single-handedly maintained an index for BR2 and BR3. Honestly, I think it'd be really great to crowdsource that same sort of resource, like big kink memes used to do with delicious. (did you ever participate in any of the bigger kink memes? Some of the organization was HARDCORE but that's because the mods outsourced to the users, to LOTS of users.)
(frozen comment) (If I go off tangent it's not on purpose I swear but mobile isn't kind to replies)
Everyone is getting on the defensive for things that are meant for mods to make a final decision on, we can suggest all we want but we aren't mods so friendly talk and discussion should be encouraged, not calling out people or name calling.
I'm always a fan of constructive critisim and how things can be improved. Communication is key!!
This is people's first time participating, so the history isn't known very well for newbies. Me included. so knowing certain things like what did and didn't work for previous rounds/events would help when handling this sensitive topic and would make me rethink or think of another suggestion. Or if that suggestion had already been done and didn't work for some reason.
Indexing and tagging fills would be wonderful. Again I'm on mobile 99% of the time and clicking and filtering are my saviors. I'd honestly love a delicious type archive, but of that didn't work, I'd love a comm for BR. Tags can be used to filter things out, entries are contained along with their fills, and the subject line can be used better like kink memes used to do. (I vaguely looked around the fills for kink memes mostly BC I draw not write LOL. But agreeded the organization was top-notch.
(frozen comment) no subject
Tbh I worried a little after the fact that I came off kinda jerkish for referencing stuff from the previous years of the event the way I did. Like... I def don't mean to sound condescending with it, it's like you say: this is a first time for a lot of people so they don't know the history. I want to be able to give info about previous runs of the event, that's all.
(like, man oh man if you ever want horror stories, I can tell you Some Stuff about the early years. Some of my stories are really fun and nostalgic, too? I'm really fond of SASO/HSWC at this point because this is my fourth year so it's just "this kinda crazy thing I do every summer.")
I've been kinda poking the other people talking about putting together an index or a cross-post location because this is something I did get a response from the mods on: if the users want to run this resource, the mods will sanction it and promote it. So I genuinely really want to see who's interested in maintaining an index, and what format they think will be the best tradeoff of "easy to maintain" versus "easy to access." (having something mobile-accessible, as you mention, would be pretty great.)
(frozen comment) no subject
Mm, it wasn't too bad honestly? Knowing you had previous experience just tells me you do know why x didn't work and that hs more pull over what I think might work.
Veterans do know what they're talking about.
Elite as it may sound, you guys have experience to back your claims, and that's important in things like this where a mod cannot be around to put out fires. Giving feedback with your name attatched is stressful for some newbies, so knowing a vet can come in and say "oh man one year we did that and it backfired terribly :( it is better though!" reassures me that this has been tried before with bad results.
Maintaining an index Would be good for people trying to find prompts, I saw that was a concern for smaller fandoms trying to fill for something they liked. Accessibility is my main concern for those things, Maintance can be scheduled and divided if you have multiple people working on this, it may not be a current list, but it will be something and that's better than nothing.
(frozen comment) no subject
Good to know! I feel like if you do it wrong "pulling rank" about being a veteran and having seen more years of an event can make people feel really bad, but it's also just a useful knowledge base? I've always liked being able to answer friends' little questions about the event so they don't need to bug a mod; I've ingested so many of the events rules to the point of being able to repeat them on command, ahaha.
(I think voting in particular, and MAIN ROUNDS in particular, have undergone the most obvious big changes over the years. Like, in 2013 there were technically four main rounds! It was honestly kind of horrible! Two actually feels so reasonable by comparison.)
I want an index So Bad, it's useful on so many levels. I love the thought of being able to sort for prompts based on several variables, and for fills by that same token. I honestly feel like the biggest drawback of SASO is just being able to FIND all the content for your ship or fandom. (and maintenance does require a large enough crew to split it up into manageable chunks. I sincerely DON'T think it's something mods should focus on, but like. We could do it. We could make a really nice reference thing.)
(in the same vein of old stories: a friend maintained a prompt index in 2014 cross-referenced by character and then ship and it was honestly super thorough and really beautiful, but it took her sooooo much time. Splitting the load is... So helpful...)
I feel like we've halfway wandered off into just chatting and tbh it's sort of nice but here I still am, on the DW post. This is fine.
(frozen comment) no subject
also omg I didn't know that MR votes were public last year until I read this feedback thread and saw it brought up multiple times and went back to check voting posts from last year and...that's...hORRIFIC.........
(frozen comment) no subject
Previously, the mods used DW polls because it was the only option that would verify someone was ACTUALLY signed up for the event; people have suggested other pre-existing options, and that's the problem with them. The voting program used this year was coded specifically for SASO and it just wasn't possible to test it on the scale of the event ahead of time, because where would you even get 300 people to test your program before the event starts? I know I actually think it's REALLY COOL how well the code worked, downtime aside, for this being its ~maiden voyage~
(and I for one very much prefer the opacity of this voting system, versus being able to see the results unfolding live and being able to change your vote in accordance with trends.)
(frozen comment) no subject
The opaqueness is definitely a much better thing right now, though I personally am curious of the final tallies after results are announced just to see how big the gaps were (or how close they were). Though that might just be me and some prefer to live in ignorance.