🥧 Bitcointalk Pie Making Contest - Gathering feedback 🥧

[RickDeckard]

Hey there!

Sometime ago (to be more precise, it will make tomorrow 2 years), I've tried to run a contest[1] within our community aimed at celebrating Pie Day (3/14)[2]. The whole theme was very similar to the pumpkin carving contest run by ChiBitCTy[3] recently but instead of focusing on carving pumpkins we would challenge the community to make delicious Bitcoin themed pies, such as this one (taken from here[4]):



Sadly my contest didn't harness any interest and I ended up not having any entry for it. This year, however, I would really like to try to "push" this idea again, just in time for celebrating next month Pie Day! As for rewards, if I'm able to, I would really like to gift a Foundation Passport Batch 2[5] to the winner. If by the time of opening the contest I'm not sure that I'll be able to offer that hardware wallet, I do know that I'm able to offer a Trezor Model One[6] for sure (I would order them for the winner).

What do you guys think? From my perspective I think that's always nice to have thematic events within our community, but I'm open for different opinions...

If there's enough positive feedback regarding this idea, I'll open up a more structured post about it in this section of the forum and officially launch the event.

[1]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5315458
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Day
[3]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5416347.0
[4]https://azurine.art/AZART/00107/
[5]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421713
[6]https://trezor.io/trezor-model-one

[1715122681]

1715122681

[Helena Yu]

My suggestion you need to be bold of giving the timeline when it started and when it ended, since the celebration is 14th next month, I would suggest the contest will start from February 14th to March 14th, one month is enough.

In the previous contest, you're asking it's need at least 10 members to join for the contest will be valid. I would suggest you should run the contest regardless how many participants joined. Let's say only 9 members join, it's not fun if the contest will not be valid and no one will win.

Another suggestion you should offer the prize able to convert to Bitcoin, some people who have high privacy don't want to get collectible.

[GazetaBitcoin]

Sadly my contest didn't harness any interest [...]
If there's enough positive feedback regarding this idea, I'll open up a more structured post about it in this section of the forum and officially launch the event.

Dear friend, I would suggest you to not abandon such a nice idea after a first failure. Perhaps Helena was right, and setting a minimum number of participants prevented some to join. I am not sure. But you should try again, at least once

I'll tell you a story: I have a merit giveaway thread in Romanian section, which I used to open during winter holidays, asking users only to show how they celebrate Christmas or a picture showing a humanitarian action done by them and I would reward all participants with merits! I launched the topic on each winter, from 2019 to 2022. Guess what happened? Nobody participated in all four winters!

What I'm trying to say is that I did not abandon the idea after first winter, when nobody participated. Nor the second time, nor the third... Eventually I locked the topic after winter of 2022. Therefore I am encouraging you to try once again. If there will be no participants this time either, then maybe reconsider the idea. But I believe that, with some fine tuning the contest will work now

[/quote]


I also agree with Helena's suggestions from below:

I would suggest you should run the contest regardless how many participants joined. Let's say only 9 members join, it's not fun if the contest will not be valid and no one will win.

Another suggestion you should offer the prize able to convert to Bitcoin, some people who have high privacy don't want to get collectible.

The whole theme was very similar to the pumpking carving contest

You may want to delete a "g" (not a G spot ) from "pumpking".

[rat03gopoh]

Sadly my contest didn't harness any interest and I ended up not having any entry for it.

My feedback:

• I think you was started it in low visibility board, Meta board should be better to start (like 10th anniversary forum contest was).
• Since cooking is mostly a female (or feminine male, lol) favorite activity, their kitchen is bound to get messy if real men are required to get creative in the kitchen. Maybe you should write a provision like, "if you're a man, involve your female partner to create the work".

Regardless, it's gonna be another amazing contest, can't say for sure myself but I'll try my best to enter your vontest this time.

[JanEmil]

Let's cook

[Mbitr]

Can’t cook for shit , but I’d give it a go 

[CoinEraser]

Don't be discouraged and hold this competition. Even if no one participates, you don't have much to lose other than the time it took you to create the post for it. 

If people can win something too, it's certainly a good reason for some to take part in the competition. The prospects of earning merit through this competition are also certainly high.
After all, it is a nice and interesting event here in the forum.

I won't be entering this competition as I'm not good at baking, but I'll keep my fingers crossed that your competition gets the attention it deserves. 

[Woodie]

Sadly my contest didn't harness any interest and I ended up not having any entry for it. This year, however, I would really like to try to "push" this idea again, just in time for celebrating next month Pie Day!

Will be happy to give this one a shot, and btw the other contest you mentioned was a success because ample time was given, secondly, the community showed support through forum nuggets which might have attracted so much participation and the visibility bump the contest got from the news ticker contributed to its success. Besides, you know the saying “ you get things right the first time. Others the second...But the third time, they say is the charm” maybe the second try could be your charm, shoot your shot mate

[RickDeckard]

My suggestion you need to be bold of giving the timeline when it started and when it ended, since the celebration is 14th next month, I would suggest the contest will start from February 14th to March 14th, one month is enough.

In the previous contest, you're asking it's need at least 10 members to join for the contest will be valid. I would suggest you should run the contest regardless how many participants joined. Let's say only 9 members join, it's not fun if the contest will not be valid and no one will win.

Another suggestion you should offer the prize able to convert to Bitcoin, some people who have high privacy don't want to get collectible.

Thank you for your suggestion. My current plan is to give at least 1 month for this contest to run (14/02 to 14/03) and the minimum participant rule will for sure be deleted since I'm really eager to see what "creations" will come out of our members.

Sadly my contest didn't harness any interest [...]
If there's enough positive feedback regarding this idea, I'll open up a more structured post about it in this section of the forum and officially launch the event.

Dear friend, I would suggest you to not abandon such a nice idea after a first failure. Perhaps Helena was right, and setting a minimum number of participants prevented some to join. I am not sure. But you should try again, at least once

I'll tell you a story: I have a merit giveaway thread in Romanian section, which I used to open during winter holidays, asking users only to show how they celebrate Christmas or a picture showing a humanitarian action done by them and I would reward all participants with merits! I launched the topic on each winter, from 2019 to 2022. Guess what happened? Nobody participated in all four winters!

What I'm trying to say is that I did not abandon the idea after first winter, when nobody participated. Nor the second time, nor the third... Eventually I locked the topic after winter of 2022. Therefore I am encouraging you to try once again. If there will be no participants this time either, then maybe reconsider the idea. But I believe that, with some fine tuning the contest will work now

Thank you for the words my friend! In fact, when I told the result of my latest attempt to make a contest it was only with the goal of saying that I didn't run the contest because noone took part in it, as in, my intention was never to not make it. But indeed you are right! Perseverance is something that I admire in anyone, and this year for sure this will happen, mark my words

You may want to delete a "g" (not a G spot ) from "pumpking".

Thank you for that, correction implemented

Sadly my contest didn't harness any interest and I ended up not having any entry for it.

My feedback:

• I think you was started it in low visibility board, Meta board should be better to start (like 10th anniversary forum contest was).
• Since cooking is mostly a female (or feminine male, lol) favorite activity, their kitchen is bound to get messy if real men are required to get creative in the kitchen. Maybe you should write a provision like, "if you're a man, involve your female partner to create the work".

Regardless, it's gonna be another amazing contest, can't say for sure myself but I'll try my best to enter your vontest this time.

I don't consider (at all) that cooking is mostly a female, or even feminine male activity, but if you see it that way, then what better way to show up your skills than to create a magnificent bitcoin pie (bonus points if kitchen is left unstained )
As for the remaining replies, thank you so much for the feedback and words of encouragement! Even if you guys do decide to take part in it, it will already be a great success for me! I'll start working on the thread meanwhile

[RickDeckard]

I've been thinking for a while regarding the small set of rules that could be implemented for the contest to be based on... Considering the community feedback, this is the set of assumptions I'm currently considering:

Rules:

• Pie must be made by yourself and the theme should be Bitcoin related (you could even include a homage to bitcointalk ).
• In order to be qualified you should post a picture containing your homemade pie + a piece of paper with your username and date;
• Only 1 entry per user (you're free to include any number of pies on your picture);
• Competition will be held in two phases:
  
  • 1st Phase - From 14th February to 14th of March : This is where all the users are free to submit their entries;
  • 2nd Phase - Voting process from 15th of March to 19th of March. Winner shall be announced on the 20th of March. I believe that the voting should be made by means of MERITING, but I'm willing to discuss this with the community (also, another thread would be made);
• The prize would be distributed according to the following quantity: 1st Winner would get 60 % of the price pool, 2nd winner 30 % and the 3rd one would get 10 %;
• Accounts prior to a certain date are excluded from taking part on the contest;
• No minimum entries for the contest to run;

Prize:

• Passport Foundation Batch 2 / Trezor Model One -> Replaced by BTC only (to preserve users identity/personal information). As of now, the total size of the pot is the following:

Username	Amount (BTC)
RickDeckard	0.0065
Total	0.0065

Questions to the community:

• What would make you more at ease? I could post a donation address to whoever wanted to contribute to the amount in the pot, controlled by me (and that would mean that the community would have to trust me) or I can try to talk to a fellow escrow that I know to hold all the funds (including my own funding);
• Should I change some rules? Or even add more? I want it to be a fair contest for everyone but also prevent double posting from users who may create new accounts for example ...

Looking forward for any feedback.

[Helena Yu]

• 2nd Phase - Voting process from 15th of March to 19th of March. Winner shall be announced on the 20th of March. I believe that the voting should be made by means of MERITING, but I'm willing to discuss this with the community (also, another thread would be made);

The voting process seems short enough, I think it need at least 1 week or even 2 weeks since people might forgot, busy etc.

Although merit can be used to vote, but it's not really a good choice because it would increase few dramas like:

• What if I send 3 merits to someone? does it's count for 1 vote or 3 vote? if you count for 3 vote, people will say it's a discrimination since merit source do have more sMerit to send
• An account who doesn't have any sMerit will not able to vote even he's eligible to vote
• Someone mistakenly send merit to the participant which he doesn't want to to vote (you reclaim/unsend/recover sMerit)

I think voting via poll or post are better than merit.

• What would make you more at ease? I could post a donation address to whoever wanted to contribute to the amount in the pot, controlled by me (and that would mean that the community would have to trust me) or I can try to talk to a fellow escrow that I know to hold all the funds (including my own funding);

There are 2 ways:

• Every contributors just hold in their own wallet, when the winners have been announced, every contributors can send the prize to the winners
• Use trusted escrow if you and other contributors doesn't want to get confused or want to be more efficient

So you don't have to hold other contributors funds.

• Should I change some rules? Or even add more? I want it to be a fair contest for everyone but also prevent double posting from users who may create new accounts for example ...

• Only Full member and above are eligible to vote, or any ranks have been received at least 50 Merits
• One user can vote x user(s), or there's no restriction and one user can vote all participants, as long as he want?

[GazetaBitcoin]

The voting process seems short enough, I think it need at least 1 week or even 2 weeks since people might forgot, busy etc.

I am also in favor of 2 weeks period for voting.

Although merit can be used to vote, but it's not really a good choice because it would increase few dramas [...]

I think voting via poll or post are better than merit.

Indeed, looking back in the past at first two editions of BitcoinTalk Community Awars, not forbidding merit sending between nominees and those which voted for them may lead to incorrect results and, even more, to abuses. On the other hand, polls can tricked by using multiple accounts. I'd rather suggest to use the rules applied to lattest edition of BitcoinTalk Community Awards. From my perspective (which was shared by a dozen of other users -- you can read posts made inside this topic) a no merit rule combined with setting a minimum amounts of earned merits are very helpful:

2. No merit sending is allowed from nominees to users which nominated them. This should improve dramatically the accuracy of results and offenders will have to support a penalty. For each merit sent, 1 vote is deducted. So for example, if in the voting topic Alice sent 5 merits to those who nominated her in any category, then we will not count these votes (but the rest of the votes that are addressed to other nominees will be taken into account). In addition, if a user voted for Alice in two categories, then the votes for each of the categories will be unaccounted for.

3. Eligibility-wise, the earlier rule

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

will be changed to

You must have 50 earned merits to vote ➥ Note.

I believe though in our case, of a pie making contest, there are lower chances for abuses, therefore the merit threshold can be lowered. Maybe 30 earned merits? Additionally, those two rules may be supplied by a rule for a minimum amount of activity in order to be eligible, which may be set to 30 as well. After all, the idea is to limit an eventual accounts farmer which could join with 100 Brand New accounts (although I think this is highly improbable to happen), therefore an amount of 30 activity points would be decent enough for still allowing a very large pool of users to participate, if they would be interested.

There are 2 ways:

• Every contributors just hold in their own wallet, when the winners have been announced, every contributors can send the prize to the winners
• Use trusted escrow if you and other contributors doesn't want to get confused or want to be more efficient

In most likely, allowing sponsors to hold their own funds accepted, as there are low chances to have a liar or scammer pretending to offer a sponsorship.

• Should I change some rules? Or even add more? I want it to be a fair contest for everyone but also prevent double posting from users who may create new accounts for example ...

• Only Full member and above are eligible to vote, or any ranks have been received at least 50 Merits
• One user can vote x user(s), or there's no restriction and one user can vote all participants, as long as he want?

I believe that limiting eligible ranks to Full Member and above (combined with setting a minimum of 50 earned merits) will make the pool very small for a pie making contest. In the case of BitcoinTalk Community Awards, this rule allowed, if I remember well, about 3000 users. From these, only 141 (eligible) voted. And this was a contest with a very high exposure. Most likely, for our pie making contest the exposure will be lower, therefore the real pool of possible voters would be dramatically lowered.

Here I'd suggest instead to eliminate the rank requirement, as long as we keep the merit requirement and have the merit requirement set to 30 instead of 50. Regarding abuses, again, chances are very low: who would make some merit abuses to merit his accounts from a possible own accounts farm, in order to have 50 earned merits per profile just in order to participate at a pie making contest?

Tl; dr: my suggestion is to extend voting period to 2 weeks, set an eligibility rule allowing only users which earned at least 30 merits and 30 activity (no matter the rank), forbid merit sending from nominees to those which voted for them; and allow eventual sponsors to hold their funds and personally send them to winners

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

Here I'd suggest instead to eliminate the rank requirement, as long as we keep the merit requirement and have the merit requirement set to 30 instead of 50. Regarding abuses, again, chances are very low: who would make some merit abuses to merit his accounts from a possible own accounts farm, in order to have 50 earned merits per profile just in order to participate at a pie making contest?

Tl; dr: my suggestion is to extend voting period to 2 weeks, set an eligibility rule allowing only users which earned at least 30 merits and 30 activity (no matter the rank), forbid merit sending from nominees to those which voted for them; and allow eventual sponsors to hold their funds and personally send them to winners

I agree with you on all you just said, but I would have love to make an alternative suggestion that how about we lower the requirement a bit more by saying that to be eligible to participate in this contest, a user must have at least 10 merits & 60 activity, since that's the least criteria needed to take part in most signature campaigns (I.e Member rank), as that will give room to more contestant and voters. While the voting period remains at 2weeks.

So what have you to say?

[RickDeckard]

The voting process seems short enough, I think it need at least 1 week or even 2 weeks since people might forgot, busy etc.

I am also in favor of 2 weeks period for voting.

After considering the feedback it actually ends up making sense. Considering not only this will be a small event, we would need to have a good sample of time in order to gather enough feedback to have a clear winner.

Tl; dr: my suggestion is to extend voting period to 2 weeks, set an eligibility rule allowing only users which earned at least 30 merits and 30 activity (no matter the rank), forbid merit sending from nominees to those which voted for them; and allow eventual sponsors to hold their funds and personally send them to winners

This is a great contribution (again) Gazeta, and shame on me not even considering taking some rules - and tweak them according to the scale of this contest - from the already well organized event that was Bitcointalk Community Awards. I suppose that the rule to forbid merit sending from nominees to the ones who voted for them is to prevent users to vote in X user because he knows that there's a high chance of receiving merit from him/her correct?

As for the required merit & activity for the contest, the suggestion from Helena Yu, yourself and CryptoHeadlineNews totally makes sense and it's far more balanced than the one I proposed. I think that 10 merit is too low as a requirement because I really would like to send a message to users that if they want to take part in this awesome contest they should try their best in making positive and informative actions whithin our community, thus earning them well deserved merit, activity and thus providing an organic growth to the platform. That is why I'm more geared towards values around 30 merit & 30 activity than lower ones, even if that means that we do end up loosing some participants (and even so, if you are really confident that you would make a great entry, I don't see earning the required amount of merits such a herculean task.)

As for the prizes, I think that having multiple users/sponsors holding their funds may make the distribution of the prizes a tad more difficult regarding each user sending Y amount to each of the winners (considering 60 % for 1st place, 30% for 2nd and 10% for 3rd), but that's easily achievable by a good spreadsheet and management. I'll also apply this criteria to the pot
Things are looking great guys! We're having great points being discussed, and I'm really seeing this contest being able to be launched right on time! I'm building the thread as of now, still open to suggestions until 13/02/2023 23:59 GMT

[GazetaBitcoin]

how about we lower the requirement a bit more by saying that to be eligible to participate in this contest, a user must have at least 10 merits & 60 activity, since that's the least criteria needed to take part in most signature campaigns (I.e Member rank), as that will give room to more contestant and voters.

I always thought that most campaigns have too low standards for picking their participants. Indeed, 10 merit is minimum for being accepted -- and you see how many zero-value posts are made everyday, right?

I think that 10 merit is too low as a requirement because I really would like to send a message to users that if they want to take part in this awesome contest they should try their best in making positive and informative actions [...] I don't see earning the required amount of merits such a herculean task.

Considering that you need only 217 merits to enter in Top 1000 of users with most earned merits, it's also not that easy. However, it's not a herculean task even by far. I am sure that those which have at least 10-15 merits can manage to obtain a few more for becoming eligible, if they really want to. After all, for ranking up from Member to Full Member you need a 1000% raise of merits (100 merits is 1000% more than 10). In our case it's "just" 300% 

As for the prizes, I think that having multiple users/sponsors holding their funds may make the distribution of the prizes a tad more difficult regarding each user sending Y amount to each of the winners (considering 60 % for 1st place, 30% for 2nd and 10% for 3rd)

True, but nobody can know for sure if there will be co-sponsors... This is just a possibility, not a certain scripted event.

but that's easily achievable by a good spreadsheet and management.

And this is very correct.

I'm building the thread as of now

Yay!


I'd have one more mention, about how many nominees a user may choose? Should it be only 1? 3? No limit?

[RickDeckard]

Considering that you need only 217 merits to enter in Top 1000 of users with most earned merits, it's also not that easy. However, it's not a herculean task even by far. I am sure that those which have at least 10-15 merits can manage to obtain a few more for becoming eligible, if they really want to. After all, for ranking up from Member to Full Member you need a 1000% raise of merits (100 merits is 1000% more than 10). In our case it's "just" 300% 

Indeed, I don't think that 30 Merit & 30 activity is such a high bar that will make such a high barrier to participate in the contest. If certain users really want to take part in the contest, they for sure will try their best to gather enough merit & activity in order to take part in the contest.

I'd have one more mention, about how many nominees a user may choose? Should it be only 1? 3? No limit?

I'm more geared towards only 1 vote per user - This would make sure that you'll only pick the one that really, really stood out from the rest of the entries. It would make each user actually use different criteria to judge a certain entry and cast their vote on the one that they think truly represents the winning pie. But, then again, this is my point of view and I'm open to hear other users opinions on this...

[RickDeckard]

And another year is just around the corner. I am planning on creating a 2nd edition of this contest but I would like to know if I should change/add rules or requirements to it. As for now the only change that I will probably implement is the voting system to a ranked choice voting style (I got this feedback actually from @JayJuanGee back when the contest was running).

To anyone unfamiliar with the concept here is a quick summary by Wikipedia[1]:

The term ranked voting, also known as preferential voting or ranked choice voting, pertains to any voting system where voters use a rank to order candidates or options—in a sequence from first, second, third, and onwards—on their ballots.

If no suitable winner can't be found in the first round - meaning that they don't have 50% + 1 of the total votes - then another round would be held where the previous votes would be cast in the other candidates (respecting the voters rankings). This helps users who were indecisive last year and is a more representative solution considering that no vote gets lost (you can still support other users entry even it it wasn't your top pick).

This would probably have a limit of 5 entries per user and a tie rule would have to exist but I think it would be a nice shift. What do you guys think?
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting

[GazetaBitcoin]

Since nobody replied here yet, let me be the first one.

Rick, what you said makes sense and make bring more fun for the contest. I did not see a contest based on such rule before (I mean on the forum) so, why not, you should try that too. It may bring some frustration to those close to win but which just did not get to 50%+1 thus they have to go through another round of voting but, in the end, I think the winner will have much more satisfaction while looking back and remembering the emotions felt during preliminary rounds.

So try this

Nevertheless, I am more than happy to hear that you want to organize a second pie baking contest. I wish I'll win second one too; not sure if I'll be able though, but I certainly am interested in participating again

[RickDeckard]

Since nobody replied here yet, let me be the first one.

Rick, what you said makes sense and make bring more fun for the contest. I did not see a contest based on such rule before (I mean on the forum) so, why not, you should try that too. It may bring some frustration to those close to win but which just did not get to 50%+1 thus they have to go through another round of voting but, in the end, I think the winner will have much more satisfaction while looking back and remembering the emotions felt during preliminary rounds.

So try this

As always, thank you for the feedback Gazeta. I think that a ranking voting is a good option for this contest as it would mean that every voter would have the opportunity to support their favorite entry even if their first option doesn't win. This way no vote goes "to waste". I am still studying the available options within the ranked voting system, but I am really eager to try it out in the next contest.

Nevertheless, I am more than happy to hear that you want to organize a second pie baking contest. I wish I'll win second one too; not sure if I'll be able though, but I certainly am interested in participating again

That's the spirit! Looking forward for your entry  .

EDIT: One of the principles behind the current voting ranked system that I am considering running - Single transferable vote - is that it is designed to find a group of winners that proportionally represent the voting population. This means that, with this method, there won't be a first, second and third place.