Frequently Asked Questions
Here's a few questions that many people have been asking, that I will try to head off here.
I can't change pages after I vote!
This was a pretty serious problem, but it has now been fixed, so the page links will now work consistently. Sorry for the bug!
Can I update my entry?
No, the entry images are final. However, biographical and theme description info, as well as contact info, can definitely be updated by emailing us at contest@macthemes.net with the requested changes.
Why are the ratings so low?
I believe this to be the result of a lack of weighting. What's going to happen is, I will curve the scores at the end of the user voting period to make the highest rated entry have a score of a 100. At the moment, this looks to be around a 15 point curve.
Where can I download these themes?
This is a mockup contest, which means that the images shown are artistic representations of ideas, and not completed guiKits. Check back within the next month or two, as the 6 winning mockups will be constructed into actual themes.
Have any other questions? Post a comment, and I'll try to answer it as best as I can.
Comments
Posted by Paul Johnson at March 31, 2004 04:32 PM
Thanks for the clarifications, Phill. And BIG thanks for your hard work on this whole event! It's pretty darn exciting to see all the entries and comments.
Got a great usability vs originality discussion going on in the previous news comments section, too! Makes me wonder if the next contest should maybe have categories.
If there IS a "next contest," another suggestion would be to make the voting a little more obvious. That is, give some instructions on how to actually cast your vote. (yeah, yeah, seems so obvious to those who already know, but still.) And it would also be nice to have feedback on your vote as well, whether it's a pop-up message or, better yet, a section just below the "user rating" that showed what vote you cast, so you can remember which ones you voted for and how you voted.
Last suggestion: would be fantastic to have real-time voter return results and info page. I know this could be lots of work, but imagine how nice it would be to have a single page with all entries listed by order of current ranking with current ratings as well as some simple java-driven graph starting at, say, the point at which a design got rated ten time, up to current rating at specific timed intervals. ...Or maybe that's just way too much work. :) Or maybe it focuses too much on the competitive aspects. Still, would be cool.
Posted by Phillip Ryu (Panel) at March 31, 2004 04:43 PM
All of your suggestions are already being considered for the next contest. This goal for this one was to have most things work. :D
Posted by Harold Harmon at March 31, 2004 05:12 PM
The only issue I have with a real-time display showing who is in the lead is that I have seen in the past how this can influence a contest. Someone sees that a particular entry is doing well so they jump over to see it, like it and vote without looking closely at entries that are not doing well. Let's face it. 45 entries takes a while to look through and rate. Most people will be lazy and just vote for one or two entries that catch their eye. If you at least make them browse through all the entries, then everyone gets a chance to have theirs seen.
Posted by Paul Johnson at March 31, 2004 05:32 PM
Excellent point! I was considering suggesting that people be stepped through each entry and would need to vote in order to see the next, but then that seems a bit heavy-handed. And I know I went through and looked at them all before voting because I wanted my votes to be comparative to the whole field of competition rather than just my first reaction without context. Plus, a step-through system might reduce the total vote count if the process is thought to be the least bit more inconvenient that it would absolutely need to be, and that would be a bad thing.
I'm sure none of this is new to you guys who are organizing the contest, but I'd suggest you contact other prominent online communities who have had contest to learn from their processes. I'd start with the phenomenally successful Iconfactory pixelpalooza contest.
Best of luck to the whole MacThemes crew in your planning for future events!!
Posted by thomas at March 31, 2004 05:55 PM
i think the starts should be for you to vote and not to how a % of how it's doing. This can sway votes i my mind. Also it's getting confusing as it's one graphic that is used for two things. Not the clearest.
Posted by thomas at March 31, 2004 05:57 PM
here is a good question my friend came up with. Do we vote once for all of them, or just once, or for out top three? I'm confused on how many i can vote for.
Posted by Phillip Ryu (Panel) at March 31, 2004 06:01 PM
Ideally, you should vote for all of them. :)
I think it's a good suggestion to keep how an entry's doing secret until the voting is up. That's something I will definitely consider for the next contest. Keep these coming, it'll help the next one be even better :)
Posted by Harlan Lewis (Panel) at March 31, 2004 06:12 PM
One thing the Unsanity contest did was randomize the order of entries, even though there weren't very many and they all fit on one page. With 45 entries, randomized order seems much more important. Just look at the number of comments per entry if you don't believe me... by the third page there are far fewer comments, and that's not just because of mockup quality.
Posted by Phillip Ryu (Panel) at March 31, 2004 06:32 PM
That's a good point, Harlan. At first, I dismissed randomizing as a useless way of promoting equality, but I didn't realize that we'd have this many entries!
Posted by Gabriela Durini at March 31, 2004 06:50 PM
Yeah, I totally lost track of who I voted for and not wanting to screw up or accidentally vote twice (thus abusing the system), I have opted to not vote anymore. >.
Posted by Paul Johnson at March 31, 2004 07:20 PM
Now THIS needs clarification. Your vote only counts once, right Phill? It would be nice to have some way to know what you voted and something to show which entries you've voted on, but I assume that a second vote wouldn't' do anything but change your vote "setting" for that entry, right? I mean, if i give a ranking of three stars and then decide it should really be worth four, I don't end up with seven, do I?
Posted by Phillip Ryu (Panel) at March 31, 2004 07:30 PM
Don't worry about abusing the system, it's built a bit stronger than that. We have IP checking and cookies checking, so only one click counts. Any future votes for the same entry do not register. At the moment, there is no way to change your vote. Again, I am going to consider revamping the voting system considerbly, and this is yet another place for improvement.
Posted by OwlBoy at March 31, 2004 08:23 PM
Was a theme removed? Mac-A-Be is on the bottem of page one now, not the top of page 2...
-Owl
Posted by at March 31, 2004 08:50 PM
Ideally voting would be absolutely blind to mimimize contamination by other voters and judges. Results should only be made known when the contest is over. Categories in the future might be good, assuming there are enough entries to warrant: such as "grey themes", "wacky", "aqua replacements" etc..
Posted by Ernest Liu at March 31, 2004 08:59 PM
An idea for the next contest:
Maybe you can have a list of the themes, listed from top rank to bottom rank. This way, I don't have to go through all the entries to see how well I'm doing.
Posted by Phillip Ryu (Panel) at March 31, 2004 11:07 PM
All good suggestions. I think that voting will be much improved in the future. :)
Posted by Heiesuke at April 1, 2004 12:18 AM
i'm a regular visitor, but check this. i don't know how to vote :(
Posted by OwlBoy at April 1, 2004 12:27 AM
Click the Stars! AKA the 5th one on Garnet ;)
I think that next time the results should not be live.
-Owl
Posted by Ernest Liu at April 1, 2004 12:48 AM
Just out of curiosity, when does voting end?
Posted by 3nzo at April 1, 2004 04:02 AM
What Ernest said...When does voting end? and When will the winners be announced? :)
Posted by [ idle. ] at April 1, 2004 04:16 AM
voting is going to end on saturday. winners should be announced somewhere around monday ( i can't tell you any time deadlines tho - phill has to do that)
cheerz, [ idle. ]
Posted by thomas at April 1, 2004 02:33 PM
i voted. However with no feed back I hope i did it right. Next time you should think about putting up a graphic or something that says 'you have already voted for this one' =) Oh and seeing the results so far did sway my vote. I felt bad at time.
Posted by Phillip Ryu (Panel) at April 1, 2004 02:46 PM
Joy, the curve is there to give a little confidence boost to submitters, and to me too. It'd be nice to have the winners have solid "A" scores :)
Posted by dzurn at April 2, 2004 05:32 PM
So the pages reload after every vote? And goes back to the top of the page? Way too much work. Instead, should set up so that we can vote for all on a page at once, then submit. I can't tell which ones I already voted for.
I only voted for the first 6 or 8 before abandoning the process as too tedious.
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