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If I am reading this correctly, someone went to social media sites to beg for votes? That makes me really angry. I colored a dragon and entered him and left it to Windstone and the forum members to decide who won. And someone cheated because that is what this behavior is, cheating. I wish you would just cancel this quest because cheaters shouldn’t be rewarded.
If I am reading this correctly, someone went to social media sites to beg for votes? That makes me really angry. I colored a dragon and entered him and left it to Windstone and the forum members to decide who won. And someone cheated because that is what this behavior is, cheating. I wish you would just cancel this quest because cheaters shouldn’t be rewarded.
As stated before, it’s not against the rules for people to ask for votes on their social media sites. It would just be impossible for us to track and validate people engaging in this kind of behavior.
While we’re open to the discussion of alternatives for future quests, this one will go on as planned.
People DO have to register for the forum to vote, so the decision is still being made by forum members. Possibly, some people are registering just to vote in the contest, however, many people only register for the forum to participate in Melody’s raffles as well.
Actually it is against the rules because contestants are not allowed to identify themselves as the owner of a particular entry. So by soliciting votes for a certain piece or saying I entered X piece and it made it to the finals please vote for me, that person has broken the rules. You can’t tell forum members to remain anonymous and then allow others to publicly beg for votes because they are no longer anonymous.
Actually it is against the rules because contestants are not allowed to identify themselves as the owner of a particular entry. So by soliciting votes for a certain piece or saying I entered X piece and it made it to the finals please vote for me, that person has broken the rules. You can’t tell forum members to remain anonymous and then allow others to publicly beg for votes because they are no longer anonymous.
Prior to the judging, what you’re saying is true. AND I would remove any claims made now by an individual on the forum or other locations Windstone manages.
But, I don’t think the official contest rules prohibit people from claiming their entries. This is just our preference on the forum and other official Windstone locations.
If you are going to ask people to not claim their entries, then it should apply to all forms of media. You have people playing by the rules of not claiming their entries and others who are publicly claiming their entries. It’s not an even playing field.
If the idea of these quests was to have a fair playing field, this is not fair. A coloring contest is a great idea as long as the entries are judged on the criteria, but begging for votes on social media has nothing to do w/ judging on criteria.
It’s cheating. We all know what the rules are, and we all know what the spirit of the quests and their rules are. This is a blatant violation. Cheaters shouldn’t be rewarded, and it’s pretty obvious that a cheater is going to win because they cheated. But at least I understand now why some pieces have so many votes and others have a reasonable amount based on past voting trends. I was wondering at the huge surge of voting in this contest compared to past quests.
If you do nothing now the cheaters will continue to cheat because there are no penalties for poor behavior. I teach my children they can’t cheat and break the rules. It’s a shame I can’t show them that applies to adults as well because we ARE adults who are behaving worse than grade school children. I am disappointed in this forum and its participants, particularly if there are no penalties for poor behavior.
It would be equally unfair to penalize people that I can’t prove are doing anything wrong.
As there is no way for me to validate IF anyone is using social media to solicit votes, there is no way for me to enforce a penalty. Based on that, it is more fair to allow EVERYONE to do it than to try to penalize people with no evidence.
I don’t know if you use Facebook, but it is relatively easy to block the public from seeing your posts. It is equally easy to block a single person from seeing your posts. Even if I was friends with everyone on the forum (I am not) and knew all of their real names (I do not), they could still prevent me from seeing what they post to a Facebook site.
Equally anyone with a reasonable amount of skill and cunning could “fake” a screen shot of someone posting their entry to Facebook to TRY and get them disqualified. So I can’t accept a report that someone did something wrong unless I am able to validate it personally by observing the offending behavior.
I apologize if you do not like this approach, however, the last thing we would want is for these quests to turn into witch-hunts where all the time is spent trying to track down and validate accusations of wrong-doing which may or may not be factual and cannot actually be confirmed.
Many sites larger than ours accept entries for art contests and then allow the public to vote on them. This is a fairly established practice. These contests also generally allow users to solicit votes from social media networking. It is not considered a cheating activity as ANYONE is allowed to do it.
given what happened, wouldn’t it be better to have people within Windstone judge for now?
4 things I'm looking for:
1. Mother Meerkat
2. production color Sitting Young Oriental dragons to be made in more colors besides VF, Brimstone would be awesome!
3. Female Griffin – Siamese with White
4. September Raffle Prize 2022 AHD Male GriffinThis was a competition I kinda thought the windstone crew might want to judge anyway. Since they are the ones who know what they can paint as a real design and what they can’t. Some of the designs that have been limited editions are quite elaborate (ocelot griffins come to mind since they are quite recent). But I would have thought that since the windstone folks got to pick the finalists, if they couldnt paint it, they would not have picked it for the final round lol.
Personally I have pretty much given up hope of any sort of fairness for this particular quest. All you have to do to see why is count the digital votes vs the traditional votes >.< My main hope at this point is to find a way so we can perhaps make the next one have a more level playing field. You can't kick a field goal with a mountain in the way =)…I am disappointed in this forum and its participants, particularly if there are no penalties for poor behavior.
Given the impossibility of accurately and completely policing media networks for potential abuse, I would have to say that your statement is unfair to Windstone and to everyone who is involved in setting up these Quests.
I understand that it’s disappointing to find out that some participants are resorting to unfair tactics, but the blame should be placed where it belongs.
@Kiya: Just my two cents: Seeing the situation that seems to be developing here would it be an option to modify the rules even at this late date? If fairness is at stake, IMO it would be justified. My suggestion at this point would be to either leave the judging to a single person: Melody, or to the Windstone painters, as has been suggested already.
I think the same kind of ‘cheating’ will take place with email voting. I, myself, do think it’s cheating even when other sites and venues allow it. I, personally, will not vote for anything just because a friend thinks I should (maybe that makes me a bad friend). I vote on the piece that I think deserves it.
I support Windstone employees doing the judging or a forum judging panel. And, if I was part of the panel, I wouldn’t expect anything in return. However, I can see where some would. In that case, I would be happy with an ATC card, a fuzzy, candy, etc.
I really hope that something gets worked out because these quests are really a lot of fun. 🙂
-- Angie
This isn’t fun anymore. 🙁
While I understand both Windstone’s position about not being able to control social media use, I can also see other forum members frustration. The voting is way off between the 2 categories and past quests. 🙁
Can’t we just behave and respect each other?
Looking for Blue Fawn Baby Kirin
Sanguine Oriental Test Paints, kinglet
Sun Dragon Koi #3This isn’t fun anymore. 🙁
While I understand both Windstone’s position about not being able to control social media use, I can also see other forum members frustration. The voting is way off between the 2 categories and past quests. 🙁
Can’t we just behave and respect each other?
Sorry for the problems with this quest. None of this was foreseen by any of us, but I really don’t like how this is turning out either as the contest was conceived as a contest for the best artwork, not the most friends. And, if there is evidence of true cheating, then what do we do? If we toss that person’s entry, what about all the other legit votes? Would we re-vote it? Or can the staff take over and vote? We will discuss all of the above before this is over and see if there is a solution that is fair to all.
Well now I am confused. What is considered “true cheating”? Do you mean like sitting at your computer and creating a hundred accounts to vote for yourself? That type of cheating?
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Please visit My Webpage to see my art and PYO's that I've done in the past!There is some evidence that actual forum rules are being violated versus the usage of social media being leveraged to solicit votes. I don’t know what the plan of action is as of yet, but I WOULD suggest that you keep in mind that while we cannot police actions taken on other websites, we CAN monitor the actual Windstone forum and the quests to not exempt anyone from the normal penalties for violating the forum rules.
WOW!!! 0.o I’m actually really happy I didn’t enter this quest after all that’s happened. Whoever ( i don’t know who it was either ) if in fact someone is, soliciting votes from friends they ought to be ashamed and embarrassed!
Personally, if there is proof of even ONE person doing this I’d scrap ALL the votes and let the windstone staff have a vote amongst them selves *nods*
Why not have a live feed or something (not necessary, just a fun idea), have all the staff and family write a number in on a scrap piece of paper (once for each category) secret ballot style and majority vote on each one wins. End of story.
Cheaters should never prosper!
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