A New Direction for SOTW

It has been a little while since anything really changed about the Signature of the Week competition. Apart from the Judge Rotation System, a slightly altered frequency of themed weeks... it seems not long ago I was making those new trophies! Well, I decided something needed to be done. The SOTW was becoming less and less lively. Where were all our participants going? It was just same old same old. Sure, same old same old make nice signatures and all, but it's always nice to have some variety.

So we put our heads together and said, "What can we do?" - well, we actually did that months ago. We never came up with anything however, until quite recently. The judges would not like it one bit, even though everyone else probably would. After a moment of deliberation, I was sold. If anything, this was the answer.

And the answer is in the form of undoing some of our previous answers.
As of next week, there will no longer be a judge rotation system. In fact, there will be no single group of judges at all. Why?
The new judges are you. You, the members of the forums.
Everyone can enter. Everyone can vote. It's really just another way to involve everyone, since we like to think of RSBANDB as an open community. Why we didn't come up with this sooner is beyond me!

In addition to this, on the first week of every month (the week starting on the first Saturday of the month, excluding this month which will just be normal), only those with 0 wins will be able to enter. If we're going to involve everybody and, above all, make things fun, this is the key. Everybody gets a chance; you can't go wrong.

There have been some slight rule alterations to account for these new changes. If you're interested in participating in the SOTW then I recommend you have a quick scan over them, however the only significant difference is a minor change in schedule (by a few hours).

Finally, I welcome everyone to get their sigs entered in this week's SOTW: the first to be judged by the public. You have a full week from now to do so, and then you can check back in the SOTW forum to cast your vote.

Much love,
Chiefykins

This is sad .
But tbh this is what the SOTW needs. This should encourage people to enter if they feel that the SOTW is a reflection of the community and not just how us judges vote.
Hopefully the 0 wins week will get some new entries too

I can't honestly say that I like it, seeing as how people will win or lose because of popularity now, not graphical skills.

What use are the Judges now? Are they going to be converted over to SOTW Staff to make sure that all entries obey the rules?

The Judges group will be dismantled. And as Chief said with this everyone can be a judge now. In the end the whole of the forum will have a louder voice eliminating a popularity contest.

As for rules, people can either report signatures that they see as rule breaking (mods will handle it) or if no one reports the signature, the signature will be screened prior to voting.

Let's just hope the SOTW just doesnt turn into a popularity contest.

Now I just wonder, How long will last the voting time.

I have been an SOTW Judge for 170 SOTW weeks (since Sep-14-2005) and I have seen some bad times, bad leadership, lack of entries, lack of punctuality, and probably more but the SOTW lasted through it.


Who is this "we"? I don't remember a post about this. If there is a post about it, please PM it to me.



I may not be able to speak for all the judges but atleast for me your right about me not liking it one bit. Some of the Judges, myself included, have only ever had this one rank. And, although it isn't as envied as Moderator, Events Crew, Newspaper Staff or even Content Crew, it is still a position which we were able to fill. In my opinion if this is the answer then someone was asking the wrong question.



I think why this wasn't done sooner was because Chewy_Wok wanted this competition to be more than just some art contest judged by "whoever wants to". He wanted "a select team of SOTW judges" to select the most outstanding, best quality, besk workmanship, piece of art.

Even though Shane said:

I think it will still be possible for a popular person to win, it will definately be easier for someone to buy first place because as Chief Snake said "Everyone can vote". That means a player with enough money could bribe 20 or more people to vote for his signature (not saying that anyone will, but there is that possibility) we only have 2,282 members, of them only 107 have been active within the last 24 hours and I doubt that they are all interested in graphics enough to go to the SOTW forum and vote.



This is probably the only thing I like about this post, hopefully the lesser known artists will come and enter but how will someone know they haven't won before if they don't keep track of it in their signature and don't remember winning?

Clearly the decision to change it so radically was to boost popularity on it. The alternative would probably have been to shut it down all together so it's not really worth complaining about.

This is just how it works, you create something, get the right formula and stick with it, tweaking it only when needed. SOTW has been getting less popular mostly because the site isn't really heading in the same direction anymore this seems like the best solution, even if it does open it up slightly to being a popularity contest.

Another one bites the dust.

Really does make me wonder why I even bother sometimes.

This could turn out either great or bad, we will just have to wait and see.