Contest Announcement: The Future of the CaC

Jabberwock

Jabberwock

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Howdy, all.

Many of you are aware of the difficulties we've had in staffing the Create-a-Card competition these last few months. Judging has been coming more slowly when it comes at all, and until very recently our number of judges had been steadily dwindling.

We've also seen downturns in activity around both categories of the CaC lately; something that ––coupled with an increase in entries that are submitted very quickly or without much revision –– we attribute to the CaC becoming more routine and less of a novelty.

So we'll be changing things up a bit.

The CaC has been a monthly competition since its inception, but we (the judges) agree that the monthly format is no longer sustainable –– and that a more infrequent competition would serve to make things more exciting every round. Therefore, starting in October, the CaC will last for two months instead of one, with an extra month left vacant for judging purposes. Thus, there will be one CaC competition every quarter, or four per year.

Feel free to let us know your thoughts on the change, either via PM or in this thread. As always, we value your input. ^.^
 
Jabberwock said:
Howdy, all.

Many of you are aware of the difficulties we've had in staffing the Create-a-Card competition these last few months. Judging has been coming more slowly when it comes at all, and until very recently our number of judges had been steadily dwindling.

We've also seen downturns in activity around both categories of the CaC lately; something that ––coupled with an increase in entries that are submitted very quickly or without much revision –– we attribute to the CaC becoming more routine and less of a novelty.

So we'll be changing things up a bit.

The CaC has been a monthly competition since its inception, but we (the judges) agree that the monthly format is no longer sustainable –– and that a more infrequent competition would serve to make things more exciting every round. Therefore, starting in October, the CaC will last for two months instead of one, with an extra month left vacant for judging purposes. Thus, there will be one CaC competition every quarter, or four per year.

Feel free to let us know your thoughts on the change, either via PM or in this thread. As always, we value your input. ^.^
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I think this is pretty fair seeing how much time the judges need to spend to judge. But it might also be good if the theme for each contest to be more specific to challenge the makers better given the extra 1 month to submit
 
With that announcement, I for one welcome that change. Even I have noticed that this year has been stressful for the CaC judges, they spend more time giving careful-but-constructive critique, helping the contestants get better than they already are. If you think about it carefully, it is good that the criticism is helping rivals (in a sense) work as a team. Together, Everybody Achieves More.
 
Professor_jplap said:
I would want to become a judge if it meant CaC would be monthly again.
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We appreciate your enthusiasm –– and definitely encourage you to apply for judge –– but there are several problems with running a monthly CaC other than simply being short-staffed. :/
GM DracLord said:
I think this is pretty fair seeing how much time the judges need to spend to judge. But it might also be good if the theme for each contest to be more specific to challenge the makers better given the extra 1 month to submit
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Yeah, the theme will be a lot more relevant for future comps; more of a guide for creativity than a restriction.
Kangaflora said:
With that announcement, I for one welcome that change. Even I have noticed that this year has been stressful for the CaC judges, they spend more time giving careful-but-constructive critique, helping the contestants get better than they already are. If you think about it carefully, it is good that the criticism is helping rivals (in a sense) work as a team. Together, Everybody Achieves More.
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Our biggest hope is that people use the competition as a way to improve themselves. :)
 
I'd actually like to weigh in on this as not only your text-based judge for September 2018, but as someone who had just recently joined the CaC staff team almost right before this change had been brought to the team. Before I joined the team, I had committed myself at the beginning of the year to submit for every month during the year and do the best I could as my return to CaC.

Professor_jplap said:
I would want to become a judge if it meant CaC would be monthly again.
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As @Jabberwock has stated, there's more that goes into the decision than simply the amount of staff members on the team, and this was a decision that had to be made and agreed upon by the entirety of the team. While I'm not sure this is exactly what you mean to say, I don't believe it'd be anything but ridiculous to claim that you would want to join the team just simply to convince the rest of the team of what you think is best for the competition as a whole.

Kangaflora said:
[The CaC judges] spend more time giving careful-but-constructive critique, helping the contestants get better than they already are. If you think about it carefully, it is good that the criticism is helping rivals (in a sense) work as a team. Together, Everybody Achieves More.
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I honestly couldn't agree with this more. To me, CaC is a group effort by contestant and judge to improve and seek criticism in order to better themselves and to help the community grow, as well as to open our arms to growing the community and encourage new creativity. This is a decision that benefits everyone involved in different ways and one that we can only hope will improve the competition for everyone and help it run smoother.
 
Professor_jplap said:
Mind if I ask what?
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Having more judges only gets us so far. Each individual judge still has a monumental workload every month that often prevents judging from getting done any sooner than halfway into the next contest. We would rather have judging done before the next contest, so that entrants can take the previous month's feedback into account.

This is something we especially want to encourage, because due in large part to judging always coming so late, people frequently don't use that feedback to improve their future entries. We see the same errors crop up again and again, etc. The hope is that with two months to work on their entries (and judging coming before the next competition), people will put more effort into improving. :)
 
I like it, working on a fake around a busy school schedule is infuriating and stressful (hence why my early attempted entries were never finished) so I often rush.
(Also, my internet issues are over for now...)
 
Having the feedback live within the contest to contest cycle is a good idea.

Just one question, when will the next one be then?
 
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