Getting more people to vote during demoparties
category: parties [glöplog]
niels: for audio and gfx this can be done in advance even by the preselection jury :D
1) Prefilled email? Great work, Einstein, you just shared all the entries with the audience before any of the compos. I could just stop here because this illustrates your detachment from partyorganizing reality, but hey, isn't Internet arguing fun.
2) Network problems affect your email solution too, except it's even worse because people have to set up SMTP, etc. And have we stress-tested our systems? Yes. (Both PM2 and Wuhu are systems that have several years of experience in all scales of parties.) That's why we're saying it works. Have YOU tested YOURS for stress AND user-experience? No, because you just pulled it out your ass.
3) Because you proposed paper-voting initially.
Also:
4) Party voting is always intranet-based exactly BECAUSE some parties don't have an internet uplink, just a local network. 3G is thus excluded, and foreign visitors should not be forced to pay roaming charges after travelling to your party. That idea should never NEVER come up because it is insulting.
5) Flaky network occurs on occasion, but that is entirely the responsibility of the party organizers to take care of and has nothing to do with voting, because you need the network to UPLOAD YOUR ENTRIES anyway. Uploading a 60mb demo is considerably trickier than submitting a webform with ~10 votes in it.
6) Your revolutionary idea of "responsible mobile design" is WHAT WE'VE BEEN USING for YEARS. Granted, a mobile CSS will make things even easier, but it's only been in recent years when the mobile market blew up in a way that devices are a considerable target platform. Wrapping up a mobile CSS for the intranet website is additional ~5-10 minutes of work.
7) Email is NOT simple to implement because your idea either relies on manual vote counting (tedious) or automatic processing of a plaintext email where the user either filled out the form correctly or they didn't. Also, my mobile can only send email in HTML form for some reason. Have fun with that.
8) The 70% is actual vote count compared to number of visitors from Solskogen (~90 votes to ~120 people).
But okay.
I'll say it the third time: Do a party with your own method, and we'll see how well it works.
2) Network problems affect your email solution too, except it's even worse because people have to set up SMTP, etc. And have we stress-tested our systems? Yes. (Both PM2 and Wuhu are systems that have several years of experience in all scales of parties.) That's why we're saying it works. Have YOU tested YOURS for stress AND user-experience? No, because you just pulled it out your ass.
3) Because you proposed paper-voting initially.
Also:
4) Party voting is always intranet-based exactly BECAUSE some parties don't have an internet uplink, just a local network. 3G is thus excluded, and foreign visitors should not be forced to pay roaming charges after travelling to your party. That idea should never NEVER come up because it is insulting.
5) Flaky network occurs on occasion, but that is entirely the responsibility of the party organizers to take care of and has nothing to do with voting, because you need the network to UPLOAD YOUR ENTRIES anyway. Uploading a 60mb demo is considerably trickier than submitting a webform with ~10 votes in it.
6) Your revolutionary idea of "responsible mobile design" is WHAT WE'VE BEEN USING for YEARS. Granted, a mobile CSS will make things even easier, but it's only been in recent years when the mobile market blew up in a way that devices are a considerable target platform. Wrapping up a mobile CSS for the intranet website is additional ~5-10 minutes of work.
7) Email is NOT simple to implement because your idea either relies on manual vote counting (tedious) or automatic processing of a plaintext email where the user either filled out the form correctly or they didn't. Also, my mobile can only send email in HTML form for some reason. Have fun with that.
8) The 70% is actual vote count compared to number of visitors from Solskogen (~90 votes to ~120 people).
But okay.
I'll say it the third time: Do a party with your own method, and we'll see how well it works.
And seeing as how everyone's a fucking boyscout about voting and outreach and whatnot I don't think there will be a lack of volunteers ;)
(another small addition to my jury "idea": methinks that a group of volunteer people who aren't completely off their face will regulate themselves pretty well in regard to favoritism, buddyvoting and other likewise things that *do* have major impact on normal votes)
photon, no offense, but apart from 100 other problems with your suggestions:
perhaps you should realise that outside of rich scandinavia, smartphones are still somewhat of a luxury. even in germany to some extend. so this kind of voting would actually exclude lots of people (including those who don't use a smartphone as a conscious choice), and thus is a much less open and encouraging way of voting than the normal network way.
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However, I would say that most mobile phone users can open an email and enter numbers into it.
perhaps you should realise that outside of rich scandinavia, smartphones are still somewhat of a luxury. even in germany to some extend. so this kind of voting would actually exclude lots of people (including those who don't use a smartphone as a conscious choice), and thus is a much less open and encouraging way of voting than the normal network way.
As for the regular voting deal (here I go, posting while I promised myself not to)..
It's broken. At least that depends on how you look at it, it's broken in the same way most practical outcome of democracy is.
So yes: to balance things out it's important to have more votes. More participation. And that's when it becomes like a commercial product: it has to be extremely easy in order to really take off. So something as simple as tapping thumbnails / coloring a box (on paper). Something that doesn't require me to directly compare on prod. to another.
And I can do that on paper at the infodesk. Or on my phone. Or on a laptop. It's a bitch to organise all that though.
It's broken. At least that depends on how you look at it, it's broken in the same way most practical outcome of democracy is.
So yes: to balance things out it's important to have more votes. More participation. And that's when it becomes like a commercial product: it has to be extremely easy in order to really take off. So something as simple as tapping thumbnails / coloring a box (on paper). Something that doesn't require me to directly compare on prod. to another.
And I can do that on paper at the infodesk. Or on my phone. Or on a laptop. It's a bitch to organise all that though.
dipswitch, and it's not only about being luxury, I just don't need to upgrade my 10 year old phone, so it would be pointless to buy a smartphone, even if I could afford it. :) Same for many other people, I'm sure.
i think it's fair to say that people without a smartphone don't get to vote
i mean really, what's a poor person's opinion worth anyway?
i mean really, what's a poor person's opinion worth anyway?
Exactly!
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what's a poor person's opinion worth anyway?
Voting a'la USA
I'm only addressing the problem of getting good votes and many votes in the system easily, and saving time for orgas in the process. Just to be clear what I care about and see as the problem. Nothing else.
If you think 55-70% visitors voting for a few prods in each compo is fine, I can't help you, and you shouldn't bother with such a thread as this, should you? It's all fine, we just need to shout 'please vote' a few more times in the speakers...
If you think the problem is 'people', there is no solution, technical or otherwise. But we can make it easy for them to vote actively, and if you think this won't result in more and better votes you're wrong.
@Gargaj: The article addresses that the network needs to work for voting during compos. As you must know, a flaky network will still result in uploads or failing that (as I'm sure you've experienced) a poor user who can't connect handing it in on a USB stick - or even emailing it.
The problems you see with email voting during compos are easily solvable, and they are nothing compared to the vast chasm problem of people forgetting what to vote for, going to bed instead, or just vote for a few in each compo. That's where vote quality and quantity plummets, and it's the only thing I address.
And if orgas think spoilers in time for each compo as opposed to just after it is the end of the world, then you should stop putting the contributions in your prevoted order with the best one last, hm? However, this, too, solvable. No, you figure it out.
Voting during compos will give results, I'm sure of this. I can certainly see a mobile web form as almost an equal to an email form. But you don't play with zero percent vote loss on all manner of mobile phones, mobile browsers, and roaming charges. With email, you don't have to worry about network or WAN stability or load at all during compos.
As I write, any voting-during-compo solution does not exclude regular voting systems as alternative, or someone logging into their webmail on any computer or in any app anytime they like.
Just to spell it out to those who seem to think you need a phone to do email...
If you think 55-70% visitors voting for a few prods in each compo is fine, I can't help you, and you shouldn't bother with such a thread as this, should you? It's all fine, we just need to shout 'please vote' a few more times in the speakers...
If you think the problem is 'people', there is no solution, technical or otherwise. But we can make it easy for them to vote actively, and if you think this won't result in more and better votes you're wrong.
@Gargaj: The article addresses that the network needs to work for voting during compos. As you must know, a flaky network will still result in uploads or failing that (as I'm sure you've experienced) a poor user who can't connect handing it in on a USB stick - or even emailing it.
The problems you see with email voting during compos are easily solvable, and they are nothing compared to the vast chasm problem of people forgetting what to vote for, going to bed instead, or just vote for a few in each compo. That's where vote quality and quantity plummets, and it's the only thing I address.
And if orgas think spoilers in time for each compo as opposed to just after it is the end of the world, then you should stop putting the contributions in your prevoted order with the best one last, hm? However, this, too, solvable. No, you figure it out.
Voting during compos will give results, I'm sure of this. I can certainly see a mobile web form as almost an equal to an email form. But you don't play with zero percent vote loss on all manner of mobile phones, mobile browsers, and roaming charges. With email, you don't have to worry about network or WAN stability or load at all during compos.
As I write, any voting-during-compo solution does not exclude regular voting systems as alternative, or someone logging into their webmail on any computer or in any app anytime they like.
Just to spell it out to those who seem to think you need a phone to do email...
next up: whitepaper and a seminar at revision!
Oh look, a Hugi article.
I'm pretty sure gloom sits at home in a comfortable chair, caressing a naked cat and going "mwahahahahahahah"!
Whitepapers have been written and seminars held on far sillier topics, not that this is anything but an ordinary argument with propositions and deductions which is perfectly refutable and testable.
I like to write, and I like to make my point free from misunderstandings. I like a good argument, and I don't mind fierce discussions. If I get arguments back, I address them, and if they post 'tryna be funny with a meme' and can't argue their point, I can do no more but will have left the topic well argued from my side at least.
Love the Beeker. ;)
I like to write, and I like to make my point free from misunderstandings. I like a good argument, and I don't mind fierce discussions. If I get arguments back, I address them, and if they post 'tryna be funny with a meme' and can't argue their point, I can do no more but will have left the topic well argued from my side at least.
Love the Beeker. ;)
Voting on paper: no way maybe on a party with MAX 20-30 persons.
Voting on mail? nahh! too many ppl will have problems with SMTP servers etc. (even if we "should" know that stuff.. but not everyone does) and ppl maybe only bringing a "party-computer" with no mail configured atall.
some vote-machines at infodesk. and wifi and possability of voting when the product is shown (but STILL with screenshots for those voting later) is a good thing. I would like to sit there with phone in one hand, beer in another and vote when enjoying the stuff.
and most important: the times I havent voted is always when compo has been too late. later then 1-2AM is a very very VERY bad idea.
Voting on mail? nahh! too many ppl will have problems with SMTP servers etc. (even if we "should" know that stuff.. but not everyone does) and ppl maybe only bringing a "party-computer" with no mail configured atall.
some vote-machines at infodesk. and wifi and possability of voting when the product is shown (but STILL with screenshots for those voting later) is a good thing. I would like to sit there with phone in one hand, beer in another and vote when enjoying the stuff.
and most important: the times I havent voted is always when compo has been too late. later then 1-2AM is a very very VERY bad idea.
Photon: it's possible to write html pages in such a way that votes aren't lost if the connection is lost. Just send results asynchronously. This also permits typing your votes into a desktop PC in worst case.
Photon: your point just doesn't make any sense.. i was left thinking "wat?" too. I mean, seriously: "I can certainly see a mobile web form as almost an equal to an email form"?
Just to put this in perspective:
You're saying we vote during the demo show. Ok, I see the benefits, although it'd be distracting and annoying if you're in a dark hall surrounded by bright screens during the compo. But let's roll with it.
So you're going to need a device that does email. Either you stay at your desk by your computer, far from the screen, or you sit at the front with everyone else.. which means your phone. If you have a smart phone, otherwise you can't vote anyway without going back to the computer later.
This is probably in a foreign country where you have no (or very expensive) data. So you're probably on the party wifi network. Maybe the party has an internet link, maybe not, either way it's probably not going to be reliable.
Anyway, the party voting server. This is set up to send out emails. Fine, it fires an email off to your ISP. If there's internet. If not, ummm. If there is, your ISP gets it, marks it as spam since it's not from a known mail server, and you find it when you get home a few days later.
Best case, it comes through. What's it like? A nice form where you can tap on the screenshots? No, it'll just be a long list with the screenshots embedded, and when you hit reply your phone will probably strip the attachments and you'll just have a list of names, and you'll have to type something under each.
Then, if the email makes it back, the server has to somehow parse the html to extract your votes. Each phone is probably going to fuck the html around in a different way. But that's OK, it's easily solved with regex!
How the hell is that better than even the current system?
As it is, we can open the voting website on our phones, and just tap stuff to vote. If anything isn't working, the phone tells us it's not working, and we know we need to hit that retry button.
It's a million times better than your email idea. Voting is much easier. Vote counting is much easier. It's easier to run. And it's far more reliable. And this is what we *already use*. The only actual improvement you suggested is opening the voting earlier, which was already said many times.
Just to put this in perspective:
You're saying we vote during the demo show. Ok, I see the benefits, although it'd be distracting and annoying if you're in a dark hall surrounded by bright screens during the compo. But let's roll with it.
So you're going to need a device that does email. Either you stay at your desk by your computer, far from the screen, or you sit at the front with everyone else.. which means your phone. If you have a smart phone, otherwise you can't vote anyway without going back to the computer later.
This is probably in a foreign country where you have no (or very expensive) data. So you're probably on the party wifi network. Maybe the party has an internet link, maybe not, either way it's probably not going to be reliable.
Anyway, the party voting server. This is set up to send out emails. Fine, it fires an email off to your ISP. If there's internet. If not, ummm. If there is, your ISP gets it, marks it as spam since it's not from a known mail server, and you find it when you get home a few days later.
Best case, it comes through. What's it like? A nice form where you can tap on the screenshots? No, it'll just be a long list with the screenshots embedded, and when you hit reply your phone will probably strip the attachments and you'll just have a list of names, and you'll have to type something under each.
Then, if the email makes it back, the server has to somehow parse the html to extract your votes. Each phone is probably going to fuck the html around in a different way. But that's OK, it's easily solved with regex!
How the hell is that better than even the current system?
As it is, we can open the voting website on our phones, and just tap stuff to vote. If anything isn't working, the phone tells us it's not working, and we know we need to hit that retry button.
It's a million times better than your email idea. Voting is much easier. Vote counting is much easier. It's easier to run. And it's far more reliable. And this is what we *already use*. The only actual improvement you suggested is opening the voting earlier, which was already said many times.
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I'm pretty sure gloom sits at home in a comfortable chair, caressing a naked cat and going "mwahahahahahahah"!
Actually, it's more like this:
Photon makes uncool demoshock to partyorgas brain.
Just to chime in, as a visitor I absolutely wouldn't want to vote during a compo. When one is playing I just want to enjoy and concentrate on the entries and not bother about what kind of scores I'm going to give them right away. Besides, it takes time to decide how you're going to vote, I for one can't just do it on the spot. Not to mention all the impracticalities mentioned before. I wouldn't even consider fucking votesheets and during-compo-voting without some empirical evidence at a demoparty (and personally I still wouldn't vote during the compo).
i don't want to vote during the demo compo, but it'd be good during the music compos. They tend to have a lot more entries, it's harder (for me at least) to remember lots of audio-only entries too. End result: I remember ~3 entries that were particularly good, perhaps, and the rest get left unvoted.
(and yeah, I likely change my mind later, but that's OK, we can change votes with the handy web form :)
(and yeah, I likely change my mind later, but that's OK, we can change votes with the handy web form :)
As for assembly, making a robot walking with volume shadows with good camera direction usually wins. This is the basic. And for artsy-farsty demos wins on the little parties because the voters are mainly coders, musician and gfx ppl.
Well, it's all about choices. We will never go live-voting only. All other options are still available (except paper and email).
Yeah choices are good, I was mostly criticizing Photon's "solution"...