OK, so I've been thinking about this for a little while, and I was told I ought to post it here and see what others think...

Honestly - I don't think the FOTW voting is being very fair. There's a massive amount of boards signing up each time, but it's the same boards that are favored each time. As if people don't look through all the boards they can vote for, they just vote for what they already know. And a little bird told me that I'm not the only one who feels like this...

so really, is it fair that it's always the same boards that are voted for each time? It's the 12th round of voting, and it's the same boards I always see people voting for. I always click on all the boards, scroll down, look around and see if it's something I'd vote for or not. And then I decide... but I get the feeling that not everyone who votes acts like this.

perhaps there should be a limit on boards signing up each time, like say 10 boards at most to vote for, and then it's just about signing up first... might give some smaller boards a chance :) I have other ideas too, but they might be harder to get to actually work out... but opinions?

at the risk of being stoned, i have to say that i agree to a degree.

when doing the ?otM on my board, i try to keep things fair by listing those who have already won and keeping them from being able to be nominated until we've exhausted most of our options. given the size of this board, that would just be silly and unfair but perhaps there could be SOME sort of system like this?

that way, the larger boards that have already won won't be up for votes again too soon after they've been taken down from the FotW and it could allow the newer, smaller boards to have a better chance.

like... in the requests for nominations, just have a little part at the top that says that certain boards [say that have been FotW for the past... 8? 10? weeks] cannot be nominated again. that's two whole months to allow other boards a shot.

granted, i know that just because the board is up there, it's not guaranteed to win again but just having it up there results in a loss of votes because there will be people to want to see it up there again. -realizes that probably makes no sense-

of course, that's just a suggestion and a silly one, at that. like i said, this board is huge and we've got hundreds of boards so it would be silly to hold off on re-nomination for too long

Since there have to be names and accounts attached to votes to keep admins from having their members sign up and vote anonymously anyway, perhaps instead of 'my vote is <forum name>' voters could be encouraged to add a few sentences on why they're voting the way they are? I know it would help me enormously to know why people like or dislike a particular board!

Or perhaps players could be disallowed from voting for boards in which they play, which would encourage people to check out new things. It would require a certain amount of trust and use of the honor system, but it does already. :)

Personally, I do agree.
Even though I've never exactly realised this before (well, not entirely), after reading your post, I feel the same way. However, off of the top of my head I can honestly only think of this one solution. That's to let the Staff and Elite decide who the weeks' winner should be. =\ However, that'd make it less fun, etc..

Thanks for bringing this up though, I'll definately try and get something sorted. ^_^

I had the same idea, sort of, to let staff choose, but no, it would take away the fun, so I don't really know how else to make it work better :)

the thing with having a maximum to choose from (like 8 or 10 forums), and then perhaps as suggested - reasons for why you vote for the board would be interesting too... useful and stuff... :)

i'd.... have to agree. i gave up on entering a while back 'cause i rarely got a vote. x.x and u noticed people kept going for the same ones every week like tally, SOTE, or ROTE, or Junkland- all of which are great boards of course, but i don't think anyone looks at us lesser known people. :(

I'd have to disagree on this actually.

I think it's set up in the best way it could be- everyone has an equal vote, and everyone's free to make up their own mind about which site they vote for. The sign-ups aren't only for boards owned by Staff or Elite or anything, and no one's vote is weighted any heavier than another's.

Before FoTW, I had never heard of Junkland or Little Jimmy, and I voted today for Into the Pensieve, which isn't an extremely well-known board. Tally and SoTE got so many repeat votes because they are both large, active, long-running sites with a devoted member base, not because FoTW isn't fair.

It might feel like people don't look at all the boards before choosing, but everyone who's responded here says that they go through the whole list, including myself. There's no way to guarantee that every voter will look at every site, but the system is working well, IMO. If we limited the sign-ups, time zones and all that would come into play and we would be told we were being unfair =/

I think an easy solution might be you can only enter FOTW once a month if you win? That way, in the event that it's a board that wins constantly, they'd only get an ad once a month as opposed to staying up there the whole month. Or something like that; a limit as to how many times you can enter since you've won. Because, as it is, it's more like Forums of the Month, not Forums of the Week, since we are seeing some of the same forums every round. Honestly, I rarely vote and I've never entered one of my own sites, so this isn't really a personal problem, I guess... and I can understand what sarahj means. Just my two cents on how the issue may be resolved.

let me rephrase. i didn't say they were winning because they weren't awesome like that, i meant because lots of members there or at least some are on rpg-d as well, and possibly don't look at any others, or at least are bias toward sites they've joined.
(btw, if rhi-rhi's reading, as soon as school lets out i'll probably have time to join up. <3)

I have an idea... what if all boards that place in the top 3 of voting can't compete for 1 month? Then the three most popular boards would have to wait and other people would have a chance as well.. I know that seems unfair to the bigger boards but objectively, if your board had that many votes then your board was viewed over and over to get that many people to vote for you so you still have that advertising. :)

maybe a number of weeks instead, 'cause some months are shorter/longer.

I have an idea for this. Why not seperate it. You know, make different like say different themes or something. Like Fantasy Forums can have people's Fantasy forums and then real life forums can have real life forums. Just an idea.

Like.. a different theme every week or have multiple forums of the week every week?

Oh, that might be interesting -- "this week's spotlight is: Harry Potter."

or perhaps go by size as i suggested a while back, like 20 or less member base* go here, 20-50 go here, 50-100 go here, 100+ go here, etc.

*member base; the amount of members that are active in the site and are regularly online/roleplaying. NOT the member count

~nds~ yea, like each month could have a different theme to it

The only idea I've seen thus far that I personally would go for is "theme weeks" (I actually really like this idea, provided the themes go through on a rotating basis and you don't have RL one week, fantasy the next, HP the next - HP would NOT count as fantasy, I assume? - and then RL again, without sci-fi or historical or something before hand. Does that make sense? XD). I'm not saying this as one whose forum is forever getting votes - because we aren't - but as someone who enteres and votes with reasonable regularity.

Having to give a reason would make me stop voting, unless entirely generic reasons were fine (which would really defeat the point). Yes, everyone has legitimate reasons for their votes, but asking me to explain them, I find, is like asking me to explain why I like a certain song. You'll get nothing coherent out of it XD

Member base isn't necessarily the best way of doing things; just because you have a lot of members doesn't mean they're registered at RPG-D, and therefore doesn't mean they can have any impact on the vote (unless you get those people who are skewed by member count in general, which is a problem in and of itself).

As for Sunday's suggestion, if you get voted in, it's there for a month, so I'm not really sure what you mean by that.


EDIT:

I think a weekly basis would be better and allow for more variety in the results.

I get confused about when the winners are taken down, but basically I meant that boards that won would have to wait a certain amount of time before applying for FOTW again -- just so other boards get a chance.

They do, they must wait until their board is taken off from the side bar. Thus taking approximately 3 weeks. =\ I've seen some good ideas here, I'm quite interested in the Themes idea, although that'd seriously limit the amount of boards entered each week. =\

I think what Sunday means is that it's possible for a forum to be up constantly, because the second they're off and can enter again, they win. Maybe stretching out the time a forum is ineligible would be helpful? Like must not be listed for a month after it's had its month up?

That seems more reasonable. ^_^ I was going to say, 3 weeks is pretty much the month being suggested. =\

Actually, interesting fact. To my knowledge (and I could be wrong here)... no Tally members voted in the last FotW we won. It surprised me that we got it, actually... that was a pretty close round.

Anyhoo.

Having watched all the FotWs, there does seem to be a few trends. There seems to be a 'me too!' trend of voting in places, as well as the repeat vote problem.

Here's a more complicated system that will probably never work -- but what about not allowing admins to sign up if they didn't vote in the previous FotW? It annoys me that people can just drop in, sign up, and not give it any further time of day.

What about keeping a list of who-voted-what, and not allowing them to vote for the same board two weeks in a row?

What about creating a voting account to have the votes sent to, so it's a blind system rather than everyone posting for anyone to see?

To me, the idea of disallowing people to sign up for FotW for longer than it takes to get their forum off the sidebar sounds more likely to get admins disinterested in the competition. Tally took a week break from the competition, and I got frustrated just wanting to see how we could do the second time around!

I do like the idea of theme weeks, that sounds awesome too. Limiting the voting to a smaller number of boards (say ten) would also work, but in order to work properly, sign up would have to be open all the time - the ten first topics would be your forums for that week and so on.

Just some thoughts.

I stopped doing FotW because I didn't have time to check out each board individually in order to make a fair and educated vote. It didn't seem right to vote for a board I didn't know anything about, especially because I might be endorsing a piece of crap board. :sweat:

I'm rather indifferent on this topic because I believe that with any system you're going to get pros and cons. If we keep it as it is, we're going to have the same problem (obviously). We could divide it into subcategories and do Harry Potter one week, high school the next and historical the following, but that wouldn't be fair since the HPs would have 1/100 chance of winning while the historicals would have 1/50. See?

The only solution then would be to divide it up and have multiple forum of the weeks running simultaneously either by genre or by member/character count. As I said, I'm rather indifferent, but I wanted to show it from my point of view.

The themes one sounds nice in theory, and that's also the only idea I've seen that I kinda like. Some genres are less popular/more obscure than others, so in theory it can give them more exposure and a better chance at competing. It also forces people to look at a genre they might otherwise have no interest in instead of just voting for a game based on genre alone.

However, on the flip side, it could also have an adverse effect because then people will have to wait for their theme to come up before they can enter their site. Whereas now people have a chance every week to win, if we do the theme thing then people won't have a shot at winning except every...five weeks or so, depending on how many categories there are. That could be a bit of a bummer for a lot of people who like having that weekly shot, especially if they're one of those sites that aaaalmost wins but not quite. xP If a site keeps almost winning, there must be something about it that people like so why punish it?

Similarly, some genres just don't have as many games in them as others. So if one genre (like Harry Potter) gets like 20 submissions one week, and next week it's a genre that's less popular and only like...4 sites are submitted, it's a waste of a week.

I don't think it could work. :\

I also don't think a big game is necessarily guaranteed to win, either. The first few times I entered SotE, for instance, I got like...no votes. Then one week I almost won but not quite, and the next week, I got maybe one vote, and the week after that I won with flying colors and was all, "Wtf, how did THAT happen?". xD Same with RotE. The voting can be pretty unpredictable in that regard, one week you get a lot of votes, the next week you get none, and all for the same game. Heck, I didn't think RotE would win this time! It's actually not a big game at all (though SotE is ;3).

I think perhaps saying that winners have to wait [x amount] of time after their button has come down to submit again may be a good idea. Though how would that work with, say, someone who owns multiple games? But I do like that idea as it seems more fair and reasonable than the other options to me. ^_^ But I don't like the idea of applying that to the runners up. If that rule then applies to them, they may end up forever remaining just runners up and never actual winners. :\

Blind ballots could work. People could PM their votes to the admin so there isn't a bandwagon thing, as Mousie said.

i like mousie's idea, actually, the bit about keeping records and such. :)

Theme weeks seem interesting but I don't think people would take the time to vote outside of their genre (at least, I probably wouldn't) so that could complicate things.

I don't participate in FotW too much, so it doesn't bother me, but I will say that I think that, if a board wins it, then they obviously have something good going on -- whether it be a great story, good writers, and yes, even a large fanbase. Some boards could be overlooked due to popularity votes, yes, but isn't that how it is in all elections? There's always the people who only vote for the ones they know or like, not necessarily ones who probably "deserve" it more. It's unfair, but it happens. Some people are just too lazy to look over each and every single one -- like me, which is why I don't vote anymore.

But anyway. I've seen voting systems where, if you win, you can't enter yourself into the next voting round. Worked pretty well, imo. If you guys haven't noticed, though, the submission rules for FotW say that a board can't re-apply for voting until their button is off the sidebar, and considering the button stays up there for nearly a month, well .. Seems fair enough to me.

Just saying. >_>

Edit: Well I'm an idiot. xD I thought you guys were all assuming that people were re-applying their winning boards every week. -coff-

I didn't mean that to sound like I thought Tally won because the members were all here. I just know that I voted for Tally and for Rhi Rhi's sites partly because they're successful. To me, it's hard to judge between forums just on the posted plot or appearance- a lasting member base and long running site is a sign that a site is great and that what the admins there are doing works. That's why I don't feel like FoTW is unfair- it makes since to me that the bigger, more well-known boards, will win.

But if only the bigger, more well-known long running sites are voted for and win, then why even have the Forum of the Week - why not just have a list of "these are big, well known sites that work, check them out"...?

I thought it was to give more people a chance to get focus on their forum, so everyone had equal chances?

I'm not sure if the theme weeks will work... I'm still in for the maximum forums (like 10 a week), and then the winner can't enter for a good while after again. I also liked Mousie's idea though;

*ShinLi steps into thread*

Theme weeks: I like this idea, in theory, but... in practice I'm not seeing this working very well. To include every forum that's out there you would have to get a lot of themes, so that would take a very long rotation run. Also forums generally fit into multiple themes, so that might be another 'unfair' fact. Excluding certain themes to make the rotating round time makes it unfair also.

Limiting sign-ups per week: Not seeing this working either. This is in my opinion the most unfair option of all. Everyone who wants to sign up for a week, will sign up. It will then be a run for who can sign-up the fastest after the new sign up for the week, leaving out the people who are at that moment in the wrong timezone, or who have something else to do besides to sit on their laptop/comp. As it's now, you can see it going up and down again too, one week you have 12 sign-ups, another week 22, it would be unfair for those 2, or 12 who wanted to sign-up for that week, but they were too late.

The only fair way I can see here is to create a voting account that all staff can use to count the votes once a week is finished. It will allow for anonymous voting, members won't be influenced by each other, and basically members can't also see who voted, how many people have voted etc. Although if we introduce this way of voting, I don't want to see a decline in voting. This might sound a bit snobbish, but I'm trying to please you guys. Most of you want a change, and if I'm giving you this I don't want to see the FotW dying.

All the the other ideas I've heard wouldn't work either, they are too limiting, they might even be discriminating to a point. Some ideas might sound great in words, but try to think how they would work in practice, would it be fair to all members, either the ones who signed up their forum, or the ones who voted. Limiting sign-ing ups in any way or form is in my opinion limiting forum owners. And you gotta realise that sign-up, not winning, but just participating is a great oppurtunity of getting your forum name out there. You might not win, but people will view your forum.

Further there is nothing to be changed on the way members vote. That is something besides the FotW itself. The staff can't start telling members how to vote, that they should be 'fair'. We can only go so far as into putting up rules. We can't go putting up rules on how members should vote, and what is unfair and fair in our opinion. Opinions very per member, and if you read carefully through this topic you can see this. The only way to make the FotW a bit better, or fairer, is to get the anonymous vote. Everything else is in my opinion too restrictive, and I don't like restrictive. RPG-D is restrictive enough as it is to an extent, I don't want to make it even more restrictive when it's not necessary.

The problem with having a long time before boards can sign up again, is that winning forum owners will lose interest in FotW.

Perhaps it should just be encouraged that voters should step outside their comfort zone, and have a look at all there is to offer before voting for the name they know the best?

I love the idea of having some feedback on why people vote the way they do. It's the one thing I do like about the current system, because it allows voters to submit comments as they vote, but the bandwagon thing (thanks Rhi Rhi, I was trying to think of that!) is a problem as far as I can see.

Maybe if votes were held via PM, with the option of adding a comment? At the end of the competition, all votes and comments would be published into the 'And the winner is...' thread, allowing all boards to see who got what, and what interesting notes came out of it.

Comments would, of course, be anonymous and optional.

I'm still of the belief that any board owner who doesn't vote in FotW has no business submitting their board to it. Cold as that might sound, it's just manners. If you expect to be voted for, you should vote. You're either in it, or you're not, right?

PM voting would mean we have to push the actual system along a bit more though, as the topic won't keep popping up in the search results.

Any ideas on how that could be solved?

That's a great point, Mousie, but right now losing forum owners are losing interest in FotW because they know they'll never win -- and just through the law of averages there are far, far fewer winners than there are non-winners. So whose interest is more important? Winners or losers? I think that's really what it comes down to in that specific instance.

ETA: I agree that the theme weeks sound really awesome in theory but not so much in practice because, again, of the numbers game. Unless there's going to be like, a playoff or something, where the HP winner goes against the High School winner to determine the ultimate winner. XD

What if the theme were determined by the board's category here on RPG-D. You'd still have the numbers issue, but that clearly limits the number of themes on the rotation. Of course there still would be the issue of "The same RL" "The same HP" winning the vote, but hey, I don't know how to stop that. Unfortunately my board was down for two weeks, starting the day I won FOTW, so I can't determine if FOTW has directed any more traffic to my site or not. Of late, I've been too busy with personal/family issues to really devote a whole lot of time to this site, but I'm planning to go forward with whatever is decided.
Just my two cents :)

That's why I've stopped entering. There are a few popular boards, and as soon as they make it through the rotation, they get voted for again. I'm not sure if people don't look at my board because they are turned off by the high member count or what.

It does seem like people look at what other people have voted for, look at that site, and vote for that one, following the "bandwagon." I am also in favor of the anonymous voting. People would actually have to look at the sites and not just go with the popular votes.

I also think that after a board comes off of the sidebar, they should wait a week before applying again. Otherwise it doesn't seem fair if they are never actually off of the sidebar.

But Sunni, "popular" boards generally are the ones with the high member and post count like your game has. xP By the argument lots of people here are making, a game like yours would have a better chance at winning by default just based off of that.

However, it's not exactly a true argument. The FotW competition itself has sorta proven that just because a game is popular and has a lot of members, it's not guaranteed to win. I mean, I can speak from experience: the first few times I entered SotE into it (and SotE is popular I'd say x3), we barely got a vote, and then we suddenly one week won with flying colors which surprised the heck out of me. xD The same happened with RotE (though RotE is tiny and not at all like SotE). The voting can be very, very unpredictable and smaller games won over mine a number of times before mine won. xP One week you may be in the top three, the next you may not even get a vote.

Which is cool by me. :3

The more I think about the theme week, the more I really don't like it. It would give people LESS of a chance at winning if they have to wait weeks and weeks before their theme finally pops up. :\ Right now people have a weekly chance, which is good.

The blind ballot sounds good. I would just worry that people would lose interest with that, too, or forget to do it. xD

I would also have to say that the worst thing people could do is get upset and stop entering the competition. It is unpredictable, and just by submitting your game to it you are giving yourself more exposure, and you can never go wrong with that, even if you don't win. And if your game keeps popping up in the list, more people are going to see it, notice it was there the last few rounds, and maybe take more interest in it because they'll remember it.

that's more or less where i stand. i mean, it really is discouraging, particularly as the general direction is against multi-genre boards to begin with. :(

i like the blind ballots idea as well.

One problem I see with a blind ballot is that the faith is all in the hands of the staff. I personally am 100% confident that no cheating would happen and no one would try and cheat the system, but for newer members or members who are repeatedly entering and losing, I can see rumors spreading and suspicion arising if the members didn't have some way of counting the votes themselves if they so choose.

Would anyone have a problem with the names of who voted what being released after the voting was done?

Say, it's posted that Board X wins, with this many votes, here are the people who voted for who?

I'd have no problem with that. That'd be a good idea so people could see that their vote was counted and that the outcome is correct. :3

And just to repeat my question fro before, because I'm stumped on this one...

How do we keep people voting if there's no constant reminder that it's there? Some weeks I forget, but remember at the last minute because it pops up on the Active Topics list.

Voting by PM, that won't happen anymore. There will need to be more incentive to be involved, or a more effective way of reminding people it's there.