Suggestions

i think it would be cool to have a people's choice skin! i think limiting the people's choice skin to skins made for the breed/s of that flight could also help mitigate that problem in a pretty effective and fun way.

i don't think that it would cause drama tbh? there's already discussion threads where people praise skins they like, this just means that one out of all the skins that get released as festival skins is one that people voted on before the judges picked the rest.

and i. really don't think that purposefully not picking the best submissions so that the artist can, maybe, potentially, then go on and make a bigger profit by printing the skin themself is fair at all? if they wanted to do that they just wouldn't make a flight festival-themed skin and submit it to the contest.

and besides, being a good artist and making a really good submission doesn't necessarily mean that they have the money or inclination to buy gems to buy skin blueprints and print the skin themself, and it wouldn't really be fair for a judge to assume that.

+ an artist making a really good skin and submitting it to a contest in the hopes that it wins isn't bribing people for votes just because they put in their best effort.

also, did the original post mention having anonymous submissions which was then edited out or something? people keep bringing up the issues of anonymity, which isn't mentioned in the post at all and doesn't make any sense given that the skin designs are submitted in a public thread that anyone can read.

i also support fr implementing its own polling system tbh, it would help with a lot of things.


alternatively: if the polling system they implemented involved voting on/"liking" forum posts, people could vote on the thread (perhaps after they close it to prevent early submissions from getting more votes purely from being earlier) and then once voting is closed the judges narrow it down by eliminating joke entries etc.

What if they had the skin submission discussion thread work like the suggestion forum? Folks post their criticism and discuss their favorite skin entries and explain why they like them. The staff would still have final say in the end which skin won but they could at least see different arguments for other skins? That way even if the thread did turn into a popularity contest, the staff still have final say. Plus making people discuss their choices would be more enlightening to the staff than just having a simple poll and vote.

@zedetta the anonymity aspect was not mentioned in the original thread, but it is actually a throwback to similar threads as voting on skins come up from time to time. Without anonymity of the artists which would have to mean a new submission mechanism) a vote is far more likely to become a popularity contest where the most popular artist wins rather than the best skin but anonymity has its own downfalls for the artist and true anonymity is hard to get

@dragonsage alright, thanks for explaining!

still, it seems odd to me that the general consensus seems to be that a larger group of voters would actually result in more bias than a small group. i'm sure the judges are as fair as they can be and that some people pick favourites in the world of skin/accent artists, but i personally (and i'm sure i'm not the only one) wouldn't be able to name even one artist for the life of me, let alone vote for a submission based on the artist and not the submission itself. then again i never know what's going on ever so maybe i AM the only one ahaha

i guess it all comes down to how the community would behave, and i guess i'd concede to those with a better grasp on the community is like, as much as i'd like to have faith in people.

@Zedetta

I think part of the issue, for me at least, isn't so much whether *I* know the name of artists, but rather that, since tumblr and various other sites are allowed to be linked from here, artists with large followings could encourage their users to vote for their skins off site while artists who are just starting out (but may be every bit as good) or simply don't have as large of a following would be at a disadvantage.

Then there is also the opposite aspect: for this festival I saw drama over some skins. The skins in question seemed to be good to me, but because of the drama surrounding the artists, many people were hopeful those skins didn't win. This could open up the opportunity to some users (not even the artists of skins) to start badmouthing various skin artists off site (especially since if you know how to do it, seemingly few people actually care about proof and just jump on bandwagons) making people less likely to vote for those particular skins.

I always hope that those type of people are minority, but sadly, they are usually the minority with large keyboards (or large mouths) and usually know how to stir up crowds :/

It also concerns popularity contest by breed. It's clear some breeds (imperials, coatls) are way more popular than others (snappers, tundras). So skins and accents for imperials and coatls are much more likely to win a popular vote over snappers and tundras skins, no matter the quality. After all, why would people vote for a really good tundra skin when they have no tundras in their lairs? What this means is that fans of less popular breeds might never see them get a festival skin again. I'll admit, it won't matter how good a wildclaw skin is, I wouldn't vote for it because I have no keeper wildclaws in my lair. I'd vote for fae or pearlcatcher or skydancer.

Of course, this is going on the original premise that all skins would be voted for.

But I'd imagine, if the staff selected say 5-6 skins that users could vote for and then the winning one out of those six became a festival skin, while keeping the staff choices of course, it would just lead to disappointment. Five artists would be frustrated theirs didn't win, and the people who liked those skins would be let down. Then there's also the potential for drama off-site if not out-right sabotage as mentioned above.

Now, I do think a single user choice skin is a better option, but I'm not sure how to vote for it fairly. Perhaps the staff could just go through the festival skin thread and see which one has the most positive comments--and encourage people to leave feedback. But that sounds tedious. Another option would be to have 5-6 staff designed skins that users could vote for--that way no user artist has to go through the highs and lows of a vote; it might cut drama. But I don't know if the staff has time to make half a dozen skins a month, especially when most of them won't be used.

I don't think there's a "good" solution to any of this, even with the current system we have, just because of the wide variety of human tastes.

Much of the drama involving the vote directly could be lessened if "losing" skins were put back into the selection pool and the user choice skin wasn't displayed as anything other than a regular fest skin. Then if multiple pool skins ended up selected (decent chance Imo the number of skins likely to become fest skins is high but not outrageously high) and might bring the disappointment back down to levels more in line with not getting selected now. It would require closing the poll slightly early, but I think that wouldn't especially matter- if you have it open for a couple days, the people who care will vote. [note that this is based on the idea of a staff-curated pool of skins to pick]

As for offsite, I don't know enough about that to speak to it.