pouët.net

helloes,

as the entries of the C64 Intro Creation Compo are slowly dropping in on pouet I once again keep putting my head around the idea of hosting online compos on pouet like the c64 world does on csdb.

I think online competitions are a great addition to the demoscene as they (also) attract creative people who dont go and compete at parties (anymore). The combination of a relatively limited ruleset (limited to $theme, $platform, $size, $colorscheme, $alloftheabove) and a reasonable deadline together with the fact that entries appear as they are put into the compo and are not only shown after the deadline seems to be a big motivator to contribute - see csdb where theres usually loads of entries and participants.

There have been such compos projected on pouet in the past, not only the csdb ones but also for example the TMDC, but so far the actual compo always took place on another site (at least I dont know of any online compo attempts directly on pouet).

With pouet as it is it would probably mean to make a bbs post stating the rules and deadlines. The entries would then be mailed (or otherwise transfered) to a defined group of compo orgas and added to pouet if the rules are met. When the deadline is reached the current thumb-ratio accounts for the ranking (or just the thumbups, this would need to be worked out).

Of course there are some obvious flaws with this system, for example entries which are added earlier have more time to accumulate votes and there is no way of "freezing" the thumbs once the voting phase is over (this would have to be done manually in the "results.txt"). Also there is no way of stopping people of adding prods to the compo "party" themselfes and it may require admin-work to keep it clean (but thats the case with all the "normal" parties too).
A special online-compo feature on pouet (where you can add a rules.txt, compo orga-accounts and set deadlines for submission and voting etc) would of course rock hard (and in the end would be just a different way to add a "party"), but this seems rather unlikely at this point so the idea is to do it with the site we have.

So do you think this is a good idea and would like to organize or participate in an online competition on pouet? Or should these stick to their approriate sites and communities?

This is a great idea. I would very likely be interested in participating in such a compo, so long as it's something more interesting then say, for example, "your best Turrican 2 highscore".

While I would hesitate to throw the Pouet name behind it (mostly because I have enough on my hands already), I don't think anything is stopping you from going ahead.

dont like the thumbs == final results part.

The user with the worst English entered into the thread! (I used google translate for it... JSYK)

Let me explain. CSDb is both a forum where you can discuss the posted work, and an independent (!) database on which these works are stored. In addition, this resource is mainly devoted to one platform - C64 (less often - C128, VIC-20, etc). In turn, Pouet is only a forum where you can discuss works for various platforms. Actually there's not everything, only executables (for your information, CSDb hosts a lot of different online competitions, of which, prior to Pouet, according to its laws, ICC is the most active). All the buttons 'download' lead to another site (mostly scene.org, untergrund, csdb and amigascne, rarely local resources). Unlike CSDb and any party system, there are only three "grades" (thumb up, thumb down and piggie), as opposed to the ten-point system. Therefore, online compos on Pouet are difficult to implement for all reasons.

I have to reveal my secret - this year I wanted to hold a sizecode competition on any platform myself, I even started writing rules and took the domain litecode.cf (yes, this is a free domain... I just don’t have the money to rent a normal one). But I don't even know how to make sites - according to my ideas, it should be the simplest, almost textual, with some tables and small screenshots of the work, but it didn’t even come to that.
(by the way, the idea has not died, and if you are also interested, write to me ... just kidding lol)

If something is wrong in my text - correct me here.

Well, what would you propose instead?
The way I see it the only alternatives are either a jury based results system (which I dont like a lot plus even the Meteoriks have problems finding jurors), having text-based voting in the bbs (which is really cumbersome for the orgas and would probably result in way less votes because people cant be arsed to write it all down) or using external tools/sites (which is not the idea of having _pouet_ based online compos).

And yes, the voting and community over at csdb is somewhat different (voting scale 1-10 and you can always adjust your vote afterwards).
To get "serious" results just with binary votes you need as much of them as possible. Three entries with 1 thumbup each doesnt really make for a fun compo.

The filehosting is not really a concern, tho. The compo-orga would need some hosting-space for the prods (which is really not that hard to get hold of) and Im sure the scene.org admins would be happy to receive the final prod-pack and archive it after the deadline is over.

The idea of having a dedicated and own site for such compos sounds tempting but first you would need a webdesigner/coder to do it and it would have a lot less participation at first even if you promo it on the bbs, in the news-section, irc, social media and what else is there.

Anyway, Gargaj is right - better than to discuss every little detail and possible problem up front we should just try it.
So anyone who has a cool idea for a (small and doable) compo and/or wants to help me with laying out the rules and check/add the entries: hit me up on IRC or pouetcompo<at>arvenius.de

what about changing voting system on pouet.net generally, from thumbs to a number scale .. actual votes could be automatically transformed to the scale, for example down thumb to 0 points, up thumb to 10 points .. would help to vote in cases, where it's hard to decide ..

i dont know, i would probably not do results at all, just a call to action to a topic & deadline.

It should look like competition without competition. If I understood what you meant.

:D

The Idea is splendid!
But won´t work out!
The problem sits inside the system we live in by now: PC!
On C=64/Amiga/Amstrad/etc. you can easily call out some competition by just saying sth like: "I bet noone beats me on the best XYZ-effect in the next 3 months!" ...and coders get offended and start trying to beat you! It´s about platforms with known limits atleast, so you exactly know if you can pull sth up in that time or not!
PC ain´t like that! :(
As much as i´d love to see such compos (even if just for the purpose of "more prods between parties again, just like in the golden days!").... i don´t see this working with any much of concepts at all! :/ (while there are some for sure!)
And i am really sorry to having written all this, but i am just that type of human called "Realist"! ;)

Good thing is: if you really want to have a compo (maybe because you don´t visit parties, as you said!) you always can do so by using good old computers with same limits for everyone! Just make an account on CSDB for example!

Changing the vote-system on Pouet is out of Question btw...it is and will stay as is! (while changing and using down=0 and up=10 (as suggested) would set some prods in stone and top1000 would never ever change again! :P )

We can try, though: just make a new BBS-Post with a nice ruleset and we´ll see how many ppl will jump on it! Just has to be sth very attractive/inviting in the first place...make it magnetic to coders! ;) (coders always work the longest time on a prod and so they are the ones you want to jump on it...finding musicians/graphicians for their final splendid work will be a smaller problem and they will do it on their own anyway, while them artists will jump on it for its splendidness (hopefully anyway as well) !)

Pro-tip: create a compo with the rules you imagine, host it anywhere but here, maybe even with a positive voting system, and still you will probably get concentrated criticism for whatever detail there is to corrode, from this place, if you source participants from it.
This is no moon.

Say that you want to find coders for platform X and you will find them. While there are no parties at which works for Windows / Linux / MacOS are published, it is rare to see those in the top.
If you want to arrange a challenge on a platform with limitations, but without missing modern trends - you can write demos for fantasy platforms like PICO-8 or TIC-80 (this one is free!).