[Discussion] Bitcointalk Community Awards 🏆

[joker_josue]

We were also curious about how users feel about implementing a rule which would give chances to more people to win. What we were thinking about is the following: to arrange things thus the winner of a category cannot be the same person from previous contests. Or he can be, as this does not mean a ban -- but he can be with more efforts. To be more precise, all previous winners could start with a coefficient of 0.8. Attention! -- this happens only regarding the previously won category!

Tbh I see no reason to make things more complicated and to introduce sort of handicap for the last year's winners for the sake of more different people winning the award each year. I say keep it as it was the previous years and let the best members win, no matter how many times before they won the award.

I understand the idea, but that would be addicting the game right from the start. Because users did not start at the same level, some would have more advantages than others. This would be the same as a football championship, starting with the previous year's winner with negative points. Something that doesn't make sense and doesn't happen.

It will be to let the vote roll and see which users stood out for the community. We will certainly have repeaters, because it's almost inevitable and eventually we'll have rookies.


EDIT:
The idea for the merits looks good to me!

[sam00]

~

Even though we are talking about a community event and there will be a lot of users that will have no right to vote, I think the changes will make it more fair than last year and thus more enjoyable for everyone!

I'd personally go for a "minimum of 20 posts during the last year" sort of rule instead of a maximum inactivity time but that's a rather personal opinion.

[GazetaBitcoin]

It will be even better if you give a date/month for their latest post to be accepted them for the votes.

I addressed that part here. So by active users we understand users which were and / or are active during current year (and, of course, made notable contributions during this year).

My opinion is not to limit it. Let others to beat him and be better than him. Limiting means you are going to reward someone who might done less than him but still receiving the honour that was supposed to not for him.

Thank you for your feedback.

You guessed well

Are you telling me I am genius? 😉

Have I ever said something to make you think the opposite? Hihi!

I appreciate I am heavily biased here given I have previously won the same category twice, but I wouldn't take this approach. You could easily end up in the situation where someone is deemed to have won, but someone else would have won the "popular vote", by getting more votes which were each worth less. I can already picture the arguments which could arise [...]

Thank you for your feedback.

I say keep it as it was the previous years and let the best members win, no matter how many times before they won the award.

Thank you for your feedback.

This would be the same as a football championship, starting with the previous year's winner with negative points. Something that doesn't make sense and doesn't happen.

You know, actually, this does happen At least in Romania (I did not have time to search for the subject if it happened in other countries too). But in Romania, during past years, multiple teams demoted to second league started with a negative number of points. This happened for same reason: during the previous year, the teams did not pay their players. They made complaints to the Football League and the committee which judged these cases always gave same decision: the club has a given amount of time to pay the player(s), otherwise a number of points will be deducted from the points the team earned. At first offense they took, usually 3 points from the team's earned points. Then, if the team still did not pay after the given amount of time, they applied a second penalty -- maybe 3 points again or maybe more. And so on. This article describes the case of Astra Giurgiu, ex-championship winner of Romanian League, which, after being demoted in League 2, started the new year from -6 points.

Gaz Metan Medias, another case of Romanian championship, was sanctioned last year with 50 points, reaching a score of -27 points.

Articles are in Romanian, but this is less important. The idea is that it may happen

It will be to let the vote roll and see which users stood out for the community. We will certainly have repeaters, because it's almost inevitable and eventually we'll have rookies.

Thank you for your feedback.

The idea for the merits looks good to me!

Glad to hear that

Even though we are talking about a community event and there will be a lot of users that will have no right to vote, I think the changes will make it more fair than last year and thus more enjoyable for everyone!

We are really hoping so too! As I wrote with multiple occasions in the past, it's important to learn from what happened at previous events and try to make things better

I'd personally go for a "minimum of 20 posts during the last year" sort of rule instead of a maximum inactivity time but that's a rather personal opinion.

Thank you for your feedback.

[Rikafip]

You know, actually, this does happen At least in Romania (I did not have time to search for the subject if it happened in other countries too). But in Romania, during past years, multiple teams demoted to second league started with a negative number of points. This happened for same reason: during the previous year, the teams did not pay their players.

That happens in other leagues too, but always as a part of punishment and not just because team won the championship (like it would be in this case) as it would be quite unfair.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

It will be even better if you give a date/month for their latest post to be accepted them for the votes.

I addressed that part here. So by active users we understand users which were and / or are active during current year (and, of course, made notable contributions during this year).

How do you define active user? Only by "Last Active: " column on profile page?

I will suggest last post the made.

For example last post made before November 2021, receive any vote, will not be counted. Also after the launch of the award pool if the same criteria of the user makes any post then that will not include them as whitelisted too. I think this will prevent them to abuse the rule.

[joker_josue]

This would be the same as a football championship, starting with the previous year's winner with negative points. Something that doesn't make sense and doesn't happen.

You know, actually, this does happen At least in Romania (I did not have time to search for the subject if it happened in other countries too). But in Romania, during past years, multiple teams demoted to second league started with a negative number of points. This happened for same reason: during the previous year, the teams did not pay their players. They made complaints to the Football League and the committee which judged these cases always gave same decision: the club has a given amount of time to pay the player(s), otherwise a number of points will be deducted from the points the team earned. At first offense they took, usually 3 points from the team's earned points. Then, if the team still did not pay after the given amount of time, they applied a second penalty -- maybe 3 points again or maybe more. And so on. This article describes the case of Astra Giurgiu, ex-championship winner of Romanian League, which, after being demoted in League 2, started the new year from -6 points.

Gaz Metan Medias, another case of Romanian championship, was sanctioned last year with 50 points, reaching a score of -27 points.

Articles are in Romanian, but this is less important. The idea is that it may happen

Thanks for sharing this information.

But this happens, not only in Romania, it is in almost all championships where there is some illegality on the part of the clubs. Now, the penalty is not because they won or dropped, but because they didn't pay players or committed some fraud.

And that's what I'm talking about, penalizing for having won doesn't make sense. 

[LoyceV]

1. Votes for inactive users will not be taken into consideration anymore. The event is related to the activity made by users during current year and not for the past.

So is posting (or logging in) in 2022 enough? Or is there a minimum number of posts required?

2. No merit sending is allowed from nominees to users which nominated them.

This should reduce the drama involving votes. Just to be clear: the way it's written now you're counting all Merits sent to any of the users. I assume this only counts for merit sent in the voting-topic, right? Otherwise Merit sources will end up at around -500 votes.

We were also curious about how users feel about implementing a rule which would give chances to more people to win. What we were thinking about is the following: to arrange things thus the winner of a category cannot be the same person from previous contests. Or he can be, as this does not mean a ban -- but he can be with more efforts. To be more precise, all previous winners could start with a coefficient of 0.8. Attention! -- this happens only regarding the previously won category!

This is tricky. It feels like my opinion on this is a conflict of interest, but I agree to the points made here:

I appreciate I am heavily biased here given I have previously won the same category twice, but I wouldn't take this approach. You could easily end up in the situation where someone is deemed to have won, but someone else would have won the "popular vote", by getting more votes which were each worth less. I can already picture the arguments which could arise, particularly if there will be prizes involved. It is also disincentivizes people from voting for the previous winner, since their vote will be less valuable than if they voted for someone else. I would either go down the route of excluding previous winners or doing nothing at all.

You must have 50 earned merits to vote

This feels too restrictive to me. I would have opted for a lower number, say 20 earned merits, but that's just me.

See this list: 2924 users received 50 Merits, 5632 users received 20 Merits. And for some of those "received" doesn't mean they "earned" it.

[GazetaBitcoin]

Is it right to assume user must have 50 earned merit of all time? Do you count earned merit after voting phase started?

In the moment of submitting a vote, a user must have earned until then at least 50 merits. If he earned only 49 he will have to wait until meeting the minimum requirement for voting. Only earned merits are counted, not airdropped ones.

Since there are many changes, IMO this addition (0.8 coefficient/multiplier) isn't needed.

Thank you for your feedback.

How do you define active user? Only by "Last Active: " column on profile page?

I will suggest last post the made.

For example last post made before November 2021, receive any vote, will not be counted. Also after the launch of the award pool if the same criteria of the user makes any post then that will not include them as whitelisted too. I think this will prevent them to abuse the rule.

Good point. Besides, always keep in mind that -- normally -- for a user to be nominated at any category, he should have done something extraordinary during this year. Otherwise what's the point of nominating him? Imagine there was someone who made a post in April 2022. Okay, he is eligible to be nominated, as he was active this year. But he made only 1 post. What's the point to nominate him?

We don't need to struggle too much with these very minor details, in my opinion... Such details such be common sense... Of course, if 1000 users would vote for someone with only 1 post made this year, that person would probably win a category, although he did not bring any notable contribution to the forum... but chances for such particular events to happen are very low, I believe.

Of course, everybody can nominated anybody they want (if the nominees are eligible) but, in my opinion -- and I thought this idea is shared by others too -- nominees should also be iconic figures of the forum during 2022, right? Not just someone who made a post in the entire year and which is still eligible to be nominated.

And that's what I'm talking about, penalizing for having won doesn't make sense. 

Yup, I got your point

This is why we asked for feedback -- to see what everybody feels about this suggestion.

So is posting (or logging in) in 2022 enough? Or is there a minimum number of posts required?

I replied above

This should reduce the drama involving votes. Just to be clear: the way it's written now you're counting all Merits sent to any of the users. I assume this only counts for merit sent in the voting-topic, right?

Yes, this is correct. The measure was taken after the events which occurred at previous two contests.

This is tricky. It feels like my opinion on this is a conflict of interest, but I agree to the points made here:

~

Yup, thank you for your feedback.

See this list: 2924 users received 50 Merits, 5632 users received 20 Merits. And for some of those "received" doesn't mean they "earned" it.

Thank you for showing these numbers, LoyceV. I am not sure how many users voted at previous contests but, for sure, they were much less than 2924 Let's see how it goes this year and if changes will be required, we'll readjust for next year, as we already did now

[Welsh]

You must have 50 earned merits to vote

This feels too restrictive to me. I would have opted for a lower number, say 20 earned merits, but that's just me.

I feel the same way, I understand putting a limit on it. However, these are suppose to be community awards, and therefore involve the community in determining who gets those rewards. Excluding a rather large portion of the community just doesn't feel right, in light of that.

I know we're trying to limit abuse, but abuse is probably going to happen somewhat anyway. Even if it's not intended abuse, users will vote for their favourite users despite what they've done in the previous year. There's always going to be a bias. I think the threshold for merit should be lowered though. Try to exclude those that haven't been considered by those with merit, to have contributed greatly enough yet, but don't not include those that have earned a decent amount of merit. 50 is a lot, especially when you're a newish user that has joined this year.

I've previously said I like these sort of award events since it encourages the newer users or even users that haven't been nominated to be eventually push on, and become someone who actually wins in a category. Therefore, including them in the voting process actually helps, since they feel even more involved. Excluding, users doesn't. Although, there should probably be a limit, since we don't want to encourage abuse, 50 is a way too much in my opinion. Something like 10-20 would probably suffice.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Excluding, users doesn't. Although, there should probably be a limit, since we don't want to encourage abuse, 50 is a way too much in my opinion. Something like 10-20 would probably suffice.

You must have 50 earned merits to vote

This feels too restrictive to me. I would have opted for a lower number, say 20 earned merits, but that's just me.

See this list: 2924 users received 50 Merits, 5632 users received 20 Merits. And for some of those "received" doesn't mean they "earned" it.

Exactly for this reason I would not mind to see a 50 merit requirement. It's a good number. Higher number reduce the possibility to abuse. Earning 10 to 20 merits by abusing is way easier than earning 50 merits.

Let's see how it goes this year and if changes will be required, we'll readjust for next year, as we already did now

We will always learn from the experience. When will we go live?

[LoyceV]

You must have 50 earned merits to vote

This feels too restrictive to me. I would have opted for a lower number, say 20 earned merits, but that's just me.

See this list: 2924 users received 50 Merits, 5632 users received 20 Merits. And for some of those "received" doesn't mean they "earned" it.

Exactly for this reason I would not mind to see a 50 merit requirement. It's a good number. Higher number reduce the possibility to abuse. Earning 10 to 20 merits by abusing is way easier than earning 50 merits.

I was more thinking of expanding the "Note":

You must have 50 merit or be a full member or higher to vote ➥ Note.

Code:

The OP can, at its discretion, ignore the votes of recently awakened accounts and inactive posters

If this can be expanced to include users who didn't earn their Merit at OPs discretion, abuse is much more difficult. When in doubt, just check the Merit history, and if that user got 50 Merit for a worthless post, it doesn't count.

[BlackHatCoiner]

2. No merit sending is allowed from nominees to users which nominated them.

This should reduce the drama involving votes. Just to be clear: the way it's written now you're counting all Merits sent to any of the users. I assume this only counts for merit sent in the voting-topic, right? Otherwise Merit sources will end up at around -500 votes.

Yes, this is correct. The measure was taken after the events which occurred at previous two contests.

So, as far as nominees are concerned, there's nothing prohibiting them from abusing with merit bribery, right? If someone wants to buy votes with merits, all that's needed is to merit them at some other post. The problem with this however, is that communication between the nominee and the voter is required (in contrast with previous contests wherein the voter knew it beforehand).

[LoyceV]

So, as far as nominees are concerned, there's nothing prohibiting them from abusing with merit bribery, right? If someone wants to buy votes with merits, all that's needed is to merit them at some other post.

That's possible, or it can happen in a local (translated) topic. But it'll be hard to prove it's because of the vote: I've Merited many of the users who have voted for me on other posts, but this had nothing to do with their votes.

The problem with this however, is that communication between the nominee and the voter is required (in contrast with previous contests wherein the voter knew it beforehand).

Or, without explicit communication, it can be implied. Or expected. There is no perfect solution, unfortunately.

[n0nce]

The problem with this however, is that communication between the nominee and the voter is required (in contrast with previous contests wherein the voter knew it beforehand).

Or, without explicit communication, it can be implied. Or expected. There is no perfect solution, unfortunately.

Without communication, it's impossible to prove that there is bribing going on, but also the 'voter' won't know whether they just got a merit for a legitimately good post or as a reward for casting a vote. This ambiguity / uncertainty whether you do or don't get a merit by user X for voting for them, goes both ways - and should reduce the incentive to 'vote for merits', right?

[BlackHatCoiner]

Or, without explicit communication, it can be implied. Or expected. There is no perfect solution, unfortunately.

Bribing is pretty much of a big concern for the world-- not just for this forum. Even if there wasn't a merit system, nominees could bribe their voters with other currency (and yes, I imply that merits can be considered an in-forum currency, that is used to "purchase" certain ranks, which can later on give you money in return).

So, we should put some trust on the nominees, as we can't eliminate it completely. I don't have a problem with that, as long as the nominees promise to not bribe (if I recall correctly, bribing wasn't against the rules, nor had there been a discussion about it, and that's why some did abuse it).

[NotATether]

We were also curious about how users feel about implementing a rule which would give chances to more people to win. What we were thinking about is the following: to arrange things thus the winner of a category cannot be the same person from previous contests. Or he can be, as this does not mean a ban -- but he can be with more efforts. To be more precise, all previous winners could start with a coefficient of 0.8. Attention! -- this happens only regarding the previously won category!

I do not like this rule because competitions are supposed to be won based on merit (not smerit but... you get the idea). Disqualifying someone who would've won because they were the previous winner would put the competition in a bad light and make some people think it's stealing the award from them, especially since financial prizes are now on the table.

Imagine how boring chess tournaments would be if the same grandmaster couldn't win twice. Or a UEFA Champion's League where Real Madrid is not allowed to win (by merit) many times in a row.

You must have 50 earned merits to vote

This feels too restrictive to me. I would have opted for a lower number, say 20 earned merits, but that's just me.

I also suggest doing this.

[Welsh]

We were also curious about how users feel about implementing a rule which would give chances to more people to win. What we were thinking about is the following: to arrange things thus the winner of a category cannot be the same person from previous contests. Or he can be, as this does not mean a ban -- but he can be with more efforts. To be more precise, all previous winners could start with a coefficient of 0.8. Attention! -- this happens only regarding the previously won category!

I do not like this rule because competitions are supposed to be won based on merit (not smerit but... you get the idea). Disqualifying someone who would've won because they were the previous winner would put the competition in a bad light and make some people think it's stealing the award from them, especially since financial prizes are now on the table.

The thing is the financial rewards should only be considered bonuses, and shouldn't really effect the running of the community event all that much. Obviously, give some consideration to it, especially when it came to users meriting users for voting for them, however that made sense without the financial aspect anyhow. However,  at the end of the day it's a bonus, and not a guarantee that you benefit financially for winning.

However, the coefficient just seems wrong to me. Either you prevent previous winners from winning or you don't. While, I do like the idea of seeing new faces of the winners list, I think that's rather down to the community rather than anyone else. If users want to see new winners, then vote for new users, and not the popular choices. A rule change probably isn't necessary in this case, at least for me.

[joker_josue]

However, I remembered something that could mitigate some of the points mentioned here.

Voting at this time is done with the post. Then the idea passes, so that these posts instead of being the final result, but just serve for a classification.
That is, each one made their post, with their choices. After gathering all the votes in each category, the 5 most voted would go to votes among themselves. A topic would be opened for each category, with a poll, where users were invited to vote on what they think should win that category.


Well, maybe it's a bit far-fetched idea, but they think it would be nice to share.

[LoyceV]

After gathering all the votes in each category, the 5 most voted would go to votes among themselves. A topic would be opened for each category, with a poll, where users were invited to vote on what they think should win that category.

I see 2 problems with this: first, not all users who voted the first time, will vote again. And worse: a forum poll can be voted by anyone, which opens it up to alt-abuse.

[joker_josue]

I see 2 problems with this: first, not all users who voted the first time, will vote again. And worse: a forum poll can be voted by anyone, which opens it up to alt-abuse.

Well, I didn't remember that second point. They could start creating user just to vote in the poll. 

So forget the idea! It won't be one of the best ideas!