Just a quick question, and I was told to direct it here, I noticed that it said don't vote for your own, which I didn't. However, then I realized that was defined by the person who dropped the ad here. I'm the admin there, but I didn't do the ads.

Probably a whoopsie on my part not to do it myself, but was wondering, in light of that, if that's transferable at all, so that I can free up poor phoenixphyre?

Edit: Oh, duh-dur. I read that wrong. That makes more sense.

Mmm, I'd like to make a formal appology, because I did post an announcment on my board for the members to make accounts and vote for us. Once the poll was changed, and I see what some of the other boards have been doing, I've asked my members who have made these accounts to not vote for us unless they plan to frequently use their accounts. I'd rather not see the poll be as biased as it is. I know my forum can succeede on its own, but it's nice to have a little help. However, I'd like to make the suggestion that perhaps there should be a new rule conserning voting. Much like the rules for posting ads in the directory, and for actuly posting your forum into the Forum of the Week, it might be a good idea to have a rule of the 15 posts for those who vote. This will help cull out those that come in, make an account, vote, and never come back. Again, I appologize to ShinLi, because I did ask my members to do this, but I plan to play fair, and win because people think it's a good board. Another idea that might be good is, perhaps a rule that if the board has more than 300 members, it can't be in the forum of the week voting. I believe someone made a comment about that in the original poll. If it has over 300 members, it doesnt really need advertising. It's the boards that have less than 20 that really need it.
And that's my appology and two cents. :\

I don't think the forum of the week necessarily has to do with advertising as it does recognizing accomplishments. Thus, it wouldn't be fair to not allow boards with 300+ members.

Secondly, I agree with not allowing newbies on RPG-D to vote. I'm sure that there's a way to set the permission masks so that everyone can see the voting section, but not everyone can actually vote. It would probably make it easier that way rather than having to manually count the votes, too.

I would have to agree with you on that. While making it so that the big-wigs can't win ups my chances, It wouldn't particularly be right. If they're that big, and running smoothly, then they are obviously doing something right, and deserve the appropriate recognition. I also agree with the no new posters deal, to an extent. I think it's a great draw for a great site that most RPG-ers should be taking a look at and the vote could suck people into looking in here and making most RPG experiences better as a whole. Given a choice between fairness and that, though, I'd have to say fairness.

*nods* Yeh, That's a good point, and I would have to agree with both of you there. Though, I still think the smaller boards deserve a little recoginition as well. There are a few boards with 20- members in the polls, and I can't help but feel sorry for them when they dont get any votes.

Sorry to keep chatting on here, but just thought I should mention. Being from one of those smaller boards, or at least roundabouts, we have less that about fifteen actual members (not including their assorted characters).

My point being is that, I don't entirely expect to win for a bit, and that's fine with me. However, since this is ideally about RPG design as a whole, member count shouldn't be a problem... in a perfect world >_>. Those older and bigger RP's should get recognition, but, I think after they've run their course, people on the site will naturally start looking to people who haven't won. Honestly, too? Being in it in the first place is a fairly good brand of advertisement in and of itself, as far as I've noticed.

Well, hopefully people can distance themselves from their own board to do the voting. I realize that it's probably not going to happen--and I can't blame anyone. But there are those of us who do our best not to play favorites. Personally, I looked at every board and chose the one I thought most appropriate. I like to make an educated vote.

We will also be addressing this issue at the end of the week.

Yeh, Same here. :)

I just want to say that with all things new, there always needs a little time for the staff to figure out how to get things to work and how to make everythng fair. There is no way we can forsee every single problem that would've come with FotW. That is why we already changed the poll thread for a post voting thread. And a post count rule will be added for the next voting, we've already changed this first poll once, it's unfair to be adding a new rule right in the middle of voting.

Ah, for the good fun kinks of a new idea...

I'll throw in my five cents while we seem to be tossing about options and ideas for FotW...

- Backing up the post count idea. Sounds like a good plan to me.
- Maybe limit the number of entries per week? Just take the oldest ten or fifteen sign ups, and vote on them (so those that were posted first out of what is there), and members can't resubmit until their board has been in the voting? Means you'll get different forums every week, and people will be forced to vote for something new.

Just thoughts. :D

I will agree with most of what has been said above. However, I think that the poll voting is a better way of going about it because in the post system, people can see what has the most votes before they actually cast one. I think that since the poll version makes the results blind 'til after you've voted, it's more of a legitimate vote. Also, it doesn't allow the admins of the board to see who voted for them. However, of course there's still the issue of people creating accounts just to vote. . .

The only problem I can see with the post count is if new people join to vote on the sites. As we want new people to join the site, I wouldn't put to much into that. But then again, this site isn't hurting on the members.

You know, there IS an option in groups that doesn't allow them to vote in polls. If you are concerned about post count, make that "New Member" group not able to vote *shrug*

The only thing I really have to add is a comment about the member count of the forums affecting the voting. While the large number of members does tend to reflect the achievement of the site, some people really prefer smaller sites. I'd rather be on a site with 6 active members than a site with 100+ members, and while some of us do really look at each site and vote for the one we'd most like to join, if members of large sites are all voting for sites they're a part of, it might skew the results a bit. If your site is small intentionally though, maybe you shouldn't enter it into Forum of the Week? It is a really good brand of advertising just entering, as Shinou said, and if you're still looking for great places to advertise, you probably aren't the largest roleplaying sites or sites that are intentionally smaller. If people think about that, I think the problems we're having with it will solve themselves basically.

I already said that we will be addressing this issue, and I think in a way that will make everyone happy with it. A lot of roleplayers choose small forums, and I don't think they should be penalized for being smaller.

As for putting the New Member group to no voting in polls, we have an entire poll section that newbies tend to go to when they first join the community. It would be kind of unfair to not allow them to vote in any polls of the board until they get fifteen posts. But yes, they shouldn't be able to vote in forum of the week. I think that if we make the board viewable by guests and they not viewable to newbies and then viewable again to regular members, it could be a good solution to the voting in polls problem. It would keep it confidential and then if a new member wanted to see how their board was doing at the moment they could just log out and look at the results as a guest.

Also, once a board has won FoTW they won't be able to enter next time, so if a big board wins one week, they won't be in your way to win the next. I don't really see why it's such a big problem that a big board wins the first battle, especially since a lot of people on here who have their own boards are probably members there too. They put a lot of hard work into that and kind of deserve the recognition. Also, a lot of people are visiting the polls because of them, when people visit the polls, they click on the links which go to your boards. Just a little reminder =]

... It's forum of the week, not forum of the year. I don't really think it's a big deal, my board is new, and we don't have many members, thus probably won't win, but w/e, we'll re-enter next week. And I'm sure eventually we'll win, that what I like about the 'week' idea. Meh, I don't think new members shouldn't be allowed to vote, pretty discriminating, and again, it's not like this is Forum of the Year.

However, Micky Three, if we get boards telling their members to sign up just to vote for the FOTW we could end up with a massive influx of members who vote once and disappear. If we get new members that stay, that's great, but otherwise there are going to be people appearing, voting, and leaving again.

Hmm... True.

By the by, forums that win can't enter for another three weeks, until their button is off the sidebar again, because it'll stay up there for 4 weeks!

hm. if i could make a suggestion, perhaps there could be three-ish catagoreys to help with the member count issue.
ex.
boards with 75 and under members
boards with 100-400 members
boards with 500+ members
those in the mid range could apply to either or.
i think this would make things more fair for boards with only one/two mmebers here, like an admin or a mod/advertising manager, rather than being overshadowed by a far more popular board that has lots of members who frequent here.
small sites, the ones i've seen at least, are newer and need the advertising more.